The Stolen Voice

Chapter Eight

Mistress Drummond, in her own chair by the peat fire at the centre of the room, turned to Alys where she sat across the hearth on a kist dragged forward from the wall.

‘Will you be starting us off, Mistress Mason?’ she asked. ‘You must have songs we would not be hearing before.’

There were more people crammed into the house of Tigh-an-Teine than Alys would have believed possible. They were seated on the floor, on benches, on chairs and milking-stools and kists, with children and dogs sprawled among the feet. The atmosphere was already thick. The entire Drummond family was present, but there were also several families who seemed to be their tenants, including old Mairead and her husband Tormod, and a group from further up the glen, their women draped in striped plaids which reached from head to foot and had to be carried on the arms to keep the ends out of the dust. And of course Murdo Dubh and Steenie had ridden up from Stronvar with her in the early afternoon, bringing a great cake with plums in it, with Lady Stewart’s compliments, as a further contribution to the feast. Everyone was dressed in holiday clothes, a smart doublet, a bright plaid, a bunch of ribbons pinned at the breast of a good shirt. Alys was glad she had worn the blue gown, even though it meant riding pillion and the box for the headdress had been hard to manage on the short journey. And she finally had the two younger granddaughters, Agnes and Elizabeth, straight in her mind.

To begin, there had been dancing in the yard before the houses, in long sets to a strange sung music provided by the onlookers, rhythmic singing in nonsense-syllables to a catchy tune which made one’s toes tap. The changeling boy, sitting in a nest of blankets on the ground, had screeched and beaten his twisted hands together in time with the dancers’ feet, but when Alys spoke to him he had stared at her in alarm and screamed his peacock scream again. She had been invited to stand up for every set, pushed and pulled laughing through the complex figures by friendly hands, wishing Gil was with her, Socrates trying to stay at her heels and having to be dismissed to the margins at intervals. To everyone’s amusement Davie Drummond was nearly as lost in the dance as she was, protesting when he was teased about it that he had not joined in as a boy, so did not know the steps.

Nor had he taken part when the men danced one by one to the same kind of mouth-music, a wild fierce barefoot leaping with the arms held high, in some sort of competition which Murdo seemed to have carried. There had been more dancing, and then as twilight fell and the biting insects emerged, the company moved indoors bringing the seating with them. Some had spinning or a bundle of grass to braid into rope, others sat and talked. The changeling boy had been strapped into his cradle and was asleep for now. Murdo was seated on a bench near the door, his plaid wrapped round Ailidh Drummond, her head on his shoulder; Steenie seemed to be in a dark corner, from which came occasional giggles.

The sky beyond the open door was still greenish, but a few stars were already pricking through, and the yard was half in darkness. Inside the house there were rushlights and peat-glow, and the refreshments were going round, a jug of usquebae, a jug of ale, slices of the plum cake and oatcakes with green cheese, offered by Agnes and her cousin Elizabeth. Coached on the way up the glen by Murdo, Alys was well prepared for this next stage of the ceilidh.

‘They will be asking you to begin,’ he had said seriously. ‘If you wish it, you can be telling a tale or singing, but there is some who would rather be waiting to see what others offer to the company.’

Recognizing good advice, she wished even more that Gil was with her. Most of the music she knew was for several voices. Now she smiled and parried Mistress Drummond’s invitation politely.

‘No, no, for I have no idea what the company would enjoy. Later, perhaps. Will you not begin, mistress?’

‘Aye, Mammy,’ said Patrick Drummond in his deep solemn voice. ‘Tell us a tale for the bairns, will you not?’

‘A tale,’ she said doubtfully. ‘What tale could I be telling that you have not heard before many times?’

‘All the better for that,’ said Davie Drummond, at the other side of her chair.

‘And our guest has not the Gaelic, and I have no tales in Scots.’

Finally she was persuaded, and launched into a story in Ersche which seemed to be about a cheese, a bannock and a little old woman. The children obviously knew it, and laughed at every sentence; Alys could follow enough of the narrative to smile when the other adults did, but was more interested in studying the faces around her.

