The Stolen Voice

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.

As their landlord entered the yard the two Drummond men swept off their bonnets and bowed with a grace one might barely see equalled in Edinburgh. The oldest granddaughter stepped forward with a lugged bowl in her hands, to offer refreshment to the guests, and amid Sir William’s bluntly expressed sympathies and the general dismounting, Gil thought he was the only person to notice Andrew Drummond’s expression as he stared at the black ribcage of his mother’s house. He moved to the man’s side and said quietly:

‘She got out of it, man. She breathed clean air afore she died.’

Drummond nodded, without looking round, and turned away to greet his brother with a curt nod and a word in Ersche. Gil went closer to the ruin, gazing in at the doorway. The thatch, he supposed, would have burned most completely at the point where it first caught fire. If the fire had been set, presumably that would be at the eaves somewhere, within reach of the person responsible, whereas if it had begun from a spark flying up from the peat fire the higher parts of the roof would have burned first. Or would a firesetter have thrown a burning brand up on to the roof? No, Steenie had talked as if the eaves caught first. The collapsed layer of ash and bracken leaves draped over the internal structures of the house told him nothing useful, and the smell of damp ashes was overwhelming. He stepped back, and found the younger Drummond at his elbow, velvet bonnet in hand.

‘I am thinking,’ said the young man, ‘you are Maister Cunningham, that is Mistress Alys’s man.’ Gil admitted this. ‘I tell you, maister, she is our heart-friend so long as she lives for last night’s work. She and your man Steenie carried water the night long and she helped to dress burns and wash the dead.’ He turned his face away briefly, then went on, ‘Can you tell me where is — where is Davie?’ he ended in a rush, going scarlet.

‘He’s in St Angus’ Kirk,’ said Gil. Jamie sighed in relief, and crossed himself, the bright colour fading already. ‘Sir Duncan sent his clerk to say he can stay there.’

‘Then there is things we would like to tell you.’

‘My wife bade me talk to you,’ Gil said, nodding.

The dead, it seemed, were laid out in Patrick’s house, on the southern side of the yard, and the most of the visitors were there or in the yard itself. Seated by the hearth in the other longhouse, his back to the tall loom with its half-worked web of bright checks, Gil listened to Jamie’s account of the fire and the death of his grandmother while one of the younger granddaughters offered him usquebae and oatcakes, and the other watched at the door.

‘But it was the fire itself killed her,’ he said as the tale ended, ‘not a direct injury?’

‘That is so,’ agreed Jamie. ‘The cailleach had no injury, thanks be to Mary mild and Angus.’ Gil waited. ‘My cousin Iain,’ Jamie said at last. ‘He is dead, poor laddie, when the beasts ran over him out of the fold.’ He pointed, out and across the yard, at the lower end of the other house. ‘He was a changeling, poor bairn, he neither walked nor spoke, it’s a mystery how he got there when his mother says she was putting him safe by the wall away from the flames.’

‘Could he crawl?’ Gil asked.

‘He might have crawled so far,’ admitted the prettier of the girls.

‘What are his injuries?’

‘Dreadful to see,’ said the other girl, who seemed a little younger. ‘There is bruises all over him, and a great gash here,’ she drew a hand across below her ribs, ‘and not a mark on his face. I was there when they washed him.’ Her cousin made a small distressed sound, and she put her arm round her, murmuring in Ersche.

‘Do you know where he was found?’ Gil asked.

‘It was his mother picked him up,’ said Jamie, ‘and bore him up into the yard. Will I be asking her?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gil. ‘May I see him? I’d want to look close.’

‘Aye, you would,’ said Jamie darkly.

The younger girl left her cousin and slipped out, to return in a moment saying, ‘There is nobody there just now but Ailidh. If the gentleman were to be quick it would be good.’

Across the busy yard with its subdued conversations, the other house was similar in size and shape to the weaver’s, as if the two had been built at the same time, but it was furnished differently, and the chill smell of death overlaid that of the dried plants hung in the roof and the brews in the row of dyepots by the wall. Directly before the door Mistress Drummond was laid out in her shroud on several planks set across two barrels; at the foot of the makeshift bier stood a cradle, draped in clean linen, with the dead child reposing in it as if he slept. The oldest granddaughter was kneeling by his head, her beads in her hand, but her lips were still, her eyes distant. She looked up as they entered. The two younger girls stayed outside.

