The Sign of the Cat (29 page)

Duncan backed away into the shadow of the trees. “
That's
what's so dangerous,” he whispered to Fia. “That's the—”

“
EARL OF MERRICK
!” roared Brig, behind him. “
I CAN SMELL HIM FROM HERE, THE TRAITOR
!”

There was a sudden explosive flurry of muscle and fur as Brig streaked past, his tawny coat like striped silver in the moonlight. The crowd of villagers backed away as the tiger's roars filled the night. The earl shrank into the shadowed doorway, but the earl's men moved forward, raising their weapons, and burly sailors ran from the pier.

Duncan raced over the damp grass, legs scissoring, his callused feet hardly seeming to touch the ground.

“Come out, you black-hearted traitor of all that's royal!” Brig's snarl echoed back from the castle walls. “Come out and fight, you scum, you hound!”

Duncan had reached the edge of the frightened crowd. The tiger's tawny body was vivid in the torchlight as he reared up on the flagstone path. The armed men moved closer, weapons raised. Duncan found it suddenly hard to breathe.

One tiger could probably take on several men. But a whole crowd of them? With weapons? Brig would be slaughtered.

“
BRIG
!” Duncan tried to put all the force of command in his growl. “
NO
!”

The tiger put his forepaws down. He turned his noble head toward Duncan.

There was a swift blur and swing of a long belaying pin. Then came a hollow, sickening thud as the solid brass bar hit the tiger's skull. Brig dropped where he stood.

The crowd yelled in triumph. Their noise beat upon Duncan's ears like the sound of a distant, crashing surf. In horror, he took a step back into the shadows. He could not take in what had happened; he could not think what to do next.

Suddenly two large men were on either side of him, pinning his arms to his body, turning him with a grip of iron, forcing him farther away from the circle of torchlight. Duncan twisted in their grasp and tried to shout, but a wad of cloth was stuffed in his open mouth. He had time to look up into Bertram's face for one startled instant before a sack was thrust over his head and his wrists were tied with cord. Duncan felt himself thrown over Bertram's well-muscled shoulder and then, head down and bumping against the man's back, he was carried at a trot toward a smell of fish and a sound of surf.

The crowd, noisily cheering, still intent upon the tiger, never even noticed.

 

CHAPTER 23

In the Cage

D
UNCAN AWOKE TO UTTER DARKNESS.
All around him was the sound of groaning, creaking wood, and a rushing smooth gurgle alongside. He didn't need the slant of the wooden planks beneath to tell him he was on a ship. The stink of bilgewater revealed that he was in the hold.

Ting ting … ting ting
. The ship's bell rang four bells in the middle watch—or, for landsmen, two o'clock in the morning. The last thing he remembered was being swung off Bertram's back and banging into something hard.

Tenderly he felt above his ear, where it hurt the most, and found a lump the size of an egg with a crust of dried blood. He stretched out his hands, and his fingers brushed a wooden slat an inch thick. Next to it was another. He reached all around him and over his head. He was in a cage.

Duncan sat curled with his knees to his chin, bruised and wretched. He should have known that Brig would attack the earl on instinct. If only he had thought ahead! He should have run to the raft as soon as he knew the earl was on the island, and given Brig strict orders to stay hidden and silent. Brig would have obeyed orders, and by now they would all have been safe on Tam's boat and on their way to the island of Dulle. In a matter of hours, Duncan would have been with his mother again.

No one could see him here in the hold; he did not have to be brave for anyone. Duncan buried his face in his knees.

He was not going to clear his father's name. He was not going to return the princess to her kingdom. He was not even going to get a chance to tell his mother he was sorry, that he hadn't meant to leave her. And now he had just as good as killed Brig.

It took some time before Duncan was aware that something was breathing near him, breathing heavily.

He slid up against the bars, closer to the sound. He slipped his hand between the wooden slats; he pushed his whole arm through and touched soft, thick fur.

A small sound escaped him, as if he had suddenly been filled with something too big to contain. “Brig,” he whispered. “You're alive.”

The breathing went on, steady and slow.

“I'm alive, too,” came a meow, and two shining spots, one amber, one gold, floated in the dark at the height of a tall kitten.

Duncan's nose prickled, and something like tears smarted behind his eyes. He opened his hands and gathered up the little cat as she sprang into his arms. He pressed his face against her furry back.

Fia twined her tail around his neck and purred. “I saw the bad men take you and Brig, and so I sneaked onto the ship when no one was looking. Wasn't I clever?”

“Very,” said Duncan when he could speak, “but this is a dangerous ship for you. You've got to stay in the hold, out of sight.”

Fia gave a small, impatient hiss. “Of
course
I'll stay out of sight. But I'm not staying in the hold. I'm going to find out what the earl is up to. This is the same ship we sailed in before,” she informed him loftily, “and I know all the passages and spyholes.”

“Fia!” Duncan protested, but the kitten was already squirming out of his hands.

Her clear, high kitten's voice came out of the darkness. “Don't worry. I'll report every few hours!”

“Report softer, will you?” came a grumbling growl. “My head is killing me, and you have a very piercing meow.”

*   *   *

“Here's my report,” said Fia importantly, some hours later. “The earl is sleeping in his cabin. He takes off his bandage at night, and his forehead looks all pale and scabby. Bertram is sleeping in
his
cabin. He snorts like an old horse. The cook is in the galley baking bread, and the flab on his arms wiggles when he pounds the dough. Two sailors are on watch. One of the sailors is picking his nose. The other scratched his bottom twice and spat three times over the side.” She paused. “And that's all.”

Duncan wanted to laugh, but he was too worried. “That's good, Fia.”

