by Lynne Jonell
Mr. Corbie, the old sailing master, had been called to the palace and was deep in consultation with Tammas. They spread out the charts on a vast table in the royal library and began to plot a course.
“I’ve sighted that island,” said the sailing master, “from a distance. But Tammas has anchored there, and he knows the currents and reefs. I’ll want him along to help.”
Duncan said, “I can help, too.”
His mother straightened abruptly. “You won’t be going.”
“You must stay here, in the palace,” said the baron. “Arvidia can’t lose another king, not so soon.”
Duncan glared at them. It was the same old thing; someone was always trying to keep him safe. He opened his mouth to argue, but Grizel meowed at him from the window seat where she lay curled in the last golden rays of the setting sun.
Duncan stalked to the library window, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“Remember your training,” Grizel meowed softly. “A cat never argues, nor does it plead. A cat considers the facts calmly and then decides. A king should do the same.”
Duncan gazed out the window for a long moment. Below him, Capital City lay spread out like a patchwork quilt, and in the harbor was a ship at anchor. Beyond that was the blue-green sea, stretching to the horizon. Somewhere, out there, the princess and old Mattie were waiting for him.
Duncan turned with dignity and heard Grizel give an approving sniff.
“I promised I’d go back for them,” he said. “And I’m the only one who knows how to get to the interior of the island. You need me to come along.”
“It would be most helpful,” the sailing master admitted.
Duncan’s mother clasped her hands together. “I can’t let you go again! You only just returned to me!”
“You can sail with us.” Duncan smiled at his mother. “And I’ll appoint the Baron of Dulle to be my regent. He can stay here and rule until we bring the princess back—to be queen.”
* * *
Duncan climbed high on the ship’s rigging and turned his spyglass on the far horizon. By the sailing master’s calculations, they should have sighted Traitor Island two days ago. But even Tammas admitted that sailing was not an exact science … and they were on the far edge of the known world, where currents collided and winds were violent.
Duncan looked down at the deck a moment to rest his eyes and frowned slightly as he caught sight of Brig. The tiger was another worry.
Brig hadn’t been himself since the day they sailed from Capital City. He picked at his food with a disinterested claw, stared glumly into space, and sighed a great deal; even obeying orders didn’t seem to give him much satisfaction, and he refused to say what was wrong. Duncan let out his breath in an exasperated puff. Whatever was bothering the tiger, it seemed clear that he wanted to work it out on his own.
Meanwhile, Duncan was glad to be sailing again. Tammas was teaching him how to use a sextant and take the altitude of the sun. Duncan liked learning how to find his way on the trackless sea. One of these days, he was going to be an excellent navigator, Tammas said.
If only he could find Traitor Island! Duncan put the glass to his eye again and scanned the far, thin line where blue sky met bluer sea.
The breeze had freshened and was growing stronger. Duncan clung with his legs and gave a brief wave to his mother, who had just come on deck. He was starting to get used to this new, laughing mother who let the wind whip her hair and never wore a scarf at all, much less an ugly green one.
She answered every question he asked about his father now, as fully as possible. And she had explained about the grave on the hilltop cemetery, too.
“I saw a tombstone with the initials CDM,” she had said, “and I told you they were your father’s initials. Naturally you thought that meant the grave was his, and I let you believe it. There was so little I could tell you; I wanted to let you have something, however small. And I wasn’t lying—the initials were his.”
Duncan blinked. Then he rubbed his eyes and looked again. “LAND!” he bellowed. “TRAITOR ISLAND!”
* * *
They had had weeks on the return trip for Lydia to get used to the idea of being an orphan—and a queen. Mattie had found the trunk of new clothes that had been brought for Lydia, and she’d promptly begun to sew, altering them to fit. And there were daily sessions with the duchess on everything from court etiquette to affairs of state. So on the evening when the ship sailed into the Capital City harbor with signal flags flying, Lydia put on her new royal garments, listened to her twenty-one-gun salute with calm composure, and walked down the gangplank to the sound of trumpets as if she had been hearing them all her life.