‘Maister Cunningham wishes to see the harm that came to the boy,’ said Jamie quietly.

‘Harm enough,’ said the girl, rising. She bobbed to Gil, and bent to draw back the linen. ‘But it was only the beasts, surely? No blame to them, poor creatures, they were terrified. Or else the — Those Ones, that took him home again. No blame in either case.’

‘No blame,’ agreed Gil, kneeling in his turn.

‘Then why must you be disturbing him?’

Why indeed? Gil wondered. ‘Because,’ he said, feeling carefully along the spindly limbs, ‘Davie Drummond is accused of this death as well as the fire, and — ’

‘Och, her!’ said Ailidh. Her brother spoke sharply in Ersche, and she made an equally sharp retort and went on in Scots, ‘She was outside herself, with the fire and my grandmother’s death already, and then Iain, the poor soul. No need to pay her any mind, surely?’

‘I think Sir William will want to ask questions,’ said Gil absently. The wound on the belly might have caused the child’s death, but none of the others seemed severe enough. He touched the little pale face gently, ran his palm behind the curve of the head, fingers pressing gently at the scalp under the pale frizz of hair, and stopped.

‘What is it?’ demanded Jamie. ‘What have you found?’

‘Jamie!’ said one of the girls urgently from the yard.

‘I think,’ Gil began, ‘his skull — ’

‘What are you doing?’ demanded a shrill voice in the doorway. ‘Leave my boy alone, whoever you are, have you no notion of respect for the dead? Under his own roof, at that?’

Gil and Jamie tried to speak at once, both stopped to let the other continue, and Caterin took full advantage of the hesitation and stormed into the house, pulling at her nephew’s arm, haranguing him in Ersche. Gil might not understand the words, but her meaning was clear. He apologized, drew the linen back over the small corpse and withdrew in good order to the yard, where several of the neighbours were coming to see what the trouble was, exclaiming and shaking their heads with shocked murmurs as Caterin explained in a rising torrent of Ersche. The two younger girls had vanished.

‘Ailidh is right,’ said Jamie in some embarrassment, drawing Gil down the slope from the door. ‘She is outside herself still. What had you found? Is his skull broke?’

‘I think so,’ said Gil. ‘Skull and scalp both, I believe, though I’d want longer to make certain of it.’

‘Will I get my uncle to make her allow it?’

‘Show me the fold and the gate first.’

The fold below the byre, at the lower end of the longhouse, was a substantial walled structure of field stones, with a hurdle gate standing open, the bar which would hold it in place lying at the wall’s foot. The enclosure was trampled and spattered with animal dung, as was the gateway. The younger girls had taken refuge down here, out of sight from the door of the house.

Gil studied the area carefully. Now he had seen the corpse it was not hard to pick out the place where the child’s body had lain, the imprint of thin shoulders and legs, the marks of his mother’s bare feet where she had bent to lift him.

‘Who penned the beasts last night?’ he asked. The cousins looked at one another.

‘My father, it would be,’ said the pretty girl.

‘Does he go shod?’

‘Brogainn,’ said Jamie, ‘like mine.’ He held out one foot in its soft deerskin shoe, laced up his ankle with scarlet braid.

‘Only his is laced with leather,’ said the plainer girl.

‘Husha, Nannie! Why do you ask it, maister?’

Gil bent to look closer at the prints which interested him.

‘See this,’ he said, pointing. ‘There is a bare foot there, and another, and the cattle have gone over the top of it. Someone was down by this gate before the beasts were let out.’

‘Maybe it was whoever left them out,’ suggested the girl addressed as Nannie. That must be Agnes, Gil, recalled, and her cousin must be Elizabeth, sister of the dead boy.

‘No, for that was old Tormod,’ said Jamie. ‘I called to him, and he went — aye, here is his print.’ He bent to a spot by the wooden bar at the wall’s foot. ‘See, maister, he goes shod, but his feet is twisted with the joint-ill, his track is easy known.’

‘We was all down here,’ said Agnes. ‘We came down to find buckets and the like, for the water.’

‘Not here,’ said the other girl. ‘We went that way, to the stackyard and the burn beyond it. No need to go by the wall here.’

‘Someone did,’ said Jamie. He returned to stare down at the marks Gil had pointed out, then at the prints close by the marks of the body, where the boy’s mother had lifted him. His mouth tightened.

