The Stolen Voice

Chapter Three

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘That’s the brother?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Nothing here?’ asked Gil hopefully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘At Dunkeld,’ Gil repeated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Aye,’ he said.

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

Gil continued to wait. In a few moments, the sound of running feet heralded a much younger man, very like the soutar in appearance though without the spectacles.

‘Is it my maister?’ he demanded as he burst into the shop. Seeing Gil he stopped abruptly, and his shoulders sagged. ‘No,’ he answered himself, and then warily, ducking his head in a rudimentary bow, ‘You haveny brought news of him, have you?’

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I’m trying to find out what might have happened to him. Can you help?’

The brothers looked at one another, and the soutar nodded.

‘You help the man, Walter,’ he directed.

‘Can I see his chamber,’ Gil asked, ‘or is it let again?’

‘Oh, aye, it’s let,’ said Walter with a resentful look at his brother. ‘He’d no see it lie beyond the month.’

‘He’s out,’ said the soutar, biting his thread with notched teeth. ‘No harm in looking, if you don’t go poking about. Show the man, Walter.’

Walter obediently led Gil into the flagged passage which led from street to yard, and along to the next door. This he opened cautiously, peered round it, then flung it wide and stood back for Gil to look. The chamber within was much the size of the workshop, furnished with a low bed, a kist, a bench and table and a couple of stools. Its present occupant’s plaid was flung over the bed, some worn liturgical garments were heaped on the bench, and there was music, a pen-case and some ruled sheets of paper on the table.

‘It’s let to another quireman,’ Gil said. The boy looked at him in amazement.

‘Aye, it is,’ he agreed. ‘How did you ken that?’

‘Tell me what you saw when you came in here the morning your maister vanished,’ Gil prompted. ‘Was it like this?’

‘No, no, it was quite different,’ said Walter earnestly, ‘for my maister’s gear was all here, and none of Maister Allan’s.’

Careful questioning got Gil a clearer description. The bed had not been slept in, for Walter’s brother had checked and it was cold. The two wee pictures, which were right bonnie things, had gone, and so had Maister Rattray’s two books, that lived on that shelf there. Walter’s wages were set on the table, on a piece of paper with his name writ on it clear so he could read it, and beside them was Maister Rattray’s own key to the front door.

‘And there was no smell of burning nor sulphur,’ added Walter, ‘for all it was the Deil himsel carried him off.’

‘Why do you say that, Walter?’ Gil asked, looking at him curiously.

‘Is that you at that nonsense again?’ demanded Walter’s brother loudly from his shop. ‘Pay him no mind, maister, he’s been on about that since ever Rattray gaed off, for all we’ve had half the Chapter in telling him it was no sic a thing.’

‘Where does the window of this chamber look on?’ Gil asked.

‘Out in the yard.’ Walter closed the chamber door and led him to the end of the passage, where another door revealed a small yard, with two ramshackle sheds and several tubs of daisies. A gate in the fence seemed to lead out on to the cattle track. ‘Maister Allan grows these flowers. They’re bonnie, aren’t they?’

‘Why do you say it was the Deil carried your maister away?’ Gil asked again. The young man glanced over his shoulder, and moved further into the yard.

‘Acos I saw him mysel,’ he said earnestly. ‘That’s how I’m certain.’

‘You saw him?’ Gil also moved away from the door, out of earshot of the soutar. ‘When was that, Walter? What did you see?’

Walter’s face split in a gratified smile, and he crossed himself energetically.

‘It was just two days afore my maister was taen away,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I came by wi his supper, which our Mirren sends from our own table, I mean she aye sent it, and cam in by the back gate here, and my maister was looking out at his window — ’

‘In March?’ said Gil, surprised.

‘Aye, in March, and he was talking to the Deil that was standing here in the yard.’ He pointed to a spot under the window. ‘Just there, he was stood.’

‘What time was it?’ Walter looked blank. ‘Was it dark?’

‘Aye, just getting dark, I seen the first star as I came by the wynd and wished on it,’ said Walter, nodding, ‘and then I came in at the yett and seen the Deil.’

‘And what did he look like?’ asked Gil with care.

‘No bigger than a bairn, for he didny come up to the window-sole,’ said Walter, his voice hushed again, ‘and he had great wings like leather all down his back, and a big hat on to hide his horns, and he’d a great deep voice like a big man’s.’

