The Stolen Voice

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘I’ve a notion Maister Stirling never has took the rent-roll wi him,’ said Wat Currie. He nodded dismissal to Noll again and poured ale for both of them, handing Gil his beaker. He was a well-upholstered man some ten years older than Gil, with a round satisfied face and a comfortable manner. Fairish hair hung round his ears below a handsome velvet bonnet, and his long gown of grey-blue worsted was turned back with murrey-coloured taffeta, a superior form of the murrey-and-plunkett livery the servants wore. ‘He just made a list in his tablets. He’d not want to take the roll out into the town.’

  ‘I can see that,’ agreed Gil, unrolling it cautiously. It was a fragile object, its inner layers clearly of great age, successive strips of parchment glued on the end as the earlier portions filled up. ‘Why not simply start a new one?’

  Currie shrugged, and pointed to the end nearest him. ‘Anyways, there’s all your names, and I can gie you the directions to find them.’

  ‘You’re sure these are all of them?’ Gil counted the entries current in the neat columns. ‘Five, six, eight properties.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Just I was thinking that if you lost the trail, maybe he had another place to call.’

  ‘We’ve searched the burgh,’ said Currie flatly, and buried his face in his beaker.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Gil began copying down the names. ‘Tell me about Maister Stirling. My lord has a good opinion of him, that’s clear. Is he liked by the rest of the household?’

  Currie shrugged again. ‘Well enough, I’d say. He’s never been one for idle giff-gaff, you ken, never talks about his own business or what he’s doing.’ So I’d expect of a confidential secretary, thought Gil. ‘He’s a bit sharp wi his tongue, just the same. The kind of remark that makes folk laugh, all except the one it’s aimed at.’

  ‘Does he make enemies that way?’

  ‘Not so you’d notice. He’s as like to strike at one as another, a bit like a fool, there’d be little point in taking offence.’

  ‘Where does he sleep when he’s here in Perth? Does he have his own bed?’

  ‘Aye, him and Rob Gregor that’s my lord’s chaplain has the chamber just off my lord’s own.’

  ‘Do they get on, the two of them?’

  ‘Well enough.’ Currie smiled. ‘I’d defy anyone no to get on wi Rob, the gentle soul he is. Hardly close, but they managed fine.’

  ‘Have you any idea where he might have gone?’

  ‘None. We wondered if he’d maybe been called home,’ said Currie reluctantly, ‘but we sent to where his family dwells, that’s nigh to Dunblane you ken, and to Dunkeld and all, and no word. And he’s no private business that any of us knows on, to draw him away so sudden.’

  ‘Is his gear still here?’

  ‘It’s all packed up and lying yonder,’ said the steward, nodding at a small carved kist set under the window of his tidy chamber. ‘Rob was worried,’ he expanded, ‘after two-three days and he wasny back, about light-fingered laddies, so he stowed it all and brought it to me for safe keeping. I’d vouch for all my household, maister, but a man can aye be mistook in that, and there’s no knowing how some will react if they’re tempted.’

  ‘Very wise,’ agreed Gil. ‘Stirling has no servant of his own, then?’

  ‘No, no, managed for himself mostly. He’d ask me for one of the men to carry out the odd task for him. Rob’s the same.’

  ‘Did you take an inventory of his goods? Could I see it?’

  ‘It’s in the kist, so Rob said.’ Currie set down his beaker and moved to unstrap the lid of the little box. The piece of paper on top of the contents had a list on it in careful writing, but Gil had no need to study it to recognize that James Stirling had left behind a very different category of possessions from those abandoned by John Rattray in Dunblane, or by the two songmen here in Perth whose house had also been stripped of all small items. Just under the paper was a sturdy leather case whose shape was familiar to any grown man.

  ‘His razors,’ he said.

  ‘Never say so!’ said Currie, lifting the case and opening it. ‘Our Lady protect him, you’re right, maister. They’re all in here. Two good razors and the strop, his wee knife to his nails, his box of soap and all.’ He looked at Gil, concern slowly deepening in his face. ‘Christ aid us, he’s no left willingly at all, has he, maister?’

  ‘No,’ said Gil rather grimly. ‘I’d say he hadn’t. And I’m surprised the chaplain never thought of it when he packed the gear.’

