The Stolen Voice

Chapter Eleven

The Bailie of Balquhidder was seeing to his hawks, in a reprehensible leather doublet and stained hose which it was likely his lady did not know he was wearing. While he made much of a peregrine tiercel and inspected the bird’s barred feathers Gil sat on the falconer’s workbench at the end of the mews, amid the familiar smell of raw meat and bird-droppings, wax and leather, and gave him an account of his findings, first in Dunblane and then in Perth. Sir William listened carefully, and stood for some time after Gil finished, feeding the hawk with morsels of rabbit.

‘It seems to me,’ he said at length, ‘you’ve raised three separate quarries.’

‘I think so too,’ agreed Gil, ‘but one of them’s gone beyond my range.’

‘The three songmen?’ Sir William stroked the peregrine’s breast. ‘Aye, if we learn where those have got to, it’s a grace. But it does look as if Maister Secretary’s matter has naught to do wi them. Found in a tanpit, poor devil! What an end! Who is it that’s stealing voices, then? Will he take any more?’

‘I don’t know that,’ said Gil blandly, ‘but I’ve dropped a hint that I’m aware of it. I hope that might put an end to the business.’

‘Hmf,’ said Sir William. ‘And the secretary? A crossbow bolt through the neck, you said. Who shot him, have you worked that out?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gil. ‘I need to speak to Drummond’s lad, who’s here somewhere, and to this man of the Bishop’s household that was wi Stirling.’

‘Ask at Murdo for Drummond’s lad,’ said Sir William. ‘Likely he’s still about the place.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Gil. ‘Once I know how Stirling got into the tanpit I might be closer to finding out who put him there. I’ve still to give a full reckoning to Bishop Brown, and it’s possible he’ll have some news for me. They were crying a couple of questions round the town of Perth these two or three days, so I’ll go back as soon as I may. And I must go to Dunkeld.’

‘Dunkeld?’ Sir William turned to look at him, and the peregrine opened its wings and reared back, hissing at him. ‘Peace, peace, Mercury. What’s at Dunkeld?’

‘The third of the three friends is Precentor there.’

‘Hmf.’ Sir William soothed the bird, and it hunched itself indignantly. ‘Best take a couple more men wi you, in that case.’ He eased the hawk back on to its perch, transferred the leash, and moved on to another bird. ‘This is Eleanor. I gentled her myself, did I no, my bonnie girl,’ he stroked the gold-brown feathers, and Eleanor bent to nibble delicately at his finger, ‘from the egg. Why was Stirling killed, do you suppose? Is it connected wi the English treaty, or no?’

‘I’ve no notion yet. Maybe when we find who killed him we’ll find out why.’

‘Aye. Well, I suppose you’ve no had a week’s work on the business so far.’ Sir William looked down his long Stewart nose at Gil. ‘And what did you discern up at Dalriach? Did Andrew Drummond tell you anything worthwhile on the road up there?’

‘He told me a little,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘He claims Stirling made his confession to him.’ Sir William snorted. ‘I agree, it seems unlikely, but it prevents questions.’

‘Clerks!’ muttered Sir William.

‘And I found the injury that killed the boy Iain. His skull is broke.’

‘Aye, I heard about that. The bairn’s mother came raging to Patrick while we drank to the memory of the dead.’

‘I’ve no doubt of it,’ said Gil drily. He summarized what he had learned, at Dalriach and from Alys. When he had finished there was another long silence, broken by the occasional clink of a chain and ruffle of feathers.

‘Bad,’ said Sir William at last, sucking his teeth. ‘I’ve no stomach to execute a woman.’

‘And it’s not right clear yet,’ said Gil, ‘which of them it might be.’

Sir William nodded, and set Eleanor back on her perch. Having fastened her leash and tugged it to check it was secure, he led the way out into the yard, where Socrates rose and padded over to thrust his nose into Gil’s hand. ‘How much d’you need to do about secretary Stirling? How close to his killer are you?’

‘Not close enough,’ said Gil, grimacing. ‘I should return to Perth tomorrow, as I said.’

‘Hmf,’ said Sir William again. Behind him his falconer slipped into the mews to continue his work. ‘Cunningham, I’m told that information about the English treaty got where it should never ha been, and a bit more besides. Even if you think he’s been dead these two weeks, it might still have been Stirling’s doing.’

‘It could,’ agreed Gil cautiously.

‘And I’ll need to act in the other business the morn’s morn, speak to David and send up Glenbuckie for more answers. The laddie can hardly stay prisoned in the kirk while we bury the folk he’s accused of slaying, even if Andrew will conduct the burials.’