‘What was he saying?’

The young man licked his lips.

‘I heard him threaten that he’d come for him on St Patrick’s Eve, and that good singers was needed in Hell, and then I ran away, for I was feart, maister,’ he confessed, and crossed himself. ‘And I canny rid mysel of the thought of my maister, that was aye good to me and left me my wages at the last, burning in flames and tormented by imps wi great pincers, all acos he’s got a bonnie voice.’

‘Was there snow on the ground,’ Gil asked, ‘or was it muddy? Did he leave any tracks?’

Walter shook his head.

‘He must have flew away,’ he said, ‘on his great wings. There was no sign that any of us saw.’

‘I thought as much!’ said the soutar angrily in the doorway. ‘Is that you annoying the man wi your tales, Walter Muthill? Pay him no mind, maister, and I’ll thank you no to encourage him, for he’s naught but a daft laddie.’

‘He must have seen something,’ Gil said. ‘Did you come to look, maister?’

‘I did not,’ said the soutar, pulling off his brass spectacles again, ‘for I’d my boots off, and no notion to go tramping round the cow-wynd in the dark. When this bawheid cam in crying out that he’d seen the Deil in our yard my wife made him go round by the street, for Maister Rattray paid us good rent to get his supper brought him, as well as the chamber, and he never saw any sign by the front way, and his maister tellt him the Deil had never been here.’

‘Aye, but he’d have to say that,’ muttered Walter. Gil put one foot on the edge of a tub of daisies and leaned forward, meeting the young man’s eyes.

‘Walter, you said your maister’s pictures had been taken as well?’ Walter nodded. ‘What were they, can you tell me?’

‘One was the angel’s salutation,’ Walter raised one hand in the conventional pose of Gabriel in an Annunciation, ‘and the other was St John Baptist baptising Our Lord, wi the water all up round his waist, paintit on a wee board.’

‘So one showed Our Lady and the other showed Our Lord.’ Walter nodded. ‘Do you really think the Deil could carry away somebody wi those images in his pack?’ Is that a syllogism? he wondered. Something is defective in the logic, but this laddie won’t notice.

‘You see?’ said the soutar triumphantly. ‘I tellt you it was nonsense.’

‘You mean he’s no in Hell?’ Walter stared at Gil, a huge relieved grin spreading across his face. ‘Oh, thanks be to Our Lady! She must ha saved him! Oh, wait till I tell our Mirren.’

Gil exchanged a glance with the soutar, and decided to leave well alone.

‘Afore you do that, Walter,’ he said, ‘had Maister Rattray taken all his gear wi him?’ The young man shook his head, still grinning. ‘Can you tell me where the rest is? What happened to it?’

‘It’s a’ packed up and lying in the corner o my shop,’ said the soutar, turning to go back in. ‘You can tak a look if you want.’

Rattray’s discarded gear was not copious. Emptying the canvas sack on to the floor, Gil turned over the contents and identified a shirt, a pair of worn hose, one ancient house-shoe, some mismatched table-linen. There was a platter and wooden bowl but no beaker, several spoons of wood or horn, a couple of blackened cooking-crocks which had rubbed soot on everything round them, and two worn blankets padding the bundle.

‘He had very little,’ he commented, comparing this collection with the well-appointed houses of his friends among the songmen at Glasgow.

‘He’s took the best wi him,’ said Walter eagerly. He had cheered up enormously with Gil’s reassurance, and was almost bouncing beside the heap of goods. ‘See,’ he went on, ‘he had a new blanket, and other four sarks besides that one that was in the wash, and some linen besides, and four bonnie wee metal cups and a wooden one, and a pair o good boots my brither made to him — ’

‘Boots,’ repeated Gil.

‘Stout sewn boots, oxhide wi a double boar’s-hide sole,’ itemized the soutar.

‘Aye, and the great socks to go in them that our Mirren knittet,’ contributed Walter. ‘My good-sister’s a fearsome knitter,’ he informed Gil. ‘I’m right glad my maister had a pair of her socks wi him. That’ll keep his feet warm.’

‘He’s set off on a journey, hasn’t he, maister?’ said the older Muthill. Gil sat back on his heels and nodded.

‘I’d say so,’ he agreed. ‘A long journey, at that. I wonder where he’s gone?’

