The Stolen Voice Read online

  ‘Kale,’ said Alys wryly. It was one thing she had not yet become used to in her years in Scotland, the relentless serving of the dark green, nourishing stewed leaves, so ubiquitous that kale simply meant food on many tables. Davie Drummond gave a small spurt of laughter.

  ‘They’ve no great love for it either, mistress.’

  ‘A good life, then,’ she prompted, aware of that liking again. He nodded. ‘Were you not sorry to leave it?’

  ‘I wanted to know how they did here,’ he said earnestly. ‘I wanted word of – of my brothers, and the old woman. And of the man of the house too, but it was too late for that.’ He crossed himself and muttered another phrase Alys did not catch, though it did not sound like Ersche.

  ‘Davie,’ said Murdo Dubh, handing his companion across the turf dyke, and contriving to bend his head in a brief bow to Alys as well. Socrates, recognizing an acquaintance, beat his tail in the dust a couple of times. ‘I saw Mòr nic Laran call you down from your rig. You’ll not reach the end of it before Jamie finishes his, I would say.’

  ‘Good day to you, Murdo,’ responded Davie Drummond. ‘Ciamar a tha sibh?’

  ‘The better for seeing you hale,’ said Murdo Dubh enigmatically. ‘Ailidh nic Seumas was wishing a word with the guest.’

  The oldest granddaughter was clearly a Drummond too, though her hair was a darker shade, nearer to gold, and clung to her brow under her straw hat in sweaty curls rather than a flyaway frizz; her high forehead and blue eyes made her kinship to Davie very clear. The sleeves of her checked kirtle and her shift were rolled well up past her elbows, displaying sturdy forearms scratched by her work among the harvest. Her skirt, like the girl Agnes’s, was barely knee length. She bobbed a curtsy in answer to Alys’s greeting, and smiled shyly, but whispered something in Ersche to Davie.

  ‘Mistress Mason is speaking Gaelic,’ said Murdo hastily.

  ‘Only a very little,’ said Alys equally quickly, as Ailidh Drummond blushed crimson.

  ‘I have not told her yet,’ said Davie. The girl glanced at him, her colour still high.

  ‘If you will not say it, then I will,’ she urged in a half-voice. ‘Go on, Davie. It must be said.’

  ‘What must be said?’ Alys asked. ‘What do you wish me to hear?’

  ‘I was telling them some of it last night,’ said Murdo.

  ‘Go on, Davie,’ said Ailidh again. He was silent for a moment. Then he turned to face Alys, meeting her eye.

  ‘Mistress Mason,’ he said, his accent suddenly more Scots than Ersche, ‘I ken fine, for the word came up the glen yestreen, that you and your man are here from the Archbishop to speir at whether I’m who I say.’ She stared at him, open-mouthed, aware of her face burning like Ailidh’s. ‘But it seems to me there is a more important thing to be speiring at. Since ever I cam hame, someone is trying to kill me, and whoever it is they’ve been near killing the old woman more than once. I’m feart they’ll get her.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘It’s a by-ordinar thing indeed,’ said Maister James Belchis, shuffling papers on his desk. ‘I never encountered sic a tale, never in all my time in the Law.’

  ‘Nor I,’ agreed Gil. ‘Nor anyone else that’s heard it.’

  The road to Dunblane, back through Strathyre, was the same as the one they had taken into Balquhidder, and led past a long and winding loch and through a narrow pass which Sir William’s men had taken with their hands on their sword-hilts. Nevertheless, with only three men and no baggage-animals, Gil had made better speed than yesterday, reaching the little town a couple of hours after noon. Enquiry in the cathedral precinct had led him to the chambers of Maister Belchis, who as well as practising as a notary held the office of sub-Dean.

  ‘What’s more, I’ll be glad, we’ll all be glad, if you can get at the truth of the matter,’ went on Maister Belchis. He was a small man with a strong Perthshire accent, clad in an old-fashioned belted gown of black worsted, his tonsure hidden by a frivolous red felt hat. He put another sheaf of papers on top of the stack he had made, and left the desk. ‘You’ll take a drop of refreshment, Maister Cunningham? It’s a long ride from Balquhidder.’

  ‘How did the word reach Chapter?’ Gil asked, as his colleague poured the wine the servant had fetched in earlier.

