The Sign of the Cat

by Lynne Jonell

  “You sound just like your father.” Princess Lydia’s voice was muffled.

  “Well, good,” said Duncan.

  A sudden gust buffeted them where they sat, swirling around the crags. Overhead the stars were almost all gone.

  “Fine.” Lydia wiped her wet cheeks and tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Build your raft. But I’m helping.”

  * * *

  The lagoon at low tide was edged with seagrass, hot in the sun. Duncan stood thigh-deep at the shallow end of the water and cut the stalks where they joined the base. When he had a load, he bundled it together and tied it on Brig’s back. Then he walked with the tiger up to the home cave. Seagrass was scratchy stuff, but it made fine rope.

  Duncan showed the princess and Mattie how to beat out the fibers from the dried seagrass, scrape them, and hang them to dry. Mattie’s gnarled but skillful fingers quickly learned the trick of twisting strands in one direction while wrapping them around another set of strands in the opposite direction.

  “There!” she said proudly as she finished her first length of cord. “That’s easier than making lace. And clever, too. The twist going one direction and the wrap going the other keeps the rope from unraveling.”

  “That’s right.” Duncan reached for the cord and doubled it back on itself. “And if you want to make a thicker rope, you use double and triple cords instead of fibers, and do the same twist-and-wrap, like this.”

  Mattie patted Duncan’s hand with her age-spotted one. “I can see well enough to do close work, like this. If you young nobles will cut the seagrass and haul it up here, I’ll make the rope. You’ll have all you can do to build that raft.”

  Young nobles! The words sang in Duncan’s head as he followed Lydia down the path to the lagoon. It was still a little surprising to realize he was one of the nobles of the land; he had lived poor and hidden for so long.

  Rank wouldn’t matter much, though, if he couldn’t get off the island. He was thinking hard as he cut the next batch of seagrass. How should he build his raft? It was important to make it light enough. He had pushed boats out to sea, and he knew how heavy they were. A raft made of whole logs would be impossible to move.

  Then he noticed the kelp at the far end of the lagoon. Brownish-green, the flat, rubbery leaves grew upward and then lay across the surface of the lagoon like long gloves with narrow fingers.

  He could make floats out of kelp! He and some friends had done it for fun, on the island of Dulle. If you cut off one of the leaves and stuck your hand inside the opening, you could push aside the spongy tissue and leave it hollow. Then you could blow it up like a balloon, tie it off, and use it as a swim float.

  What if he made a light framework of branches, crisscrossed together, with floats underneath?

  He would need to rig some kind of mast. Mattie could weave a sail, and he would need a steering oar—that would be easier to make than a rudder, and it would help with leeway, too. Yes, it was all possible. He would have to be very careful, though, to stay on course. He could steer by the sun and stars, as long as it wasn’t cloudy. But a raft was difficult to steer at the best of times.

  * * *

  They constructed the raft in the sea cave. When it was ready, Duncan planned to wait for high tide and then shove it off the ledge. With rope, they could let it down slowly as the tide went out; when the water level had gone down enough so that the opening to the beach could be seen, Duncan would ride the raft out with the tide.

  Mattie couldn’t go, of course—she was far too frail for such a journey. Lydia would have to stay on the island to take care of her. And Brig would have to stay on the island to hunt for them both.

  The princess didn’t agree. “Brig goes with you,” she said. “Your father would have survived if Brig had been with him.”

  Duncan had no intention of leaving the princess and Mattie without their hunter and guard. But he would have that all out with the princess later on. First, they had a raft to build.

  * * *

  Summer was ending, and the days were cooler. The morning fog was still swirling around the base of the island when Duncan stepped out on the path to the crags, telescope in hand.

  Fia, more leggy now, but still recognizably a kitten, swished through the grass beside the path and dropped a mouse at Duncan’s feet. She nudged the limp body with her paw until it lay neatly, its tail perfectly straight, and looked up with pride.

  “Er,” said Duncan. “Well done.”

  “It’s fresh,” said Fia. “I caught it especially for you.”

  Duncan had a sudden inspiration. “Can you catch birds, too?”

