The Sign of the Cat

by Lynne Jonell

  “Close your eyes—they shine in the dark,” Duncan whispered. He stuffed the photograph and papers into the folder, threw a corner of sailcloth over the lantern, and closed the sea chest hurriedly. He stifled a yelp as the heavy lid pinched a finger on one hand. He sucked on his sore finger and crouched behind the sea chest in the shadows.

  Large feet descended the ladder. The face of the night watchman came into view, peering down into the hold. “Rats again,” said the man in a tone of deep disgust, and turned back.

  Duncan waited a minute to be sure he was gone, then opened the folder in a small circle of dim lantern light. The papers crackled, their yellowed edges crumbling in his hand. He bent closer, squinting. There were names, dates.… He read them, but it was like trying to read through water. The meaning shimmered and would not come clear.

  The air in the hold was fetid; it smelled of rat droppings and old cheese. Duncan felt strangely dizzy. He did not want to look at the papers again. He did not want to try to make sense of them. There was a dread pressing upon his shoulders; there was a truth lurking in the shadows that he did not want to see.

  Fia had curled up on his thigh and gone to sleep. Duncan stroked her soft fur, feeling the tiny heartbeat beneath his fingers. There was something wonderfully comforting about a cat, however small. He picked up the papers once more and forced himself to read them carefully.

  He had not understood the news clippings and other papers at first. They seemed to have nothing to do with him or his parents. For one thing, the violinist for the royal court, the famous “Sweet Bow of Arvidia,” was called Elizabeth, not Sylvia. The name on the birth certificate was not Duncan McKay, but Duncan McKinnon. McKinnon was an old and noble name, a name storied in the history of Arvidia, nothing to do with him.

  Duncan brought the birth certificate closer to his eyes. The birth date was his own. The mother’s maiden name was spelled out in full: Elizabeth Sylvia Lachlan. And the father’s name was there, too: Charles David McKinnon, with his full title beneath.…

  Duncan shut his eyes. Instinctive denial came rushing in—it couldn’t be, it couldn’t be—but it was too late to unread the papers. It was too late to stop the pieces from coming together in his mind.

  A slow tide of shame washed over him, a sick, hot flood rising up into his throat and choking him with dismay. His father was not the hero Duncan had imagined. He wasn’t even an ordinary, decent man with a family and a job.

  His father was hated. His father was despised. His father had betrayed king and country, and to this day, his name was mocked in the streets by chanting schoolchildren.

  His father was Charles, Duke of Arvidia.

  CHAPTER 12

  Squisher and Grinder

  DUNCAN LAY AWAKE IN HIS HAMMOCK. The air smelled of unwashed bodies and foul, fetid breath. The lumpy shapes of sleeping men, swinging gently like bundles tied up in string, were beginning to show in the faint gray light coming through the hatch. It was almost dawn.

  He would not go to the earl and tell him that Bertram had stolen the sea chest. Duncan didn’t want to draw the earl’s attention to the sea chest in any way. The papers, the uniform, the sword—all would only show the earl that Duncan was the son of the man who had tried to kill him seven years ago.

  Bertram must know already. Maybe he’d suspected the truth from the moment he first saw Duncan on the wharf or running up the gangplank to hand him a newspaper. Perhaps he’d had a good idea when he talked Duncan into giving up his key. It was certain he would have had no doubts at all once he’d rummaged through the sea chest.

  Had Bertram told the earl what he knew? Or was he saving the information to use against Duncan at a future time? There must be some reason Bertram wanted Duncan in his power, or he wouldn’t have locked him in the earl’s cabin.

  Duncan wished he could talk things over with Grizel. He wished he could tell his mother that he understood, now, why she told him not to stand out or get noticed, why she insisted he wear his cap all the time. She had wanted to save him the shame of being known as his father’s son. She had not wanted him to get spit on in the streets.

  He swung his legs out of his hammock and tiptoed between the sleeping men to his duffel bag, hung on a bulkhead peg. There was something he had to find, and he only hoped he hadn’t thrown it away.

