The Sign of the Cat (35 page)

There was a rippling murmur from the crowd; heads were shaken, lips were pursed. Someone laughed.

The earl turned so that he faced both Duncan and the crowd. “Of course the lad prefers to believe that I am the traitor. We understand, my boy. It's hard to accept such a terrible truth about your very own fath—”

“It's
not
the truth!” Duncan flung his head back as he stared at his mortal enemy. “He wasn't a traitor, he wasn't a liar, he wasn't a murderer—you were! And I have proof!”

A mumbling mutter rose from the crowd, sounding like a swarm of angry bees. A few loud-voiced comments came clear: “But the earl had a whole shipful of witnesses!” “We're glad you're alive, Duncan, but you're talking nonsense!” “The young duke is as deluded as his father was!”

Duncan flushed hotly. This wasn't going well.

“Tell how the princess is still alive,” urged Fia, at Duncan's feet.

“He can't,” snapped Spike. “Not until the king knows.”

“Otherwise the dirty hound might go back to the island and finish the job,” growled Brig.

“Remember,” said Grizel, “you are the young duke. Act with dignity, like a cat. Breathe in and out calmly, without ruffling the whiskers.”

Duncan nodded. His heart was pounding so violently that it seemed it might burst out of his chest, but he stepped up onto the dais and raised his hand to quiet the crowd. “I know this is hard to believe. It took me a long time to believe it, too. But everything those witnesses thought they saw was a fake—nothing but a staged shadow play, acted out against the sunset.”

“This is nonsense!” roared the earl. “Don't listen to him!”

Suddenly there came three high, piercing notes, played with power on the violin by someone who knew how to get attention with music. Everyone fell silent as the duchess lowered her violin.

“Go ahead, son,” she said, her eyes like dark pools. “Speak so everyone can hear.”

Duncan filled his lungs and spoke loudly. “The witnesses thought they saw my father stabbing the earl treacherously and throwing the princess to the ground,” he said. “But it was just the earl, wearing my father's tall hat. My father was tied up out of sight the whole time—”

The earl gave a high, scornful laugh. “He told you this himself, I suppose,” he said. “What, do you want us to believe that your father spoke to you from the dead?”

An ache, sudden and unexpected, filled Duncan's chest at the words. “I spoke to someone who was tied up with him. She told me everything.”

“She?”
The earl's face went a pasty white beneath the yellowed bandage.

“Yes,
she
!” Duncan flung off all caution. “You know who I'm talking about, don't you? And she told me you got that cut on your forehead from an old lady's sewing scissors!”

Someone in the crowd tittered. The earl looked sharply over the assembly, and his mouth thinned. “Come, Baron,” he said, “this is neither the time nor the place to listen to a delusional boy. Let Bertram take him away to a quiet room to rest.”

Bertram took a step toward Duncan, but Brig snarled.

“That's a dangerous beast!” shouted the earl. “Men! Capture the tiger!”

The earl's men moved closer. There was a panicked scrambling in the first few rows as people tried to get out of the way.

“Sir!” Duncan cried to the baron. “Don't let him do it—the tiger won't hurt anyone unless I give the order!”

The earl showed his teeth in a terrifying smile. “Let me remind you, Baron, that I outrank you.”

“Let me remind you, Earl, that someone else here outranks
you
—and you are a guest in my home,” the baron snapped. “Stay back, everyone!”

He stepped up to stand beside Duncan and spoke low. “You don't have armed men behind you, and I may not be able to hold him off for long. You say the tiger is trained?”

Duncan nodded, his heart in his throat. “He won't hurt anyone unless they try to hurt me.”

Duncan's mother promptly put her hand on the tiger's back and stroked his fur. “Good tiger,” she whispered.

Brig's chest rumbled with something that sounded like a very powerful purr.

The baron raised his voice as Bertram edged closer. “You say you have proof of your accusations, Duncan. What proof?”

The earl cried, “Proof? What further proof do you need than this?” He pulled off his yellowed bandage and pointed to his forehead. “This is the mark of a traitor's sword!”