Why not? Gil wondered. ‘Sir Duncan has no more than a day or two to live,’ he said. ‘Robert and his — assistant have their hands full, but while the other fellow’s there Robert can leave Sir Duncan long enough that he could at least commit the dead, even if he’s not able to say a Mass for them.’

‘That’s true,’ said Sir William, making for the house. ‘I aye forget the boy’s clerked. My lord Montgomery plans Holy Kirk for him, when all’s over and paid for.’

Sweet St Giles, you’d as well cage the lad, thought Gil, aware yet again of the strange feeling of sympathy for a Montgomery. Does that explain his bitterness today?

Andrew Drummond’s man remembered Gil clearly.

‘And I’ve called a many blessings down on you these last days, maister,’ he said earnestly.

‘Have you, indeed?’ said Gil, closing the garden gate behind them, and opening it again to allow Socrates through.

‘Aye, many and many. See, it was after you called on him that my maister rose up out of his melancholy. I’d no notion what to do for him, the way he’d sat and stared at nothing ever since — ’ He paused, staring out across the loch in the early evening sun. ‘Ever since the second letter came from his mother,’ he reckoned finally. ‘Two weeks since, that would be, a day or two after we got back from Perth.’

‘After you got back from Perth,’ Gil repeated. ‘What state was he in before that? Just after you got back?’

‘Oh, he was eased in his mind,’ asserted Benet. ‘That was why it was sic a painful thing to see him so cast down again, for we’d ridden back from Perth much easier than we’d been on the road there. Calmer, if you take my meaning, and more able for making decisions.’

‘His stay in Perth had helped him, then,’ Gil suggested.

‘Aye.’ Benet nodded firmly, and looked about him at the low hedges and plots of bright flowers. ‘It’s a bonnie garden, this. What was it my maister said I should tell you about?’

‘About Perth.’ Gil strolled along the path towards the seat at the far end. Socrates set off to patrol the maze of box hedges, his nose to the ground. ‘Do you mind, the last day you were there, Canon Drummond spent a while talking wi someone.’

Benet nodded again.

‘I wondered at it,’ he admitted, ‘for he’d not been seeking out company, and he and this fellow never seemed like friends when they met, but they must ha spent a couple of hours walking on the meadows by the town Ditch, talking of all sorts.’

‘Who was the other man?’ Gil asked. ‘Did you learn that? Do you mind anything about him?’

‘Oh, aye. Well, his man tellt me who he was. At least, he wasny his man, he was another of the household. Fellow cried Mitchel, good company he was and all, the two of us sat down by the Ditch and had a right good crack while our maisters were talking.’

‘Mitchel,’ repeated Gil. ‘And his maister?’

‘Well, his maister was the Bishop o Dunkeld,’ explained Benet scrupulously, ‘but he was waiting on this man my own maister was talking wi, that was the Bishop’s secretary so he tellt me. Name o Stirling, he said. Tall fellow, well set up, wi his hat all ower badges.’

‘Benet, have you heard that Stirling was murdered that evening?’

He had judged his audience right. Benet’s eyes opened wide, with a gleam of pleasurable amazement.

‘You don’t say! Murdered! And my maister walking and talking wi him just that day!’

Gil nodded corroboration to this, and went on, ‘I’m charged wi finding out who killed him. So anything you can mind about the afternoon might be a help to me.’

‘The afternoon,’ repeated Benet doubtfully. ‘Murdered! But I never spoke wi him.’

‘No reason you should,’ agreed Gil. ‘But you’re a good servant, and take note of aught that affects your own maister, I’ve no doubt.’ The man made no comment, but looked gratified at this. ‘Start when the two of them met. How did that chance?’

‘Oh, we went to the dog-breeder’s yard and there he was, and they was talking over the dog-pens a wee while.’ Benet grinned. ‘I was thinking the dog-breeder wasny best pleased at that, for they were right in her way, but it seems the man Mitchel was some kind o kin, and he talked her out of her strunt and gave her a bit hand wi the tasks she had.’

‘What did you go there for?’

Benet shook his head.

‘My maister never said. I wondered at it mysel,’ he admitted, ‘for he’s no one for dogs in the house.’

‘So you never got a word with Mitchel while you were in the yard?’ Benet agreed to this. ‘What was Stirling talking to the Canon about?’

‘Dogs, mostly,’ said the man, ‘seeing they were all about them I suppose. How they get on wi one another, and the like. Training them. The fellow Stirling said how it’s amazing what a dog’ll fetch and carry if you reward it well. And that’s a true word,’ he added, ‘my uncle’s got a sheepdog, it’ll fetch him anything he names in the house and set it in his hand.’

‘And then they left.’