‘But there was no need,’ objected Elizabeth again. ‘Why come by here, into the shadows, when the stackyard is yonder, and the path lit up bright as day by the — the flames from the house — ’ Her face crumpled again, and she turned away. Jamie, who had wandered off along the wall, looked up and spoke to his sister in Ersche. As Ailidh had done, she argued in the same language, but led her cousin off towards the house where they had sat before. Jamie watched them out of sight, and said quietly to Gil:

‘See this, maister.’

‘What have you found?’ Gil went to his side, and found him looking at one of the dark grey field stones.

‘That is skin,’ said Jamie. He lifted the stone, and turned it to the light. It was small in his big hand, but big enough for its purpose. It might have fallen off the top of the dyke, though if so it was not lying immediately below its place of origin, for the grass where it had lain was green rather than white. On one ragged corner of the stone something was clinging. ‘Skin, a little blood, white hair.’

‘Likely one of the beasts hurted itself on the stones,’ said another voice. Gil turned, and found the other daughter-in-law, the widowed Mòr, standing by the corner of the fold watching them. ‘Jamie, what are you doing down here, upsetting your cousin, poor lass?’

‘Is any of the beasts lame?’ Jamie challenged her. She shrugged, and moved forward with an uneven step. ‘Mammy, it’s not the hair of a beast. Look here — it’s as fine as any of ours, and curls the way Iain’s does.’

‘Or yours, or your sisters’.’

‘My sisters and I do not have a broken head. Is this what broke Iain’s skull, do you think, Maister Cunningham?’

‘Yes,’ said Gil deliberately. ‘I think it could be.’

‘Is the bairn’s skull broke?’ said Mòr with a show of indifference. ‘That would be when Those Ones were taking him back. Leave it, Jamie, we’ll not be meddling with their business.’

‘Mammy, look!’ Jamie held it out to her, pointing out the stains along its sharp edge. She took it in her hand, turned it over, looking impassively at the marks, and suddenly sent it spinning off into the rough ground between them and the nearest of the cottages. Jamie exclaimed, but she repeated, with emphasis, ‘No need to be meddling in that. Maister Cunningham, Sir William is asking for you, and my good-brother Patrick would be glad of a word before you are leaving.’

‘That will be a speak for the whole of Balquhidder,’ said Gil’s guide chattily. ‘The more so if the Tigh-an-Teine has burned after all, and the cailleach dead in the flames, and the changeling stolen away back under the hill in exchange for Davie Drummond. Is it the kirk we’re for just now, so you can be seeing young Davie again, or no?’

‘No, I’ll speak with him later,’ Gil said. He stepped on to the bridge and whistled to the dog. ‘I’m for the priest’s house. I could do with a word with Sir Duncan, if he’s equal to it, and certainly with young Robert.’

‘I was hearing Sir Duncan is good today,’ offered the guide. He was a stocky, fair-haired fellow with a broad, open, guileless face. Murdo had referred to him as Alasdair nan Clach, whatever that might mean. ‘He has good days and bad days, you understand. It’s no more than you’d be expecting, the age he is.’

‘I understand,’ agreed Gil. ‘What age is he?’

Alasdair nan Clach shrugged.

‘Maybe ninety?’ he said. ‘Maybe one hundred? Old as these hills, you would say.’

Discounting this, Gil strode on up the slope from the river, past the watchful haymakers and quietly ripening oats. A bite to eat, a word with Steenie, and the assurance of Lady Stewart and the girl Seonaid that Alys was unhurt and was now asleep had helped a lot, but he was still slightly shaky with relief, and his head was whirling with the information he had gathered this noontime. He would infinitely rather have stayed to talk it through with Alys when she woke, and hear the full tale of her adventures in Glenbuckie, but if his suspicions were correct he had already put off more time than he should before making this visit. He hoped his third quarry might not realize yet that he was pursued.

He passed the circle of tall stones, where Socrates pricked his ears at the children playing among them, and turned along the little path to the priest’s snug stone house, aware of eyes on his back from the other cottages of the Kirkton. Rattling at the tirling-pin, he pushed the door wider without waiting for an answer, saying, ‘Robert? Are you within?’

There was a startled movement, a deep-voiced exclamation. Not Robert Montgomery’s voice, not the priest’s. Socrates pricked his ears again, then rushed forward, his tail wagging wildly. Gil stepped after him under the lintel.

‘Maister Doig,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you here.’