  ‘Och, no, that’s Rob for you,’ said Currie. ‘He’s some age, maister, he’s nearsighted, and he’s aye more in the next world than this one.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish I’d gied him a hand to pack up, as he asked, but I was sore taigled that day.’

  He set the shaving-gear in the upturned lid of the box, turned to the table again, and drew the rent-roll towards him, peering at the entries on the free end and blinking hard.

  ‘I had two of the stable-hands ask at all these properties,’ he said. ‘They all said, Aye he’d been there, and gone on. One of the lads helps me often at the hunt, and had the sense to ask about which way the fellow went each time as he left. He didny get a sensible answer from all, a course, but he worked it out that our man went to,’ he leaned closer to the parchment, ‘first these three, and then this one, and these two. And then these two in the Skinnergate, though he couldny work out which was the last. And then, he said, they asked about, and found none to say they’d seen him after the Skinnergate, and when I sent another fellow round all the ports none had seen him.’

  ‘Skinnergate,’ said Gil thoughtfully. He had the chap-lain’s inventory in his hand. Razirs, rol of papirs, crosbo, sanct Jac’s, it read. ‘I’d like a look at this Rol of papirs, if we can find it, Maister Currie. Papers can aye tell something, if they’re worth keeping.’

  They unpacked the box, with more care than had gone into packing it. Currie clicked his tongue disapprovingly as he refolded crumpled garments, but said nothing. The roll of papers was near the bottom, under the crossbow in its linen bag, tucked into one of Stirling’s riding-boots along with a carved St James whose paint was wearing off his scrip and broad-brimmed hat, and a pair of unwashed hose. Gil untied the tape which bound the documents, and flattened the curling sheets out on the table.

  ‘Is it maybe letters?’ asked Currie. He shook out the hose, releasing a waft of stale sweat into the room, and peered round Gil’s arm.

  ‘There are letters,’ agreed Gil, ‘but the first ones go back a few years. They don’t tell me much.’ He turned the sheets, scanning the different scripts. There were several letters from the man’s family, with brief accounts of the harvest and the well-being of his kin, and requests for prayers. Under those were two different contracts, which he studied closely, detailing sums which Stirling had borrowed from merchants of Perth. Each was duly signed off by both parties, so the money had all been repaid.

  ‘He’s never lacked for coin?’ he said casually.

  ‘Never since I’ve known him,’ agreed Currie. ‘Which is what you’d expect, seeing how he’s placed wi my lord. Weel ben, weel beneficed, as they say.’

  ‘So I wonder what he did with this that he borrowed?’ Gil flattened one of the contracts for the steward to see. ‘This one a year since, and another two years before that, good sums both times. Have you any knowledge of this?’

  ‘Oh, he wouldny let on about sic a thing,’ said Currie, shaking his head. ‘Nor any of the household wouldny need to know, seeing he’s often about Perth on my lord’s business.’ His finger fell unerringly on the note of the sum of money. ‘Fifty merks! Saints preserve us, what would he want that for?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know.’ Gil leafed further through the bundle. ‘He’s borrowed and repaid it within the contract, each time, which suggests something gey profitable to me. What have we here? More letters, a docket from my lord – he seems to keep them in order by the date, so you’d think whatever he did with the money the evidence would be wit
h the contracts.’

  ‘Maybe his man of law would tell you,’ suggested Currie, indicating the elaborate penwork with which the notary had blazoned his mark on the finished contract. The loops and curls depicted a conventional mercat cross surmounted by some kind of bird of prey. ‘That’s Andro Gledstane’s mark, you ken.’

  ‘No need to disturb him,’ Gil said. He had reached the outermost sheet of the roll of papers. ‘Here it is. Our man’s bought a pair of properties on the Skinnergate, and paid back the loans out of the rents.’ He whistled, running a finger down the page. ‘As well he might. Look at this, Maister Currie. He’s collecting seven – no, eight merks a quarter on this one alone.’

  The steward peered at the writing, and nodded.