  “Of course!” Fia leaped into the air to show her bird-catching prowess. “But I don’t bring you the birds. They’re not nearly so good as mice. Too many feathers to get stuck in your mouth. But a mouse—oh, a mouse is so tasty! So crunchy!” She laid a confiding paw on Duncan’s foot. “I eat their tails last of all, as a sort of dessert. You should try it.”

  “Maybe someday,” said Duncan, closing his eyes briefly. “But listen, Fia. Humans actually like birds better than mice.”

  “Truly?” Fia cocked her head to one side, her ears forward.

  “I’m not lying. So if you would rather keep this mouse for yourself—”

  “And bring the birds to you? Are you sure?”

  “I’m absolutely sure.” Duncan smiled at the earnest triangular face that was lifted to his. It was only last spring that she had failed the mouse-catching portion of her kitten examinations. Fia had learned a lot since then. Would she ever, he wondered, catch mice on the island of Dulle?

  * * *

  Lydia joined him on his walk up to the crags. Brig, about to leap on a quail, stopped his hunt to salute. The quail made its escape in a scurry to the undergrowth.

  “Sorry,” said Lydia, patting Brig between the ears as she passed. “Go! Quail!” She pointed at the scuttling bird.

  Brig’s expression was pained. “I can understand words of more than one syllable, Your Highness,” he complained, but he turned to obey.

  Lydia watched him with pride. “He understands everything I say, I think. And he’s very good at following orders.”

  Brig growled a little over his shoulder. “Of course I follow orders,” he grumbled. “What else would she expect of a member of the Royal Order of Gemstone Tigers?”

  “Royal Order of what?” Duncan growled back before he could stop himself.

  “Why did you growl at him?” the princess asked, frowning. “There’s no need to be rude. I told you, he understands all our commands.” She started up the path again.

  “I wasn’t being rude,” Duncan muttered as he trudged after her. Should he tell the princess his secret? She was the heir to the kingdom, after all, and he was her loyal subject.

  But the princess, up on the crags, seemed to have forgotten the matter. She swept the glass from north to east to south, scanning the area where they might someday see a sail.

  When it was Duncan’s turn, he looked to the west. The fog over the Rift was blowing away in great slow-moving swirls, the wind like a sky broom brushing the mists aside.

  The water at the edge of the Rift seemed a different color—darker, more purple, with spots here and there that looked oddly turbulent. It was a treacherous place, he had no doubt. Twice now, he had seen a waterspout, a gigantic swirling funnel of water and wind moving over the sea like a searching finger. “Not much chance for a boat to cross that water,” Duncan murmured.

  “Your father did it.” Lydia waved toward the west. “In a small boat, too. He crossed it and then he came back.”

  Duncan lowered the telescope. “I thought you said his boat sank.”

  “It did, later. But I’m talking about before, when we were still on the royal tour. You know about that.”

  “You were visiting the islands of Arvidia,” said Duncan, remembering Friar Gregory’s lesson in the monastery school. “A bad storm blew up out of the Rift, and you rescued two men and their tigers. Are
you saying my father crossed the Rift then?”

  The princess nodded. “We had to stay at anchor to repair the ship after the storm, anyway. Duke Charles said he thought he could take the miners back home to Fahr in one of the small ship’s boats. Everyone thought he was crazy, but the earl encouraged him to go. I suppose the earl thought it would be an easy way to get rid of your father.”

  Duncan leaned forward, frowning. “I never heard that part of the story. What made my father think he could cross the Rift?”

  Something large crashed through the underbrush and snuffled on the path. Brig dropped a quail at Princess Lydia’s feet, and spat out a mouthful of feathers. “Bah! Birds are all the same—too much fluffery. Give me a fish or a good smooth seal any day.”

  “Oh, what a beautiful quail!” Lydia patted Brig between the ears. “Good tiger!”

  Brig sighed deeply. “I wish she wouldn’t patronize me. It’s so undignified.” He settled back on his haunches and began to clean his whiskers with his long, barbed tongue. “Oh, to answer your question,” he said to Duncan, “your father knew he could cross the Rift because he had a tiger to guide him. Namely, me.”