The place was sparsely furnished, and smelled of damp earth and illness. A three-legged stool and a great chair of solid local work stood by the hearth in the centre of the house, where a pot simmered on the peats. There was a bench against the wall by the door; beyond the fire a mealkist stood on top of a bigger, painted kist, and two books and a silver crucifix were propped on a shelf. In the partition between the lodging of human and animal yawned two dark shut-beds, and there Socrates had rolled on to his back, yammering like a pup and waving his paws before a squat bulky shape, no higher than an ell-stick, which stood beside one of them.

‘I’ll no say the same o you, Maister Cunningham,’ returned the deep voice, and the outline changed as if the short figure bent, extending a big hand to rub the dog’s narrow ribcage. ‘What brings you and your dog to the Kirkton? You’re no here to distress the auld yin, I hope?’

‘I’ve no intention of distressing him,’ said Gil. ‘How is he? I’d hoped for a word.’

‘He’s asleep for now. Maybe once he wakes he’ll be up to talking.’ The dark shape moved forward into the light from the door, and became the figure Gil remembered, like someone from his nurse’s tales: short legs, broad shoulders, powerful hairy arms, a big head. Unlike his wife William Doig presented a much sprucer persona than the last time they had met, clad as he was in a red velvet jerkin and blue hose, the sleeves of his good linen shirt rolled back. Socrates scrambled to his feet and followed Doig, head level with his, nosing at the angle of his neck, tail wagging again. There was no doubt he remembered him.

‘You’ve given up the dog breeding?’ Gil asked. Doig shrugged, a seismic movement of the broad shoulders, and flung an arm round the wolfhound’s neck.

‘Herself has care of the dogs for now. She’s a good eye for it. I miss it,’ he admitted.

‘Leaves you free for other business,’ suggested Gil. Doig eyed him resentfully, much as his wife had done in Perth, but said nothing. ‘I’ve a thing or two to ask you as well. Shall we sit out at the door, no to disturb Sir Duncan?’

‘No,’ said Doig bluntly. ‘We’ll sit here. I’m no welcome in the Kirkton, I’ll no remind them I’m here, if it’s all one to you.’ He hoisted himself on to the bench next the wall, glowering through the open door at Alasdair nan Clach who was quite openly making the horns against the evil eye at the sight of him. ‘Ask if you must,’ he said grudgingly, patting Socrates, whose chin was on his knees.

Gil sat down beside him and thought briefly.

‘When were you last in Dunblane?’ he asked. Doig’s head snapped round; whatever questions he had been expecting, it was not this one.

‘Dunblane? Never been near the place,’ he returned, almost automatically.

‘That won’t do,’ said Gil, allowing amusement to show. ‘You were seen at John Rattray’s window.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Where did you take him to?’ Gil countered. ‘I’m guessing it was nowhere in Scotland, or we’d ha heard of him, seeing how word gets about. The Low Countries? France?’

‘I’ve no notion what you’re talking about,’ said Doig steadfastly. The dog looked from one man to the other, and wagged his tail uneasily.

‘Rattray’s servant took you for the Deil himsel, with your wings down your back.’

Doig’s wide mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

‘But you know Canon Drummond,’ Gil stated. ‘Andrew Drummond of Dunblane.’

‘Do I?’ said Doig. ‘No that I can think of.’

‘That’s a pity, for he speaks well of you,’ said Gil mendaciously.

‘Beats me where he gets the knowledge.’

‘And then in Perth,’ Gil went on. The sturdy figure beside him seemed to brace itself. ‘The two brothers from St John’s Kirk.’

‘Oh, them,’ said Doig, and then, ‘What two brothers?’

‘So that’s three tenors, is it?’ Gil said, still deliberately inaccurate. ‘Men their choirs can ill spare, seeing how scarce good tenors are. Who is it that’s collecting singers?’

‘It’s quite a puzzle,’ agreed Doig.

‘And are you shifting words as well as voices? Information about the English treaty, maybe — ’ Had Doig’s expression flickered at that? ‘- or letters from the great and good of the Low Countries?’

‘How would the likes of me be acquaint wi sic folk?’ parried Doig.

‘How long have you been here with Robert?’

The small man blinked at the change of direction, but shrugged again and said, ‘Too long for him and me both.’

‘Why not leave, then?’

‘I can lend him a hand about the place.’