  ‘Well.’ Maister Belchis passed Gil a beaker, offered him the platter of small cakes, and sat down again with a handful of the sweetmeats for himself. ‘The first we heard of it was a message to Canon Andrew Drummond, about four week since.’

  ‘That’s the brother?’

  ‘It is. A letter to Andrew from his mother. Andrew being,’ a pause while Maister Belchis sought for a word, ‘a wee thing taigled at the time, paid no mind to it, but another letter came maybe the fortnight after it, and that he had to bring to Chapter.’

  ‘Have you read either letter?’ Gil asked. And what might taigled refer to in this context? What distractions was a Canon of the Cathedral liable to encounter?

  ‘Only the second one.’ Gil waited, and the other man ate two little cakes one after the other while he thought. ‘I suppose Andrew might tell you himself, if you talk wi him, and you need to hear the content to make sense o it all. Aye. It was writ by the parish priest’s servant, who writes a good clear hand, on behalf of Andrew Drummond’s mother. In it she declares in so many words that Andrew’s brother David has returned from Elfhame and that she wishes him to have his place in the choir again, since he still has a boy’s voice, and to attend the sang-schule. And,’ continued Maister Belchis, raising one eyebrow at Gil, ‘to this end, she promises that if Chapter accepts the laddie back, she’ll grant land with an income of twelve merks per annum, to be succentor’s mensal.’

  ‘A handsome bribe,’ said Gil. ‘Twelve merks a year to provide food to one man’s table is worth having. Does she have the means to do that?’

  ‘Oh, never a bribe, maister,’ said Belchis with irony. ‘A gift, surely. And Dougie Cossar would be glad of it, his table being ill-furnished the now. As to the means, I’d say –’ he paused, and then continued with careful discretion, ‘I had the impression Andrew thinks she can do it.’

  ‘The diocese is still short of money, then?’ said Gil. ‘I’d heard Bishop Chisholm had improved matters a bit.’

  ‘Oh, aye, he’s improved things, but we’re still a bit tight.’ Belchis sipped his wine. Gil did likewise, appreciating the light sharp flavour.

  ‘And how did Chapter react to this letter?’ he asked after a moment.

  ‘Chapter couldny agree,’ said the other man. He laughed, without humour. ‘It’s been tabled for three, no, four meetings now, and every time we end up arguing about whether it’s possible the laddie really has come back from Elfhame, or whether he still has a voice fit for the sang-schule after thirty year, or whether he was stolen or ran away, and in the second case whether we’d be within rights no to accept him back. We’ve said all that’s to be said on it, more than once, and we’re no nearer a decision.’

  Gil nodded in sympathy, and looked at the tablets on his knee. It would probably be tactless to make a note of this right now.

  ‘Where would the original records be, from when the boy first vanished?’ he asked.

  ‘Likely wi the other sang-schule records. There’s one or two of the Canons mind the matter well enough, we’ve never needed to look it up for the meetings.’

  ‘It’s the Abbot of Inchaffray is your Precentor, am I right? He’ll not be in residence. So I suppose I should talk to the succentor about that.’

  ‘Dougie Cossar.’ Belchis glanced at the sun pouring in the window beside him. ‘He keeps the sang-schule in his own manse, but the boys have a holiday the now. I couldny just say where he’d be, for he might ha one choir or another to rehearse, but you could start at the manse.’

  ‘A hardworking man,’ Gil commented, and went on, ‘And can you tell me anything about the other singer, maister? I’m told one of the quiremen vanished from here earlier in the year,’ he lifted the tablets and
referred to a leaf, though he had no need to, ‘a man called John Rattray.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. Sometime in Lent, it was, and it’s still a speak for the whole countryside.’

  Gil nodded; his note said Eve of St Patrick. Five months ago, he reflected. The trail was long since cold. Aloud he said, ‘Mid-March. Hardly the best season to go off travelling. What happened?’

  ‘The Deil kens,’ said Maister Belchis, and popped another cake into his mouth. ‘Indeed, his man tried to say,’ he went on through it, ‘it was the Deil himself had carried him off, but I put a stop to that. A good singer and a good-living man, John Rattray, and the two are no often to be found in the ane person, I’ve no doubt you’ll agree, maister.’

  ‘Very true,’ Gil said. ‘What, was there no sign at all of where he’d gone to?’