‘Aye, and went out on to the meadow land. I did wonder,’ said Benet, ‘if all would be well, for they marched along the track wi never a word, till they got out on to the open ground, and then they directed Mitchel and me to wait under a hazel-bush, and went off into the midst of the meadow. But they were quite civil wi one another after that.’

‘So you never heard what they spoke of,’ said Gil. Socrates, his tour of inspection completed, came and sat down by his feet. ‘It’s a good way to be private, to go out where you can see anyone else approaching.’

‘Aye, but I think they forgot about being private,’ said Benet, grinning. ‘Once they got well into their talk, they were walking back and forth and came often within earshot. No that we listened, a course,’ he said virtuously.

‘No, of course not,’ agreed Gil. ‘So what did you and Mitchel talk of? Were you there a while?’

‘Oh, aye, the best part o two hour. Beats me what they had to talk over that took as long. We’d tellt one another our lifes and run out o riddles by the time they called us.’

‘And then you went your separate ways,’ Gil prompted.

‘Aye, all in different directions, too,’ Benet said, laughing. ‘My maister sent me back to the Blackfriars, saying he’d dine in Perth, but he’d an errand that side the Ditch first. The other fellow sent Mitchel in to Perth, bade him say he’d be in to his supper but he’d stroll a while on the meadow first. So none o us went the same way.’ He held his hand out for Socrates to sniff.

‘Was the Canon to dine wi Bishop Brown?’ Gil asked casually.

‘No, no, never wi the Bishop.’ Benet pulled a face. ‘That Bishop’s ower nice to be dining wi a man that keeps a mistress, no like our Bishop at Dunblane. But to tell truth,’ he slid an embarrassed glance sideways at Gil, ‘I tellt them he would. To raise him up a wee bit, you see,’ he said earnestly, ‘for they were no best pleased wi him about his staying, and who he had wi him, and all.’

Gil nodded slowly. Parts of this fitted well; parts of it did not.

‘What can you recall about Mitchel?’ he asked. ‘Tell me what you spoke of.’

‘Why d’you want to know that?’ asked Benet warily. ‘I’d no want to get the fellow into trouble, I’ve nothing against him.’

‘No, no,’ said Gil reassuringly. ‘I’d hoped he might ha said something about Maister Stirling. Anything that would tell me what the man was doing and why he was killed. Did he mention him at all?’

‘Oh, aye, he did,’ agreed Benet, obviously turning this over in his mind. ‘Though it was only to tell me he wasny his right maister, that he mostly attended on the Bishop’s steward, that seems to be a right good maister and free wi money.’

‘He said that, did he?’

‘Aye, so I tellt him a thing or two about attending on a priest, and we’d a good laugh about some of the cantrips I’ve seen about my maister’s employ.’ Benet recalled who he was speaking to and added quickly, ‘Not at my maister, you understand, sir.’

‘Of course not.’ Gil prodded a clump of box with his foot, and Socrates leaned down to snuffle into the rustling leaves. ‘And Maister Stirling was less generous, was he?’

‘Oh, he never said that. Just that the steward was mighty free. And this man Stirling was heedful o poor folk, he said, look the way he’d sent us to sit in the shade while they talked.’

‘What were they talking about, for so long?’

‘Beats me,’ said Benet. ‘I never got more than a snatch of it. When they left us under the hazel-bush they were talking about my maister’s brother, had he heard from him, I suppose meaning this brother that’s returned from Elfhame. Are we to see him, do you suppose, sir? Is that right he’s shut up in the kirk across yonder?’ He pointed across the loch at the Kirkton, its smoke rising quietly in the sunshine.

‘He’s asked for sanctuary in the kirk,’ said Gil. ‘Of course your maister said he’d not heard, I suppose.’

‘Aye, that’s the truth,’ agreed Benet. ‘And I heard him mention his family. But I’ve no notion after that, save that they were both of them weeping at one stage.’

‘Weeping?’ Gil repeated in astonishment. ‘Sweet St Giles, whatever caused that?’

‘I’ve no notion,’ repeated the man. ‘Mitchel saw it too. The Canon’s done his share o weeping since Mistress Nan dee’d, poor lady, Our Lady bring her to Paradise, but why the other fellow — and Mitchel said he’d no idea neither.’

Gil looked out at the hills around him, without seeing them. What lay between the two men to prompt such a long, intense discussion, tears and talk of forgiveness? Andrew Drummond had taken benefit of clergy; it would not be easy to find out from him, and Stirling was not telling.

‘Did they part on good terms?’ he asked.

‘Oh, aye, the best,’ agreed Benet. ‘They embraced like brothers, so they did, and my maister showed me a siller badge the other fellow had gied him, and tellt me the tale of it and bade me stitch it to his hat first chance I had.’