‘And Montgomery hasny sent word for you to move on,’ Gil suggested. This got him a sharp look from the dark eyes, but still no answer. ‘Does he know you’re working for someone overseas as well?’

‘Ask all you want,’ said Doig, his deep voice even. ‘I never said I’d gie you answers.’

‘No,’ agreed Gil, ‘but it tells me near as much when you don’t answer.’

There was a short silence while Doig considered this. Then he wriggled off the bench.

‘I’ve more to do than sit here listening to you,’ he said, straightening his jerkin. Gil grinned at him.

‘I’d agree. You’ve been seen about here,’ he said. ‘There’s talk of the bodach over at Gartnafueran, and up in Glenbuckie. You fairly get about, Maister Doig.’

‘Where’s Gartnafueran?’ asked Doig. ‘Never been near the place.’

‘So you’ve been in Glenbuckie, then? Did you go there to check on young Davie Drummond? I know you set him down the other side of the pass, to climb over into the top of the glen. I suppose you went up from here to make sure he got safe to Dalriach. You were seen the same day he came home.’

Doig glowered, and crossed the room, watched carefully by the dog, to peer up into the open box-bed. After a moment Gil heard him speaking quietly, in a much gentler tone. Shortly he turned, to say sourly, ‘Sir Duncan’s awake, and glad of a wee bit company. But you’re no to tire him.’

The priest of Balquhidder was very old, and it was clear that Robert was right and he was very near death, lying bonelessly in the shut-bed, the flesh on his face almost transparent. But his eyes were alert in the dim light from the doorway, and his speech was clear, though faint. He gave Gil a blessing, raising his hand briefly from the checked coverlet, and said slowly, ‘William tells me you’ve a question, my son.’

‘I have, sir.’ Gil fetched the stool from the hearth and sat down, to bring his head nearer the old man’s. ‘And forgive me for disturbing you when you’ve better matters to think on.’

‘I’ve done all my thinking,’ said Sir Duncan in his thread of a voice. ‘Ask.’

‘I wondered what you’d recall of the time when young David Drummond vanished away. Do you mind that?’

‘A course I mind that.’ There was humour in the faint voice. ‘I’ve no notion what day this is, but I mind that well. All the women in the glen grat for the boy. Well liked, he was.’

‘I thought you would. He went away up Glenbuckie, didn’t he?’

‘He did. And down the other side of the pass, so Euan nan Tobar said. I spoke with Euan the year after, at the fair here. He told me how he saw the boy borne away.’

‘Did you credit that?’

‘Euan’s a simple soul. He doesny lie. He doesny aye understand what he sees.’

Gil nodded. ‘And can you mind, sir, had there been strangers in the glen afore that happened?’

The fleshless mouth drew into an O of surprise at the question.

‘Strangers, now.’ The old man fell silent, considering this. ‘I don’t recall. I need to consider of that one, my son. We don’t see so many strangers, you’ll ken. Just William here and yourself since Robert came to me. And now Davie,’ the thin voice added. ‘The dear child.’

‘No hurry,’ said Gil, but Sir Duncan looked at him with those bright eyes. Even in this light, it was hard to meet the direct gaze; the old man seemed already to see the world from a different standpoint.

‘Not true, my son,’ he said. ‘You need an answer, and I’ve little time, praise to Mary mild and Angus, before I go to what waits me.’ Gil thought he smiled in the dim light. ‘Away and let me think. I’ll send William to you if I mind anything.’

‘My thanks, Sir Duncan.’ Gil slipped from the stool to kneel before the old priest. The hand rose from the coverlet and dropped back again, and the faint voice said:

‘You’ll see those bairns right, my son?’

‘Bairns?’ Gil looked up, and found that blazing, direct gaze on him. ‘Davie, you mean, sir?’

‘Or whoever he is. And Robert, poor lad.’

Gil nodded. ‘I’ll see them both safe if I can. I swear it.’

Accompanying him to the door, Maister Doig divulged with reluctance that Robert Montgomery was gone over to the kirk again to see about this matter of the claim of sanctuary.

‘He’s been gone a good while,’ he said irritably, having admitted it, and patted Socrates, who was trying to lick his ear. ‘Get away, you daft dog.’

‘You know that’s Davie Drummond in the kirk? You can give him his scrip back now,’ said Gil. Doig stared up at him, face studiously blank. ‘Maister Doig, do you know anything about the accidents up at Dalriach?’

