The Sign of the Cat (5 page)

“Promise me, Duncan?”

Duncan felt the trembling of his mother's hands on his shoulders. He looked up at her haunted, anxious eyes and winced.

So maybe she was a little crazy. She was still his mother, and he had to take care of her. Right now he guessed that meant making another dumb promise. He nodded without enthusiasm, then changed the subject to something more cheerful. “Robert wants to practice his fencing with me,” Duncan said. “He got new sabers for his birthday.”

The worry line between his mother's brows eased. “Be careful,” she said. “And when you're through, we can walk home together. I've almost finished arranging Betsy's music.”

Duncan watched her thoughtfully as she turned back into the music room. He wondered how many mothers would tense up when a son gave a compliment—but relax when the same son announced he was going to fight with sharpened steel. Not many, he guessed.

 

CHAPTER 4

Not-So-Good News

D
UNCAN'S SABER FLASHED IN THE SUNLIGHT
as he advanced. Robert was pretty good—he had a private fencing lesson once a week—but the fencing master came to the monastery school, too, and Duncan had been practicing hard for years.

He felt savage enough for a real battle. He made his salute, he rapped Robert's sword with a quick beat—he advanced, he feinted, he counterattacked, all with an increasing sense of resentment.

His mother had a skill that could earn them money. They didn't need to starve or live in a house that was falling down. But she refused to use it. Why?

The cats were on the sidelines, turning their heads from side to side as they watched the back-and-forth.

“I'd bet on your boy with the cap,” Duncan heard the baron's cat say. “His balance would be better if he had a tail, of course, but he's really quite good.”

“He'll lose,” said Grizel morosely. “He always does.”

But Robert was on the retreat, and Duncan followed, attacking without mercy. No one was watching—and just this once, he wanted to win. With reckless abandon, he parried an attack and lunged forward, scoring a touch on Robert's shoulder. Robert stopped, looking surprised.

Duncan grinned. “Didn't see it coming, did you?”

“You're getting better,” said Robert.

A scraping sound came from the manor house as the dining room windows were flung open, and the baron and baroness leaned out to watch the match.

Duncan swept off his cap with one automatic motion. He made the correct bow, his dark red hair glinting in the last rays of the setting sun. As he straightened, his upturned eyes caught sight of his mother, one floor up. Her hand flew to her mouth as if to stifle a cry. Duncan felt a pang like an arrow striking.

“Come on,” said Robert. “One more time? I want some revenge.”

Duncan nodded. But this time, he slipped his guard and gave Robert the opening he needed. Duncan passed backward, faltered, dropped to one knee—as long as he was going to lose, he might as well make it dramatic—and flailed upward in a riposte, a return thrust that went deliberately wild. Robert scored decisively. From the dining room window came the sound of two proud parents clapping.

*   *   *

Duncan and his mother walked in silence up the bayside road. Duncan had not enjoyed losing to Robert.

When he was younger, it had felt like a game to make sure he never seemed like the smartest in the class, or the fastest in a race, or the best at anything. But he wasn't small anymore, and he was tired of never coming in first. Sometime soon he would bring it up once more—sometime soon he would demand yet again to know why. But not today. Today he had something else to ask her.

Grizel, trotting at his heels, began to meow. “Why don't you tell your mother about the sailboat you saw today, the one with the long blue streamer? Your mother would like to hear about that. Tell her about how it didn't come into the bay, and the long blue flag, why don't you?”

Duncan cocked an eyebrow at the cat. What was this—some weird cat obsession with flapping cloth?

Grizel meowed again, as insistent as if she were begging for fish, but Duncan did not answer. It was hard to conduct a conversation in Cat with his mother present.

Of course, he could always speak human to Grizel. Cats understood human language; they just couldn't speak it. Still, it was awkward when someone else was listening. If he meowed, he sounded like a little boy pretending to be a cat. If he spoke human, people around him assumed he was speaking to
them
—and either way, he ended up sounding strange, like someone who heard voices that weren't there.

So he had learned to be careful. He switched from human to Cat, depending on the circumstances, and no one was the wiser. Grizel had made him promise to keep his Cat-speaking ability a secret from all humans, and he didn't mind. He had to keep so many secrets for his mother's sake that it was nice to have a secret of his own for a change.

Grizel was still meowing about the sailboat with the blue flag, but Duncan was thinking of something else. “My birthday is coming up soon,” he said.

Duncan's mother smiled. “One of the best days of my life.” She gave his shoulder an affectionate pat.

Duncan plowed ahead. “I was wondering if you'd decided what you were going to tell me about my father this year. In fact, I was thinking that maybe this year you could tell me more than one thing. You always say to wait until I'm older, but I'm going to be twelve, and that's older than I've ever been.”

They turned onto the cliff road, and the mown grass of the bayside hills gave way to straggling weeds. Small insects buzzed and rose, whirring, in the air as Duncan and his mother passed.

“I'll tell you one new thing,” said Sylvia McKay with a note of false cheer, “just like always. Only, let's wait until your birthday comes, shall we?”

Duncan didn't argue. He would bring it up again later, after she was done being upset about the As on his report card. Every year he was getting older; pretty soon she wouldn't be able to avoid telling him everything he wanted to know.

Sylvia McKay asked him about school, and he told her that Charlie Stewart had gotten sick and thrown up right in the middle of a test. Duncan asked his mother how music lessons had gone, and she said that Annabelle Parker still couldn't keep the beat to save her life. Just to keep Grizel happy, Duncan told his mother about the sailboat with the blue streamer and how it had sailed close to the island but never docked.