‘A badge! What like was it?’ Gil demanded.

‘Oh, right strange. A lassie, a saint I suppose wi a sword, but it’s never St Catherine. It’s some strange tale about a princess out of Ireland, but her shrine’s in the Low Countries. Seems this fellow Stirling had been there.’

Gil stared at the man. That was the hat Andrew Drummond had been wearing the first time he saw him, he realized. With the missing badge stitched to its brim.

‘It’s a right shame the man being murdered,’ said Benet, looking uneasy. ‘I wish I’d a known afore we went to Dunkeld — ’

‘Dunkeld?’

‘Aye, that was what I was saying, sir, after you called on him my maister rose up and came out of his melancholy, and set out for Dunkeld that same day to speak wi the Precentor there, that he was at the sang-schule wi, and parted wi him next day on the like terms, all tears and embracing on the doorsill. And if I’d a known of Maister Stirling’s being dead,’ persisted Benet, ‘I’d a tellt Mitchel when I saw him in Dunkeld.’

By the time supper was over and they had retired to their chamber and dismissed Seonaid the day seemed to have been very long already, but neither Gil nor Alys was sleepy. Sitting on embroidered cushions, he sipped Rhenish wine from the dole-cupboard and watched her comb down her hair by the window while he described the interview with Andrew Drummond’s servant.

‘They talked about David,’ she summarized thoughtfully, the honey-coloured locks slipping through her fingers. ‘And about forgiveness, and Judas. They wept, both of them. Stirling gave Andrew the badge off his hat, and they parted on good terms, or so it seems.’

‘The woman Ross said Andrew was elevated when she saw him. It must have been something important they had out between them.’

She nodded at that, and went on plying the comb, moving her arms cautiously as if she was stiff, and gazing out at the summer twilight gathering blue over loch and hills.

‘Then that evening Stirling was shot with a crossbow and put in the tanpit. I wonder if it was a consequence of that? Who else might have put him there?’

‘More than one might have reason to, I’d have said,’ said Gil.

‘Andrew Drummond,’ said Alys. ‘The old priest. The man Mitchel. The tanner, do you think?’

‘We have to include him,’ Gil agreed, ‘though I think it unlikely.’

‘Can you think of anyone else?’

‘Mistress Doig, I suppose, though I don’t know that she could use a crossbow. It was a neat shot, right in the lethal spot at the base of the skull.’

She shivered, and crossed the room to put her comb back in its case.

‘So any of those four could have killed the man, but when? How? How did they have the chance? You told me the tanyard is in the midst of the suburb, surely there must have been people about!’

‘Nobody had come forward before I left Perth to say they had seen anything.’ Gil poured wine for her, and drew her down beside him. ‘One thing about a crossbow, it means the murderer need not have been close to Stirling when he struck.’

‘Yes, but he still had to dispose of the body.’ She sipped at her wine. ‘But why, whoever it was — what reason? And why the tanpit?’

‘It must have been convenient. Presumably he couldn’t be left wherever he was killed, and the tanpit presented a way of concealing his death, for a while at least.’

‘How long?’ she wondered. ‘If the tanner’s man had not found that badge, and so chanced to see the bubbles rising in the pit, how long before they found Stirling?’

‘Long enough for him to be unrecognizable, I would think,’ said Gil. ‘He was well on his way already. The — the skin is well preserved, but the flesh within has gone, and the weight of the skins and planks over him has — ’ She grimaced, and he left that and went on, ‘Cornton knew his clothes. Once they rotted there would be little to go on, particularly since whoever put him there took his hat away with them.’

‘Whoever put him there,’ she repeated.

‘Whoever it was,’ he agreed.

‘Consider them one by one. Why should Andrew Drummond kill James Stirling? What linked them? I suppose it might have been what they were discussing on the meadow.’

‘David,’ offered Gil. ‘The sang-schule. The past.’

‘To which we have no real access. That would mean David is a part of the tale — so the two matters are linked.’

‘They’re linked by Andrew Drummond anyway.’

‘True.’ She tipped her head back, gazing up at the panelled ceiling. ‘If Andrew slew the man, was it for guilt, or revenge, or because either he or Stirling knew too much?’

‘Any of those, I should think,’ he said ruefully. ‘If Andrew disposed of David, for instance, and Stirling finally showed him that he guessed he had done it, that might provoke Andrew into getting rid of him.’

‘And you said Stirling was prone to making jokes at people. Perhaps he made the wrong joke about it. Or if he had disposed of David himself — ’

‘I never thought of that!’

‘Or perhaps he was given a part Andrew had wanted to sing, after his accident.’

