PANIC FILLED DUNCAN’S CHEST. It had weight and volume, like wet cement.
But he wasn’t drowned yet. There were still a few waves left before the tide covered him completely; he would be able to snatch a few more breaths. There would be time enough to panic when he couldn’t breathe at all.
Duncan curled his fingers around the bars above and pulled himself up until his nose pressed into the space between. His feet floated off the bottom, and he felt the cage rock slightly as the wave receded. Could he push the iron hook and chain off the top of the cage? Then it might float.…
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. He found the hook with his hand, slick and cold and heavier than he had imagined, tangled in the links of chain. He had nothing to brace himself against. He pushed, but his arm was too weak.
His legs. His legs were stronger. He held on to the bars and worked one foot up through the gap. The mass of chain moved a little. If he could move it just a little more …
He snatched the last possible breath. He pushed with both legs, with all the force he had, and the chain slid off. He could hear the links clashing, and now their weight pulled the great iron hook, too, and the ropes lashed around the cage—
No, no, no! The words screamed in Duncan’s mind as the cage tipped over. The waves rushed seaward, dragging it to deeper water. The iron hook and chain held it down, as firmly as any anchor. Duncan floated to the top of the cage, toward the dim, watery light from the wharf lantern. He reached up an arm through the bars. There was air on his hand; he could feel it, only inches away.
He was going to drown. This was how his father had died.
And then something large and dark blocked the lantern’s glow like a fast-flying cloud. The bars above him shuddered and cracked. Everything was breaking around him; the whole cage crashed in and something had him by the collar; he was being dragged over the jagged wood and sandy bottom and then his head broke the surface at last and he breathed cool, sweet air in great shuddering gasps.
Something was licking his face with a tongue like sandpaper. Duncan rolled over to see Brig’s shaggy muzzle and a pair of brightly shining, very worried eyes.
As it turned out, Fia had not wasted time meowing on the dock. She had intelligently raced back onto the ship, tumbled down three ladders to the hold, picked the lock on Brig’s cage, and led him back outside where he was just in time to see Duncan’s hand above the waves. Brig had launched himself at the cage, over 300 pounds of furious leaping tiger, and the wooden bars had cracked under the impact.
Duncan cuddled Fia and wheezed out his thanks. Then he threw his arms around Brig’s thick neck and buried his face in the tiger’s damp fur.
“Just doing my duty, sir,” Brig said, but his ears flushed, and he looked ridiculously pleased. He lifted his paw in salute. “Now, with your permission, I’ll secure the perimeter. It’s hostile territory, so I shall use my camouflage skills. We tigers are particularly good at camouflage.”
He shook the water out of his ears. Did water magnify sound? Fia’s meow sounded loud, as if there were more than one cat.…
There was more than one cat. Suddenly Duncan saw furry backs and waving tails all around him. The wharf cats had begun to gather; they had heard Fia’s piercing meow of alarm, then Brig’s roar of fury. Now, as Duncan filled his lungs with precious air and wrung his shirt dry, Fia explained things to the ever-increasing crowd of cats.
She worked her way backward, telling how Duncan had almost drowned (but cats had rescued him), of bloody battles with shipboard rats (the cat always won), how the princess was still alive (a very large cat had saved her), and in general covered everything that had happened from a cat’s point of view. When she got to the Squisher and Grinder, the cats moved restlessly, glancing at one another, and all the mother cats covered their kittens’ ears.
Duncan, meantime, had been watching the lights moving on the hill. His time in the water had seemed like forever, but in reality it had probably only been a half hour since the earl and Bertram had left. The baron’s manor house was lit from top to bottom; only a few lone straggling lights were still moving toward it. The concert must be about to start.
His instinct was to run straight to his mother, to just burst in and tell everyone what had happened. But he had had time to think.
It would be stupid to walk up to the front door, dripping and filthy. The baron’s footmen would not let him into the manor house like that, and explanations would take time. Worse, the earl or Bertram might see him first.
Duncan knew how quickly the earl could think of a lie; he knew how quickly Bertram could bundle him out of sight. There had to be a better way.
Cats were still coming, padding through town streets, winding their way down the cliffside road. They sat around Fia in a half circle, quiet, watchful, with their ears pricked forward. Latecomers climbed trees and awnings, and Old Tom clawed his way up a thick wharf post and perched there with his shoulders hunched and his whiskers stiff, listening in perfect silence. But when Fia told about her capture and the kitnip that the Earl of Merrick had discovered and used to steal kittens, Old Tom could keep quiet no longer.
“I told you! I told you all!” he cried in an anguished meow. “But no one would listen!”
A murmuring meow swept through the ranks of cats, and then a commanding mrreoow rose above the rest. “All right, Tom; we’re listening now.”
Duncan looked for the cat who had spoken. A large marmalade cat leaped up onto the low eaves of a boatshed. He looked like the cat who had run the kitten examinations in the cemetery, so long ago.
