The Stolen Voice

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Yes,’ said Davie uncertainly. ‘Yes, she was accusing me of setting the fire, and – and causing the cailleach’s death. And I never would.’

  Gil moved forward. ‘David, give us the short tale, will you, from the start, and then I think we must leave you to whoever is in charge of this kirk for now, to make the decision about your sanctuary. Canon Drummond needs to ride up Glenbuckie, and I’d as soon go wi him and find out what’s ado.’

  ‘But who’s in charge?’ said Drummond, staring round as if a rural dean might emerge from the damp stonework. ‘If old Sir Duncan is finally on his road out, is it that impertinent clerk that’s minding the place?’

  ‘Sorry to say it,’ said Robert Montgomery, stepping past the two Stronvar men where they still stood gaping under the chancel arch, ‘but you’re right at that.’ He peered at the pale figure of Davie Drummond still clinging to the leg of the altar table. ‘It is you, then? Sir Duncan said it would be, and bid me promise you shelter here, at least till Sir William gets his nose into the business. What are you feart for, any road?’ he went on, over Davie’s grateful exclamation. ‘What are you accused of?’

  ‘Arson and death,’ said Gil. ‘Mistress Drummond is dead.’

  ‘Two deaths,’ said Davie. ‘There is two are dead, up at Dalriach.’

  ‘Canon Drummond, I must speak wi you,’ said Gil.

  ‘Must you?’ returned Andrew Drummond.

  They were working their way up the steep side of the glen towards the hanging mouth of Glenbuckie, in the midst of a party of men from Stronvar led by Sir William himself, who was now deep in consultation with his steward about what aid they were able to offer Dalriach. Encountering them at the fork in the road, the Bailie of Balquhidder had demanded what they knew about the riderless pony, extracted the kernel from the explanations which reached his ears, and offered Gil one of the beasts with him. Its rider, Gil’s weary men, Drummond’s retinue, had all been despatched to Stronvar, and Sir William had observed:

  ‘Well, if it’s no your bonnie lass or Murdo’s boy lying wi a broken limb, the saints be praised, it’s still a trouble, and I’ve no doubt they’ll welcome a bit help at Dalriach. Let me ha the tale again, maisters, and get it clear in my mind.’

  He listened acutely while Gil recounted the news Davie Drummond had stammered in the dim chancel, and frowned and shook his head at the news of Mistress Drummond’s death.

  ‘This is all at second-hand,’ Gil said apologetically, ‘and if you’d sooner go over to the Kirkton and hear it from David, I can ride on alone.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll trust you for a messenger,’ said Sir William. ‘This is no good, maister. Arson and murder are the Crown’s business, and I’ll not ha folk accused of them on my land and sit by on my backside watching the play. I’m right sorry to hear of old Bessie Drummond’s death, Andrew, she’s been a good tenant and a good woman.’ Andrew bowed over his saddle-bow and crossed himself at this. ‘And this second death – and the laddie accused of it – I canny tell what to think. Maybe when we find your wife, maister, we’ll get a clearer tale.’

  ‘If Alys observed it,’ said Gil, ‘we will.’

  He was still anxious for Alys, though the cord which had drawn him here so relentlessly seemed to have slackened, but he was also aware that he should make the most of the chance which had thrown Drummond into his hands, and had made certain he rode beside the man as the party moved off.

  ‘I’m sorry for this new loss,’ he went on now. ‘It must ha been a great shock to you when David gave you the word.’

  ‘No,’ said Drummond, ‘for I kent it already.’

  The man was by far less fey than he had been at that first meeting in his own garden, but this remark was startling. Then, with sudden insight, Gil said, ‘Was it a dream fetched you here? Or a – a feeling that –’

  ‘Aye.’ Drummond nudged his horse round a boulder. ‘I dreamed the dead summoned me. She stood at my bedside in this day’s dawn, in her good red gown, and the brat Iain at her side, and bid me come home to Dalriach and untangle matters.’

  ‘Did she so?’ Gil said without inflection. Drummond shot him a wary look. ‘What is there to untangle? This business of your brother reappeared?’

  ‘Aye, likely.’

  ‘You don’t accept that fellow in the kirk as your brother, do you?’