‘Ancient envy, you mean.’ Gil poured himself more wine. ‘You see, there are so many possibilities. But if it was Andrew who killed him, why now? Why not any time the last thirty years? I think if we consider that, it might tell us more. What had Stirling seen or done in his — ’

‘Or said.’

‘True, or said in his last hours that provoked someone to kill him and hide the body?’

‘Which takes us back to this conversation on the meadow again. I wish Benet had heard more. It’s obviously important. And what about the others? The old chaplain, for instance.’

‘The chaplain? He has a crossbow, so he says, but if he could hit a barn from inside it I’d be much amazed.’

‘He had quarrelled with Stirling in the morning. Did anyone see them together at the noon bite? Did they really make up their difference?’

‘I suppose even if they seemed to, he could still have wanted revenge.’

‘Could he get the body into the tanyard?’

‘Not alone, I’d have thought. He must be past sixty, and looks frail, I’d not have said he had the strength.’

‘If he practises archery,’ Alys observed, ‘he may be stronger than he appears.’

‘True. Then there’s the steward’s servant, the man that’s now in Dunkeld. I need to send Tam for him tomorrow, with a couple of men, to fetch him to Perth for me.’

‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Why is he in Dunkeld, I wonder?’

‘I wondered that too. As for why he would kill Stirling, we know no more than for any of the others, maybe less. He told Benet that Stirling was considerate. That’s no reason for murder.’

‘And the tanner. You know, Gil, the tanner would find it easiest of all of them. He could arrange to meet his landlord at the yard, shoot him there, put him in the tanpit — ’

‘But why? He seemed to have no quarrel with the man either, he said Stirling was a good landlord — ’

‘One of those sharp remarks? A sudden quarrel?’

‘I suppose it’s possible. But he also said he was at home all evening, which I must check, and we know Stirling was still alive at sunset.’

‘Do we?’ said Alys. ‘Do we?’ She turned to face him. ‘Mistress Doig recognized the hat, not the man! Gil, do you suppose — ?’

He stared at her, turning this over in his mind.

‘Sweet St Giles,’ he said. ‘That leaves it wide open, doesn’t it?’

‘How does the time work? The man in the hat went towards the town, and then Andrew Drummond was seen going away from it. Could Andrew have worn the hat?’

‘I think Mistress Doig would have recognized the Drummond hair, the way it sticks out below his hat, even at that distance.’

‘I suppose so,’ she agreed. ‘So does that mean we can strike him off the list?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘for I think there must have been more than one person involved. Getting him into the tanpit and covering him up would be done easier and quieter by two than by one.’ He thought of the planks and their nets of stones which covered the soaking hides. ‘Near impossible for one, in fact.’

‘When was he last seen?’ Alys asked. ‘Before Mistress Doig thought she recognized him, I mean.’

‘I suppose when Drummond parted from him,’ said Gil, thinking it through. ‘Benet said they all separated about the same time, and Stirling said he would stay and walk on the meadow for a while. I wonder if anyone saw him there later? Drummond, perhaps, or Mistress Ross and her friends when they went into Perth?’

‘They parted about seven o’clock, by what you said,’ Alys recalled. ‘And he was probably dead, or at least he no longer had his hat, by sunset. Perhaps two hours.’

‘But what happened?’ Gil slapped his knee in frustration. ‘Where was he killed, and who killed him? The most of Perth seems to have been at supper during that time, but surely somebody saw him?’

‘You need to ask more questions,’ said Alys seriously.

‘I do. I must speak to Andrew Drummond before I leave for Perth tomorrow, and then the other three — if Tam can fetch the man Mitchel from Dunkeld, it will help.’

She was silent for a little, while he sipped at his wine, turning the questions he must ask over in his mind. Then she said, ‘Does Andrew believe that Davie really is his brother?’

‘No. Nor do I.’

‘Nor I,’ she agreed. ‘But who is it? And who taught him? Oh — the sister has not been out of the glen for three years.’

‘She has small children, I suppose,’ Gil said.

‘I expect so. But Mistress Drummond — ’ she bit her lip. ‘When she was dying, Gil, she gave me a message for you. Tell your man, she said, Davie is truly my bairn.’

‘That’s the crux of the whole problem,’ he pointed out.

‘No, but then she said, Just as Patrick, and then she named all of her children and grandchildren and called them her bonnie bairns too, and then the two good-daugh-ters. Though not her good-son,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘And — oh!’ She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘She named the boy Iain after she named his brother and his uncle who are dead, and he was dead by then, though none of us knew it.’

‘An accident? Forgetfulness? The woman was dying, Alys.’