Brig disappeared somewhere into the twilight the minute they docked. Duncan was just as happy to let him go. The tiger had been moody the entire trip, and Duncan was tired of asking him what was wrong.
That night, Duncan slept in a huge chamber at the palace, on a vast feather bed with a swansdown pillow—and the feeling that his room was rocking beneath him. He almost felt as if he were still on the sea, he had been afloat for so long.
Early the next morning, Duncan swung his leg idly from a broad marble windowsill and stroked Grizel as she purred beside him. He gazed at the spacious landing, the Persian carpets, and the wide, sweeping staircase descending below, and wondered when Lydia was going to wake up. They had a plan to visit the palace dungeon.
The baron had told them that he’d transferred the earl and Bertram from the jail at Dulle to the more secure dungeon in the palace. “Some of the island cats seemed to want to come too,” the baron had added, chuckling, “so I let ’em. I’ll tell you this—cats on a ship, or in a jail, make for fewer rats!”
Duncan fidgeted. He wanted to see for himself that the Earl of Merrick was locked up securely, but if Lydia didn’t hurry up, there would be no time. She was going to be crowned today.
There was a click of claws on the marble floor behind him, and a tiger’s apologetic cough. “Sir?”
Duncan raised an eyebrow. Brig’s moody expression was gone, and in its place was a look of high delight. Yet his tail was held low—something Duncan had hardly ever seen. In cat language, it meant the cat was unsure or needed a favor.
“What is it, Brig?”
The inside of Brig’s ears turned pink. “Might I take a leave from active duty, sir? For a few days … or weeks … or maybe more? I want to go on a nice, long—er—”
Duncan waited.
“Honeymoon,” the tiger said in a small voice.
Duncan choked. Something horribly like a hoot seemed caught in his throat, and he strained a cheek muscle trying not to grin.
Brig cleared his throat. “You may remember,” he said, “that the Fahrian miners left two tigers with the royal ship, as a gift to the king. I was one. The other tiger was a young female, barely more than a cub. Anyway, the earl brought her to the king, who put her in the zoo here in Capital City. Betsy took me there to visit, before we set sail for Traitor Island.”
“Aha!” said Duncan.
Grizel’s purr stopped. She lifted her head alertly.
Brig’s ears turned pink right down to his scalp. “Well, that tiger is older now. She has a really lovely pattern of stripes, quite fetching, and such perky ears—”
Grizel made a rasping noise that sounded like a snort, suddenly smothered.
Duncan gave up the battle to keep from grinning. “What’s her name?”
Brig’s furry face took on a besotted look. “Bertha,” he said tenderly. “Isn’t that the most beautiful name you’ve ever heard? Berrrrrtha,” he murmured, stretching out on the parquet floor. He closed his eyes, as if in some happy dream.
“A name meant to be purred,” said Duncan, gazing at the tiger fondly.
“She doesn’t like the zoo,” Brig said earnestly. “I finally got up the nerve this morning to ask her to be my mate. And she said yes! So I was wondering, would you let us live on Duke’s Island, in the forest? The wild is a much b
etter place for a tiger than a zoo. And Bertha thinks it would be a much better place to raise the cubs.” He smiled foolishly.
Duncan chuckled. “Sure, you and Bertha can live in the forest on my island—”
“Oh, sir!” Brig reared back in an excess of joy. “I’ll tell her right away!”
“On one condition,” Duncan added. “Promise to stay away from my sheep—if I ever get any, that is.”
A door squeaked somewhere down the hall, and Lydia dashed out with one shoe in her hand. “Hurry! I barely escaped. Get out of sight, or they’ll catch us!”
“Who?” Duncan held Lydia’s arm as she hopped into her second shoe.
“Servants!” Lydia hissed. “They want to do everything for me! It’s making me crazy!”
They ran on tiptoes along the echoing hall and turned a maze of corners, followed (more slowly) by Grizel. “Right, left, right, right,” Lydia whispered, keeping track of the turns. “I studied a map of the castle. I’m pretty sure this is where we go down.”