The younger Drummonds were all near the door, Ailidh seated on the bench with her lover, the two younger girls now at their feet, Jamie Beag standing by the door-frame. Their likeness to one another was almost eerie, although it could also be seen clearly that Elizabeth was Caterin’s daughter, while the other three were Mòr’s children. The four were obviously close; the tilt of shoulders, the angle of heads, made that clear to the onlooker, though they might not know it themselves.

The older generation was closer to the fire. Patrick Drummond, seated at his mother’s right hand as befitted the eldest surviving son, was a big man nearing fifty, the frizzy family hair receding from his brow, his face and neck and brawny arms burnt red by the weather. He spoke slowly and gravely, his voice deep, and had received his guests with great pleasure. He and his nephew seemed to be in good accord about the work on the farm; Alys had overheard them talking together in Ersche in a pause in the dancing, gesturing at different corners of the infield, nodding seriously from time to time.

The tale ended, with the little old woman catching the bannock and the cheese and eating them both up. The children laughed, the adults chuckled, one or two people offered suggestions as to how the bannock could have been caught sooner, and another volunteer was selected, a man from up the glen who began tale about a calf and a dog.

Next to Patrick, his wife sat twirling a spindle, glancing anxiously from time to time at her son in his long cradle. The boy was a poor creature, with his small twisted figure and sour, whey-coloured face, but he had obviously enjoyed the dancing and the music. Alys looked at him with pity, tracing the family likeness now he was relaxed in sleep, wondering if there was any remedy which would help him.

Glancing up, she met Caterin’s gaze, and suddenly quailed. The woman’s expression was hostile, defensive, bitter. She put a possessive hand out over the cradle; the shadow of her headdress hid her small face, but it seemed as if she still glared at Alys. I only looked at the boy, thought Alys, why should that trouble her so much?

Mòr, the widow of the eldest son, was at Mistress Drummond’s left hand. She sat upright and still, hands folded in her lap; Alys had the feeling this was a rare opportunity for her to do nothing. Between her feet and her good-mother’s, Davie sat cross-legged on his folded plaid, leaning back against the old woman’s knees, her hand on his hair. The folds of his shirt were drawn decorously over his bent legs; it occurred to Alys that despite the strictures of her Glasgow friends about Highland dress these bare-legged people were far more modest than Lowland men with their tight hose and ostentatious codpieces.

After the debate between the dog and the calf ended, the children from up the glen were persuaded to sing, which they did with aplomb, the sweet young voices bridging the great leaps of the tune with precision, the words clear. There was no direct praise for them afterwards, but several people commented on the tune, on how old it was and how appropriate it was for the season. The children seemed to see this as praise, for they wriggled and giggled among the feet.

‘There is music everywhere,’ said Alys, as the refreshment went round again. ‘Everyone sings, and you all sing well.’

‘It is pleasing to God and His saints,’ said Mistress Drummond seriously.

‘A true word, Mammy,’ said Mòr beside her. ‘There is no harm coming to a body or to the work, if you should be singing a hymn to Mary mild, or Brìde, or to Angus.’

‘There is a hymn to St Angus?’ Alys asked.

‘More than one,’ she was assured. One of the children near her began a list, and was cuffed silent by his father.

‘Will you tell me about St Angus?’ she prompted. ‘He is your own saint here in Balquhidder, is that right?’

‘He was a holy man of Dunblane,’ said Mòr, ‘and was walking to Columba’s isle. And he came over the ridge and saw the glen of Balquhidder lying before him in the sunshine, and he was falling on his knees to bless the place, and it is still called Beannachd Aonghais where he kneeled.’

‘And he never left us again,’ said someone else with satisfaction.

There seemed to be many tales of the saint, one or two of them the same as tales she had heard told of Columba or Kentigern. Someone produced a tiny harp with nine wire strings, and a young woman sang to its shining music about the blessing which Angus had left on the glen. He was buried in the Eagleis Beag, the little kirk down in Balquhidder glen, with his image on the stone laid over him, and if you stood on the stone to be wedded it was as if the saint himself conducted the wedding.