  ‘None.’ Belchis reflected briefly. ‘You’ll want to speak to the servant, I’ve no doubt, but best if I gie you the rights of it first. We’ve no enclosed street for the singers here the way you have in Glasgow, you’ll understand, they all dwell in rented chambers here and there about the town, and Rattray was lodged behind Muthill the soutar’s shop.’ He leaned towards the window and pointed. ‘That’s it yonder. His man is Muthill’s young brother and dwells wi him and his wife, two doors along from the shop.’

  ‘That’s clear enough,’ said Gil. ‘Convenient for all, I suppose.’

  ‘Aye. And one morning in Lent the brothers Muthill went down to the shop to open up, and found it lying open. Street door unlocked, though the latch was still drawn, the soutar’s shop closed up as he’d left it but the door to John’s chamber along the passage standing wide. No sign of an inbreak or any ill-doing, the laddie’s wages left on the table, John’s clothes and valuables gone but his household gear left –’

  ‘Valuables?’ Gil questioned. ‘Did he have much?’

  ‘This and that. A couple of books, a bonnie wee carved Annunciation which I’d envied him myself a time or two, a painted Baptism of Christ,’ Belchis enumerated, ‘a seal-ring, two-three jewels for a hat so his man said. That kind o thing.’

  ‘Nothing of any size,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘And I think he’s in minor orders only?’ His colleague nodded, his mouth full of cake again. ‘So it looks as if he went deliberately enough, with what he could carry easily, rather than being carried off unwillingly.’

  ‘It never occurred to me to think he was carried off,’ said Belchis in surprise, swallowing. ‘No, no, the soutar came straight to me the first thing, seeing I’m so close. I saw the chamber mysel afore the laddie had a chance to redd it up, and all was in good order. Andrew Drummond,’ he paused, pulled a face, and nodded. ‘Aye, Andrew Drummond came wi me the second time, and neither of us saw anything untoward. There was never a struggle or fight in it. I’d say you’re right there, the man took time to pack what he wanted and then just rose and went out.’

  ‘And there’s nothing to show why he went?’

  ‘Nothing. His friends, the other quiremen ye ken, were as amazed as the soutar.’

  Gil nodded, and drank down the last of his wine.

  ‘I’ll get off and speak to the succentor,’ he said. ‘Thanks for this, maister. And I can speak to the soutar and his brother, I should be able to catch the quiremen after Vespers, and then I’ll need to see when Canon Drummond can speak to me.’

  ‘Aye, well, I wish you luck at that,’ said Belchis obscurely.

  There were two or three boys of the choir-school playing football in the street as Gil approached the succentor’s manse. It was a well-built two-storey house of stone, thatched with reeds from the low-lying valley of the Forth above Stirling, but the lower part of the walls and the stair to the battered side door bore scrawls and scribbled drawings in chalk or charcoal, interspersed with the characteristic round muddy prints of the ball. Enquiring for the succentor, Gil found he was at home; he came out on to his fore-stair to greet the guest and waved at the boys, who ran off laughing and shouting fragments of Latin parody.

  ‘They mostly behave well enough while they’re in school,’ said Maister Cossar tolerantly. ‘They have to kick their heels up when they’re free. And how can I help you, maister?’

  He had been rearranging the benches in the empty schoolroom, and still had a sheaf of crumpled music under his arm. He was not a lot older than his charges, certainly younger than Gil, with a lean face and dark eyebrows, and the powerful fists and distant, listening look of an organ-player; he saw the purpose of Gil’s enquiry immediately, but shook his head.

  ‘It would be in the old records. My predecessors’ papers are mostly in the kirk, I would think, in one great kist or another.’

  ‘Nothing here?’ asked Gil hopefully.

  ‘There might be. Oh, not in here,’ he added, grinning, as Gil looked about the room. ‘The boys would have the o’s and a’s inked in and faces or worse drawn in all the white space if I left anything in reach.’ He exhibited the battered music with its crop of marginalia, and set the bundle down on his tall desk. ‘Come away ben, and we’ll take a look in the register cupboard. You never ken when you’ll be lucky.’

  The registers of the sang-schule, like any other records Gil had ever dealt with, had been kept up very unevenly by different succentors, some with meticulous accounts of each singer’s attendance and standard, some merely noting lists of names not even divided into different voices. It must be difficult, he reflected as he sorted through the dusty volumes, to hold a post where the superior was always absent and the man who did all the work got little of the credit for it. Maister Cossar was obviously one of the more careful record-keepers; he was exclaiming in disapproval as he worked backwards through the sequence.