‘She was clear in her mind,’ she protested. ‘I think she — she would have known. The dying sometimes know things we can’t know, Gil, so close to the next world as they are. My mother — ’ She bit that off. He waited, but when she did not speak he said:

‘Drummond dreamed she summoned him home, standing in his chamber with the boy Iain at her side.’

She nodded at that, but returned to the main point: ‘I think Davie is close kin to the family.’

‘So if he’s not some bastard of her husband’s, and he hasn’t been taught by the daughter, we’re only left with one real possibility. He must be the son of David himself.’

She turned her head to look at him, held his gaze for a moment, then looked away.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It seems the most likely solution.’

‘It’s the only one I can see,’ said Gil. She nodded, still looking away. ‘Who else could he be, sweetheart?’

‘But where is David?’ she asked, not answering his question.

‘What do we know?’ Gil set down his glass, and began to count points on his fingers. ‘He — this David, if that’s his name — ’

‘He swore that he is Davie Drummond,’ she said. ‘He always calls himself Davie.’

‘Yes. Well, firstly, he was set down by a group of horsemen, the other side of the pass from Dalriach, and secondly Billy Doig was one of the party if we can believe Euan Beag. Doig certainly seems to feel responsible for Davie. But where had he come from before that? What did you think of his clothes, Alys?’

‘Not Scots made, I would say,’ she pronounced. ‘The linen was good quality, but the cut of the shirt was not the same as yours. Not French either,’ she added, ‘the sleeve-band was set on differently from the shirts my father had when we came to Glasgow. But the plaid he was wearing was certainly old Mistress Drummond’s weaving, they all recognized that, even Caterin.’

‘You mentioned something he said about where he lived. Was it about food?’

‘Oh — yes! Where he was, he said, they have no great love for kale, and they eat bread of wheat and rye. And less meat than they do here, which would not be difficult,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘Rye bread. The Low Countries,’ he said. ‘High Germany, the Baltic lands.’

She nodded. ‘The Low Countries would be nearest, and the most convenient to find a ship, wouldn’t it? So do we assume that David, the older David I mean, is there now?’

‘If he still lives, it seems likely.’ Gil moved on to another finger. ‘You know, it fits. If it was Doig enticed the singer in Dunblane away, rather than the Devil himself, it seems most likely he called away the two in Perth as well, and if he then took them to the Low Countries he could well bring young Davie back with him.’

‘I wonder if brother Andrew knew about Doig,’ said Alys.

‘He certainly knows him. He went to the yard at Perth looking for him.’

‘It’s all supposition,’ she said, ‘we’ve no firm evidence, but you’re right, it does fit. It makes a structure.’

‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Andrew said the same thing. What gain is there in pretending to be his own father? Why not just — ’

‘It might have begun as a joke,’ she said doubtfully, ‘or a game. Or even — ’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘Old Mistress Drummond told me the first thing he said to her was, Are you my grandmother?’

‘Oh!’

‘And then she said, No, it’s your own mother. So he can’t have intended the pretence when he arrived.’

‘That makes better sense,’ he said. ‘He said Euan Beag gave me my name, assumed he was David. He didn’t correct that either, but it wouldn’t be easy to disabuse Euan of an idea he’d settled his mind on, I’d think. And having let Mistress Drummond assume he was David, it could be very hard to confess that he wasn’t.’

He sat turning these conjectures over in his mind. As Alys had said, it was all supposition, there could be a separate explanation for each of the points they had considered, but placed together they did offer a coherent story.

‘I don’t imagine it was Doig who took the older David away,’ she said suddenly.

‘It might have been, you know,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve no idea how old Doig is. Past forty, I suppose, but how far is another matter.’

‘And Andrew knows him.’ She sat up straight, turning to stare at him. ‘Gil!’

‘Andrew knows him,’ he repeated. ‘Well, well.’

‘No,’ said Andrew Drummond. ‘William Murray confessed nothing to me.’

‘Or you to him?’ Gil asked carefully.

‘Nor I to him.’

‘In that case,’ Gil observed, ‘you’ll be able to tell me what you spoke about.’

‘Why would I be doing that?’ Drummond looked hard at Gil, his expression giving little away. ‘That is surely my own business and Billy’s.’

‘I think it may be mine as well,’ said Gil, ‘as Archbishop Blacader’s quaestor.’

‘Is that right?’ said Drummond.

They were standing a little aside from the great door at Stronvar, waiting for a long procession to set off for the Kirkton. Before the door horses stamped, grooms shouted, Sir William on the fore-stair bawled contradictory orders and pointed in several directions at once, but where they were it was reasonably quiet.