The scar, jagged and white, was a good two inches long. Duncan felt a moment's flash of respect for old Mattie—he hadn't known that sewing scissors could do that much damage. And then something else occurred to him. Something, he realized with growing excitement, that he should have thought of long ago.

“So you say my father attacked you,” Duncan said loudly. “And then, you say, he sailed away? With his sword still covered in your blood, I suppose?”

“Dripping with it,” snapped the earl.

Bertram moved a step closer. “Boss,” he whispered.

The earl ignored him and raised his voice to the crowd like a storyteller. “The duke sailed away with the princess. My men and I took the other boat and went after him, but we were too late. He sailed into a whirlpool, and it sucked them down right before our eyes.”

“It sucked them down?” Duncan repeated. “Princess, duke, sword, and all?”

“That's what I said, you stupid boy!”

Duncan reached for the hilt of his father's sword and pulled it out across his body with one strong motion. “
This
sword?” he said, holding it high.

The insignia on the pommel winked in the light. The Baron of Dulle leaned close to peer at it, frowning. The stamp of
McK
under a crown, inside a double square, showed up clearly, and even the three thin lines on either side shone in the candlelight, made brilliant by the chandelier overhead.

Duncan raised his voice so that it echoed from the rafters. “If the Duke of Arvidia sailed away with the princess, never to be seen again,” he said clearly, “and he took his sword with him, dripping with your blood—how is it, then, that I found my father's sword on your ship, together with his slashed and bloody jacket?”

The earl's mouth opened and shut, like the mouth of a fish.

Duncan's mother gripped the tiger's fur so tightly that he whimpered.

“Maybe the jacket floated,” Bertram muttered.

The baron's face had been growing redder by the moment. Purple veins stuck out on his neck. “And did the sword float, too?” he demanded, glaring at the earl. “Or is there something else you're not telling us?”

Bertram was at the earl's elbow. “Let's get away now—we can deal with this later—”

“Brig, keep them here,” ordered Duncan.

“Yes, sir!” The tiger stepped forward, snarling.

The earl and Bertram froze in place. Suddenly there was a commotion in the back of the ballroom, and a man strode forward.

He was not dressed for an evening concert. In fact, he wore the same salt-stained clothes that he had on the last time Duncan had seen him.

“Tammas!” Duncan cried, and Duncan's mother gasped.

Tammas, sturdy, sun-browned, smelling of fish and tobacco, stumped up to the baron and stood squarely before him. “I don't know what lies you have been told, my lord baron,” he said, “but I sailed over from Duke's Island just to keep the young duke safe from
him
!” He glared at the Earl of Merrick. “The earl knew who Duncan was—how could he not? Just look at the boy—he's the image of his father! But still he sent his men to capture the boy and make him a prisoner in the earl's ship. I saw it all from a distance.”

“But,” the earl sputtered, “his tiger was trying to attack me!”

“Any sensible tiger would.” Tammas lifted his voice. “In any case, I'm a loyal subject of the true Duke of Arvidia, and there he stands!” He threw out an arm to point to Duncan. “If anyone wants to threaten him, they'll have to go through me first.”

“And me,” rumbled Brig.

But now there was another interruption, and this one came with the blare of a trumpet at the door and the sound of shouting. A man rushed in, breathing hard, and made his way through the frightened crowd to the baron and baroness.

“My lord—my lady,” the man gasped, holding his side. “A ship—just in—”

“That's one of our guards,” Betsy whispered to Duncan.

“Well? Speak up, man!” said the baron.

“My lord—the king is dead!”

Candle flames burned with a soft hiss in a room gone so silent and still it seemed that everyone had forgotten to breathe. Then the Baron of Dulle straightened his shoulders and stepped forward, commanding the room.

“The king is dead!” the baron roared, and his words echoed from the walls. He turned to face Duncan. “Long live the king!”

The baron bowed low. With a whisper of moving cloth, the whole assembly bowed, too.

There was a moment of shock so great that it felt as if the earth had shifted beneath Duncan's feet.

His eyes didn't seem to be working in the usual way. The crowded room had melted into a sort of burnished haze. Here and there, individual faces stood out, sharp and clear and etched forever in his mind, their expressions an odd mix of sorrow, excitement, and awe. Even his own mother was kneeling to him.