  ‘Those are both the far end of the Skinnergate, next the Red Brig Port,’ he said. ‘That accounts for it, I’d say. The lads wouldny ha thought to ask for him so far along, seeing my lord’s properties are this end, and the fellow I sent round the ports would never ha spoke to the houses.’

  ‘What question did your man ask at the ports?’ Gil asked.

  Currie straightened up, frowning, and after a moment said, ‘I bade him ask if Maister Stirling had been by the port. And if they didny know Maister Stirling, I bade him describe him as a clerk, tall and well-made, in a good gown of tawny wool, wi dark hair and a wine-coloured hat stuck all round wi pilgrim badges, and going about his lone.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I suppose you’d call it his one weakness. He collects the things wherever he goes wi my lord, the good silver ones not the pewter sort, and pins them on that hat. He’s got another hat for his best,’ he jerked his head at the box, ‘I’ve just saw it in there, but he aye wears – wore – wears the one wi the badges.’

  Gil swallowed hard. Somehow this detail brought the man before him as if he was present in the chamber. Currie looked at his expression, and nodded rather grimly.

  ‘I’ll send for Peter,’ he said, ‘and he’ll can show you where these properties lie, and the other houses he enquired at forbye. Have you lodging for the night, maister? If you come back here afore Vespers you’ll get a bite, and a word wi Rob Chaplain if you’re wanting it, and I’ll can fit you and your men in somewhere.’

  The man Peter, a stocky, long-headed fellow in the Bishop’s outdoor livery, led Gil by one vennel and another, talking cheerfully as he went.

  ‘Next the port, Maister Currie tells me, his last place. No wonder we lost him, then,’ he pronounced as they emerged into St John’s Square, ‘though I’m right annoyed at mysel not casting further along the street for him. We’ll pick him up this time, maybe. Mind you, the trail’s cold by now,’ he added.

  Gil nodded absently, looking about him. They were next to the high east end of St John’s Kirk, a huge, handsome building set in its kirkyard, its tower casting a long shadow over the small houses round about. Folk came and went, the morning’s marketing over, the work of the day still to be done. Two women argued shrilly over a basket of washing.

  ‘Which is the baxter’s shop?’ he asked.

  ‘Where the two men went missing from?’ asked Peter intelligently, and pointed. ‘That’s it there. They had the upper chambers, to the side there, but they’re let again long since,’ he added. ‘They left all seemly, took their boots and their scrips wi them, or so the baxter’s man tellt me when I spoke wi him in the Green Man tavern.’

  ‘So I heard,’ Gil agreed, studying the building. The chambers Peter had indicated were off a good stone fore-stair; the tenants could have left at any hour without disturbing the rest of the household. He had spoken earlier to the Precentor of St John’s Kirk, a long-faced gloomy man, and learned a lot, some of it relevant.

  ‘Brothers,’ John Kinnoull the Precentor had said. ‘James and Sanders Moncrieff. One tenor, one bass. Probably my best bass, was Sanders, and you ken what it’s like finding a tenor of any sort nowadays.’

  ‘The fellow who left Dunblane in February sings high tenor,’ said Gil.

  ‘Someone’s building himself a choir, then,’ said Kinnoull. ‘You mark my words, maister, he’ll fetch away another mean-tone next to take the second line.’ It was not easy to tell whether he was serious.

  ‘Did they take anything with them?’ Gil had asked.

  Kinnoull, his pink, lugubrious face thoughtful, said, ‘Well, now, it’s hard to say. By the time the baxter thought to let us ken at the kirk here, their door had likely been standing open all day and neither man to be seen.’

  ‘So everything portable had gone,’ Gil suggested.

  ‘Well, I wouldny say that,’ admitted Kinnoull. ‘But there’s no knowing what they took wi them and what was taken after they left.’

  ‘Linen, cooking gear, blankets?’ Gil asked, recalling what Rattray had removed from Dunblane. ‘Their boots? Music?’

  ‘Oh, aye, music indeed,’ said Kinnoull in indignation. ‘That was two great bundles of music gone, never to be seen again, and all to be copied fresh afore St John’s Day if we were to do justice to the feast.’

  It had been difficult to keep the man to the point, but Gil had finally gathered the impression that the brothers Moncrieff had left in good order, much as James Rattray had done, probably by night and taking their portable property with them. After considering the various feasts of May, Kinnoull had given him a date, but seemed to have no more information.