The marmalade cat gazed calmly down at the assembled cats. “We must come to a decision about this dog of an earl. We have enough here for a quorum; I suggest we hold a cat council immediately. All in favor, meow.”
A chorus of meows rose at once.
“All opposed, hiss.”
The wharf was silent. Then, suddenly, a single cry rang out. “Fia! My baby!”
From far off, at the base of the cliffside road, a cream-colored streak came flying across the waterfront and straight through the rows of gathered cats, scattering them right and left.
“Mommy!” breathed Fia.
The cream-colored cat gave a last great spring and landed in front of Fia, her tail straight up and quivering like a feather. “I knew it was you, I knew it!” she meowed, sniffing Fia’s cheeks in a sort of ecstasy. “I could see your eyes from far off—your beautiful, beautiful eyes! I would have known you anywhere!”
Mabel butted Fia’s head, rubbed along her flanks and twined their tails together, while Fia stood still in shock. “You think my eyes are beautiful?”
“Of course!” Mabel nuzzled the tender spot just behind Fia’s jaw. “No other cat has such lovely eyes of two colors but my daughter!”
“But—but—” Fia stammered. “You never said you thought they were beautiful. I thought you were ashamed of them.”
“Well, naturally, I didn’t want to give you a big head.” Mabel’s tone was slightly acerbic. “It’s never wise to pay a kitten too many compliments—they’re hard enough to manage as it is. But you’re way past kittenhood already—why, look at you, you’re almost grown up!”
“I’m a good hunter, too,” Fia said modestly. “See this scar on my ear? That’s from my first rat!”
The cat council was going on, so Fia and Mabel moved to one side to exchange their news. Duncan paced around the crowd of cats—there were hundreds now—but he couldn’t locate Grizel anywhere. He passed Old Tom, still perched on his post, and questioned him.
“Grizel? Old cat, a little creaky?”
Duncan nodded.
“She’s been sick lately, I heard. Must be all that rich food up at the baron’s house—whoa, excuse me, it’s coming to a vote!”
Duncan backed up as the cats surged forward. If Grizel was at the manor house, then he knew what to do. Cats could go where humans could not, without suspicion. Robert and Betsy, the baron’s children, had a cat, too, though Duncan was never sure if he should call him Mr. Fluffers or Spike.
Duncan had the beginnings of a plan now. But he didn’t like the idea of going anywhere near the earl with no greater weapon than a couple of cats.
He had a tiger, of course. But all at once Duncan remembered something else that was his, by right. He ran up the long, narrow gangway to the ship, found a lantern and matches by the binnacle, and slid down the ladders to the hold. It did not take him long to find the old black sea chest and his father’s sword.
Duncan stepped off the ship, sword in one hand and the swordbelt over his shoulder. Under the light of a harbor lantern, he strapped the belt around his hips and fitted the sword in the looped scabbard. The sword was too long for him, and awkward, but he felt better with it on. He practiced pulling it out, trying for one smooth motion.
Mabel had pressed back into the ranks of voting cats. Fia, off to one side, was talking to three half-grown cats who looked familiar. It took Duncan a moment to remember the names of Fia’s sisters and brother: Tibby, Tabby, and Tuff.
“You actually fought rats?” Tibby was saying in a breathless tone. “We’re only up to mice and voles.”
“Did you really climb all the way up the tallest mast?” asked Tabby, her head tipped back to look up at the docked ship. “How did you get down?”
“I wish I could have gone to sea,” said Tuff, in tones of unmistakable envy. “Some cats have all the luck.”
There was a sudden chorus of meows from the cat council and another call for hisses, which was met with silence.
“Aren’t you voting?” Duncan asked Fia.
“She’s not of voting age yet,” said Tabby. “None of us are. Look, they’ve decided!”
The marmalade cat held up a paw for quiet. “We are unanimous, then. Backs up, claws out, and send the kittens home. Onward to the Big House!”
The cats milled about, breaking ranks and then re-forming into lines.
“And the Big House means…?” said Duncan.
Tibby flicked her ears toward the baron’s manor house, festive with lights. “Up there. That’s where the earl went, they say.”
Duncan was taken aback. He had not expected a whole army of cats to come with him. “Has anybody seen the tiger?”
“You mean that very big cat?” came a meow from the crowd.
Something moved amid the trees, and the shape of a large, tawny tiger appeared where Duncan would have sworn there was only leaf-dappled shadow.
“Just practicing my camouflage skills, sir,” said Brig.
Mabel wound her way through the crowd to her children. “Tibby, Tabby, and Tuff, you must go to the monastery at once. The rest of us are going after the earl, and that is not a job for young cats.”
The three cats looked sulky. Their ears flattened slightly. “What about Fia?” said Tibby. “She’s the same age as we are.”
“Fia has been on her own for a long time now,” said their mother. “She’s had to grow up faster.”
“It’s not fair!” hissed Tabby. “She hasn’t even passed her kitten examinations!”