  “Really?” Duncan leaned forward.

  “Yes, really,” said Lydia, smoothing down Brig’s neck fur. “He’s such a good tiger, aren’t you, snookums?”

  Brig choked on a whisker.

  Duncan grinned. Poor Brig. His look of agonized pain reminded Duncan strongly of Mr. Fluffers, Betsy’s cat back home, who wanted to be known as Spike. Was Betsy still calling him Fluffy Wuffy? he wondered.

  But he had to find out more from Brig. And since Lydia was there, he had to make it sound as if he were asking Lydia. Duncan said, “I wonder if one of the miners guided my father across the Rift.”

  Lydia answered at the same time Brig growled, and Duncan had to listen to both at once, in stereo. It took him a moment to separate out that Lydia had said, “Maybe—I can’t think how else he would have gotten across,” and Brig had said, “Of course not, Fahrians can’t sense a rock under the water any more than they can sense a jewel under the ground. It’s only tigers who have stone-sense.”

  “Stone-sense?” said Duncan, before he could help himself.

  “What?” Princess Lydia looked affronted. “It’s not nonsense,” she said. “And if you know so much, why are you even bothering to ask me questions?”

  “Sorry,” said Duncan. He put his head in his hands. “Maybe I just need to be alone for a while. All this talk about my father, you know…”

  The princess got up at once. Duncan waited until she was well down the path before he turned to Brig and whispered, “What do you mean by stone-sense? And how did you guide my father across the Rift?”

  Brig’s shoulders humped in a shrug. “Animals have instincts that humans lack. Tigers happen to have a feeling for stone, and what’s captured inside it. We can sense a vein of silver or gold, we know where gemstones are, and long ago we discovered that the Fahrians would dig out long, roomy caves in their search for such things. We tigers just tap the spots where they should dig, and when they’ve finished digging out the gems, we move into the caves. We developed a military, of course.”

  “Why?” Duncan asked, fascinated.

  Brig sharpened his claws on the crag. “To keep mine robbers away. We want the miners to keep working for us, digging those big, beautiful caves. If they had to do their own guarding, there would be twice as many of them, and they’d get half the work done.”

  Duncan grinned. It was exactly like cats—to think that everything a human did was for their advantage.

  “And, of course,” the tiger finished, “we can sense where rocks and reefs are in the sea, even when they’re underwater. We can hardly pat them with our paws, though, and the Fahrians never quite seem to understand when we try to say something like ‘half a nautical mile ahead and two points off the starboard bow.’ They’re lovely people,” he added hastily, “very fine diggers, but not one of them speaks Cat. The only human I knew who could, besides yourself, was your father.”

  Duncan turned sharply. “My father spoke Cat?”

  “Yes, indeed, though with a slight accent.” Brig’s whiskers lifted in a fond smile. “He listened very well, though, and it was a pleasure to guide him across the Rift—he took careful notes. I believe he made a chart.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Shadow Fight

  THE RAFT WAS READY. Food and water, in kelp bags, was stowed safely and tied in place. The harpoon Duncan had whittled was slung around his body; his knife hung on a cord tied to his belt. Mattie had given the sail its last stitch, and she had even given Duncan one of her precious needles.

  “Just in case the sail rips,” Mattie said, winding the needle up in a roll of stout thread. She tucked it into Duncan’s pocket and buttoned the pocket shut. “Do you have to go now? Can’t it wait a little?”

  Duncan shook his head. It was already fall; he did not want to be afloat when winter came, and he didn’t want to wait until spring. “Don’t worry. A raft stands up to a storm better than a boat. If a raft flips, it will still float.”

  He trotted across the valley and up to the sea cave. The princess was trying to lash yet another kelp bag of water on board, Brig was pressing one furry toe on the knot so that she could tie it tight, and Fia had clawed her way to the top of the mast for a better view of the action.

  “I’m coming with you!” she meowed as she caught sight of Duncan, and leaped for his shoulder.

  It was high tide, and the water in the sea cave was almost up to the ledge. With Brig’s help, they shoved the raft off until it bobbed gently on the water.