  ‘David,’ said Andrew Drummond, reining in to look at Gil, ‘was three year younger than me. He’s a – if he lives,’ he corrected himself, ‘he’s a man grown, no a laddie wi an alto voice.’

  The man behind them pushed his horse past, and Gil checked his own beast as it threatened to kick.

  ‘You don’t believe he was lifted away by the fairies, then?’

  ‘You’re a man of learning,’ Drummond stated harshly. ‘Do you?’

  ‘So what did happen to him?’

  ‘A better question is, Who’s that yonder in St Angus’ Kirk? I’d accept him as kin, now I’ve set my een on him,’ admitted Drummond, spurring his horse on, ‘but he’s no my brother Davie.’

  ‘If he’s not your brother, who might he be?’ Gil asked levelly.

  ‘I’ve never a notion,’ said the other man. ‘Unless my father had bastards we were not knowing of, you understand, and my mother never gave him the opportunity for that.’

  ‘I’m told he knows the glen and the farm as if he was born there.’

  ‘That can be taught,’ said Drummond grimly.

  ‘And the songs your father made? How would he learn those?’

  This got a frowning look. ‘Do you say so? That’s harder to guess, but I suppose he could be taught those as well.’

  ‘But what benefit is there?’ Gil asked. ‘Suppose that laddie has been sent by someone who taught him that way, what would they gain by it?’

  ‘That’s what’s eating at me!’ burst out Drummond. One or two of the group ahead of them turned at his words. ‘Why is he here? There’s naught to gain but the tenancy o the land, that the cailleach still held, and David had – has little claim on that, as the youngest. It depends on Sir William, I suppose, but most like it will go to Jamie Beag as tenant in chief now, seeing his father is dead that was the oldest of us, and likely Patrick as occupier.’

  ‘Did Mistress Drummond have any savings?’ Gil asked. ‘Any valuables to leave?’

  Drummond snorted.

  ‘Why do you think I went for the kirk?’ he said. ‘We’re over the Highland line here, maister. Folk eat well enough, in a good year, and dress well enough in their own web and spinning, but goods and furnishings costs siller, and siller’s gey scarce in this country, scarcer than elsewhere in Scotland.’

  ‘What, barely forty mile from Perth?’

  ‘It could as well be four hundred. My mother would have little enough to leave. Her gowns to her daughter and good-daughters, likely, her linen to the granddaughters, maybe her spindle and the beams of her own loom, my grandsire’s St James badge to one of us –’

  ‘St James? If your grandsire went so far as Spain could the laddie be his get?’

  ‘No,’ said Drummond briefly, then expanded, ‘We all take our hair, that marks us as Drummonds of Dalriach, from my grandam that was an Englishwoman. My grandsire looked like any other fellow in Balquhidder. I mind him well enough.’

  Alys had said that, Gil recalled.

  ‘What did happen to David, thirty year ago?’ he asked a second time. Drummond’s horse stumbled, pecked, nearly dislodged him, and he spent the length of a Paternoster steadying the beast and settling himself in the saddle again. Finally he looked at Gil.

  ‘How would I ken better than those that were here?’ he retorted. ‘I was at Dunblane. All I kent was that he never turned up when he was expected.’

  ‘Did you miss him?’

  ‘No at the time,’ said Drummond oddly.

  ‘But later you did?’

  ‘Aye.’ Drummond looked at the rest of the party, which was some way in front of them, and urged his horse forward. ‘We will be left be
hind.’

  They rode on in silence for a short space; then Gil said, ‘When you were in Perth two weeks since, you spoke with James Stirling.’

  Drummond turned to stare at him again.

  ‘I did,’ he agreed.

  ‘What was it you learned from him?’

  Another silence.

  ‘I canny be telling you,’ said Drummond at length. ‘It was confession.’

  The priest’s escape clause, thought Gil, and I can hardly press him on it.

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ he said. ‘Have you heard the man is dead?’

  Drummond’s head came round sharply at that. ‘Dead? Last I heard they were asking at Chapter had anyone word o him. Georgie Brown seemed to think he’d gone off somewhere. What’s come to him?’

  So he took that much in at Chapter, thought Gil.

  ‘It looks very much as if you were the last to speak wi him,’ he said carefully.

  ‘I was? He was hale when I left him.’