“Do you really think so?” said Fia. “It seemed kind of boring to me, so I've been doing a few cat tricks to keep things interesting.”

“Cat tricks? What cat tricks? You haven't been letting anyone see you, I hope?”

“No,” said Fia. “But do you know Cat Trick #8, Bringing Disgusting Gifts?”

Duncan nodded. He was familiar with the gifts that cats liked to leave where they could be found—chewed-up dead mice, for example.

“Well,” Fia went on, “I've created a new one. I call it Cat Trick #8½: Leaving Hairballs Where They Are Most Likely to Be Stepped On. What do you think?”

“I think you'd better be sure you stay out of sight,” Duncan said. It was bad enough to see Brig whacked on the head—he couldn't bear to have Fia end up in a pie.

Fia's meow was shrill. “But the cook slipped on my hairball and almost fell down. I'm getting revenge, see?”

An annoyed rumble came from the cage next to Duncan's. “Can you
please
meow softer? My head feels like a cracked boulder.”

A sudden scraping noise made them all look up. A lantern shone far above, through two levels of deck and a large grating.

“Quiet, everyone,” Duncan whispered. He watched as the squares of the grating faded from yellow lantern light to the gray of early morning. Now he was certain where they were—deep in the earl's ship, beneath the large opening used for loading cargo. He had seen something else in the brief light from the lantern, too. An iron padlock, holding a bar in place across one side of his cage.

“Can you pick a lock this big?” Duncan asked Fia quietly.

Fia perched on the crossbar and went to work with silent concentration. It was not an easy lock to open.

“I think I broke a claw,” said Fia. “It's rusty.”

“I'd do it, but my claws are too thick,” the tiger said. “Try my cage, why don't you?”

“Wait!” said Duncan quickly. “Listen, Brig, if Fia gets your cage open, stay inside, do you hear? No attacking anyone, not yet.”

A gusty sigh came from the cage next door. “Sir, what is the point of unlocking a cage if I'm not going to get out?”

Duncan had an answer ready. “This is just practice, to see if Fia can do it. We don't want to escape while we're still at sea—there's nowhere to run. Wait until the earl's ship docks.”

“
THE EARL'S SHIP
?” Brig growled. “Where is he, the scum-sucking villain?”

“Shhhhh!”
Duncan reached through the bars and grabbed a handful of fur. “Brigadier, this is an
order
. Do
not
growl, or roar, or leave your cage. Do
not
try to hunt down the earl unless I tell you to do it. Is that understood?”

There was a sulky pause. “But can't I take one little tiny bite out of him?” the tiger asked. “He's been a very
bad
earl.”

“You'll get your chance,” said Duncan. “Just wait for my order.”

“Yes, sir,” mumbled Brig. “I just hope your order comes soon, that's all. Tigers are not very good at waiting.”

Boys were not very good at waiting, either, Duncan thought as the hours slowly passed. The work of the ship went on above them—he could hear voices and stamping feet, and now and then a new slant told him the ship had tacked—but no one came to check on him, or taunt him, or torture him, or any of the things Duncan had been imagining might happen on his enemy's ship.

He found out why the next time Fia came down to report.

“The earl and Bertram are arguing,” she meowed. “Bertram says why not just get rid of you now, once and for all, but the earl says he wants information first. He says you can't tell him what he wants to know if you're dead.”

Duncan's stomach seemed to flip within him.

“And the earl says there are too many people on board right now,” Fia continued. “He's going to wait to question you until the ship docks and he sends everyone away.”

“What,” said Duncan, and his voice squeaked, “does he want to know?”

Fia hesitated. “He wants to know where you got Princess Lydia's ring.” Duncan's hand flashed to his neck. The chain was gone, and so was the ring that had hung upon it. If his stomach had flipped before, now he felt as if it had dropped to his feet.

They must have seen it around his neck when he was put in the cage, unconscious. Now the earl knew the princess was alive—and that Duncan knew where.

No. The earl didn't know that for sure.

Duncan looked up two decks through the cargo hatch, past the grating, where daylight showed. He had a little time—how much, he didn't know—to make a plan.

He kept his voice calm with an effort. “Fia, you got Brig's cage unlocked, right? Do mine now.”

The kitten worked at the rusty padlock with concentration, her small pink tongue curling out at moments of difficulty. Meantime, Duncan thought hard. He had some advantages that the earl didn't know about.

First, if they were going to Dulle—and Tammas had said so—then Duncan knew every rock of his home island, every path. He knew the baron and the fishermen and the old women who tatted lace in the sun—and he knew the cats. He would have help, lots of help, if only he could get past the earl and Bertram at the moment they docked.

Second, Fia was like a secret weapon. She had listened in on the earl's private conversations. She was unlocking Duncan's cage right now. And she could watch from a hidden place and give him a signal the moment the ship was about to dock. Docking was always a tense maneuver, with a lot to be done quickly at the last minute. Every eye would be on the task at hand—and Duncan and the tiger might be able to break free and run off the ship before anyone could stop them.

It struck Duncan that he had never fully realized what a valuable gift Grizel had given him when she taught him to speak Cat. Now, with a cat to spy for him and report back, he was going to be able to defeat even the villain of the nation—or at least have a fighting chance.

“At last!” Fia's relieved meow broke into Duncan's thoughts. He looked to see the padlock of his cage dangling open.

“Good job,” he said. “You are one talented kitten.”

Fia preened her whiskers and gave her tail a satisfied flick. “I bet I could pass my kitten examinations now with one paw tied behind my back!”

“Could you pass them quietly, please?” mumbled Brig. “I think I need another nap. My head still hurts.”