“Oh, really?” His mother's step hesitated briefly. “With a long blue pennant, you said?” She stopped at the edge of the road to gaze out at the sea. “You didn't go to the dock, of course.”

“No,” said Duncan.

The sun had fallen below the curving rim of the sea, but an afterglow lit the bottoms of clouds in bright tangerine, lined with gold. The breeze had died down to a whisper. The waters of the bay were flat and still, and far out at sea a ship sat becalmed, her many sails limp.

Duncan's heart beat a little faster. Two strange sails in one day! He squinted, but he could not see the ship clearly without a telescope. It might be a schooner.

“Because you know you must never go to the wharf when a strange boat comes in,” his mother continued, “no matter how small.”

Duncan frowned. “I thought it was just the big supply ship you were worried about. Don't you know I can earn money at the wharf? You always used to let me go down and help the fishermen with their nets and things. And sometimes even skippers of small boats need an errand run.”

“Yes, but now you must not go down anymore. I've told you that this year is different.”

Duncan could feel his frown deepening. He said nothing.

They were on the monastery road. On cliffside terraces, children were out after supper to play, shooting marbles and jumping rope to a chant Duncan had heard hundreds of times. “Charles, Charles, Duke of Arvidia, went to sea with the Princess Lydia,” the children sang. Duncan's mother did not like him to sing that song. It was one more of her silly rules.

Duncan pursed his lips and whistled along, loud and cheerfully. She had never said he couldn't whistle it. She couldn't stop him from doing everything.

“Son,” said his mother.

Duncan braced himself for a lecture.

But his mother seemed to have something else on her mind. She put a hand on his shoulder and spoke with quiet intensity. “I'll tell you one thing about your father right now. He was brave and honorable. Never forget that, Duncan.”

“I won't,” said Duncan, startled.

“And don't go down to the dock for any reason until I tell you it's all right. And don't speak to any strangers, and when you're outdoors, keep your cap on at all times. Do you hear me, now?”

The look Duncan dreaded most was back on her face, and her eyes were bleak. He glanced away and saw that they were at the monastery already.

The monastery was a collection of ancient stone buildings and curving pathways, edged with gardens and surrounded by a mossy stone wall. The long, low building with a series of arched windows was where Duncan went to school.

“Mrs. McKay!” Friar Gregory, his black robes flapping, came puffing through the monastery gates. “I'm so glad I caught you! Can you come in for a short conference, do you think?”

Sylvia McKay put a hand to her throat. “About Duncan?”

“Don't look so worried!” Friar Gregory smiled broadly, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk's. “This is good news. Come in! I'll just run ahead and clear off a chair for you. I'm afraid I stack my papers on every available surface.…”

Duncan avoided his mother's eye as she passed him, her heels rapping on the flagstone path. This had to be about his report card. Too many As—what a tragedy.

Grizel rubbed against Duncan's leg to say good-bye. “I don't much care for the monastery cats—especially Mabel—but I know some cats across the road who are generous with their kitty treats. Don't wait up,” she added, flipping her tail as she padded away. “I might be late.”

“Mew!”
The cry was tiny but fierce, and a small white bit of fluff leaped out from behind the stone wall to pounce on Duncan's foot.

Duncan glanced down and sighed. “Watch the claws, Fia.”

“It was a good pounce, though, wasn't it? If you were a mouse, you'd have been scared, right?” Fia looked up at him anxiously with her blue and green gaze.

“Terrified,” Duncan said. He saw a flicker of brown as his mother's skirts whisked through a stone archway into Friar Gregory's office.

Fia waved her tail in triumph. “I knew it. I'm going to pass my kitten examinations tonight, no matter what they say.” She gave a flick of her ears in the direction of the courtyard gardens, where three pairs of kitten eyes glimmered in the shadows. “And I was a good messenger cat today, too, wasn't I?” Then she added grumpily, “Until my mother interrupted.”

“What
was
the message?” Duncan had forgotten about it until now. He squatted down to speak to the kitten at her level. “Something about my mother, was it?”

Fia gave a little spring of delight. “I get to tell you the whole message now! Just wait—I have to do this right.” She placed her front paws together on the ground in the formal manner, lifted her chin, and stiffened her whiskers. “Your mother,” she intoned, “is going to be so
proud
of you!”

Duncan waited for more. “That's it?”

Fia unstiffened. “That's all,” she admitted. “I heard Friar Gregory say it to the headmaster. He said it twice.”

“But proud of what? Didn't Friar Gregory say?”

Fia's kitten shoulders went up in a shrug. “I didn't understand, exactly … something about a ship, a Skerl ship. But I told you the most important part. If
I
did something to make my mother proud, I'd want to know!”

Duncan frowned. A Skerl ship? What was that? Fia must have gotten it wrong—this had to be about the report card. Unless it was about his map project. He had done well on that, putting in all the large islands of Arvidia, and all the smaller ones that were known—perhaps a hundred in all. He had drawn little ships on the major supply routes, and he had even drawn ships exploring the uncharted waters to the south and west. Maybe he shouldn't have worked so hard on it, but once he got started, he kept thinking of ways to make it better.

Still, it didn't seem like something to have a special conference about.

Fia pranced around his heels. “You'll find out more if you listen at the door,” she said. “I always do.”

Duncan had been taught not to listen at doors. Still, that didn't mean he couldn't walk past slowly, just in case he heard something interesting.

Friar Gregory's voice was loud and exuberant, and it echoed down the stone walkway with a fine and ringing resonance. “I knew there was more to Duncan than his grades showed. He listened in class, he asked good questions, and he seemed to understand the material. But when it came to tests, or handing in work to be graded, he was never much above average.”