  ‘And when was that? How much can you tell me?’

  Drummond halted his steed and stared up through the trees at the rest of the group nearing the skyline; his face was shadowed under his straw hat.

  ‘I met him by chance,’ he said, ‘the last day I was in Perth. To begin, he was offering sympathy for the death – the death of my friend –’ Gil made an understanding noise. ‘And then he was talking of another matter, and then he asked if I would hear his confession.’

  ‘But when did you leave him? Where was he?’

  Drummond glanced sideways, and pursed his lips.

  ‘Not as late as seven of the clock,’ he said at length. ‘We had walked and talked on the open ground by the Blackfriars’ convent, maybe you know it if you’ve been in Perth, and I left him there. I had an errand to see to in the suburb near the tanyards.’

  ‘Was that with William Doig?’

  ‘Doig?’ repeated Drummond sharply. ‘No, not – I had a servant to dismiss, that was all. Nothing to do wi Doig.’

  ‘Did you see Stirling again? What did you do after your errand by the tanyards?’

  ‘I did not,’ said Drummond firmly. ‘I went on into the town to my supper. I returned to the Blackfriars just as they came from Compline.’

  ‘Where did you eat your supper?’

  ‘In the town. But tell me what came to him, man? How can he be dead, and so soon after I saw him hale?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Gil grimly. ‘The more you can tell me, maister, the sooner I’ll find his killer.’

  ‘His killer?’ repeated Drummond. ‘I took it he’d fallen ill, or – or – Who can have killed him? Why would –’ He broke off, and crossed himself. ‘Christ be praised that we –’ He stopped again, and shook his head.

  ‘What did you discuss?’

  ‘A matter relating to what we – to his confession.’

  That trail was blocked, it was obvious. Gil thought for a space, and then said, ‘Did you see anyone else while you were with Stirling?’

  ‘Och, yes indeed.’ The man’s Ersche accent seemed to be strengthening with every word he spoke. ‘Let me see,’ he said slowly, ‘there was the woman who breeds dogs. Mistress Doig. It was in her yard we met. There was passers-by on the road to the Blackfriars’ meadow. There was folk on the path by the Ditch. And of course there was my man and his.’

  ‘Your men?’ repeated Gil, startled. ‘I had thought he was alone!’

  ‘No,’ said Drummond.

  ‘Who was it with him?’

  Drummond shrugged. ‘It was just an indoor servant in Georgie Brown’s livery. I was never speaking with the man. You could ask at my Benet, the two of them was sitting under a tree the whole time we was talking on the meadow.’

  ‘I will,’ said Gil, trying to fit this to the information he already had. It did not seem to connect well. ‘Canon, how much are you able to tell me without breaking the seal of confession? Is there anything else he said that might help?’ Drummond turned an unreadable stare on him. ‘James Stirling was killed, and his death hidden,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m charged wi finding his killer, and any wee sign that might point me to him would be of value.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’ll consider of it,’ said the other after a moment. ‘If I mind he said anything not connected with his confession, I’ll write it down. But at this time, maister, my chiefest concern is to come to my home and offer prayers over my mother’s body.’

  ‘Then we ride on,’ said Gil. ‘We –’

  There was sudden shouting ahead. One of Sir William’s men came crashing back through the woodland, calling to Gil, pointing up the slope. Heart hammering, he urged his stout pony onward, and as he came level with him the man exclaimed:

  ‘Is your lady, sir. She safe!’

  His heart leapt, but went on hammering. He could scarcely breathe. The pony, having decided to run, thundered on up the hill and out from under the trees, into the open green space of Glenbuckie, though he did not see that nor Murdo feeling his son all over as if he was another pony, because twenty yards away Alys was at the centre of a knot of riders, sitting on a weary beast, clad in a ruined kirtle, her hair loose down her back. She saw him at the same moment, and broke free of the group to ride towards him, Socrates bounding forward at her side.

  In front of such an audience they neither kissed nor embraced. Instead, as their ponies halted nose to tail, they reached out in silence and gripped one another’s hands as tightly as if drowning. And he could almost have drowned in her eyes, he thought, seeing his relief reflected in her face as she absorbed the fact of his presence. The dog danced round them, pawing at his knee, and his mount tossed its head uneasily, but he ignored them.