‘Accidents?’ said Doig, his dark eyebrows drawing together. ‘No. I hope none’s been hurt?’ His concern sounded genuine.

‘Wee things to begin wi,’ said Gil. ‘A ladder, a pitchfork, a needle in the wool. Things a bodach might do.’

‘Who are they aimed at?’

‘Who knows?’ said Gil. ‘Other than the body that’s causing them. But it turned serious last night. The farmhouse is burned out, and two dead.’

‘Is that — ’ said Doig, and broke off. Nobody seems capable of finishing a sentence today, thought Gil in irritation. ‘Who died? No young Davie, I take it, if that’s who’s in the kirk.’

‘No. The old woman, and the changeling boy.’

‘A changeling,’ said Doig flatly. ‘Is this another one? I thought it was Davie was the changeling, or was returned by the Good Neighbours, or something.’

‘Maybe you should talk to Davie about that.’

Doig grunted, and opened the door wider. ‘If you see Robert, tell him he needs to fetch water. The house is about dry.’

Alasdair nan Clach unfolded himself from the opposite bank where he had been squatting and followed Gil towards the little kirk in its round walled kirkyard, saying, ‘That’s an ill sign, a bodach like that to be dwelling in Sir Duncan’s own house. It will be carrying him off one night, for certain, and him such a good man.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Gil asked.

The man shrugged. ‘That is its nature. Mary and Michael and Angus protect him, but when the bodach is dwelling in his own house they will find it hard.’

Gil decided to ignore this. Reaching the kirk, aware once more of eyes on his back and cautious movement among the houses, he pushed open the door, more gently than he had done earlier, and stepped in, removing his hat and identifying himself aloud.

The two youngsters were seated with their heads together, side by side on the same flat stone before the altar where Davie Drummond had been kneeling earlier. As the light from the door reached them, Robert Montgomery sprang up.

‘What are you after, Cunningham?’ he demanded, standing warily in front of his companion. At Gil’s knee the dog growled faintly, head down, hackles up, his stance remarkably like Robert’s.

‘A word with your friend here,’ Gil said, making his way to the chancel arch. ‘I’m no threat to him,’ he added directly, ‘as I told him this morning.’ He dropped his hat on the earthen floor and sat down on it; after a moment Robert sat down likewise, saying:

‘I’m surprised they’re not down from Glenbuckie already, wi swords drawn and roaring for Davie’s blood. They’re wild folk here, Cunningham. Sir Duncan’s told me some orra tales.’

‘So did my father,’ said Davie, and bit his lip.

Gil opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and changed his mind. He was not quite ready for that one. Instead he put an arm across his dog, who had also sat down and was leaning against him, and said, ‘Sir William bade me tell you he’ll be here to speak wi you the morn’s morn.’

‘I’ll not be from home,’ said Davie wryly. ‘But I’d be glad if Mistress Alys was present and all.’

‘My wife?’ said Gil, startled. ‘I’ll tell her that.’

‘Maister, were you up Glenbuckie just now?’ Davie went on. ‘What — Are they all hale? Is Caterin still crying out against me?’

‘She is,’ admitted Gil, ‘but the rest of them are hale enough. The lassies seemed sore afflicted by the two deaths, which I suppose is natural. The place was overrun wi neighbours and guests, but I had a word with James Drummond the younger, and a sight of the two corps.’

‘What would that tell you that you hadny heard already?’ demanded Robert. ‘Better, surely, to find whoever set light to the thatch!’

‘It’s all part of the same tale,’ said Davie.

‘The boy Iain’s skull was broken,’ Gil said. ‘Deliberately, I’d say.’

Davie drew a shivering breath, and bent his head into his hands. Robert reached out and touched his wrist, and after a moment he straightened up, turned his hand to grip Robert’s, and said painfully, ‘I feared it. The poor laddie. He was so — he had so much pleasure of my singing, of any music he was hearing, but he was such a burden on his mother, to be fed and kept clean and amused. When she carried him into the yard, all bruised and bloody, I feared it was no accident.’

‘Who broke it for him?’ asked Robert.

‘That I don’t know yet, though I suspect,’ said Gil. ‘And I don’t suppose anyone would notice who was down by the end of the fold, between the dark and the flames and the commotion in the yard.’

Davie shook his head. ‘They were bringing water up from the stackyard that way. Everyone on the clachan was past there at some point in the night.’

