The Stolen Voice

Chapter Fourteen

Alys, standing with the Drummond girls on the rough grass of the preaching-field, gazed round her at the people of Sir Duncan’s parish. They were still gathering, the stragglers from the far end of the glen, the last few people from Glenbuckie still hurrying over the causeway. They carried crosses, scraps of linen inscribed with ill-spelled prayers, rosaries, anything to protect the sanctity of the occasion. The old man was drowsing now, lying on his bed of sheepskins at the centre of the bowl of ground, but Robert was still tolling that strange sweet bell, and the people watched in a silence broken by the occasional sob, a child’s question, a hushed adult answer.

‘Sir Duncan is much loved,’ Alys said quietly to Ailidh Drummond.

‘There is not many can recall the man that was before him,’ said Ailidh, equally quietly.

As the last parishioners reached the field, Robert silenced the bell. Sir Duncan opened his eyes. A murmur ran through the gathering, and he raised one hand and delivered a blessing in Latin. Daughter of a master-builder, Alys recognized how it was some trick of the shape of the ground that made his thread of a voice audible to all. People bent their heads, crossed themselves, said Amen with that strange Ersche twist to the word. The old priest surveyed them, and began to speak, very slowly, in Ersche.

He spoke for near a quarter of an hour, Alys estimated. After a while, as his voice failed, the aged clerk began to repeat each sentence aloud for him. She had long since lost the thread by then, though the words she recognized told her it was a sermon about love, about duty, about redemption. Instead she watched the people, who were listening to every syllable, many with tears on their cheeks. Most were in the dress of the Highlands, the men in their belted shirts and huge plaids, the women in loose checked gowns, their smaller plaids drawn over their heads; the upper servants from Stronvar and Gartnafueran were conspicuous in their Lowland livery. Next to Alys, Ailidh Drummond gazed intently, chewing a forefinger; Murdo Dubh had appeared beyond her and the younger girls were gathered close. She looked the other way, and found a man in a long homespun gown and faded plaid standing beside her, right at the edge of the crowd, leaning on a long crook and watching the faces in the same way that she was. He was oddly made, tall and broad-shouldered with a small head and greying red hair.

He turned to look at her. She had a momentary impression of a bony face, of an unnaturally high forehead (or was he bald? or shaved?) before she was swamped by a sea-green stare which seemed to look right into her soul. Without having to think about it, she curtsied.

‘Davie needs you, daughter,’ he said.

‘Me?’ she said, startled. ‘Where is he?’

‘Yonder.’ He nodded towards the priest’s house. ‘Go now, daughter. This is nearly done.’

Hurrying up the path towards the stone house, she could hear the voices. They were so intent on their discussion that she reached the door unnoticed.

‘I can’t go yet, Billy. There’s things to sort out. I’ll not leave without telling them — ’

‘I have to go now, you wee daftheid! If yon Cunning-ham’s got so far, he’ll have jaloused the rest by Vespers, I need to be out of sight for a bit.’

‘Then go, and I’ll meet you in Perth, or Leith, or somewhere — ’

‘Aye, and how will you get to Leith on your own? I’d never look your faither in the ee again if I — ’

Alys rattled at the pin and the argument was cut off. She stepped into the house, to find Davie Drummond standing by the glowing peats on the hearth, facing an indignant Doig who scowled at him across the width of the house.

‘My husband has left Balquhidder already, Maister Doig,’ she said politely. ‘Does that affect your decision?’

‘Spoke to you and all, has he?’ Doig snorted, and turned away, opening one of the kists against the far wall. ‘Robert has the rights o’t. Best no to get into conversation wi thon one.’

‘Mistress Alys,’ said Davie. ‘What — I thought you — ’

‘I was told you needed me,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said, puzzled. ‘I sent no word. Will you — will you have a seat?’

She took the stool he offered, and looked from one to the other of them.

‘It’s good to see you, Maister Doig,’ she said. ‘The wolfhound is doing well.’

