The Sign of the Cat (28 page)

D
UNCAN STARED AT THE MAN, BEWILDERED.

The man straightened in a hurry. “Step back into shadow where you can't be seen, sir,” he muttered. He grasped Duncan's shoulder and propelled him to the birch grove at the edge of the lagoon. “How did you come here, my lord? I can't believe it!”

Duncan was shaken. He had learned to think of himself as a duke's son, but of course now that his father was dead, the title had been passed down. Duncan, Duke of Arvidia. It seemed unreal.

“Who are you?” Duncan said urgently. “How do you know me?”

“My name is Tammas, my lord.” The man ducked his head. “Tam, if you like. I served your father the duke, I served your mother the duchess, and now I serve you.”

The man's smell of dried sweat, tobacco, and fish triggered a sudden pulse in Duncan's memory. “It was you!” he whispered. “When I was little! You lifted me into a boat. You told me I was a brave boy and not to cry.”

Tammas ran a hand across his eyes and chuckled shakily. “It was this very spot, my lord. I brought my boat around the back side of the island and put in at the lagoon. I can still see your lady mother running across the lawn in the dark, carrying you. I often come here of an evening, to smoke a quiet pipe and remember.” He smiled then—Duncan could see the bunch of his cheek in the gloom—and relit his pipe. It glowed briefly like an ember floating in the dark.

“You were the one who told me to take good care of my mother,” said Duncan suddenly. “You said I would be the man of the house now.”

“I might have done,” said Tam. “It's likely enough. Of course, your lady mother would care for you—you were young, yet—but you're never too young to learn you have a duty in this world. A ship in harbor is safe—”

“But that's not what a ship is made for,” Duncan finished with an air of discovery. “You were in my room last spring! You're the one who brought money to my mother!”

“We thought you were asleep, laddie.” Tammas sucked on his pipe with a muted
ffup ffup
. “I haven't been able to do as much as I liked for you and your mother, but now and then I've been able to sell one of the smaller treasures from Castle McKinnon and bring her the money from it.”

Duncan cocked his head. “You mean you sneaked into the castle and took things?”

“You might say that. But rightfully, the castle and everything in it belonged to you and your mother—at least by my way of thinking. The housekeeper there, Mrs. Deal, she helped me. A few of the old servants stayed on, as caretakers for the king, see, and whatever they believed the duke might or might not have done, they were loyal to the duchess—and to you, my lord.”

Duncan flushed in the dark. There were people in the world who had worked to help him, who had taken risks for him when he didn't even know their names.

He looked hungrily at the island through the trees. So this was where he would have grown up if it hadn't been for the earl. The castle would have been his home; he would have run through the gates to play with the village children, much as Robert, the baron's son, had played with him on the island of Dulle.

The upper window in the castle went dark. Duncan wiped his cheek with his wrist as he gazed up at the high towers. Now he understood the sense of loss and longing that had been so powerful in his dream. He would have been a duke's son. He and his mother would never have gone hungry. He would have attended the Academy as a matter of course, and no one would ever have told him he had to hide or be second-best.

“Why—” Duncan began, but his voice had an odd, strangled sound. He cleared his throat. “Why did my mother leave? Wouldn't the king let her stay?”

Tammas grunted. “When there's treason, the whole estate goes to the king; but he knew that whatever the duke had done, it wasn't your mother's fault, or yours. The king was a music lover, too, and he wanted to keep attending her concerts. So he let her keep some rooms at Castle McKinnon and a couple of servants. And the people of Duke's Island were mostly on her side. But the rest of Arvidia—well, they were angry. Their princess had been kidnapped; the heir to the throne was lost and probably dead—and all because of the duke, they believed.”

“People were
angry
? That's why my mother took me away?” A vast impatience welled up in Duncan. He had lost his castle, his island, and even his true name, because his mother was afraid of—what? Getting yelled at?