Strangely, the Earl of Merrick was whispering in Betsy's ear.

The wind outside had picked up. It sifted through half-open windows so that the curtains billowed in great curving waves, like sails. Somewhere a candle guttered out with a little spurt. And then the crowd was on its feet and the hall was alive with cheering, shouting, and it was all for him.

Duncan stood perfectly still, his hand rooted in Brig's neck fur. He could feel the tiger's warmth and living muscle against his thigh, the slight pressure as Brig's flanks moved in and out with the tiger's breathing. Grizel was meowing something at him, her mouth open, but he couldn't hear her over the noise.

His initial bewilderment was turning to realization. He was not used to thinking of himself as a duke, but of course he had been one ever since his father had died. And a duke was of higher rank than an earl. As far as everyone knew, Duncan was next in line for the throne.

Betsy moved at the corner of his vision, her face frightened. She came close to his ear. “The earl told me to say that you'd better talk to him and give him what he wants, or he'll tell,” she whispered. “What will he tell?”

Duncan raised his head to see the Earl of Merrick smile crookedly as he pulled something from his vest pocket. It swung gently on its chain, catching the light with a gleam of gold. Princess Lydia's ring.

In a flash, Duncan understood. The earl had guessed that the princess was still alive. But he thought that Duncan wanted to keep on being king, to keep the crown for himself. So the earl was threatening to tell about the princess, unless Duncan gave him—what? Castles, land, money, a royal pardon for his crimes?

The earl thought Duncan was just as wicked as himself. Duncan could not repress a shudder.

The Earl of Merrick's smile grew a little broader. He gave Duncan the ghost of a wink and tucked the ring back in his pocket.

Duncan's temper rose and foamed like a cresting wave. The only reason he hadn't told about the princess yet was because he was protecting her—he didn't want the earl to find out before the king.

But the king was dead. He, Duncan, was king now; everyone had to obey his orders. The blood mounted to his head, thundering in his ears.

“Don't do anything in anger!” Grizel meowed beside him. “A cat is cautious!”

Duncan ignored her. He was going to deal with the earl once and for all.

“Princess Lydia is
alive
!” Duncan said, his voice ringing out. “I found her on the island where the Earl of Merrick left her to die. We must sail there at once, and Bertram and the earl must be put in chains!”

There was a sudden explosive movement near the front of the ballroom. Bertram was on his feet, wielding his chair like a weapon. The earl himself rocketed over the potted palm and along the side aisle before anyone could react.

GGGRRRROOOOAAAAHHH
!!!
Brig's outraged roar filled the ballroom as he leaped after the fleeing men.

“Seize them! Seize them!” the baron shouted, but the guests in the ballroom parted down the middle as the tiger came charging through. Duncan saw their shocked faces like so many painted dolls as he tore after Brig. Behind him he heard the thud of feet as the baron and half the room followed.

Someone threw a chair at the fleeing men, but it hit Brig instead. Then the tiger's claws caught in the swinging velvet curtain. Worst of all, the baron's guards, called down from the tower, were confused and thought the tiger was attacking.

“
Aarrrgh
!” roared Brig, and he gave a mighty twist to avoid a flailing sword. He came down hard, skidding on his claws.

“
NO
!” cried the baron. “Not the tiger—get the
earl
!”

But the earl and Bertram had already escaped. Duncan ran through the great front door, his heart thudding. If the earl got to his ship—if he set out for Traitor Island—

But the earl and Bertram had not gotten away. They stood on the sheep-bitten grass surrounded by a ring of cats, seven circles deep, with more coming all the time. The cats' eyes glowed like small colored coals in the night.

“Go away! Bad kitties!” the earl cried. Bertram aimed a violent kick at the cat who was nearest.

The cat avoided his feet easily, while cats behind dashed to claw at Bertram's legs. Seven more leaped on the earl's back, biting his ears, raking his neck, and meowing insults in his ears. In an instant, at least thirty cats had fastened themselves to the two men, all howling in concert.