The Bishop was absent from his Cathedral at present, but being on official business Gil had been able to claim lodging for himself and his escort at the Palace. Strolling back across the precinct, he considered what he had learned so far. It hardly seemed to lead him anywhere, other than to more witnesses. The Drummond boy might have confided in his friend, or the fellow Kilgour might know something useful, Rattray appeared to have left willingly for a long journey, and that was the sum of it. Perhaps Canon Drummond could help him, he thought doubtfully, and wondered why he was putting off speaking to the Canon. Was it the fact that, a month after being told his brother had reappeared, Andrew Drummond had still neither visited nor written to his family? Or was it the slight wariness of sub-Dean Belchis’s reference to the man?

He glanced at the sky. Most of Dunblane would be sitting down to its dinner shortly, and then the quireman and his fellows would be singing Vespers. Best to go and see what was to be had from the Palace buttery, and consider what to do next.

‘No, you don’t want to talk to Andrew Drummond,’ said John Kilgour. ‘Even if he wasny — ’

‘We never do, if we can avoid it,’ said one of the other quiremen. ‘He doesny like singers. Mind the way he got across John Rat, all last winter? All because John got before him in the procession at Candlemas.’

‘No, he really hates singers,’ agreed another voice.

‘Why’s that, then?’ asked Gil innocently, and reached for the nearest jug of ale.

He had heard Vespers in the Cathedral, standing in the nave while the familiar chants floated through the choir-screen, and then had made himself known to one or two of the choir as they left the vestry. As he had hoped, a friend of Habbie Sim of Glasgow was welcome, the more so when he stopped by the Tower tavern on the way back to Kilgour’s lodging and paid for enough ale for most of the choir for the evening.

‘You’ll mind it better than me, Jockie,’ said Kilgour’s neighbour. ‘You were at the sang-schule wi him, were you no?’

‘I was, Adam,’ agreed Kilgour. He was a balding, fairish man in his forties, with a light, breathy speaking voice, though when he had joined in the snatches of chant in the street his deep tones had astonished Gil. ‘I was. It was a bad business.’

‘What happened?’ Gil asked.

‘He was never much liked, save by the adults,’ said Kilgour, with what seemed to be reluctance, ‘but he’d a good voice, maybe the best mean, the best alto, I ever heard in my life, pure and clear wi a compass to astonish you, so a course he sang in the Play of the Resurrection. In the nave at Pace-tide, you ken.’

Gil nodded. He knew the kind of thing Kilgour meant, more of a dramatized service than a play as such. The Resurrection would mean at the least three women’s parts, two or three disciples, perhaps an angel, and Christ. Not all the parts would be for boys’ voices.

‘Who did he sing?’ he prompted.

‘Judas,’ said Kilgour. ‘A big part, and the second year he’d sung it.’

‘But the rope slipped,’ said someone else. Gil looked from one face to another in dismay.

‘What, you mean he was hanged in earnest? But he’s — ’

‘No, no,’ said the man called Adam. ‘No that bad. But he fell off the stool, and his throat was hurt bad wi the rope.’

‘How did it happen?’ Gil asked. ‘Was anyone to blame, or was it an accident?’

‘My brother aye said he’d seen a cord,’ remarked someone in the corner. ‘But he never jaloused who had pulled on it. To upset the stool, you ken,’ he expanded. Gil nodded, taking this in. ‘He said the enquiry was something fierce, but nobody ever owned up nor clyped, the more so as the mannie that was to fix the rope — one of the cathedral servants, you ken — dee’d not long after.’

‘What happened to him?’ asked his neighbour. The narrator shook his head.

‘My brother never said. I think it was some kind o accident round the building. Fell off the window walk, or the like.’

‘And nobody admitted to causing Andrew’s accident,’ said Gil, digesting this.

‘Andrew was never well liked,’ said Kilgour.

‘Why not?’ Gil asked.

‘Boys can take a dislike to someone,’ said Adam. ‘Often enough there’s no accounting for it.’

‘The way my brother tellt me,’ protested the man in the corner, ‘there was plenty reasons to dislike Andrew. The football, for one.’

‘I’d forgot that,’ said Kilgour. Gil raised his eyebrows. ‘A sorry thing that was, too. One of the fellows had a football, a rare good one, for a yuletide gift. We’d several games wi it, and the boy it belonged to thought he was in Heaven, for everyone would be his friend, you ken.’ Gil nodded, recalling the muddy prints on the wall of Cossar’s manse. ‘Then one day at the noon break it was found under his bench flat as a bannock, knifed beyond mending.’