‘I seen the brute,’ said Doig, delving in the kist. ‘Heard it was you he wedded,’ he added. ‘I’ll wish you good fortune, mistress.’

‘Thank you, maister,’ she replied composedly, hoping he referred to Gil and to Socrates separately. ‘Are you just leaving Balquhidder? Do you have a horse?’ A dwarf from the cyte of Camelot, on horsbak as moche as he myght, she thought, relishing the image. This forceful man could equal any of Malory’s characters.

‘I’ll manage, thanks,’ said Doig, without looking round.

‘Will you have — will you have some refreshment?’ Davie offered. ‘Ale, or buttermilk, or the like?’

Drinking the buttermilk, enjoying its sharp flavour, she studied Davie and said, ‘You’re right, there are things that must be said before you leave.’ Bright colour washed up over Davie’s face. ‘How many of them know?’

‘Know what?’

‘What you have to tell them.’ Two could play at this game. ‘Now Mistress Drummond is gone, there is no need to pretend further.’

Davie looked down at the glow of the peats, and nodded reluctantly.

‘Maister Cunningham bade me talk to you,’ he admitted. ‘He has the rights of it, it was my father that was stolen away thirty year since. I never meant — it was one thing Euan Beag taking me for my father, poor soul, but then the cailleach did the same, and I was so amazed I didn’t contradict her, and then — ’

‘It would be hard to explain,’ Alys agreed, ‘and it would get harder.’

‘Every time I spoke!’

‘And it was Maister Doig fetched you here.’

‘No such thing,’ said Doig sharply. Davie shook his head, apparently to contradict this denial.

‘Billy here was one of the company that lifted my father away, and saw him to the Low Countries.’ Doig growled at this and went on stuffing a scrip. ‘He came back a few year syne to see how my father got on.’

‘I cam back,’ corrected Doig, ‘when yir Dimpnakerk burnt down, and found yir faither high in the choir, chapel-maister or whatever they cry it, and him widowed.’

‘Never one to miss an opportunity, is Billy,’ commented Davie. ‘We’re building a fine new Dimpnakerk, and there’ll be a fine new choir to sing in it.’

‘And you already have three of the voices,’ said Alys, understanding.

‘And more,’ said Doig. ‘Scots singers are weel thought on, but they’re no the only ones.’ He looked round the house, and crossed with his rolling gait to fetch a pair of heelless shoes from the shadows under one bed. ‘Right, that’s me. I’ll just need to wait for Robert, I’ll not go without a word to him.’

‘But Sir Duncan — ’ objected Davie.

‘The two o you can sit up wi him, and see you behave yoursels. He’ll no last the night, particular after this.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the preaching-field.

‘Dimpnakerk,’ Alys repeated. ‘That is the shrine to St Dymphna, am I right? And she heals mad people?’

‘The folk o Gheel heal the mad people,’ corrected Doig.

‘With St Dymphna’s help,’ said Davie.

‘They take them into their own homes,’ Doig said to Alys, ‘and treat them like family. More than I’d do, for no kin — ’

‘Billy, we are all kin! We’re all God’s children, and Our Lady is our mother!’

‘Hush,’ said Alys. ‘What’s that?’

‘Is that him away?’ said Doig, listening.

There were only a few voices at first, singing in Ersche. Then gradually more joined them, some above the note, some below it, rising in the song Alys had heard before, the song for the departing soul. More and more voices, high and low, swooped through the summer noon, till the melody seemed to be braided out of shining ribbons of sound, slow and heartbreaking.

‘Lead this soul on your arm, o Christ,’ Davie translated softly, ‘o king of the Kingdom of Heaven. Since it was you that bought this soul, have its peace in your keeping. May Michael, high king of the angels, prepare the path before the soul.’

‘That was what you sang for your grandmother,’ Alys said. He nodded, his eyes glittering in the glow from the peat fire.

‘They’re coming back,’ said Doig from the door. ‘I doubt he’s no deid yet, the way they’re carrying him.’

‘Mistress Alys,’ said Davie, in a sudden rush. ‘Would you — will you — if Billy’s leaving, will you come back and watch wi Robert and me?’

