The Stolen Voice (9 page)

‘Is he not even managing the Office?’ said Gil, dismayed.

‘No,’ said Robert again. He had a way of saying the word which conveyed volumes, something which Gil recalled from his first encounter with the young man, more than a year since in very difficult circumstances. ‘Martainn Clerk and I can deal wi the Office,’ he expanded, ‘seeing I’m in Minor Orders, but there’s no been a Mass said in St Angus’ Kirk for weeks.’ His face softened. ‘He lies in his bed reciting Matins and Lauds over and over again, jumbling all the words and losing the place, certain he’s offering up what’s right.’

‘It is an offering, then,’ Gil observed. Robert looked at him sharply, and then away again. ‘And you have charge of him and his house, do you?’

‘I do.’ And do you want to make anything of it? said the tone of voice.

‘Not easy. Cooking and keeping him clean, as well as taking care of the Office – it’s a lot to do on your own.’

‘That was the point,’ said Robert, with a sour laugh ‘Anyway, it’s not as if there was anything else to do out here.’

Gil carefully refrained from looking around at the hills full of game, the river leaping with fish, the meadows full of wildfowl. A young man reared like this one must be tempted almost hourly to go out with bow or spear or line, to fetch home meat for the pot or for salting down for winter. Fighting the temptation would almost be worse than the menial tasks heaped on him by his servitude to the dying man.

‘I suppose you’re here,’ said Robert abruptly, ‘about this tale of the fellow come back from Elfhame?’

‘I am,’ agreed Gil, raising one eyebrow. ‘What tellt you that?’

‘Aye, well. It’s the only thing in the parish for the last hundred years that might attract Blacader’s quaestor.’

‘How much have you heard about it?’ Gil asked. ‘You scrieved the letter to Andrew Drummond at Dunblane, they tell me.’

‘I did. Two letters, in fact. The old woman asked me to write, told me exactly what she wanted said, made her mark at the foot o the paper.’ He shrugged. ‘If she’s had an answer, I’ve heard nothing. I’ve no been asked to scrieve a reply, any road.’

‘The second letter you wrote,’ said Gil slowly. ‘It promised a valuable gift to the Cathedral if they take the boy back at the sang-schule.’ Robert nodded curtly. ‘Tell me, do you think she had talked it over wi her family?’

‘I’ve no a notion. I never set an eye on any o them, save only the fellow himself when he cam to walk her back to her pony.’ He grinned without humour. ‘Looked ordinar enough to me, a likely fellow in a blue doublet, in sore need o a barber. I don’t think much o the way they clip their hair in Elfhame. Why?’

‘So he never heard her talk about the letter?’ Gil said.

‘No in my presence.’ Another sour laugh. ‘What, you mean she’s made all these plans for him and never consulted him? That’d be right, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gil. ‘As for whether the family kens she’s planning to give away that much land – or what they’ll say when they find out – I wouldny care to guess.’

‘Well, I never asked her. I scrieved the note for her, and I took the coin she gied me for it,’ Robert said bitterly, ‘and learned all the history o the matter from my maister, and that was that.’ He tilted his head. ‘Is that him stirring? No, maybe no. Still and all, I’d best forgo the pleasure o your company, Cunningham, and go back in. If I’m no there when he wakes he’ll take fright, and get up to search for me, and last time he near fell in the peat fire. And if you want a word wi him, come by some morning and see if he’s fit for’t.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Gil studied the young man, noting the dark rings round his eyes, the way the square jaw was pared to the bone. ‘How long have you been here, Robert?’

‘A year, six weeks and two days,’ said Robert Montgomery succinctly, and ducked back into the priest’s house.

*    *    *

 ‘Penance?’ said Alys.

‘It must be,’ agreed Gil. He picked a sprig of mint growing in a tub by the arbour, and crushed it in his fingers. Socrates came to sniff at his hand, and sneezed. ‘I hardly liked to ask how long he has left to serve, but he’s obviously keeping a tally.’

‘Poor boy,’ said Alys thoughtfully, staring across the loch at the Kirkton in its haze of smoke. ‘I have wondered what became of him. After all, he never intended – and now he is body-servant to a dying man, and I suppose he cannot leave however bad it gets.’

‘If the old man is dying, it must end some time,’ said Gil.

She nodded, and leaned against his shoulder. ‘I wonder if he is allowed company? I suppose Lady Stewart must know more about him than she said. I can ask her.’

‘He might not welcome your company either,’ said Gil. ‘He keeps his low opinion of Cunninghams. Unless it’s his manner,’ he added. ‘Like Death, perhaps, he
shewith to all rudesse
.’

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Tell me again what you learned these two days.’

He drew her comfortably closer and began the account from the beginning. As always, he had already found that setting it in order had helped, and her penetrating questions shed a different light on the several interviews. By the time he had finished, the dog was asleep.