‘That’s no good,’ said Robert, ‘a helpless bairn to be struck down like that. Who would do sic a thing?’

‘Young James’s mother was quite clear it was the fairies,’ said Gil. ‘She ordered him not to meddle in their business.’

Robert snorted. ‘That’s one explanation, I suppose.’

‘It would be one the folk of Dalriach would accept,’ said Davie slowly.

‘Aye, but it’s nonsense,’ objected Robert. ‘You’d think we were in a ballad or an old tale, to hear it!’

‘Sooner that than accuse one of their own,’ said Davie, and shivered.

And of course, Gil thought, to some of them you are not one of their own. But who?

‘Who do you think killed the boy?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Davie said firmly. ‘And I’ve no more reason to suspect any than you have, and maybe less. His — no, his mother loved him beyond reason!’

Gil paused a moment, arranging his thoughts.

‘Tell me, Davie.’ The young man turned his face towards him. In the dim light he seemed to brace himself. ‘Had there been any word before now from Dunblane? From Canon Drummond?’

‘From Andrew? None that I ken,’ said Davie. ‘I know the cailleach sent to him, twice so your wife told me, sir, and Robert has let me know now what she sent. But there’s been no answer yet that I’ve heard. Maybe that was what brought him home today.’

‘You’d be the last to know,’ said Robert rather bitterly.

‘No,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘he’s told me he came home in haste because his mother summoned him, this morning in the dawn.’

‘Och, that’s havers!’ said Robert.

‘No,’ said Davie quietly. ‘I’m believing him. It’s what brought myself, a month since.’

‘Is it, now?’ said Gil. Davie’s chin came up, but he said nothing. ‘Were they concerned, up at Dalriach, about having no answer?’

‘I’d not say so. Andrew was never one for sending home every week, even as a boy.’ The voice was light, confident, but not wholly convincing.

‘Let alone coming home for the Lammastide holiday,’ Gil suggested. There was a pregnant pause. ‘Had he come home in other years, before you were lifted away?’

After another pause Davie said, ‘I don’t recall. Is that not strange?’

‘It was thirty year syne,’ Robert protested, looking from one to the other. ‘At least — ’

‘Not for Davie,’ said Gil. ‘How long has it been, Davie?’

Pale in the shadows, Davie shrugged one linen-clad shoulder.

‘Who can say? Time passes differently under the hill. Andrew was aye glad to get away from Dalriach,’ he added. ‘He never felt he had what was due to him there.’ Gil made a questioning noise. ‘Och, with there being two brothers older, he was never hearkened to, for all he was a clerk and could read the Psalter.’

‘That’s how it is,’ muttered Robert, ‘whatever your place in the family.’ Davie broke the clasp of their hands and laid his own rather diffidently on the other young man’s shoulder, and Robert looked sideways and nodded brief acknowledgement.

‘And last month,’ said Gil. Both faces turned to him. ‘When you were set down at the foot of the path over the hill did you see anyone?’

‘I did,’ he answered readily. ‘A poor misshapen wretch from Stronyre township they cry Euan Beag nan Tobar. Wee Euan of the Well,’ he translated for Robert, who nodded again rather impatiently. ‘He spoke to me, gave me my name. It seems he — saw me taken up, all those years since. We talked about my friends Billy Murray and Jaikie Stirling, and he gave me news of Billy, who was born at Stronyre. He’d no knowledge of Jaikie, and I never expected it.’

‘Jaikie Stirling’s dead,’ said Gil, more abruptly than he had intended.

‘Dead? I’m grieved to hear it. When? What came to him?’

‘Two weeks since,’ said Gil. ‘I’m seeking his murderer.’

‘Murdered,’ Davie repeated in a whisper, and crossed himself. ‘And since I came — the poor man. Poor Jaikie.’ He bent his head, murmuring the same prayer for the dead as Rob the chaplain had used in the Bishop’s garden.

‘Stirling?’ said Robert. ‘Is that — ?’ He broke off, and after a moment Gil said:

‘He was secretary to Bishop Brown.’

‘Oh, at Dunkeld,’ said Robert dismissively.

‘He died in Perth.’

Robert crossed himself, muttered a perfunctory prayer, and said with determination, ‘If you’ve naught more to ask us, Cunningham, we should get on and make that loft fit to dwell in. Davie won’t want to leave the kirk, and it’s over a year since we moved Sir Duncan into his house out of here, it’s likely damp and full of cobwebs.’