  The stout canvas bag had been handed to him on the third day he was aboard, and was filled with a pick and mallet for caulking deck seams, a sewing kit for keeping his clothes in repair, and foul-weather gear from the slop chest. But it was not for any of those items that Duncan was looking as he rummaged deep in the bag with increasing haste.

  In the shadowed gloom of the tween deck, he dumped out the duffel bag and found it at last—his cap. He jammed it on his head, tucked in every stray lock of hair, and buckled the straps tightly.

  Once Duncan had thought it would be wonderful to be a noble—but no more. For one thing, his father the duke’s lands and estate had been forfeit to the king when his treachery was discovered, and so Duncan was as penniless as he had always been.

  He didn’t care. He didn’t want anything of his father’s—not his lands, not his money, not his uniform or his sword or his name. It was bad enough that Duncan had his father’s face and distinctive dark red hair; he couldn’t get rid of them. The minute he was old enough to grow a beard and disguise himself, he would.

  He looked down with disgust at his father’s shirt. He would wear it, but only until he could get another shirt that fit him.

  The bell rang for breakfast. The sailors thundered up the ladder, but Duncan stayed behind and took off the shirt. Then he folded the collar to cover the monogram, stitched it down, and did the same on the other side so it wouldn’t look unequal. Duncan’s stitches were not as neat as a real seaman’s yet, but they were good enough to keep his father’s initials from showing, and that was all he cared about.

  “ALL HANDS!” roared the master. “ALL HANDS ON DECK!”

  Duncan stumbled up the ladder after the other sailors. As soon as his head cleared the hatch, he felt the wind like a slap. It was going to storm; the sails had to be furled. He climbed the rigging to his duty station, then glanced downward to see Bertram by the taffrail, looking up. Beside him was the earl.

  Duncan frowned. Bertram was a liar, a thief, and a kidnapper—and the earl’s most trusted right-hand man. It seemed a dangerous friendship.

  The schooner heeled in a sudden gust. Duncan’s foot slipped, his fingers lost their grip, and he doubled himself over the foresail yard, hanging on by his armpits. For a moment, he clung there, bewildered, as the wind in the rigging took on the pitch of a scream. He had a sudden image of falling into the storm-tossed waters. No one would ever find him. His mother would not even have a grave to visit.…

  His mouth twisted as if he had eaten something bitter. She could always pick some random grave with the right initials and call it his. That’s what she had done with his father. All these years, Duncan had been visiting the grave of a total stranger.

  Duncan wrenched his mind back to the job at hand. The squall was gusting strongly, land was in sight, and the topsail had to be reefed. He forced his bleeding fingers to wrestle with the reef point until it came free. Then came the order “Haul out to leeward!” and he pulled hard with the other sailors until the foresail was furled in a second bunt.

  Rain slipped down the neck of his jersey and trickled along his back. He had forgotten to put on his oilskins when he went aloft—it had not been raining then—and now, miserable and bone-chilled, he knotted his reef point securely and slid down to the deck. But it wasn’t until the tacks, sheets, and halyards were coiled away that the starboard watch was finally dismissed and he could go below.

  “Hey, lad, run on up to the galley and beg Cook for a pot of coffee!”

  Duncan nodded wearily and turned back to the ladder. Wet, cold, tired, it didn’t matter—the ship’s boy was the one to run errands. He trudged forward through the rain to the galley, tuck
ed under the forecastle. He stood under the overhanging ledge and knocked at the half door.

  Hssss!

  Duncan looked up, startled.

  Fia’s blue and green eyes stared down at him accusingly from her perch on a corner brace. “So, are we going to investig—instigavess—I mean, are we going to sniff out that room? You know, where somebody scared kittens?”

  Fia’s meow was barely loud enough to be heard above the noise of the rain, but it still made Duncan nervous. “Shh!” he said. “Talk to me later!”

  Duncan jumped as the galley door opened and Cook’s round face peered out. When he saw Duncan, his smile broadened greasily and his teeth gleamed like polished metal. “What do you want?”

  “The starboard watch wants a pot of coffee,” said Duncan. “If you please.”