“You don't understand.” Tammas shot him a keen glance. “When your mother stood up to play her violin and the audience booed and walked out, it was bad enough. When the orchestra conductor came to her with tears in his eyes and said she couldn't be in the orchestra anymore, it was worse. But when it came to strangers spitting on your buggy when she took you out for a walk, and mobs sailing to the island to throw bricks at the castle doors, and letters from people threatening to kill you because they didn't want the title of duke to go to any son of your father's—well, she knew she had to take you away. You were in danger, of course. But it was more than that. She didn't want you to grow up ashamed, knowing you were hated for who you were.”

Duncan was silent. He had a sudden memory of himself at five years old, running merrily along the cliffside road with his father's shirt billowing out behind him for a cape, and a stick in his hand to fight imaginary villains. How happy a childhood would he have had if he had known the villains were real, and wanted to murder him?

The castle's massive gate showed dimly in the sullen flare of torches; there were shadows on it that might have been dents. Duncan tried to imagine a mob banging on it with any weapons they had.

“Now I have a question for you, young lord.” Tammas tapped his pipe against his hand and tucked it in his pocket. “What were you thinking, to run away to sea? Your mother nearly went mad with fear when she got your note in the mail!”

“My note?”

“I saw it. It said you were running away, sailing with the Earl of Merrick's ship. Your mother said it was your signature.”

Duncan felt himself flush to the roots of his hair. How stupid he had been, to believe the earl had wanted his signature for a handwriting sample. “I
didn't
run away,” Duncan said. “The earl tricked me into signing my name. Then he locked me in his cabin and set sail.”

“Ah.” Tam's tone held a sour satisfaction. “I should have known. I always suspected he was a liar, after that tale he told about your father. But how did you get away?”

“I jumped overboard. After a while I washed up on an island and built a raft. That's how I got here.” Duncan hesitated. Should he tell about the princess? His hand touched the small knob under his jacket, where the ring hung about his neck. He was sure Tammas could be trusted—but on the other hand, Duncan had once been certain the earl could be trusted, too. Maybe he would just ask a few more questions first. “What did my mother do after she got the note?”

Tammas ran work-roughened fingers through his salt-crusted hair. “She knew she had to come out of hiding. She told people who she was and put on a violin concert to prove it—it was quite an event; people came from at least seven islands—and with the money from the concert, she bought clothes suitable for a duchess and booked passage on a ship to Capital City. She went straight to the king and asked for his help.”

“She went straight to the
king
?” Duncan shook his head. He was used to thinking of his mother as a quiet, worried woman with stooped shoulders, an ugly green scarf, and a dread of being noticed in any way.

But all her fear had been only for him, he realized now. There had been that moment in the baron's house when he had seen her throw off her scarf, straighten her shoulders, and play the violin like a master. That must have been how she looked when she went to the king. And he had thought she lacked confidence!

Tammas went on speaking. “The king was ill, but he received her in the royal bedchamber. He told your mother that if you had run away to sea on the earl's ship, the earl would bring you back soon enough. Meantime, he asked her to play for him; music was healing, he said, and he had never held the duke's treachery against
her
.”

Duncan felt his eyes narrow. “My father wasn't treacherous. It was the earl.”

“Your mother wrote to me; she hoped that I would help search for you. I sailed to Capital City to meet her—my boat is small, but it's seaworthy—and found that the earl had arrived before me.”

There was a tiny sound behind them. Duncan whipped his head around to see a kitten-shaped shadow stretch and yawn in the moonlight, then curl back down. Brig, a larger bulk that looked like a sailbag, stirred slightly in his sleep.

“What's that, lad?” Tammas asked sharply. “Who have you brought with you?”

“Don't worry. It's just a cat and—” Duncan cleared his throat. “Another cat. Somewhat larger.” He sank down on the turf, his back to a tree. “You said the earl arrived at Capital City before you. What happened then?”

Tammas sat on the ground and stretched out his legs with a sigh. “Your mother and the king demanded to know what had happened to you. The earl was ready with his story. He told them a young boy had stowed away on his ship, giving a false name. He said the boy had complained that the work was too hard—”

“I did
not
!” said Duncan.