When she returned some hours later, the house was surrounded. Still clutching their talismans, linen and crosses and rosaries, against the dangers of the night, Sir Duncan’s people watched with him, a steady murmur of prayers drifting into the darkening air. Leaving her escort by the little kirk Alys approached through the velvety summer twilight and they made way for her, but she felt like an intruder, a stranger in the house of the dying. As she and Lady Stewart had suspected there was no need of a third person under Sir Duncan’s roof; there was a group of people at the door, waiting to take their turn within the house, and Robert and Davie had been relegated to the bench at the gable of the house.

‘Martainn clerk is with him just now. I’d be just as glad if you stayed, mistress,’ said Davie, when she commented.

‘Robert?’ she asked.

‘You might as well,’ he said in his ungracious way.

‘Doig got away, did he?’

‘He did,’ said Robert. ‘Thanks to your man that he had to go.’

‘We went into all that, Robert,’ said Davie. The two were dark shapes against the stonework of the gable, still glowing faintly in the green remnants of the sunset. They seemed to be sitting shoulder to shoulder, as if for comfort. She sat down at Davie’s other side.

‘He’s in no pain,’ said Robert after a moment. ‘That’s a grace. My grandsire — Aye, well.’ Davie moved; Alys thought he put a hand over Robert’s. ‘And he’s been confessed, your — your uncle saw to that, and shrived him and all. But it’s taking him so long!’

‘It’s a long road,’ said Davie. ‘A long road, and a hard one.’

‘Tell me about Gheel,’ said Alys softly.

After a moment Davie began to describe the town, so vividly she could almost see it, its narrow streets and squares, the tall white kirk growing in its midst with the striped tower beside it, and the poor creatures with their injured minds walking about where they were treated with love and respect rather than being taunted and tormented.

‘It’s all some of them need,’ he said, ‘to be treated like ordinary folk, but a lot of them need physicking as well, and there are aye some that are too wild to live out at first, they’re tended in the hospital. They go home cured, or they die, or they stay wi us for ever. As St Dymphna chooses.’

‘I’d like to do that,’ said Robert after a thoughtful silence.

‘What, cure the mad?’

‘Look after the mad,’ Robert corrected. ‘It’s a service. I could do it.’

‘You could,’ said Davie, considering it in a way that told Alys he knew why Robert was here. ‘It would be a — yes, you could!’ he exclaimed.

Would Robert’s uncle permit it, Alys wondered.

‘No ropes round the neck?’ he was asking. ‘No chains?’

The two voices murmured on in the shadows. Alys leaned back against the house wall, listening carefully, but she was still very weary and after a time she lost the thread of their conversation.

A sharp movement woke her. She sat up straight, closing her mouth, and discovered that it was full dark, they sat under a field of stars, and her companions were silent, though the hum of prayers still surrounded the house, like bees in clover. Then she became aware of tension beside her, of someone — Davie? — taut as a bowstring and breathing fast, of Robert suddenly sitting at the further end of the bench. What had happened?

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered someone, almost inaudible. Had there been a sound before the movement? A tiny sound, like a kiss?

The house door opened, shedding lamplight which gleamed on weary faces and prayerful hands in front of it, but cast the three of them into shadow here at the gable. A tall figure strode round the corner, broad shoulders black against the stars, stick in hand.

‘It is near ended, my son,’ said a voice. The same voice that had spoken to Alys in the preaching-field, the red-haired man’s voice. ‘Go within now, it is your turn. You have earned the right.’

Robert stood up, hesitated as if he looked back at Davie, or Alys, or the red-haired man; then he moved obediently towards the house door. Beside Alys Davie rose, and she — heard him trying to calm his breathing.

‘Will I go too?’

‘No. Your duty together is not yet.’ The dark shape moved, as if to set a hand on his forehead. ‘The calumny is avenged, for the woman was swearing falsely, but there is things you must be setting right and all, Davie Drummond.’

‘I ken that,’ said Davie.