They had come to a narrow staircase of stone, rough-hewn and with no handrail, that curled down and around a central tower. One hundred and fifty-three steps down, they stopped at a wooden panel in the tower wall and slid it open.
Spike was there, curled up on an inner ledge. “Visiting hours are—oh, hello! It’s you!”
Duncan raised an eyebrow. The cats had things awfully organized if they had set up visiting hours for the dungeon. He stuck his head over the ledge and looked down.
Twenty feet below was a small, stone-walled room with two benches, two buckets, and two men sitting hunched. A pungent smell rose up, and Duncan could guess at the contents of one of the buckets, at least. A bit of crisscrossed iron showed where the barred door must be, and a torch on the wall filled the dungeon cell with flickering light and shadow.
The earl looked up. His expression, forbidding in the wavering light, turned wicked. “Come to gloat, have you?” he shouted up at Duncan.
Lydia pressed up against Duncan’s side and peered down as well.
The earl gave a great start. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am the Princess Lydia, whom you betrayed!” Her voice carried down the echoing tower, clear and cold and regal.
There was a strangled sound from below.
“She’s the queen now,” Duncan shouted down.
The earl laughed, a harsh noise almost like a sob. “You’re a bigger fool than your father, you stupid boy.”
Duncan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You could have been king.…” The earl’s voice drifted up like smoke, dark and oily. “But now you’re only second-best.”
Something glistened briefly in midair, like a short burst of falling golden rain.
“Noooooooo! Not again!” The two men ducked and covered their heads, moving as far down their benches as their chains would allow.
Duncan looked up. Wooden beams crossed the tower above him, going from wall to wall in a pattern like the spokes of a wheel, and on the beams were …
“Kittens?” said Duncan in disbelief.
Spike meowed, “Why not? They’re practicing their balancing skills. Of course,” he added, his whiskers twitching, “they’re not all litter-trained yet. They’re still very young, you know.”
“Litter-trained?” Duncan mouthed.
“You’d call it potty-trained, I believe.” Spike turned aside to cough into his paw. “It seems to cause some inconvenience to the gentlemen below. However, what they did to kittens was far worse.”
Duncan had to agree. The earl had done far worse, and not just to kittens, either. He gazed out along the wooden beam and saw Fia’s bright, mismatched eyes staring back. He waved.
“So,” Duncan said to Lydia, “what are you going to do with the earl and Bertram? Leave them here forever?”
Fia leaped down from the beam to sit on the ledge beside Spike. “She could cut off their heads!”
“Or have them clawed to death,” Spike meowed. “We cats would be glad to oblige. Or we could feed them a diet of hairballs until they exploded.”
Lydia pulled her head out of the dungeon tower. “I think I’ll just put them on the chain gang and have them break rocks the rest of their lives.”
“If they break rocks into gravel, you could use it for kitty litter,” Spike said.
“I know some cats who could use it,” Fia said darkly.
Duncan snorted with laughter. “Kitty litter—that’s perfect!” he meowed without thinking.
Lydia turned, her eyes brightly attentive. Her hand went to her pocket, and there was a sound of crinkling paper.
Duncan stopped meowing. He had forgotten to be careful in front of Lydia.
“Go on,” she said. “Talk to the cats. I know you can.”
“Er—what?” Duncan hoped he looked mystified. He carefully shut the sliding panel to the dungeon tower.
Lydia pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. “The baron gave this to me last night—he found it among my father’s papers. It was in a sealed envelope, addressed to me. My father wrote it just before he died.”
Duncan moved beneath a flaring torch in a wall cresset, and read:
My Dear Lydia,
If you are reading this, you have been found at long last. How I wish I could give you a father’s last embrace and the counsel you will need to rule wisely as queen! I can, however, tell you a secret that only I know. I pass it on to you in the hope that there is still one person in this land who can speak Cat.
Duncan sagged against the stone wall.
Grizel padded down the steps, curling her tail like a question mark.
