The Stolen Voice Read online

  ‘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 t
o 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!’

  Chapter Five

  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-full 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.’