‘Sweet St Giles!’ said Gil, and several people exclaimed with him, obviously hearing the tale for the first time. ‘And Andrew Drummond was blamed for it?’

‘It was never proved,’ said Kilgour quickly. ‘Several folk had had the chance. But you ken what boys are. Andrew got the blame among his fellows, for none of the others seemed like to have done such a thing.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Our maisters paid no mind. All that happened was the lad that belonged to the ball got beaten for bringing it into the school.’

‘I see,’ said Gil. ‘And then at Easter the rope slipped.’

‘And he never got his voice back,’ agreed Adam. ‘That’s how he hates singers.’

‘There’s plenty folk sing well as boys and lose it once the voice changes,’ said Kilgour, ‘but this was different, you see, Andrew’s voice was stolen from him, and he’s got no love for those that can still hold a tune. He speaks well enough,’ he added, ‘but kind o hoarse, and he sings when he has to like a heron croaking.’

‘Was that before his brother vanished away, or after it?’ Gil asked.

‘It must ha been after it,’ said Kilgour, considering, ‘for he was singing well at the time his brother was stolen. It was the two of them sang the great hymn at Lammastide, just the two voices. I mind them practising it, and old Rob Clark that was our succentor shouting at them for not holding the tone.’

‘It was just after that David Drummond disappeared, was it no?’ said the man in the corner. ‘Do you mind of that and all, Jockie?’

‘No much,’ said Kilgour. ‘You ken what it’s like when you come back, you’re straight into the rehearsals for St Blane’s feast, working all the hours of daylight to get the music by heart. It was a wonder for a few weeks that David hadny come back like the rest of us, but he wasny the only one, there were other folk went on to the college at St Andrew’s or Glasgow, or maybe the Grammar School at Perth. Then we forgot about it, except maybe for Billy — aye, Billy Murray that’s at Dunkeld now, and the Stirling boy, that was his bedfellows.’

‘Where do the boys lodge?’ Gil asked. Kilgour paused in reaching for the ale-jug.

‘At the time,’ he said, ‘we dwelt in the succentor’s attics, and studied in the chapter-house. Some of the younger ones found it hard. These days they’re lodged about the town, in one household or another, which is fine if they get on wi the wife.’

‘How did his brother no disappear wi him?’ asked another voice.

‘Geordie, it was thirty year since. I canny mind,’ said Kilgour, and took a pull at the ale-jug. After a moment he offered, ‘Likely Andrew never went home wi him, went to a friend’s or stayed here in the town. There’s some of them do that,’ he added to Gil. ‘If they’ve no notion to the walk home and back.’

‘Maybe if Andrew had gone home and all, the wee one would never ha vanished,’ said someone. ‘He’ll ha fallen into some crack in those hills, or been lost in a drowning-pool, or the like.’

‘It’s strange he was never found then,’ objected Kilgour.

‘If you can lose a beast and never find it, you can lose a laddie. Eleven, was he? That’s no a big corp to be seeking.’

‘How far do the boys come to sing here?’ Gil wondered. This gave rise to a long discussion, which concluded that the furthest anyone had ever come was one Duncan McIan from some place Gil had never heard of, five days’ walk to the west.

‘Most of them’s from Stirling or hereabouts,’ said Adam. ‘But there’s aye a few from further away.’

‘How do you find them?’ Gil asked. It was not a problem he had ever heard the Glasgow songmen discuss; there was a sufficient crop of youngsters in the burgh and its immediate surroundings to keep the choir, and the sang-schule in St Mary’s Kirk, well supplied.

‘Word gets about,’ said the man in the corner. ‘The most of us has kin that can sing, and we pass names to the succentor. You hear of a laddie wi a good voice in another parish, or the Archdeacon when he visits takes note of a soloist’s name — ’

‘That’s if the Archdeacon can tell In nomine from In taverna,’ said someone else sourly, and they all laughed again.

‘And is that how the men move about and all? Would that be how John Rattray went?’

There was an awkward silence.

‘It’s a strange thing, that,’ said Adam at last.

‘How so?’ asked Gil.