“You’re the one, aren’t you?” Lydia took a step closer. “You’re the one who can speak Cat.”
Duncan looked at Grizel. She had made him promise not to tell, ever.
Grizel’s whiskers cupped forward. “Read it aloud,” she meowed.
Duncan read.
A cat can go everywhere and hear everything. Someone who can speak Cat, therefore, is a valuable adviser to a ruler who wishes to know the truth—and I had such an adviser, in Duke Charles of Arvidia.
Duncan slid down to sit on the narrow steps, and Grizel leaped up to his shoulder, looking down at the letter.
Now, I know you may think the duke is a traitor, yet I think there may have been some terrible misunderstanding. I can hardly believe that my old friend would change so much.
Duncan blinked. For some reason, his eyes were filling. He brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and read on.
Be that as it may, long ago, Duke Charles promised he would make sure his son was instructed in Cat, so that someday the boy could be your adviser, as Duke Charles was mine.
The boy has disappeared. But if he is found, ask him if he has this skill, for it will help you greatly as you try to discover the heart and mind of your people.
Duncan let the letter fall to his lap.
“I always sort of wondered.” Lydia faltered. “I mean, you meowed and growled, and Brig obeyed you right away—but it seemed so crazy.”
“Go ahead,” meowed Grizel. “You can tell her.”
“But—” Duncan was meowing now, too. “You always told me the reason you taught me Cat was because you felt sorry for me when my father died.”
“I did feel sorry for you.” Grizel slipped down onto his lap and looked up into his face. “But your father also asked me to teach you when the time was right.”
Duncan still felt dazed. “Who taught him, though? You?”
“Of course not. I’m not that old,” said Grizel. “But I knew the granddaughter of the cat who taught him. And the great-great-grandson of the cat who taught his father.”
“You mean this has been going on for three dukes in a row?”
“Longer than that,” said Grizel, looking pleased with herself. “I admit, the first cat who began it did it for her own amusement. But ever since then, it’s been a duty we cats take very seriously. Haven’t you ever wonde
red why the insignia for the Duke of Arvidia looks like a cat?”
“It does?” said Duncan.
Grizel used her claw to scratch lightly on the stone. “See this square with the two triangles on top?”
“That’s a crown.”
“No, it’s a cat. See, the triangles are the ears.”
Duncan bent over the drawing. Of course! And the lines at the side weren’t rays of light, but—
“Whiskers,” said Grizel, drawing them in. “You see? It’s the Sign of the Cat.”
“With the letters McK to show that the McKinnons are the Cat-Speakers,” Duncan finished. It was all starting to fit. But there was one thing more that bothered him. “Did you ever hear about my father serving a dish called…” He hesitated.
“Kitty pie? Cataroni and cheese?” Grizel chuckled in the half-coughing, half-hissing way that cats express amusement. “Charming idea of your father’s. He had his cook make special dishes when the cats came in with their reports. A little incentive, you might say.”
Duncan looked at her, horrified.
“Those little pastry ears!” Grizel purred, squeezing her eyes shut. “That braided pastry tail wound around the outside of the pie … so delicately crunchy! And the cataroni and cheese was very good indeed, very slippery in the mouth.”
Duncan felt as if his voice were coming from far away. “But what was in the pies?”
Grizel lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Fish, bird, mouse—mouse was my favorite.”
Duncan breathed again. Of course! The earl had misunderstood. He had thought the dishes were made of cats, not for cats. The earl had misunderstood a lot of things. But Duncan had not answered Lydia yet.
“Yes,” he said to Queen Lydia. “I can speak Cat.”
* * *
It was late at night in the palace. The crowning ceremony was over. Duncan shrugged off his velvet coronation robe with the ermine collar, set his gold coronet on a dressing table, and sent his servant to bed.
He was tired, but he could not sleep. The day had been packed full—first the visit to the dungeon, then the crowning, then the coronation dinner and dance—and he couldn’t slow his mind enough to rest. He paced his room, pausing by the table that held his coronet. It was a smaller crown than the queen’s, and it had only one jewel.