‘Someone came for the songman,’ she said. ‘I suppose the boy heard the arrangements being made. I wonder what he really saw, and where
Hell
is. If he had already decided he had seen the Devil, then he might mishear some other word.’

‘Wherever it is,’ said Gil, ‘it’s somewhere with a kirk rich enough to draw away a singer from Dunblane.’

‘Dunkeld?’ wondered Alys. ‘No, surely the songman would have been traced to there by now. Wherever it is, it need not be so big a place itself, even if its kirk is well endowed. You know Scotland far better than I, Gil. Can you think of a likely name?’

‘No,’ admitted Gil, ‘and I’ve never met such a one in a document either. But I’ve never travelled north of here myself. I’ll ask about when I’m at Perth.’

‘And I wonder why the secrecy?’ Alys pursued.

‘To avoid the donation to the Cathedral for freeing him?’

‘Or because the – the agent, whoever he is, prefers to act in secrecy,’ she speculated. ‘I wonder – how reliable a witness is the boy Walter, do you think?’

‘Not very,’ said Gil, pulling a face. ‘His brother called him a daft laddie, and I’d agree.’

‘Hmm,’ she said again. ‘And the Drummond matter – the brother is fallen into a melancholy, you are saying.’

‘So it seems,’ agreed Gil. ‘Sighing and moping, talking endlessly about his guilt. Lost in the
Forest of Noyous Hevynes.
’

‘So it seems,’ she repeated, and tilted her head to look up at him. ‘Yes. And this strange creature at the farm over the pass – what do you think of his tale?’

‘Clear enough, so far as it goes. Someone lifted young David Drummond that morning, before he met the Murray boy, bound him and bore him off southwards. He does seem to have been an outstanding singer, so I suppose he could have been stolen away for the same reason as John Rattray and the others. But why he was lifted there rather than at Dunblane I don’t understand.’

‘It must have been someone who knew the boy’s movements.’ Alys considered this for a moment. ‘He would be guarded, I suppose, at Dunblane, or at least he would have company and a song-master who would take responsibility for the boys. Easier to steal him away out here on the journey, where he wouldn’t be missed for days. And Euan had seen Davie Drummond returning, you said? And spoken to him?’

‘Aye, and David knew him.’

‘That’s no surprise,’ she said seriously. ‘Davie stood by the track yesterday and named all the hills and farms round about to me. He knows the family song about Dalriach. Whoever he is, Gil, and I’m as certain as Lady Stewart that he’s close kin to the Drummonds, he has been well taught. He has even mentioned having crossed the pass thirty years ago, before he was lifted, but he says he saw nothing when it happened.’

‘Clever,’ said Gil. She nodded agreement. ‘I suppose Euan might have mentioned having seen him stolen away when he spoke to him this time. But why is he here? And where has he come from?’ He looked down at the velvet-covered crown of her head. ‘Who could have taught him? Questions, questions, and precious few answers that I can see.’

‘I would say,’ said Alys, ‘he has been taught by someone who knows Dalriach and all the land and people round about. So it has to be one of the family, or I suppose one of their tenants at Dalriach. Will you go away again tomorrow, Gil?’ She turned to look up at him, and made a face when he nodded. ‘I am invited to the harvest celebration in a day or two, and to sleep there afterwards. They called it a
ceilidh
– an evening’s merriment. I will keep a close eye on everyone, and perhaps I will see who it might have been.’

‘But he wasn’t taught locally,’ said Gil. ‘In a neighbourhood like this, you could never do such a thing in secret. People gossip. We need to find out whether the sister, the one that is married along the glen, has been out of Balquhidder recently.’

‘I can ask Seonaid. She will likely know.’

He nodded. ‘And I should have asked in Dunblane whether Andrew Drummond or his mistress had had a visitor in recent weeks.’

‘She would never have had a guest so close to her time, poor woman,’ said Alys firmly, and crossed herself, ‘least of all a young man, and the Canon could hardly have kept a kinsman at his manse in the town without it being noticed. I may not know about country life, Gil, but I have lived in towns all my days. Did you say you had spoken to the servant?’

‘Drummond’s man? Yes – I asked him about the children. A boy and a girl, eight and four years old. Drummond stirred himself enough to take them to their other grandmother in Perth, two weeks since, the man told me. She’s remarried to a tanner there, it seems.’

‘The poor poppets,’ said Alys in sympathy. She waved a hand across her face. ‘I think those biting creatures are coming out, and the supper will be ready soon.’

‘Yes, we should go in.’ He rose, and gave her his hand. The dog woke, and scrambled to his feet, shaking himself. ‘I still don’t see why Blacader sent me into this thicket. Nobody is murdered, no crime has been committed.’