‘The blessing of Angus be upon you,’ said the man. ‘And upon you, my daughter.’

‘Amen,’ Alys said. Something touched her bent head, lightly. When she looked up the tall figure had gone, though it was too dark to move swiftly.

There was a sudden outbreak of wailing at the house door, and within Robert’s voice rose in Latin. The prayer for the dead.

‘They’ll regret waiting this long,’ observed Sir William.

‘It’s no more than three days,’ said his lady.

‘Aye, but in this heat?’

Alys kept silent. She was not entirely sure whether she should be present at Mistress Drummond’s burying, but she had been determined to attend.

She had already taken a liking to her hostess, but the heroism with which Lady Stewart had refrained from questioning her until she was ready to talk had won her deep respect. They had spent the whole of yesterday afternoon in the solar discussing the events in Glenbuckie and in the Kirkton. The Bailie’s wife had taken a pragmatic attitude to the death of the child Iain.

‘He was an innocent. He’d likely go straight into Our Lady’s arms, for I ken he was baptised, so he’s in a better place and his people are better without him and all.’

‘But surely — ’ Alys had protested. The older woman looked pityingly at her across her needlework.

‘Out here, the way they work the land, they’re never more than one bad summer away from famine. It’s a thought to feed a bairn that willny work for you in its turn.’

She heard her own voice, talking to Gil. I may not know about country life, but I have lived in towns all my days. Quite so, she thought.

‘So it was the Good Neighbours,’ she said aloud.

‘It was. And Dalriach might as well blame the fire on them and all, if it stops Caterin making trouble for young David. What do you think of that matter now? Sìne tells me he has spent the day in the loft in the kirk and won’t come down.’

‘I think the Good Neighbours may take Davie back soon as well.’

‘Do you now?’ Lady Stewart’s needle was arrested again. ‘Even though Patrick has accepted him?’

‘Maybe because Patrick has accepted him.’

So now she stood near the edge of the circular kirkyard, too hot in her best black velvet headdress with the gold wire braid and a great black cloak borrowed from her hostess, and watched while Andrew Drummond, in the vestments out of the kist in the priest’s house, committed his mother and his nephew to the earth. He was dry-eyed, his harsh voice giving nothing away; round him the men of the family in their best clothes watched solemnly, Jamie Beag and Patrick, Davie with Murdo Dubh beside him. The other men of Dalriach were present, a stranger in plaid and feathered bonnet who must be the son-in-law, and a few men of the Kirkton still in their working shirts, but none of the folk from the glen, and no women at all apart from herself and Lady Stewart, not even the boy’s mother.

‘They’ll bury Sir Duncan tomorrow,’ said Lady Stewart. Alys nodded; that much she could understand. St Angus’ fair had been postponed till after the priest’s burial; the entire parish would wish to see Sir Duncan to his grave and be at the fair as well, and three days in a row away from the harvest was too much.

Robert was present in the kirkyard too. He had acted as Andrew’s clerk for the Mass. Watching him now, Alys recognized that he had placed himself where he need not see Davie Drummond, though every so often he could not help looking for him. Davie, on the other hand, was conspicuously not looking at Robert.

‘I’m glad to see Robert about,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘Sìne says he never crossed the threshold of Sir Duncan’s house yesterday, either, I feared he was going to fall into melancholy. He’s done well by the old man, poor laddie. It’s been a hard road for him.’

Alys nodded again, thinking of the moments before Sir Duncan died, and then of Lady Stewart’s reply when she had asked about the red-haired man.

‘Red hair?’ she had said. ‘No, I don’t think so. Most of our people are dark, except the MacGregors, and he doesn’t sound like any MacGregor I can think of. And if Sìne’s right he was up at Dalriach and all,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘He was going bald. His hair was back behind his ears.’ Alys demonstrated the retracted hairline.

‘What was his accent? Ersche or Scots?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alys said in dawning disbelief. ‘He just spoke to me. That’s strange, I can usually tell the difference.’