‘But you would not be standing on his face,’ said someone.

‘No, no, that would not be respectful,’ agreed another.

‘And will Davie be singing for us too?’ asked a bold voice from the shadows. ‘He could be singing the Oran Mor Aonghais just now, maybe. The lady would be happy to hear it, and so would the rest of us.’

‘Och, not tonight,’ said Davie awkwardly. ‘My throat’s dry from the reaping.’

‘So are we all dry,’ said Patrick.

‘Maybe you will not mind it?’ asked Mòr, with a challenging note in her voice. ‘It will be a few years since you sang it, I suppose, since those ones will not be praising our Angus.’

‘Oh, I mind it well enough.’

‘Then take some more ale, and sing up, good-brother.’ She beckoned, and her daughter Agnes came forward with the ale-jug. Alys, aware of sudden tension in the circle round the fire, watched intently.

‘There are others who should be singing before me,’ protested Davie. This was argued down by several people.

‘Let him alone,’ said Caterin kindly. ‘He’s shy, maybe.’

‘Och, yes,’ said Mistress Drummond. ‘You were always the shy one, David mo chridh.’

‘He was none so shy last month,’ objected Mòr, ‘when he sang all evening before my kin.’

‘It would be good to hear it,’ remarked Patrick, ‘though it were thirty year delayed.’

Davie took a pull at the ale-jug, and gave it back to Agnes.

‘It’s a while since I sang it,’ he said, ‘as my good-sister is saying, though maybe not thirty year to me.’

‘Will we begin it with you, then?’ offered Ailidh from her seat by the door. She looked round in the shadows at the other young Drummonds, drew a breath, and began to sing. They joined in immediately, a slow, measured melody which Davie picked up, first in accord with them and then with odd variations, each time delivered with confidence. Alys was still watching the group by the door, and saw their surprise at the first of these, and the second. Then they reached what seemed to be the end of a verse, and fell silent, leaving Davie singing alone, leaning back against the old woman’s knee, his eyes shut.

The Great Song of Angus was very long, but as when she had heard this voice before, Alys felt she could have sat listening for ever. The delivery was professional and accomplished, the range of the voice surprising, the low notes warm and creamy, the higher ones golden. Such of the hymn as she understood concerned the saint’s miracles and the way he watched over his parish, keeping the calf from straying, the child safe in the cradle, the cattle in the fold and the maiden at the spinning. It seemed to be very old, for the words were oddly pronounced even when she recognized them, and the tune was simple, repetitive, varied by shifting an octave up or down, strangely satisfying. The music seemed almost to float into the house by no human agency, winding into the shadows, spinning a timeless web that linked the hearers with the saint himself. In its midst, Alys’s eye fell on the cradle again, and she saw that even the changeling boy was listening quietly, contented, entranced. But over his head his mother had turned that bitter gaze on the singer. Her expression was like a discord in the Great Song; Alys looked away, and when she looked back the child’s eyes were closed and his mother’s head bent over her spinning.

When it finally ended there was an extended silence, into which Mistress Drummond said happily, ‘My, but it is good to hear it sung proper.’

‘I never heard it sung like that before,’ said one of the younger men from up the glen in doubtful tones. ‘Are you sure you mind it right, Davie Drummond?’

‘On the contrary,’ said old Mairead. ‘He has it exactly right. That is the old way of singing it, just as I mind it in his father’s mouth thirty year since.’

‘Just as I mind it too,’ said Patrick in his grave voice. He leaned forward and put his hand on Davie’s curly head. ‘My doubts are gone. Wherever you have been, if you can sing like that, you can only be my brother returned to us.’

Mòr’s face, lit by the nearest rushlight, twisted into a sour smile as she watched. Caterin leaned down to her spindle, whose thread had snapped, and Davie reached up to grip Patrick’s wrist and said, ‘I was well taught.’