  Now, Peter said helpfully, ‘Allan Baxter would be in the bakehouse from a couple hours afore dawn, that time of year, and he never heard them go out, so they say. Likely they left just at slack tide.’

  ‘What, you think they went by water?’

  Peter shrugged. ‘It’s the likeliest way to travel out of Perth, maister. No saying where they went beyond Taymouth, a course, but unless they went by Glasgow a ship’s the most likely.’

  Gil considered this. Landsman that he was, he had not thought of this route.

  ‘Aye, but when would slack tide be?’ he wondered. ‘Would there be a mariner down at the haven who might recall?’

  ‘Midnight,’ said Peter confidently, ‘or no so long after.’

  ‘You mind that, do you?’ asked Gil in surprise.

  The man grinned sidelong at him. ‘Aye, I mind it fine. It so happens I’d a night on the Tay wi my cousin that dwells down the river a wee bittie, and we’d some trouble wi the water-bailies, and I was late back.’

  Fishing, Gil thought, probably without a permit. ‘You’re certain it was the same day?’

  ‘Aye, well, Maister Currie had a word to say about my absence,’ Peter explained, ‘and I had to see to the horses afore I could eat, and by the time I got to the buttery two of the songmen doing a flit was all they could speak of. So I mind it well as being the same day.’

  Did the time add up? Gil wondered. He looked at the fore-stair again. It would certainly be easy enough to make one’s way down, perhaps by lantern-light, and across the square to one or the other of the vennels which led out between the houses.

  ‘Is it far to the haven?’

  ‘Our Lady love you, maister, it’s no but a step. Down this vennel here, see,’ Peter beckoned, and dived down the narrow entry like a rabbit, ‘and out on to the Northgate, and yon’s the haven at the street’s end.’ He emerged at the vennel’s end and pointed. Gil, following him, looked over the heads of the passers-by at the rocking masts, and nodded. ‘And yon’s the Skinnergate, just across the way,’ the man ended.

  ‘And when you had your night on the Tay,’ said Gil. Peter gave him a wary look. ‘Do you mind if there were any vessels went down the river?’

  ‘Aye, there were.’ Peter stepped aside out of the path of two men with a barrel slung on a pole between them. ‘Two or three, there was.’

  ‘Who would know who they were?’ Gil asked. ‘Would your cousin be able to name them?’

  ‘Oh, aye, likely, if he can mind who they were,’ said Peter with confidence. ‘He kens all the traffic on the Tay, does our Danny. I’ve no doubt if he can mind them he can name them and who’s the ski
pper. Excepting one,’ he added doubtfully, ‘I mind he said was a Hollander and he’d no notion who skippered it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Gil. ‘Now about Maister Stirling.’

  With a lot of circumstantial detail, Peter explained how he had tracked James Stirling, from these properties to that one, to this house next to where they stood, and finally into the Skinnergate. He was still annoyed by his failure to follow the man far enough, ‘but if even Wat Currie never knew of his having rents of his own to collect, there’s none of us would know of it,’ he said, more than once. ‘I still wonder that he never took any of us wi him, even if he wasny expecting to gather in the money that day.’

  ‘Did he often go about alone?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Sometimes aye, sometimes no. This time it was no, I suppose.’

  Gil nodded, then clapped the man on the shoulder and said, ‘There’s more experienced huntsmen than you been caught out the same way. Never mind it now, man, and show me where you were cast at fault.’

  The Bishop’s Skinnergate properties were the first two houses on the street, a narrow prosperous way lined with leatherworkers’ shops, shoemakers, glovers, a bookbinder, several saddlers, all making use of the proceeds of the skinner’s trade and the tanyards which made their presence known beyond the town Ditch. In Glasgow the stinking trades were banished east of the burgh, so that the prevailing westerly winds carried the worst of the smell away, but on this side of the country the wind blew as often from the east as from the west. It made sense of a sort, Gil supposed, to put the tanners out to the north. He ducked a set of harness dangling from the overhang of a saddler’s house, avoided an apprentice who was trying to sell him a pair of hawking-gloves, and said over his shoulder: