The Sign of the Cat (14 page)

The shouts from below grew louder, and there was a sound of stamping feet. A thin, high meow pierced through a momentary lull in the noise, and then a streak of white leaped for the mainmast and went up it like a rocket.

“
Meow meow meow meooooow!
” shrilled Fia. “Help me help me help me—”

Duncan held out his hands as the kitten clawed her way through the crosstrees. But Fia, in her unreasoning terror, dodged his grasp and ran out to the very end of the topsail yardarm.

“Great,” muttered Duncan. He looked down at the knot of laughing, shouting men at the base of the mast. If Fia had only jumped into his arms, the men might have thought she was hidden somewhere among the rigging or in a bunt of sail, and he could have kept her safe. But now the white kitten was trembling at the very tip of the horizontal yard, clearly visible against the darker sky, and every eye was on her.

“Fia,” Duncan said, his voice low and calm. “Walk back to me. Come on.”

The kitten's fur was on end, ruffling in the wind. “I can't!” she mewed desperately.

“Sure you can. You got out there by yourself, didn't you? Just put one paw in front of the other.”

Fia's eyes were wide and panicked. She dug her claws more deeply into the wooden yardarm. “You mean—let go?”

“Just lift one paw at a time,” coaxed Duncan. “But don't look down, whatever you do—no, I said
don't
look down! Look up! Look at me!”

It was too late. Fia stared at the waves far below, clearly paralyzed with fear.

“Catch the cat, boy!” came a shout from below. “Crawl out on the yard and grab it!”

A sudden silence, and then the earl's voice, pitched loud enough for Duncan to hear: “If he's not brave enough, I'll send someone else to do it.”

Duncan scowled. Of course he was brave enough to rescue Fia. But if he brought her down, what would the crew do to her? Old Tom had said this was not a ship for cats—and he had been right.

Duncan eyed the topsail yard, a pole like a long, thick branch extending at right angles to the mast. It had footropes. It had a jackstay to hang on to. It was just the same as the foresail yardarm—only higher, of course. And thinner. And of course there was more wind, and more sway, and farther to fall if he lost hold.…

Duncan swallowed hard and stretched one leg out to the footrope.

“Noooo!” came a howl from below. “Get on the
windward
side!”

Duncan pulled his leg back. He had almost done a very stupid thing. Of course no one should ever climb out on the leeward side of a yard—any little jolt or gust and the wind could push him right off. But if he were on the windward side, the wind would be pushing him flat against the wooden yardarm, helping him hang on.

He slid onto the footropes. There was no one on the other side of the mast for balance, and he felt a sudden lurch as the topsail yard sagged under his weight.

His hands tightened on the jackstay until his knuckles went bloodless. But Fia was mewing pitifully, and below him, a shaking of the rigging told him someone else was climbing up. He had to get to the kitten first.

With the stout wooden yard pressed hard against his stomach, and the wind blowing firmly against his back, Duncan inched out. He kept his eyes on the far horizon—no looking down for him—and he was almost all the way out to Fia when he realized that he had been looking at a dark mass for some time.

“
LAND HO
!” he cried. “Two points off the starboard bow!”

Below him, the shouts and laughter ceased at once. Duncan didn't have to glance down to know that every eye was turned to the southwest and that everyone who had a telescope was looking through it attentively.

Now was the time. He took two more long sliding steps and reached. His hand slipped behind Fia's forelegs and tucked her inside his jacket with one smooth motion.

“I was so scared!” Fia's triangular face turned up to his, and her tiny pink mouth opened in distress.

Her whiskers tickled the underside of Duncan's chin. “Shh!” he said.

“Hey!” The sailor on the rigging below pointed to the yardarm. “Where's the cat? Didn't you catch it?”

Duncan called, “I was looking out at the island, and when I looked back, she was gone. Did you see her fall?”

The sailor shook his head. “She's probably already drowned.”

Duncan squeezed out a short laugh. “Too bad for her.”

The sailor grunted as he made his way down the ratlines. “Too bad for you. There's a reward if you catch 'em fresh.”

Duncan didn't know what the sailor was talking about. He climbed back to the crosstrees and took his spyglass from his pocket. The island ahead was small, with a huddle of buildings beside a bay.

A small head bumped his chest, and a white paw poked up to pat his throat.

“Would you
please
stay hidden?” Duncan whispered, exasperated. If Fia wouldn't stay quiet and still, he was never going to be able to protect her.

“But I have to
show
you something.” Fia's meow was urgent. “It's in the very bottom of the ship, and if you sniff it, it smells just like—”

“Show me later,” said Duncan, and he buttoned his jacket to the top.

 

CHAPTER 11

The Bloodstained Jacket

I
T WAS EARLY IN THE MIDDLE WATCH
when Duncan woke with a start. Something had brushed his face. He lay perfectly still in his hammock, and it came again—a furry paw patting his cheek, and with it, the tiniest of meows in his ear.

“Now?” Fia's whiskers tickled his neck. “Can I show you
now
?”

Duncan sighed deeply and swung his legs to the deck. He didn't bother to put on his shirt—it was getting too small for him anyway. Bare-chested, he slipped past the hammocks that held the sleeping, snoring crew, and snatched up a candle, a dark lantern to put it in, and some matches. He shut the metal slide so that only a thin line of light showed, and ducked through the hatch that led to the hold. His feet found the smooth wooden slats of the ladder, and he went down, down, all the way to the bottom.

He yawned widely as he set the kitten on the rough wooden planks and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The air was thick and musty; it smelled of bilgewater. Huge hanks of rope hung between bales and boxes, and all around him, Duncan could hear the gentle, incessant creak of a ship at anchor.

He felt stupid. What was he doing, following a kitten when he should be sleeping? He put his foot wrong in the dark, stumbled, and nearly fell. He stood up, breathing hard. If he had dropped the lantern, he might have started a fire. And a fire in a wooden ship was no laughing matter.

“Hurry up, Fia,” he said. “Show me whatever it is, and let's get out of here.”

“There! There!” Fia cried. “Take a sniff!” Her ears pointed at a row of large boxes, black, brown, and faded gray. They were the crew's sea chests, tucked against a forward bulkhead.

Duncan stared at her in disbelief. “You want me to sniff a sea chest? Are you out of your little kitty
mind
?”

“Just this one.” Fia leaped onto a black, brass-bound chest and put her nose down to the lid. “See? It smells like
Grizel
!”

Duncan lifted the lantern. He didn't have a cat's sensitive nose—he wouldn't have been able to smell Grizel's scent in a hundred years. But he had eyes. In front of him was the very chest that had stood at the top of their stairs at home for as long as he could remember. He knew every nick, every dent, every scratch.

So Bertram had used Duncan's house key, after all. No wonder he had taken a burly sailor with him. Duncan's breath came harshly through his nose as he imagined the two men breaking into his house, frightening Grizel away, clomping down the stairs with his father's sea chest between them. Duncan's mind held an image of the door left swinging open and his mother coming home to find the marks of muddy boots, the sea chest gone, and Duncan nowhere to be found.

He wrenched his mind away from the unbearable thought. In its place came a fierce realization—this was proof of Bertram's evil deeds. The earl would have to believe Duncan now.

Fia unsheathed a claw. “Do you want me to pick the lock?” she asked.

Duncan stared at the chest. His mother had kept it locked and never told him what was inside. “Isn't that an advanced skill for a kitten your age?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Fia admitted, “but I've been hiding down here for days, and I've been practicing.”

The big brass lock didn't need to be picked after all. Someone had forced it already. At Duncan's first touch, it fell open and hung from its hinge, dangling.

There was a squeak from behind a coil of rope, and the sound of a tiny scuffle, but Duncan hardly noticed the rats fighting in the shadows. With hands that shook slightly, he hung the lantern from a nail in the bulkhead and opened the metal slide all the way. A wide shaft of light streamed out, making the chest's brass bindings gleam and tinting the white kitten's fur with gold as she leaped off the chest.

Duncan put his hands on the chest lid and pushed up. The hinges creaked. The lid swung back. His heartbeat quickened as he leaned over the edge to look inside.

The first thing he saw was an old white shirt. He touched the familiar frayed cuffs, the small monogram on the collar—
McK
, within an embroidered square with points on top. It was the shirt he had once used as a cape, pretending to fight evildoers. He put it on and buttoned it to the neck. It was too big for him, but it felt warm and comforting, almost like a father's arms, and his other shirt was getting so small he had burst a shoulder seam. He rolled up the cuffs and looked in the trunk again.

It wasn't very full. There was a long wooden tube, the sort that held rolled-up ship's charts, empty. There was a jumble of clothing and a glint of gold lace at the bottom, and a belt of fine leather with two straps and a loop. And something else shone with reflected light—something long, thin, and ever so slightly curved.

He drew in a breath and reached inside. His hand curled around the hilt. His father's sword. It had to be his father's sword.

Duncan sat back on his heels. He set the blade across his thighs, and its thin, wicked edge flashed silver as it caught the light. It was too heavy for him now, but someday it wouldn't be.… With an interior bubble of delight, Duncan examined it more closely.

There was gold on the hilt. Duncan did not see the insignia of the Island Patrol, or the King's Guard. Instead he found a stamp of the letters
McK
, inside a double square with points on top like a crown—just the same as the monogram on the shirt. There were three lines, like rays of light, angling out from either side. It wasn't a symbol that he recognized, though it seemed vaguely familiar. Maybe it was the emblem of some kind of special forces.

Hardly breathing, Duncan set the sword aside and reached into the chest again. He saw a swordbelt of fine leather. He lifted out a jacket of deep blue broadcloth, with brass buttons in a double row and something gold pinned on the collar. It was a kind of uniform, Duncan knew. He was sure he had seen it somewhere before. It was slashed under one arm, with a large brownish stain, crusty with—

“Blood!” Fia sniffed at the fabric in alarm. She leaped away to the next chest over, then to the box stacked on top of that.

Duncan did not want to think about whose blood it was. With an effort, he returned the jacket to the sea chest, and as he did, he saw the gold on the collar more clearly. It looked almost like a wave, or wings.

He blinked. It was the Gannet Medal—two arched wings of the seabird that haunted every island in Arvidia. Not many won the Gannet.

Duncan frowned. Maybe this wasn't his father's uniform after all. Someone who was decorated with the Gannet Medal would be
known
. But Duncan couldn't remember ever hearing of a famous McKay.

He scrabbled in the bottom of the chest, but there was only a sort of folder, flat and wide, made of soft leather. He dropped it when he heard a panicked meow from somewhere above his head.

“I smell something!” Fia's meow was as close to a shriek as a kitten could produce.

Duncan snatched the lantern and lifted it, training the light on the bulkhead (as all walls in a ship were called). Like most bulkheads, this one had a space of a few inches at the top for ventilation, and it was on this ledge that Fia was crouched. She was looking over into the area behind—the cable tier, perhaps, where the great anchor ropes were coiled, twenty inches around, as thick as a man's thigh.

“You're always smelling something,” Duncan said. “Anyway, that's just the anchor cable in there. It's not a giant snake or anything.”

Fia shook her head. “I'm not scared of any old rope. But there's a smell of kittens—kittens
afraid.
…”