Yes, thought Alys, and who by? And was the hand that gripped Patrick’s trembling, or not?

The discussion went into Ersche, and seemed to be a detailed dissection of parts of the song, a consideration of what some of the old words meant. Davie joined in occasionally, with a diffident comment preceded each time by, My father said.

There was a touch on her elbow. She looked round, and found Agnes smiling shyly at her in the glow of the nearest rushlight.

‘We are going outside, we young ones,’ she said softly. ‘Will the lady come with us?’

‘Gladly,’ she said, suddenly aware of being over-warm, and rose to follow the girl. Socrates scrambled up from behind the kist she sat on and followed, provoking warning growls from some of the other dogs lying among the feet, and there was a further disturbance as Steenie extricated himself from his corner.

Out in the moonlit yard the air was cool and fresh. The hills around the farm loomed black against the stars, and the occasional call of a nightbird prompted the Drummond girls to cross themselves and mutter a charm Alys could not catch. The dog paced about, checking the scents, cocking his leg against the fulling-tub and other corners; Steenie took up a watchful stance by the house wall, and Murdo said:

‘Are you liking the ceilidh, mistress?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ she said. ‘I was never at such an evening before.’

‘That great song was bonnie,’ said Elizabeth softly. ‘It never sounded like that when they sang it down in the Kirkton.’

‘Maybe he could be singing it next week at the Feis,’ said Agnes.

‘Maybe no,’ said Ailidh. ‘Murdo,’ she prompted. Her lover nodded, and braced himself to speak.

‘There has been another accident, just this day,’ said Jamie Beag before he got the words out. ‘Would the lady be wishing to know more about it?’

‘I would indeed,’ said Alys, as levelly as she might.

‘It was worse than before,’ said Agnes. ‘For Jamie and my uncle Padraig might have been hurt in earnest.’

‘Hush, Nannie,’said her sister. ‘Let Jamie tell it.’

Jamie explained. They had gathered in all the barley, and since the stooked straw was dry they had begun to bring it in as well. The far end of the outfield was a good half mile from the stackyard, so the bundles must be laid on a wooden sled, which the pony brought down with reluctance.

‘He has never liked the sled,’ said Jamie seriously, his voice very like his uncle’s. ‘Nor he has not taken well to let Davie work him, though he is fine with my uncle and me.’

‘He bites,’ said Elizabeth. The other girls nodded, the moonlight shining on their clouds of fair hair.

‘You should be selling him at the Feis,’ said Ailidh. ‘There is no use of a pony that only two folk on the place can work.’

‘You would get a good price maybe if you sold him to the monks,’ said Agnes.

‘Maybe,’ said Jamie Beag. ‘Am I to tell this or no? So we had the pony up the field, and the sled loaded, and hitched Lachdann up, and Davie had the rope at his head, and my uncle and me were pushing to start the sled.’ He paused, and Alys murmured understanding. ‘And then Lachie began snorting, and he shied away, and he was for biting Davie, only Davie got him on the nose with the rope. So I took Davie’s place, and he was to push instead, and when I tried to lead Lachie forward he tried to bite me and all, and then he reared up and struck out with his feet, and squealed, and reared again. I thought he would split my head open, even though he is not shod.’

‘I saw it from here,’ said Agnes. ‘I thought the Devil was at the beast.’

‘So did I,’ said Jamie frankly, ‘but my uncle came, and he checked all the harness, and when he looked inside the breastplate he found a needle.’

‘A needle?’ repeated Alys incredulously.

‘A broken one,’ said Murdo. ‘Wedged in the lining of the breastplate, so it would stick in the beast when he leaned into it. They have showed it to me.’

‘And those ones,’ broke in Elizabeth, ‘would not be touching a needle, because it is iron, you know, so it makes it certain it is — ’

‘Husha!’ said Jamie. ‘You see how it is, mistress. This time it was no accident.’

Alys nodded.