‘Someone may yet be murdered,’ Alys said seriously. They began to stroll down the garden, arm in arm. ‘Davie told me the same tale as Murdo Dubh. There have been several accidents, which might be attempts at murder, and at least two of them might have injured the old woman instead, if Ailidh or Davie had not detected them.’ She paused where the grass paths crossed, and counted on her fingers. ‘There was the ladder and the pitchfork that Murdo told us about, there was a pair of shears hidden point up in a basket of fleece –’

‘How would that injure David Drummond?’

‘He was combing the locks for Mistress Drummond to spin them. Either could have been the next to reach into the basket, and the shears had been sharpened to a vicious point. Ailidh showed me them. Then there was a basket of mushrooms brought in for cooking, that the third granddaughter Elizabeth had gathered one morning. Davie saw the bad one himself. Elizabeth said she never picked it, and Ailidh says she believes her, for they use mushrooms for all sorts of things, for dyeing and physicking cattle, and their mother has taught them well.’

‘All circumstantial,’ said Gil slowly, ‘but they add up badly, don’t they?’

‘They do,’ she agreed seriously. ‘Mistress Drummond will say only that someone has ill-wished them, so they told me, but both Davie and Ailidh think it is more serious than that.’

‘Alys, have a care. And Murdo? What does he think?’

Her quick smile flickered.

‘If that relationship prospers,’ she pronounced, ‘it will do well. Murdo thinks just as Ailidh does.’

He laughed aloud, and caught up her hand again.

‘Well, I think we should go in to supper,’ he said, ‘so I hope you do too!’

George Brown, Bishop of Dunkeld, folded his hands on the stacked papers on his reading-desk and gazed out of the window across the river Tay.

‘I caused a search to be made, a course,’ he said. ‘Jaikie’s a good man, a discreet man, writes a fine hand. A witty companion, though his tongue can be sharp. I’ve aye trusted him well beyond the reach o my arm. He’s a valued member of my household, Maister Cunningham, as well as being a good secretary.’

Gil nodded, aware of what was not being said. The Bishop was anxious. He was concealing it well, helped by his natural expression of round-faced good humour, but Gil lived and worked with men of law, and the small signs, the tension at the temples, the stiffness round the eyes, told him a clear tale. Seated now in the quiet study of the episcopal house in Perth, with its painted panelling, its view of the busy waterfront and the green land across the Tay in the noonday sun, he said:

‘My lord, what can you tell me about the man? Did you say his name is Stirling?’

‘Aye, James Stirling. Forty year old, I suppose, priested, an able fellow.’

‘Forty. Was he at the sang-schule at Dunblane, my lord?’

‘He was and all,’ agreed the Bishop, startled. ‘Is that aught to do wi it?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Gil. ‘But I think he was a friend of this lad that vanished thirty year since and it’s said has returned from wherever he’s been hid.’

‘Aye, aye, Perthshire’s buzzing wi the tale, though Jaikie never let on that he might have known him, that I heard. What, are you saying he’s been stolen away by the same folk?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gil said again. ‘It seems unlikely. Is he a good singer?’

‘No bad. A strong tenor, good enough for the Office and well trained at Dunblane, a course, though by something he once said his voice was finer before it broke.’

‘Whereas the two men that’s left St John’s Kirk here are right good singers,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘What more can you tell me about the man himself, sir?’

‘Tell you about him?’ A small smile crossed the Bishop’s face. ‘A good secretary. Able, as I said. I’ve offered him more than once to find him a place in Edinburgh or about the King, but he’s aye said he likes it at my side, the mix of pastoral and diplomatic appeals to him.’

‘Diplomatic,’ Gil repeated, recalling the confidence Archbishop Blacader placed in William Dunbar. ‘Was he with you during the negotiations with England?’

‘He was.’ The Bishop looked directly at Gil. ‘He was close involved. It was him and his English counterpart dealt wi some of the preliminaries, agreeing what terms the embassage would sign to.’

‘No wonder he’s been happy here, if he had that level of freedom to act.’

‘Oh, aye, he’s happy, maister,’ agreed Brown. ‘And shown himsel worthy o trust so long’s I’ve had him in my employ. Which is why it’s so –’ He stopped, and looked away.

‘Does he have enemies?’

‘We’ve all got enemies, maister,’ said the Bishop, ‘starting wi the Deil hissel. I’ve no notion that Jaikie had more than any other.’

‘Is he civil? Friendly in his bearing?’

‘He deports himself well in my presence.’

That’s no answer, Gil thought. ‘And what about his disappearance? Did you see him that day?’

‘I did.’ Brown’s gaze transferred itself to the woodland beyond the river. After a moment he went on, ‘I’d had occasion to find fault wi him.’ Gil waited. ‘He and Rob Gregor my chaplain had had a disagreement, and Jaikie referred to it a time or two through the day, in terms I felt wereny becoming to a clerk.’