The mourners were tossing clods of earth into the grave. Sir William stirred, and muttered a prayer, then strode forward to say something appropriate and accept the invitation to ride back to Dalriach. Lady Stewart crossed herself and said:

‘That’s over, then. It’ll no be the same in Glenbuckie without her.’

‘I suppose Mòr will take her place,’ said Alys deliberately.

‘It will hardly be Caterin,’ said the other woman. Alys nodded. The whole of Balquhidder was buzzing with the news the ubiquitous Sìne had brought her mistress yesterday, of how, while the young Drummonds were down at the Eagleis Beag in the twilight, watching the deathbed with the rest of Sir Duncan’s parish, a tall, broad-shouldered stranger had walked into Dalriach, summoned Caterin from her house out into the yard, and spoken to her sternly. Curiously, nobody had got a close sight of the man, and there were many different versions of what he had said, overheard from one corner or another. Caterin herself was no help; she had not uttered a word since, and seemed unable to make any sound at all except, so Sìne reported, a wordless singing of one of the hymns to St Angus.

‘I’d best visit her, I suppose,’ continued Lady Stewart. ‘What is it, Murdo?’

Murdo Dubh replaced his feathered bonnet in order to take it off to them both.

‘The Drummonds are wondering,’ he said obliquely, ‘if Mistress Alys could be sparing them a little longer of her time. In the kirk, if you would be able.’

She looked at him, and then eastward, to where the road out of the glen lifted to the Beannachd Angus stone. Three horsemen — only three? — had halted by the stone. She glanced at Lady Stewart, who nodded slightly.

‘I’d be honoured,’ she said. Who were the riders? she wondered as she picked her way past the open grave. Who was missing? One of them had not uncovered his head, surely that one was Gil?

The interior of the kirk was dark after the sunshine, and full of Drummond men standing about awkwardly in silence. She followed Murdo in, and Andrew’s harsh voice said, ‘I thought this was a family matter.’

‘Mistress Alys is a good friend to the family,’ said Patrick, which did not strike Alys as an adequate answer. Andrew appeared to think the same way, for he snorted and flung away into the chancel where he began extinguishing candles.

‘I wished her here,’ said Davie. Behind Alys the door was still swinging ponderously shut. The daylight flickered as if a branch stirred across the opening. ‘I have a thing to say to you all,’ he went on, swallowing hard.

‘I am thinking we mostly know it,’ said Patrick after a moment.

‘What, that I’m not — ’

‘I never thought it,’ said the brother-in-law, ‘nor herself neither.’

‘That you are not our brother David.’ Alys’s eyes were becoming used to the gloom, and she saw the glance Patrick cast at Andrew, who was still moving about in the chancel.

‘David is my father,’ said Davie.

‘We thought that must be it. Is he well?’

‘He has the joint-ill, but otherwise he’s well. He sends you his greetings.’

The conversation seemed quite unreal. Alys stood watching, gauging the reactions of the men present. Patrick was solemn; Jamie was still stiff and embarrassed; Murdo was puzzled. Davie was braced like a crossbow.

‘Why?’ asked Patrick.

‘Why did I deceive you?’ There was a break in the voice, as if Davie would weep on little more provocation. ‘I never planned to, I swear it. But the cailleach took me for — and then how could I — ’

‘Och, no, that’s a wee thing,’ said Patrick. ‘It gave her such pleasure to think you had come home, it’s easy enough forgiven. But why did you come?’

‘My father dreamed,’ Davie swallowed. ‘He dreamed of the house in flames. Three times he dreamed it, and he was wishing to come home and — and warn you all, or see what had come to you — but he had so much to do, and he — he sent me instead.’

‘But then the — the Good Folk set fire to the Tigh-an-Teine,’ said Jamie slowly, ‘only because you were here.’

There was a long, long pause. Then Davie Drummond slowly tipped his head back and howled, one deafening syllable of denial. Alys jumped forward and seized him by the arms, and Murdo Dubh grabbed his shoulders.

‘No! It canny be!’ he wailed, struggling with them.