Drummond had arrived at the house early in search of his servant and the rest of his baggage, and was now wearing the felt hat with the silver badge on its brim, set off nicely by a gown of dark green broadcloth faced with crimson taffeta. Alys, eyeing this, had said nothing, but slipped up to their apartment and returned with Gil’s better gown, the blue brocade he had worn at their wedding, and persuaded him into it despite his protests. As he had feared, he was already much too warm.

‘Canon Drummond,’ he said, going on the attack, ‘when you were at Dunkeld did you have any words with a man of the Bishop’s household, by name of Mitchel?’

‘No,’ said Drummond blankly. ‘Who is that? Should I have spoken with him?’

‘He attended James Stirling the day you walked with him in Blackfriars Meadow.’

‘Oh,’ said Drummond, in a changed tone. Then, ‘When I was at Dunkeld, I’d no notion Jaikie Stirling was dead. I’d have no reason to speak wi the man even if I set eyes on him.’

‘True,’ agreed Gil. And how far on the road to Dunkeld was Tam by now? Was Mitchel still there? ‘So what did you speak to Murray about? A Drummond and a Murray embracing in the streets of Dunkeld? There must be a strong reason.’

‘Aye, and all the more private for that.’

Murdo the steward strode past them, feathered bonnet askew, issuing brisk instructions in Ersche. One of the ponies broke free and was pursued through the mêlée.

‘When you left Stirling on the meadow, what was he going to do?’

Drummond blinked. ‘He said he’d walk there and muse a while. We’d both a deal to think on. He sent his man, Mitchel did you call him? He sent him back into Perth.’

‘Did you see him there on the meadow later, when you went into Perth yourself?’

‘No,’ admitted Drummond. ‘I was not looking, you’ll understand, but he’s — he was a tall man, near as tall as me, he would be easy seen if he was still walking there. Not if he was sitting under a whin-bush, mind you.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ agreed Gil. Nor if he was lying under one with a crossbow bolt in his neck, he thought. ‘Returning to the point about William Murray, Canon, you realize I can easy ride to Dunkeld and get the tale from him. You might as well tell me what you spoke of.’

This did not appear to have occurred to Drummond. He scowled at an inoffensive clump of foxgloves for the space of a Gloria, and finally sighed deeply and said, ‘We spoke of the past. Of events which — we’d much to forgive one another for, maister, and it took a long evening’s talking to get to the root of it, but we found forgiveness. Is that enough to your purpose?’

‘Why now?’ Gil asked. ‘What brought the past to mind?’

Drummond gave him a goaded look.

‘My brother’s return,’ he said. ‘Is that no enough?’

‘Yesterday you said he wasn’t your brother,’ Gil objected.

‘I spent last night in talk with my brother Patrick,’ said Drummond. ‘He gave me good reasons to think that the young man is our brother David, and it was my mother’s stated belief and all. I’ll not go against that, maister.’

That feeling of wrestling with salmon came over Gil again. Unable to answer civilly, he swung away from Drummond and located Alys, standing aside with Lady Stewart watching the commotion.

‘I won’t wear this,’ he said firmly, pulling off the brocade gown and thrusting it at her in a bundle. ‘I’m by far too warm already.’

She met his eye and took the garment reluctantly, but only said, ‘Have you looked at the badge on the Canon’s hat?’

‘Not yet,’ he admitted.

‘It’s a fine one,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘I was admiring it earlier. From the Low Countries, he tells me, though I had no notion he had passed overseas on pilgrimage.’

‘What saint’s shrine is it from?’ asked Alys casually, without glancing at Gil.

‘One I’ve not heard of. A princess, with a sword and a lamp. Some Irish woman, who cures the mad, so he said. Doris, or Daphne, or something of the sort.’

So Marion Campbell reads the classical authors, thought Gil, and recalled the sheep-like Maister Gregor. It began with D, he had said. It seemed as if nobody could recall the name easily.

‘They’re mounting up,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘Best go and take your places, both of you. Give me the gown, my dear, and I’ll put it safe.’

‘I took refuge,’ said Davie Drummond, ‘because I was wrongly accused, and I was afraid.’

He was standing braced in front of the altar in the chancel of the little church, behind a row of five of the village men, who had left their work in the fields when they saw the string of riders clattering along the causeway. By the time Sir William and his entourage had dismounted and entered the kirkyard there were ten or twelve men and a handful of women round the door of the Eagleis Beag. They had been invited, with great courtesy, to leave their weapons outside; when Sir William identified Gil, Andrew Drummond and two of his own men to accompany him their numbers were scrupulously equalled. There was no doubt, Gil thought, where the sympathies of the Kirkton lay. He looked down at Alys, watching intently at his elbow, and wondered whose side the villagers had placed her on.