  The cook had thick, powerful arms with black hair running down past his wrists to his knuckles. He balanced easily on the sloping deck as he poured a gallon of boiling water into an enamel pot, threw in four handfuls of ground coffee, and stirred it with a long spoon. Then he wiped his hands on his dirty apron and turned around quickly. He caught Duncan gazing at a pan full of ship’s biscuit.

  “Want an extra biscuit, do you?”

  Duncan’s stomach growled in spite of himself. “No, thank you—” he began, but a grating voice behind him interrupted.

  “Not hungry?” Bertram’s bulky shoulders filled the doorway. “You must be working too little. Boys are always hungry unless they’re slacking. Better put him to work, Cook.”

  Duncan was cold, wet, and exhausted from his labors in the driving rain. But his mother had taught him to control his expression; it was part of her game of Noble Manners. He knew his face showed only a distant, polite interest as he asked, “Would you like my help, Cook? I’d be glad to offer it.”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing Bertram’s eyes narrow and his lips compress. “Think you’re better than the rest of us, eh, boy? Think you’re like the earl, who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty.…”

  Bertram had clearly never practiced Noble Manners—his resentment was showing all too clearly. Duncan almost smiled. He had thought his mother’s teachings on manners were just a frivolous sort of thing—a way of being pleasant at a king’s court. He had never before realized what an advantage it gave him, to be able to control his emotions. He had a power that Bertram did not have.

  Duncan made his tone even more courteous, lifting his eyebrows the barest degree. “I beg your pardon; I believe I did just offer to dirty my hands in the service of the cook. But quite possibly I am mistaken.”

  A dull red crept up Bertram’s neck to his cheeks, and his shoulders bunched as his thick fingers curled in on themselves. But he, too, seemed to be making an effort to control himself. All he said was, “It’s a long voyage, lad … plenty of time for something to happen, without anyone getting his hands dirty at all.”

  * * *

  Duncan sat on a bench under a row of hanging pots, with a bushel of potatoes on one side and a bucket of salt water on the other. A lantern swung above, giving just enough light for him to use his knife. He was used to peeling potatoes—he had done it often enough at home—so he had lots of chances to glance around. Somewhere below was the mysterious room that Fia wanted to investigate, but the galley itself was commonplace. Rows of jars on barred shelves, barrels full of meal and salted beef, ladles and knives hanging above the stove—none of it was very interesting to a spy.

  There was, however, a door to an inner storeroom, and Duncan watched under lowered lashes as the cook went in and out.

  A cloaked figure stepped into the galley, shedding water from his hat brim.

  “Peeling potatoes?” said the Earl of Merrick. “Isn’t it your watch below, boy?”

  “He offered to help me,” said the cook.

  “I see. How very noble of him.”

  Duncan glanced up quickly. Was there something in the earl’s tone that was almost—mocking?

  Perhaps he had imagined it; the earl’s expression was perfectly serious as he took off his wide-brimmed hat and dried it on a towel. His bandage had become disarranged, and he pushed it up with long, elegant fingers.

  Cook reached for one of the potato peelings and held it up. “Look here!” He smiled, showing his dirty teeth. “I thought he might be a gentleman’s son who’d run away from home, with his manners and all, but only a poor man’s son knows how to cut peelings this thin. Doesn’t want to waste any food, this lad!”

  Duncan ducked his head to avoid the gaze of the two men. He watched from the corners of his eyes as the earl dug two hairpins out of his vest pocket, adjusted the bandage across his forehead, and pinned it in place on either side.

  A peeling curled from Duncan’s knife, and he dropped the finished potato into the water with a plop. It suddenly struck him that it was a little weird to wear a bandage for seven years.

  The earl put his hat back on. “I’ll be going ashore in my gig as soon as we anchor at this island; I’ll have a late supper in my cabin. But a good supper, mind you, Cook,” he added, smiling from beneath his bandage. “None of your leftovers.”

  “Aye, aye, sir! I will make you a very special supper tonight, sir, if you let me go ashore. I need fresh herbs and some … other ingredients.”

  “Very well. You can ask for the jolly boat and two sailors to row you.”