  ‘What year did you say?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Sixtythree, was it? Register of yhe sangschuil at Dunblain yeirs 1458 to 1466. This should be it.’ He set the volume down before Gil at the window.

  ‘We’re getting dust on your table-carpet,’ Gil said.

  ‘No matter.’ Cossar flicked at the fragments of leather which fell from the edges of the binding. ‘My man Gregor will sort it. Is there anything there? It’s no a bad record,’ he added critically as Gil turned up the year he wanted. ‘There’s the laddie there, wi the trebles.’

  ‘There he is,’ agreed Gil, running a finger down the page. ‘And his brother wi the altos.’

  ‘I never knew Andrew Drummond was a singer,’ said Cossar. ‘He’s no voice to speak of now, a course.’ He tilted his head to read the column of names. ‘Aye, no a bad record. See, he’s keeping a note of which boy sang in which of the great services, so as not to strain their wee voices by making them do too much. This David Drummond sang first treble at Easter, along wi James Stirling and William, William Murray is it? I wonder if that’s any kin of old Canon Murray? And Andrew Drummond wi a big part, he must ha been good to sing Judas.’ Gil turned a page, and they both read on. ‘There’s your laddie again, first treble at Pentecost, wi the same boys, William Murray and James Stirling. You know, the succentor at Dunkeld is a William Murray,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘he’ll be about forty I’d say. I wonder could it be the same man?’

  ‘At Dunkeld,’ Gil repeated.

  ‘And the boys that sing together regularly tend to make friends wi one another. Thirty year ago I suppose a Drummond and a Murray could well ha been friends, though it’s different now since Monzievaird a course. Did this William and David sing at Yule?’

  Gil turned back the pages. Outside, across the square, a bell rang five times somewhere.

  ‘Yes, here they are,’ he said. ‘And the Stirling boy too. The Vigil of Yule. Then on St Stephen’s day, and the morrow of Holy Innocents. Alternate days, in effect.’

  ‘Good practice,’ said Cossar approvingly. ‘Lets the voices rest. Mind you, it looks,’ he ran his finger down another column, ‘as if your David was the Boy Bishop that year.’

  ‘And William Murray was his Archdeacon,’ Gil agreed. ‘I think you’re right, maister, they’ve been friends. What
happened in August, I wonder?’ He leafed forward through the book. ‘Here we are. The two of them sang at Lammas, with the Stirling boy again. Then none of the trebles is present the next week – did they all go home for the harvest?’

  ‘We give them a holiday after Lammas,’ agreed Cossar. ‘Just the week, seeing St Blane’s feast falls on August tenth. They come back fresh in time for the patronal feast. And the succentor gets a holiday and all,’ he added, smiling wryly. ‘You’re about ready for it, by then.’

  ‘I can believe that. And here in the middle of August we have your patronal feast, Vigil of Sanct Blain, Fest of Sanct Blain, and here’s the boy Murray, and James Stirling, and there’s Andrew Drummond again, but no mention of David.’

  ‘So that’s when he vanished away,’ said Cossar. He turned his attention to the other names on the page. ‘Is any more of these fellows still about the place, I wonder? Is that John Kilgour? He’s one of the quiremen yet, and chaplain of St Stephen’s altar.’ He glanced at the window. ‘Here, that was five o’clock sounded from the kirk. I must away, maister – I’ve the blowers waiting for me, I need to play through the organ part for the morn’s office hymn. Maister Belchis needs a sure lead, so I’d not want to make mistakes.’

  The shoemaker Muthill was a square, dark-haired man, who wore a pair of brassbound spectacles fastened on with a green cord round his head. The heavy hinged frames perched over the bridge of his nose gave him a strange predatory look, like a crow. He peered at Gil through them, listening to his cautious introduction, then removed them and rubbed at the marks they had left on his nose.

  ‘Aye,’ he said.

  Since this was not a wholly adequate response, Gil waited. After a moment the soutar rose from his last, set down his needles and reel of waxed thread, and put his head out at the open window beside him. ‘Walter! Walterr!’ he shouted, then sat down without looking at his visitor, replaced the spectacles and took up his work again.