‘Right,’ said Sir William. He had halted at the chancel arch, his escort ranged on either side of him, facing Davie and his bodyguard. Nobody was openly hostile; everyone was alert; even in this light Davie was visibly trembling. Men seiden, I loked as a wilde steer, Gil thought. ‘Now,’ the Bailie continued, ‘I’ve spoke wi those that were present at the time, and I’ve heard what the woman that accuses you had to say.’ He did not sound as though he had enjoyed it. ‘And I’ve spoke wi your man Steenie, Maister Cunningham,’ he added formally, ‘and heard his tale and all. So now I’ll hear yours, Davie Drummond.’

‘I have no tale to tell,’ said Davie, spreading his hands. ‘I was asleep within the house, and woken by shouting of Fire! By the time I had my shirt on and tried to waken the old woman, the roof was well alight. She rose in her shift, and would dress herself, and though — though I tried to help her she — she fell down, and could not rise up again. Murdo Dubh MacGregor came into the house to help me lift her and we carried her,’ he looked down for a moment, his voice cracking, ‘we carried her out and laid her down across the yard, and after a wee while she died. And then I was helping to carry water and put the fire out, only we had no success and the Tigh-an-Teine is burned.’

‘Is that in accord wi what you saw, madam?’ Sir William turned to Alys, still very formal. She nodded, and he faced Davie again. ‘Aye, and the man Steenie says he heard you within when he hammered on the door and shouted Fire. It seems like a piece of foolishness to me,’ he stated bluntly. ‘If the thatch was lit from outside, and you were inside, it doesny seem to me you could ha set the fire.’

‘Then who did?’ demanded Andrew Drummond from Sir William’s other side. ‘Someone set the fire, and brought about my mother’s death. Who was it?’

‘Steenie never saw who it was,’ said Sir William. ‘Nor nobody else, so far as I can jalouse.’

Alys stirred beside Gil, but said nothing. He looked down at her again and saw her biting her lip anxiously.

‘I’ll agree it wasny David,’ persisted Andrew, ‘but it must ha been someone.’

The men standing in front of Davie Drummond were looking sideways at one another, in a kind of wordless communion. Finally one of them said quietly, ‘It was maybe Those Ones set the fire. There has been bad luck enough at Dalriach, so they are saying. Maybe this will be part of it.’

Sir William produced an incoherent gobbling sound, like a blackcock in spring, and finally burst out with, ‘Havers, man, how would the fairy-folk do that? I’ve never heard such nonsense!’

‘They would not be using flint and steel,’ observed one of the Stronvar men, ‘how could they set a fire without flint and steel?’

‘Maybe Sir William would not be talking of them so loud,’ said another of the Kirkton men in diffident tones, ‘even here in St Angus’ own place.’

Sir William growled, and Andrew Drummond said, ‘So we’ve still to seek for whoever set the fire. And what about this matter of the boy Iain? Patrick tells me you sang to him, Davie. Why does his mother think you killed him?’

This was not the way Gil would have wished to handle the matter. This confrontation in the shadowy kirk seemed likely to elicit nothing they had not heard already.

‘She said I killed them both,’ said Davie, his voice suddenly thin and lost. ‘She blamed me for all of it, for the fire and all that followed, and I never — ’

‘She said more than that,’ said Sir William. ‘She told me you had moved the bairn into the track of the beasts as they left the fold, so he would be trod to death.’

Davie looked down and shook his head.

‘Likely he crawled into the gateway, poor laddie,’ offered one of the Kirkton men. ‘I was hearing he could crawl a bittie, like maybe a bairn of one year old.’

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘It wasn’t the beasts killed the bairn.’ Sir William turned to glower at him. ‘I saw his body yestreen. His skull was broken, by a blow to the back of the head with a stone, which we found. And he’d been set down in the gateway of the fold, on his back, by someone going barefoot.’

There was a pause, in which several people’s eyes travelled to Davie’s bare feet, planted firmly on the tomb slab before the altar.

‘No,’ said Alys suddenly. ‘Davie had not left the yard when the beasts were let out of the fold. I’ll swear to it.’

‘Will you, madam?’ Sir William swung round to look at her closely. She nodded, and he turned back to Davie.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘All we need now is to know whether your good-sister, or whatever she is to you, will persist in accusing you of arson, for I see no purpose in charging you with the bairn’s death. Far too little to go on, we have — ’

‘Sir William!’ It was Murdo the steward, at the door of the kirk. Sir William turned to glare at the man. ‘Sir William, there is folk coming over the causeway. I am thinking it is a party from Glenbuckie, maybe the young folk all in a body.’

‘From Glenbuckie?’ said the Bailie in surprise, and a faint echo at his side seemed to be Andrew Drummond saying the same thing. ‘I’d best come out into the daylight, I suppose.’