  “All hands! All hands to weigh anchor!” The cry pierced the door of the galley, and a rush of clattering feet followed. The slope of the deck changed; the sound of wind grew suddenly less. Duncan guessed they were gliding into the protected bay of the latest island. Duncan stood up—he was one of the hands with a job to do—but the earl turned to him.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re a poor man’s son. I want someone who is smart and quick on the job.” He gave Duncan a half smile. “I’ve been watching you, and I think you’ve earned this.” The earl fished inside his cloak, found the pocket he was looking for, and handed Duncan a small piece of thickened cloth.

  Duncan turned it over in his hand. Staring up at him was the earl’s badge—a wolf’s paw, claws extended, on a dark green shield edged with gold.

  “Sew it on your cap,” said the earl, “and wear it as long as you are in my service.”

  * * *

  Duncan took his sewing kit above deck, where the light was better, and was surprised at how black and dirty his cap was inside. It smelled funny, too. Sailors didn’t do much washing, of course, but after a whole month, he guessed it was time to wash his hair. It had never felt stiff and coarse like this at home.

  The rain had dwindled to a fine mist by the time the earl’s gig, a small boat stowed on the schooner’s deck, was lowered into the waters of the bay. Duncan watched at the railing as the earl climbed down the ladder at the side of the ship, timed his jump, landed in the gig, and was rowed off to shore.

  Duncan fingered the badge on his cap. He should be thrilled to have such a badge from the nation’s hero, brave and honorable.

  The words called up an echo in his mind. He could see his mother’s face, gray and bleak. They had just passed children, jumping rope to a mocking chant: Charles, Charles, Duke of Arvidia.…

  His mother had said then that his father had been both brave and honorable. “Never forget that, Duncan,” she had begged, and he had promised.

  But both men couldn’t be honorable. One of them had to be the darkest villain. And a whole ship full of witnesses had sworn that the villain was his father.

  Duncan had gone back to finish the potatoes when the cook gathered up two gunnysacks to use as shopping bags and left to go ashore.

  “The hairy man is gone! Now we can spy out that room underneath the food place!” Fia leaped down from a crossbeam onto Duncan’s shoulder, and her pointed claws dug through his shirt by way of emphasis.

  “Ouch!” Duncan’s knife made a jagged cut in the potato he was peeling. “Pull in your claws, will you? And just because Cook is ashore doesn’t mean I can run
around spying with you. I have to finish these first, and then put them on to boil—”

  Fia butted his left ear with her blunt, furry forehead, accenting her words with each thump. “I’ve waited, and now it’s time. Come on!” She jumped lightly to the bench and glared up at Duncan. “Kitten business is more important than potato business.”

  Duncan suppressed a grin. When Fia scrunched up her face in that sour and disapproving way, she looked just like her mother, Mabel. “Have you grown?” he asked. He hadn’t seen Fia much lately, but she seemed longer in the legs and thinner in the face.

  “I’ve been battling rats,” said Fia. “That would make anyone grow. Hurry up.” She led the way to the storeroom door, her tail held like a flag.

  Duncan tried the knob. “It’s locked.”

  Fia’s blue and green eyes rolled ever so slightly. “Of course it’s locked,” she said. “Lift me up.”

  Duncan did not enjoy being ordered around by a kitten, but he obeyed. Fia put out a claw and probed the brass keyhole. There was a quiet click.

  “You’re getting good at this,” Duncan said, and creaked open the door.

  The galley storeroom was crowded to bursting. There were barrels on the deck and dried sausages hanging from the beams. There were boxes and bags, casks and bottles, shelves full of tins and a folder stuffed with what looked like recipes.

  In one corner was a square open hatch. A luff tackle, three pulleys set in blocks, was attached to the beam above it, and a rope nearly as thick as Duncan’s wrist dangled straight down into darkness.

  “There! Over there!” Fia shrieked. She rushed to the edge of the hatch and put her head over. Her pink nose quivered.

  Duncan took a lantern and leaned over the hatch. “It must go all the way to the hold. Are you sure you smelled kittens down in that room?”

  Fia’s pink nose quivered. “I was sure then.”

  Duncan knelt at the lip of the hatch and put his head over the vacant space. A dank, slightly decayed smell curled faintly in his nostrils.