Alys tightened her grip, breast to breast, and said, ‘Davie! All falls out as God wills! The guilt is not yours, it’s — ’ She checked, swallowed her words and concentrated on holding Davie. After a moment he was still, head bent, saying:

‘And she was so good to me, so loving, and first I deceived her and then I slew her — ’

‘No,’ said Andrew. ‘You caused someone else to do something that led to her death.’

‘I betrayed her.’

‘She named you as one of her bairns, as she lay dying,’ said Alys. ‘And your father as well,’ she realized.

‘David.’ Andrew stepped forward, reached past Alys, tilted Davie’s head up to look in his eyes. ‘Even Judas will find forgiveness. The guilt is not yours.’

Alys looked over Davie’s shoulder towards the door. Gil was standing there, as she had been certain. Their eyes met, and he nodded. He had seen the parallel.

‘Judas is not in it,’ said Murdo Dubh, letting go his grasp of Davie’s shoulders. Davie immediately gave at the knees and slid downwards through Alys’s grasp, to collapse in heartbroken sobs on the earthen floor.

‘I killed her. It’s my fault!’

‘Come, come, laddie,’ said Patrick stiffly, beginning to be embarrassed. ‘There is none of us is blaming you for it, and no need to be carrying on like this at the age you are.’

He paused, and his brother said in his harsh voice, ‘We don’t know what age he is, Patrick, but I agree he is too old for weeping like a lassie. Get up, David.’

‘Davie.’ Alys knelt beside the sobbing figure. ‘Davie, there is still something you have to tell us, isn’t there?’

‘Is he not telling us enough?’ asked Murdo Dubh. In the corner of her eye Alys was aware that Andrew had lit the candles in the chancel again. No, surely Andrew was standing beside Patrick? She moved so that the light fell on Davie Drummond’s face. Beside Patrick, Jamie Beag had stepped back, turning away from the group as if he knew what would come next.

‘Davie?’ she prompted. The sobs ceased, briefly, and then completely. Davie looked at her warily in the light.

‘What do I have to tell you?’

She sat back on her heels, still holding one wet hand.

‘What is Davie short for?’

There was another long pause.

‘Surely,’ said Murdo, ‘it’s only short for David?’ Alys shook her head. ‘Though he ought to have been called James like his grandfather,’ Murdo added with disapproval.

‘Should you, Davie?’ Alys rubbed her thumb gently on the back of the hand she held. ‘Should you have been called for your grandfather?’

Davie used the other wrist to scrub at wet eyes, and whispered, ‘No.’

‘Don’t be daft, laddie,’ said Patrick. ‘Who else should you ha been called for? If not your grandfather, then your father, that’s proper enough.’

Davie laughed unsteadily.

‘No, uncle. I was called for my mother.’

‘For your mother?’ repeated Andrew incredulously. ‘Your mother?’ And then, with sudden comprehension, ‘What was her name, then? Was she Dymphna?’

‘Nearly.’ Davie sat back, still gripping Alys’s hand. ‘She was from Ireland, she had the Irish form of the name. Demhna. I was aye called Davie — Devi — to make a difference.’

‘Devna,’ repeated Andrew.

And no wonder, thought Alys, you could swear your name was Davie Drummond. She glanced over to the door, and saw that Gil was still watching, as fascinated by the scene as she was herself.

‘Demhna,’ said Patrick slowly, and unbelted his great plaid. He shook it out, and held it to his niece. ‘Cover yourself, lassie,’ he said gently. ‘I can see that you would travel safer dressed as a laddie, but it’s not decent now.’

There was a movement in the chancel, and Robert Montgomery came slowly forward into the nave, as if pulled, with the candle-snuffer still in his hand. He stopped on the edge of the group, staring at the kneeling figure in its midst.

‘Are you saying,’ he asked, in a tone between hope and amazement, ‘are you saying Davie Drummond is a lassie?’

There was a taut silence, in which Davie looked up and met Robert’s eye.