  “We’ll pay out the rope as the tide goes down,” Duncan said, winding the rope’s end around an outcropping of rock. The raft would sink with the tide, and when the water was low enough that the raft could float out the sea entrance to the cave, he would go.

  Lydia turned to Duncan, her pale face smudged and her braid half-undone. “I put on extra water for Brig. He can catch fish to eat.”

  Duncan paced the cave. He was keyed up, ready to go, but he had hours to wait. “Brig has to stay here,” he said abruptly. “To hunt for you and Mattie.”

  “I can hunt,” said the princess stiffly. “And fish. If you won’t take Brig, then I’m coming with you.”

  “What? No!” Duncan stopped his pacing to stare at the princess.

  “Brig is a strong swimmer,” said Lydia. “He can keep you afloat if something happens to the raft, and he can protect you.”

  “He’s going to protect you,” said Duncan. “You’re the heir to the kingdom! I can’t let you risk your life.”

  “But you’re going to risk yours,” Lydia said stubbornly. “I don’t want you to be alone on the sea.”

  Fia meowed, twining around Duncan’s legs. “Tell her that I’ll be with you!”

  Duncan paused by the cave wall. Maybe the best thing to do was change the subject. He held his torch high to peer at the figures of the duke and the earl fighting. “Listen, I’ve always wondered about this painting you did. See, this is supposed to be the earl, right? Stabbing my father treacherously?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Well, you’ve got the earl wearing the duke’s hat. You mixed them up.”

  “You’ve got it wrong. Bertram was wearing the duke’s hat.”

  “What?” Duncan blinked at her, confused.

  Princess Lydia’s mouth gave a twist. “It was simple enough. Once we landed on the beach for our little ceremony—you know, the whole ‘princess of the realm sets her foot on the farthest island’ thing—the earl had his cook bring out glasses and his special cherry punch. It was drugged, of course,” she added. “By the time we woke up, your father was tied in the sea cave, wounded and bleeding, and Bertram had taken his hat. Then the earl and Bertram staged a little shadow play, out on the tip of the rocky point, where everyone from the ship could see them. The sun was setting behind them, so even if someone had a spyglass, all they could have
seen were the silhouettes.”

  Duncan’s mouth fell open slightly. It was simple. Yet it had never occurred to him—or to anyone else, apparently—that it had all been faked.

  “The earl and Bertram had a long time to plan it out,” Lydia said bitterly. “The whole time your father was taking the miners back to Fahr, risking his life, they were plotting what they’d do if he ever came back. They thought of everything. They even dragged Mattie and me out to the rocky point so our silhouettes would show up, too. Bertram pushed Mattie and me down on the rocks, pretended to stab the earl in the back, rolled him off to the side of the point where the ship’s crew couldn’t see, threw me over his shoulder, and ran off.”

  “All with my father’s tall hat on,” Duncan said grimly.

  “That’s right. Then they brought us to the sea cave. Duke Charles was tied, but he was waking up, fighting to get out of the ropes. So Bertram stood over him and stabbed him. Your father was quiet after that.” Tears stood in Princess Lydia’s eyes.

  Duncan felt his muscles hardening like rock; his mouth set in a bleak line. There was no heat in him, only a cold anger that reached to every part of his body.

  But the princess was still talking. “Then the earl knelt beside him and whispered in his ear. I couldn’t hear it all, but it was something about a secret and—” The princess hesitated. “The next part didn’t make any sense.”

  “Just tell me anyway,” said Duncan.

  Lydia’s face crinkled into puzzlement. “Eating cats,” she said. “Maybe I heard it wrong.”

  Duncan sat bolt upright. “Eating cats?”

  “I know, it’s crazy!” said the princess. “But that’s what it sounded like. And then the duke moved a little, and he said, like he was in a temper, ‘Right. Eating cats. That’s brilliant—I guess you’ve figured out the secret at last,’ and he shut his eyes like he’d fainted. And then—and then the earl told Bertram to stab him one more time, for luck, and to take the duke’s jacket and put it on. And so he did.”