“And that one morning, he couldn't be found. The earl said they thought the boy must have fallen overboard in the night somehow.”

“Somehow is right,” Duncan muttered.

“Anyway,” Tammas continued, “the earl swore up and down that he had never dreamed who you really were.”

Duncan frowned. “What did my mother say? Did
she
trust the earl?”

Tammas shook his head. “She has not trusted the earl since he came back from the royal tour, saying your father had kidnapped the princess. But the earl had that whole stack of witnesses, you know,” he added thoughtfully. “Your mother didn't know what to make of it. She thought that perhaps there had been a terrible misunderstanding or that Duke Charles had thought the princess was in danger from the earl somehow.”

Duncan nodded slowly. “But about me … did she really believe I had written that note and run away? The signature was mine, but the printing wasn't.”

Tammas made a sudden business of tamping out his pipe. “It was typewritten, lad. And the note had in it things only you would know. How she made you wear a cap always and told you to never come in first. How she wouldn't let you take a scholarship to the Academy. It seemed like it had to be from you, although she found it hard to believe that you would have been so heartless.”

Duncan squeezed his hands together until his knuckles hurt. The boy who had complained about his life to the earl, who had signed his name to a blank sheet of paper, who had thought that his hero could do no wrong, seemed like someone he had known a long time ago.

Tammas put his pipe in his pocket. “We can talk more of this later. Now we must make plans. You see, the earl is—”

A sudden bustle on the far side of the castle distracted Duncan. There was a glare of torchlight and the sound of men giving orders.

“Here,” finished Tammas.

The torches illuminated a stone structure beyond the castle—something that looked like a pier, and a darker, pointed shadow against the starlit sky that could have been the jib boom and bowsprit of a ship. A reflection of light glimmered thinly on a forestay and edged the profile of a snarling animal: a wolf.

Duncan's shoulders contracted in a sudden chill. “Why is the earl on Duke's Island?”

Tammas found it necessary to clear his throat. “He's here to prepare the castle for your mother. The king gave everything back to the duchess. He said it was because of her music and to comfort her in her loss.”

“Her loss?”

“She thinks you died,” said Tammas bluntly.

“Oh.” Duncan looked at his hands. “Where is she now?”

“She's gone back to Dulle, to get her things packed up and give one last concert. She's staying with the baron and baroness.”

Duncan looked back at his raft. “Can you take me there? Quickly?”

The activity at the harbor had extended to the castle. The gates creaked open, and lanterns were lit all along the path. A small crowd of what looked like villagers waited, craning their necks toward the castle door.

Tammas leaned toward Duncan, his body as tense as a hunting dog's. “I'll take you, lad. The earl is going to sail tonight—I hear he wants to get to Dulle in time for tomorrow night's concert. But my boat is fast, too, and it's at the far end of the harbor, where it's dark. Do you need to get anything from your raft?”

“Just my cats.” Duncan hesitated. “One of them's pretty big.”

“I'll run and get my boat ready to sail. You get your cats and bring them to the far side of the harbor. Go behind the castle, through the trees. Stay in the shadows, and be quick, sir!”

Duncan headed back to the lagoon. Before he reached the reeds, he heard Fia meowing for him.

“I woke up, and we were on land!” The long-legged kitten pranced across the lawn, her tail like a flag. “I woke Brig up too.” She stiffened, her ears alert. “Is that a mouse I smell?” She leaped toward the birch grove.

Duncan hurried after her. “Forget the mouse, Fia!” he hissed. “Come back!”

“What for?” Fia's eyes glowed in two different colors.

“It's dangerous here. We've got to get Brig and go.”

“It doesn't
look
dangerous,” Fia mewed, twisting her head around as the villagers began to cheer.

The castle doors were pulled open to the blare of a trumpet. A man in a wide-brimmed hat stood at the top of the steps, his hand upraised. He was waving, smiling. Beside him stood a bald, big-shouldered shadow.