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

‘Well,’ said Robert, ‘Our Lord be thanked for that.’ The candle-snuffer fell to the floor, and he strode forward into the group and pulled Davie briskly to her feet, gathering up the plaid in his other hand. ‘Cover yourself, as you’re bid,’ he said, swinging the heavy folds round her, ‘and then tell me how we’re to get to the Low Countries. I’ll want to speak to your father.’

The Drummond men looked at each other, open-mouthed, and then at Davie and Robert, still and handfast in their midst, staring at the light blazing in one another’s eyes. Alys, trying not to laugh, slipped out of the circle and went to Gil.

‘Have you found who killed James Stirling?’ she asked.

‘I have,’ he said, sounding pleased with himself.

‘Good. And here I think,’ she said with equal satisfaction, ‘we’ve answered all my lord Blacader’s questions, and some more besides.’

‘Our Lady preserve me from Hugh Montgomery’s wrath,’ said Lady Stewart, putting her feet up on a low stool. ‘He’ll no be pleased at this.’

‘The boy’s near seventeen,’ said Gil, after taking a moment to work it out. As was Alys when we were betrothed, he realized. ‘He’ll certainly believe he’s old enough to make his own decisions.’

‘I was,’ said Alys, ‘and I was right.’ He tightened his arm about her shoulders, and they smiled at one another.

‘Aye, but lassies are different,’ said Lady Stewart.

‘I don’t see why,’ said Sir William. ‘Would you let your stepdaughters choose a husband, Marion? But never mind that,’ he added hastily, perhaps detecting an argument he might lose. ‘Let’s have the reckoning from Perth, Cunningham. What was going on? Was Andrew Drummond in it?’

‘Only by accident.’ Gil frowned, arranging his thoughts. ‘He was deep in the family’s own matter, and that was linked to the Bishop’s matter.’

‘Go on, and stop speaking in riddles.’ Sir William sat back in his great chair.

‘It was Andrew Drummond that got David stolen away thirty years ago. I suppose a boy’s jealousy was what drove him, and he was repaid for it, because someone arranged an accident for him. It went wrong, and he lost his voice, and might have lost his life. I think,’ he said cautiously, ‘he blamed one of the cathedral servants for it, and the man died soon after.’

‘Ailidh said he was always jealous,’ Alys remarked.

‘So did David — this David. Davie. Now, what began things this time was when Doig stole away the singer from Dunblane in March. Drummond recognized what happened, asked about, and when he was next in Perth he went to challenge Doig with it. He met James Stirling, who was close friends with David when they were boys. Stirling had heard of Davie’s return, and challenged Drummond about his disappearance, speaking very elliptically.’

Lady Stewart was watching him carefully; Sir William was frowning.

‘They went out on to the meadow and talked,’ he continued, ‘and it seems they made confession to each other. I think they both had a lot to forgive. But that’s the end of Andrew Drummond’s involvement in Stirling’s death, for he went into Perth, met Doig and talked wi him, and then spent the evening on his knees in St John’s Kirk.’

‘Ah.’ Sir William sat back again. ‘I’m glad to hear he’s out of it.’

‘So was it the tanner killed Maister Secretary?’ asked Lady Stewart.

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘It was Bishop Brown’s steward. He was the spy in the household. A good steward can learn more about his maister’s business than the maister himself, and he had the contact with Doig to get the information overseas. I think James Stirling had recognized who was responsible, and he made a serious mistake when he found out.’

‘He let the man know he knew,’ said Alys, nodding.

‘He gave it away,’ Gil agreed, ‘for the sake of one of his jokes. He had to be killed before he told the Bishop. So when the steward learned from his own servant that Stirling was alone and outside Perth, he sent a message to decoy him to the dog-yard, found a place to hide and killed him with his crossbow, and hurried back to the house to serve out the Bishop’s supper, which was a little late that evening. He left his servant to dispose of the body, and hid the bow itself in Stirling’s own kist. The tan-yard was handy, and Doig saw a way in, so that was where the body went.’

‘But if he was known to be a good shot,’ said Alys, ‘why did he hide the bow?’