‘And I was to tell you,’ said Gil, ‘that the house is near dry. Doig said you should fetch in water.’

At his feet Davie Drummond jerked as if he had been stabbed. Robert said sharply, ‘You’ve spoken wi Doig? What was he saying?’

‘Nothing,’ said Gil. ‘Quite determinedly, nothing. But as I told him, it’s near as useful when he won’t speak as when he does.’

‘Aye,’ said Robert sourly. ‘My uncle tellt me no to get into conversation wi you.’

‘Did he really?’ said Alys in amusement, turning her head against his shoulder. ‘I’d have thought he would see what he was giving away.’

‘I suppose he didn’t consider it,’ Gil said lazily. ‘He seemed mostly concerned about young Drummond.’

They were lying against the pillows within the linen-hung bed in their chamber, close and reassuring. He had returned from the Kirkton to be informed by Lady Stewart that Alys still needed to rest and directed to make sure she did so. Rest was not what either of them needed most, but he had accepted the order with pleasure. Now, sated and comfortable, each certain the other was safe and hale, they were discussing what they had learned.

‘So he reports to Lord Montgomery, and gets word back,’ she said now, still speaking French. ‘And that since we got here. I suppose Lady Stewart corresponds with her cousin.’

‘It’s the likeliest route,’ he agreed. ‘And Davie knew Doig’s name. He also confirmed meeting Euan nan Tobar, poor creature, and seems to be making friends with Robert. Myself, I’d as soon befriend an adder on a rock, but I suppose the lad has his merits.’

‘You’re hardly impartial.’ She rubbed her cheek on his bare chest. ‘We must take care how we speak of this — Lady Stewart could be involved in whatever Robert is doing. And do you suppose she and Sir William know Doig is here?’

‘I don’t know that, but they’re well aware of him in the village. I wish you had been in Perth with me — I’ve missed talking things over like this. I missed you.’

‘And I have missed you. What brought you back here so prompt, Gil?’

‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘I woke before the dawn, and knew you needed me. We set out as soon as it was light. Not as vivid a summons as Andrew Drummond’s, but one I couldn’t ignore.’

‘I did need you,’ she said wonderingly, ‘and just at that time. I was so frightened, and the fire — and the old woman dying like that — and then the boy — it was such a night, Gil.’

‘It’s over, and you are safe, St Giles be thanked.’ He kissed the crown of her head. Her hair was silky under his lips; it smelled of an unfamiliar hairwash and, faintly, of smoke. ‘I owe him several candles.’

‘But how did you know? You were so far away — forty miles, Lady Stewart said.’

‘I don’t think the distance matters. Tell me about it again, sweetheart.’

She recounted the events of the night, shivering a little as she described the two deaths, steadfastly repeating the wild accusations the dead boy’s mother had flung at Davie Drummond.

‘The woman was in much the same state when she found me examining the boy,’ he said. ‘That wild flyting is very hard to withstand. But I suppose if they believed her, they’d have been down here before now burning the thatch off the kirk to get him out.’

‘I don’t think the family did. Believe her, I mean. Davie took fright, for that or — or some other reason, and ran.’ She was winding her fingers through the hairs on his chest. ‘But you found the boy’s skull was broken. Could that be what killed him? I thought none of the other injuries was mortal, or not instantly perhaps, but his mother insisted only she would wash his head, I could not examine it.’

‘I think the blow on the head and the damage from the beasts would be enough together, and I think he was deliberately set where I found the imprint of his body. He was certainly murdered by someone, poor little fellow, but the other daughter-in-law, Mòr is it? would hear nothing of the idea. She is fixed on the notion that the fairy folk have taken him back.’

‘Lady Stewart thought Sir William would question them all.’

‘He did,’ Gil said, recalling Sir William’s baffled expression as he crossed the yard to meet him, ‘but he got no more than we have between us, and less in some ways.’

‘She thought also Caterin might accuse Davie again when they all come down for the burial.’

‘Mm,’ he said. They lay in silence for a while; Gil was thinking deeply, and eventually realized from her level breathing that Alys had fallen asleep. He looked down at her face, feeling the familiar sensation as if some giant fist squeezed his entrails at the sight of her relaxed and secure in his embrace.

There were things he must do. Easing his arm reluctantly from under her shoulders he drew the covers up round her, slid off the bed and reached for his shirt. Sir William must be somewhere about the place.