  ‘I’m safe,’ she said in French after a while, answering what he had no need to say. ‘Are you? What – why are you –’

  ‘I’m safe,’ he agreed. ‘Nothing touched me. But you –’ He took in her dishevelment, and groped for something to lighten the moment. ‘Goying in a queynt array With wind blowing upon hir tresse – If you’re going to make a habit of riding about Scotland in your kirtle, wife, you’ll be a deal cheaper to gown than I feared.’

  She giggled, though tears sprang to her eyes.

  ‘Steenie is hurt, he has a burn to his ear and face. But Gil – there is so much I need to tell you, so much to – Davie has fled to the kirk, he –’

  ‘We spoke to him.’

  ‘So you know –’ Her mouth trembled.

  ‘We know.’ He finally broke his grasp of one of her hands, to pat his importunate dog. She reached across with the freed hand to caress the animal’s ears, saying shakily:

  ‘And Socrates has been a very good dog.’

  ‘Best to get these folk home to Stronvar,’ said Sir William briskly beside them. ‘Your wife needs her bed, Cunningham, and your man needs something for that burn. As for young Murdo here –’ He clapped the steward’s son on the shoulder. ‘He’s earned your favour the day, I can tell you.’

  ‘Indeed, Gil, he has,’ agreed Alys earnestly.

  ‘It was no more than my duty,’ said Murdo Dubh, the dark lashes sweeping his cheek as he looked down, his father beside him trying to look impassive at the compliments.

  ‘Will you come wi us, Cunningham, or see your wife down the road?’

  Her hand clung to his, but her eyes had a different message.

  ‘I must talk to you,’ she said in French, ‘but later. You need to see what –’ She looked hard at him. ‘Talk to Jamie Beag, Gil, and try to get a sight of the dead.’ She put up her other hand and ran it around the back of her head, fingers against her skull. Gil understood the gesture. One of the deaths at least was suspect; she wished him to inspect the bodies closely.

  Chapter Ten

  The smell of the burnt thatch met them fully a mile downwind of the farm. Drummond’s face darkened at the first tang, and he spurred his bay gelding forward more urgently.

  ‘Is it just my mother’s house that has burned,’ he demanded, ‘
or is it the whole farm?’

  ‘Just the house, my son was saying,’ said Murdo the steward.

  ‘I don’t like this business of accusing the laddie of arson,’ said Sir William. ‘Bad enough the woman making the accusation, folk make mistakes in the heat of the moment, but to uphold it against your man’s evidence, that’s a worry. Either she’s right sure or it’s a malicious charge, and I’d as soon not get mixed up in either. How trustworthy is the man?’

  ‘Steenie? He’s a good fellow, and I’ve aye known him truthful.’ Gil called up what Alys had reported while the dazed groom was helped on to a horse fit to carry two. ‘He said he had seen someone set the flame and run away across the yard, and when he hammered on the house door to raise the alarm, Davie Drummond answered him from within.’

  ‘Aye, that’s it,’ agreed Sir William. ‘And here’s Caterin Campbell saying she saw the laddie set the fire himself.’

  ‘He swears he has done no such thing,’ said Gil. ‘Kneeling by the altar as he said it.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Sir William sceptically.

  They came over the flank of the hill to see the township laid out below them, the blackened rafters and walls of the burnt house nearest to them and beyond that the yard busy with neighbours, peat-smoke rising blue from the two stone-built houses at either side, more people coming and going from the smaller habitations further down the slope.

  ‘Christ aid!’ said Sir William. ‘It’s going like a bees’ byke!’

  ‘We’re expected,’ observed one of his men.

  This was clearly true. Gil, armed with all Alys had told him of her first visit, identified the little group waiting in the centre of the yard to receive them readily enough. The foremost must be Patrick, big and broad-shouldered, his fair skin reddened by outside work; next to him stood his nephew. Both wore velvet bonnets and their clean shirts were half-hidden by layers of carefully pleated wool, Patrick with a silver-mounted belt and pouch restraining the chequered folds. Behind them was a much older man in a mended plaid and blue woollen bonnet, whom Gil could not place, and off to one side were the women, plaids drawn modestly over their faces, the two weaving sisters-in-law and the oldest granddaughter distinguishable nevertheless.