‘How did he take that?’ Gil asked.

‘Well enough, I thought at the time, but a course if it angered him he’d a concealed it from me.’

‘And then?’

‘He went out into Perth to enquire about the rents, seeing it was coming near to Lammastide. I’d expected him back at my side afore Vespers, so we could deal wi the last of the day’s papers as soon as Vespers and Compline were done, and he never showed, nor came in for supper though it was late. And he never came back the next morn either. And since he was never liable to stay out, since I might ha need of him at any time, I had them send after him.’

‘And what did the search find out?’

The Bishop shook his head. ‘They tracked him away through the town, from one property to another, and then lost the scent. Then they asked at all the town ports, and the haven and all, and none had seen a clerk o his description pass through. Wat Currie my steward, that oversaw the search, says it’s as if he’s vanished into the air.’

‘Maybe I should get a word wi Maister Currie.’ Gil looked directly at the other man. ‘And yourself? What do you think has happened to him, my lord?’

‘I dinna ken,’ said Brown, his Dundee accent suddenly very broad. ‘I dinna ken, Maister Cunningham, but I fear the worst. Jaikie wouldna up and leave me for a wee scolding.’

There were footsteps in the outer chamber, and an agitated squeaking. Bishop Brown turned his head, smiling through his anxiety, as a well-built man in the decent gown of a steward entered the study, followed by a liveried servant carrying a small brown and white dog.

‘Ah! Here’s Wat the now,’ he said, holding out his arms, ‘and my wee pet. See him here, Noll. Aye, aye, he’s taken well to you. Mitchel will ha his work cut out, when he comes back fro Dunkeld, to get him to mind him.’

The dog was handed over, wriggling and yelping, and the steward dismissed the man Noll with a gesture. The animal was no more than a puppy, perhaps five months old, Gil estimated, and seemed to be some kind of little spaniel, with floppy ears, a soft coat and the beginnings of a plume on its assiduous tail. It was plainly much attached to the Bishop.

‘That’s a fine pup,’ he offered. ‘Where did you get him? Is there a breeder hereabouts?’

‘It’s a woman that settled outside the burgh,’ said the steward, smiling at the creature’s antics, ‘maybe a year since, wi a great kennel-f of dogs, and set hersel up breeding them. She’d come from Glasgow, so she said,’ he added, ‘maybe you’d ken her yoursel, Maister Cunningham.’

‘A dog-breeder?’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘From Glasgow. Would that be a woman called Doig?’

‘Aye, that’s the name,’ agreed the Bishop, still petting the dog. ‘There, now, Jerome, my wee mannie, that’s enough. Right bonnie dogs she has, sound and well-natured, so when my poor Polycarp dee’d last Februar, we negotiated for one of her first litter of spaniels, and got the wee fellow as soon as he was old enough, didn’t we no, Jerome?’ The pup yipped at him and scrambled up his breast to lick his face. Gil, recalling Socrates as a youngster, somehow doubted that this creature would have the chance to develop his good manners. ‘Well, Maister Cunningham, if that’s all I can tell you for now, I need to get on wi these papers. Away you wi Wat and he’ll let you ha the details you’re wanting.’

‘Might I ask about another thing first?’ Gil looked from one man to the other. ‘It’s another Kirk matter, though not Dunkeld’s.’

‘Ask away,’ said Brown.

‘Canon Drummond of Dunblane was here in Perth two weeks since, I’m told.’

‘Drummond,’ repeated the Bishop. ‘Oh, aye, Andrew Drummond. That’s a sad business,’ he went on, crossing himself. ‘It’s a sound lesson, Maister Cunningham, in why a clerk should have naught to do wi women. The vows apart, they’re no more than a distraction to a churchman, whether they live or whether they dee.’

Gil, familiar with this attitude, smiled politely.

‘Did he lodge here?’ he asked. Brown looked at his steward, who shook his head.

‘No, never here,’ he said firmly. ‘I’d mind o that, and so would you, my lord, for he’d be entitled to eat at your own table, and you’d never permit it. Two week syne we had,’ he paused, staring at the wall above Gil’s head for a moment, then counted off on his fingers, ‘Maister Myln that’s Rural Dean northward, two fellows from Whithorn travelling to Brechin, a party of Erschemen from Lorne –’

‘Ask at the friars, maister,’ suggested Brown. ‘He could ha lodged wi any of them, save maybe the Whitefriars, for the house there’s no fit for guests the now.’ He reached round the pup to shuffle at the papers on his desk. ‘Jaikie was to ha dealt wi getting their roof seen to, just that week. Here’s the docket,’ he said, holding it out of Jerome’s reach. ‘Aye, aye, I’ll need to get Rob Gregor to deal wi’t now, and it’ll never be done.’

‘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.