‘I suppose he must have panicked.’ Gil shook his head. ‘There are loose ends, I don’t expect we’ll ever know exactly what Drummond and Stirling discussed, though I can make a guess, I don’t know if the Dunblane cathedral servant fell to his death by accident, and I don’t know who killed the man Mitchel though I assume Currie had paid them to attack our men. I’m right sorry about Donal’s injury,’ he added to Sir William. ‘The Blackfriars’ Infirmarer thinks he’ll do well enough, if it doesny fester.’

‘I wonder how old the lassie is?’ remarked Lady Stewart, who had clearly stopped attending to Gil. ‘And should we make them wed afore they set out?’

‘That really would anger my lord Montgomery,’ said Alys.

‘No, Marion,’ said Sir William firmly. ‘The laddie, or lassie, or whatever she is, is none of our mind. Let the Drummonds see to her, and if Robert leaves the glen on the same day she does, there’s no need to tell your kinsman the boy wasny alone.’

It was several days more before Gil and Alys left the glen in their turn. It had been good to go hunting or laze in the sunshine after the week of hard work and hard riding it had taken him to untangle the death of James Stirling, but Gil was aware that Archbishop Blacader would prefer a report delivered in person rather than the written account he had sent by one of the Stronvar men. When Tam and Ned arrived from Perth with a good account of Donal’s progress, and Lady Stewart declared Steenie well enough to travel, they set out, on a morning full of sunshine and wisps of small white cloud.

Their hosts accompanied them on horseback as far as the Beannachd Aonghais. Crossing the causeway to the Kirkton, Sir William remarked to Gil, ‘You said your wife was a surprising creature.’ Gil, with a slight effort, recalled the occasion and nodded. ‘I’d put it stronger than that, man. I’d say she was byous by-ordinar, the most unusual lassie I’ve met. You’re a lucky man, Maister Cunningham.’

‘I know that, sir,’ Gil assured him.

The byous by-ordinar lassie, his periwinkle of prowess, had turned her horse at the far end of the bridge, and called to him, her face shadowed under her straw riding-hat.

‘Gil, I would like to go into the kirk here before we leave.’

‘A good thought,’ he agreed.

They left the rest of the party at the crossroads, and walked up to the little kirk. Alys paused at the door, looking out at the loch.

‘Davie once said to me,’ she said, ‘that her father, I suppose she meant David, called this a place where you are close to the kingdom of the angels. I can see why.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Gil said, looking where she did, at the still reflections and the smoke rising up from the nearby houses.

‘Not just that,’ she said. ‘It feels — it feels as if — one might almost see — ’

‘That too,’ he agreed. She flashed him one of her quick smiles, and pushed open the heavy door.

He spent a little while on his knees, ordering his thoughts about the two puzzles they had unravelled, asking for justice and mercy for all who had done wrong. He felt it unlikely that the King’s Justiciars would be able to combine the two virtues for Wat Currie, but something of the sort had been achieved in Dalriach, it seemed.

A sudden flare of light distracted him. Rising and looking about him, he found Alys had moved into the chancel, a place usually forbidden to women unless they held a brush or a duster, and must have lit one of the altar candles. When he followed her there, she was standing before the altar, holding the candle in its pewter candlestick, staring down at her feet. He came to stand beside her, and she nodded at the floor.

‘The stone,’ she said, ‘St Angus’ stone. I think he must be under it.’

‘Very likely,’ agreed Gil, taking the candle from her. ‘Shall we go out now? It’s a long ride to Stirling.’

‘Yes, we should go,’ said Alys, still looking at the stone. She bent, tracing the outline chiselled in the sandstone. ‘It isn’t local stone. Do you suppose it’s a portrait of St Angus?’

‘Tomb slabs usually are, aren’t they?’ Gil took hold of her elbow, drawing her away. ‘Mind you, his head must have been on the small side.’

‘Yes,’ she said, studying the outline again, the long robe and broad shoulders, the hands cradling the chalice. ‘Yes, let’s go. It will be good to go home.’