‘The Ratton just vanished. Like the Drummond laddie — ’

‘No, no, Adam, the Drummond boy was on his way back, by what we hear.’

‘There’s no knowing that,’ argued Adam. ‘He’d maybe not have told his kin if he was planning to go a long journey.’

‘Aye, but he’d a gied his bedfellows some notion, surely!’

‘The Drummond boy met wi some accident, how could he warn his bedfellows?’

‘So you’d no inkling Rattray was going away?’ Gil put in, before this could build into an argument. ‘You don’t think his servant was right and he’s been taen off by the Deil?’

‘Ha!’ said Kilgour.

‘Walter Muthill’s a daft laddie,’ said someone else. ‘The Deil kens what he saw, but it wasny the Deil.’ This got a laugh, but the speaker protested, ‘Aye, fine, but you ken what I mean. There’s plenty folk in Dunblane I’d sooner believe had been borne off by the Deil than John Rattray. He’s aye been a good-living kind o fellow.’

‘It’s a funny thing just the same, he’d got across Andrew Drummond,’ said the man called Adam, ‘and then vanished the same as Drummond’s brother.’

‘Adam, I tellt you, it was nothing like the same,’ said Kilgour. ‘Besides, the way Andrew Drummond came speiring about it, he knew no more than any of us.’

‘He was interested, was he?’ asked Gil.

‘Oh, aye, asking all around.’

‘What about Rattray’s kin? Has he nobody else that might hear from him?’

A short debate turned up the fact that John Rattray was the last of his house, save for a brother teaching, or perhaps studying, the Laws in some university in Germany. That would account for the length of time it took before anyone was concerned, Gil thought.

‘I mind he did say his parents were carried off in the pestilence,’ said someone.

‘And when he left, he never said anything, or gave any sign? What generally happens?’

‘Not a word,’ said the man called Geordie.

‘It’s usual for one Precentor to write the other,’ said Kilgour. ‘Dougie Cossar had a message only last month, to ask if we’d a tenor we could spare to Stirling.’

‘So it’s arranged between the Precentors?’ Gil prompted.

‘Aye, in general. Wi maybe an offering to sweeten the exchange. But Dougie had no notion John Ratton was off either.’

‘He did buy the ale that night,’ said another voice.

‘Aye, that’s right, Simon, he did,’ agreed Kilgour. ‘We take it in turn,’ he explained to Gil. ‘It wasny John’s turn, but he bought the ale, and bannocks too.’

‘But he never said a thing about going away,’ said Geordie, shaking his head.

‘You never found anything in his chamber when you took it on, did you, Nick?’ asked Kilgour. A man perched on the end of the bench shook his head.

‘Nothing at all, save a couple o Flemish placks away under the bed where Muthill’s wife hadny swept far enough. I found them when I shifted it round — I canny abide to sleep wi my head to the window.’

‘He’d never been to the Low Countries, had he?’ said Geordie.

‘No, but we all get enough o those, this close to a market the size o Stirling,’ said Nick Allen. ‘I’d another three in my purse only last month.’

‘And you’ve never heard where he went to? Where do you suppose he’s gone?’

‘Somewhere they pay their singers better,’ said the man in the corner.

‘Near anywhere in Scotland, you mean?’ said Adam, and got a general sour laugh.

‘Aye, but Maister Belchis writ every other diocese,’ objected Kilgour, ‘asking was he in their pay now, and they all said he wasny.’

Gil privately doubted this. If Rattray owed nobody money there was no motive to hunt for him, and there was by far too much work to do in any diocese to pursue a single missing singer for no reason.

‘How good is his voice?’ he asked. ‘What does he sing?’

‘He’s countertenor,’ said Kilgour. ‘A high tenor, ye ken. And he’s no bad, no bad at all. In fact he’d come on a lot last winter, you’d think he’d been practising or something.’ This raised another laugh; it seemed to be a joke. ‘It was the kind of voice we don’t get to keep very long, it’s no surprise he’s left us. The only by-ordinar thing about the business, Maister Cunningham, is the way he slipped off wi never a word to say he was away or where he was going. And that nonsense of his laddie’s about seeing the Deil at his window,’ he added.

‘That’s two things,’ said Adam.

Kilgour swung a friendly fist at him, but said to Gil, ‘So if you find him, maister, we’d be glad to hear it.’

‘If I find him,’ said Gil, ‘I’ll send you word.’