‘Has any of you lost a needle, or broken one, lately?’ she asked. A needle was not cheap; even in Glasgow, with merchants and metalworkers to hand, she guarded her own carefully in a little wooden case, and here where the nearest replacement was probably in Perth or Dunblane, it would be wise to keep a close watch on such things. Jamie looked at his kinswomen, and after a moment Agnes said reluctantly:

‘I lost my good needle a while ago. Maybe two weeks since.’

‘Mammy broke one the other day,’ admitted Elizabeth. ‘She put it safe, out of Iain’s reach. He crawls about the floor, times,’ she explained to Alys.

‘I never found mine,’ said Agnes. Alys nodded. No help there.

‘What does Davie plan to do, do you know?’ she asked.

‘About the needle?’ asked Ailidh.

‘No, no. Does he mean to settle here, or go back to Dunblane, or go for a priest, or — ?’

‘Oh.’ Ailidh turned to her kinsfolk. ‘Well, he — we’ve not — ’

‘I’ll be staying here — ’ said Davie at Alys’s elbow. She jumped convulsively, and he put out a hand to her. ‘My sorrow, I never meant — ’

‘You with the soft feet,’ said Jamie, half smiling. ‘He goes like a cat, isn’t it, mistress.’

‘So you will stay here at Dalriach?’ she said, her heart still hammering.

‘I will, while the old woman dwells here. As sure as my name’s Davie Drummond,’ he said, on a faint note of challenge.

‘But is it?’ she said quietly. He looked steadily at her in the moonlight.

‘It is,’ he said. ‘I swear it, mistress.’ One of the girls giggled nervously.

‘By what will you swear?’ she asked.

‘Mary mild and Michael and Angus be my witnesses,’ he said formally, and crossed himself with each name, ‘that I swear I am Davie Drummond.’

Jamie clapped Davie briefly on the shoulder.

‘Another pair of hands about the place is a good thing,’ he said, ‘and the more so when it’s kin. I’m right glad to hear that you’ll stay.’

‘But what will the mammies be saying?’ said Agnes pertly, linking arms with Davie. Her cousin Elizabeth moved to his other side, looking up at him, her face shadowed. ‘They were arguing again today, about whether there is enough here to be dividing three ways.’

‘Husha!’ said Jamie again. ‘No concern of theirs it is, but only of the old woman’s.’

‘You can go away up the field and never be listening to them,’ Agnes pointed out, ‘it’s me that has to sit here and wind bobbins and — ’

‘Mind your tongue, Nannie. What will our guest think of you,’ said Ailidh, and pinched her elbow to stop her.

‘Did you know,’ said Alys deliberately in a soft voice, ‘that Mistress Drummond wrote twice to her son who is in Dunblane, and the second time she said that if David went back to his place in the sang-schule she would gift land of twelve merks per annum — ’

‘What?’ Davie exclaimed. The noise from inside the house paused briefly, but the silence in the courtyard lasted longer. All the Drummonds stared at Alys, open-mouthed, and Murdo looked from her to Jamie and then his sweetheart. After a moment Davie said more quietly, ‘No. She will not be persuading me.’

‘Is there twelve merks of land to spare?’ asked Murdo.

Jamie shrugged. ‘I’d say not, unless it was the whole of the land up by Garachra, and then what would we do for the summer grazing?’

‘Do the mammies know that?’ wondered Agnes. ‘Do you think your father knows?’

‘I’ve not heard them say it,’ said Elizabeth cautiously.

‘No matter,’ said Davie. ‘There is no reason I would be going there.’

‘Fat Uncle Andrew would never be wanting you back anyway,’observed Agnes.

‘He’s not so bad as that,’ said Jamie.

‘Och, he is. Last time he was home, afore Pentecost, and the cailleach was lamenting Davie again, he could hardly hear her for jealousy.’

‘Andrew was aye jealous,’ said Davie rather tentatively.

‘He was,’ said Ailidh. ‘Do you mind, Jamie, when he heard you would have our father’s portion entire? He has given up his portion, seeing he is well forward in the great kirk at Dunblane,’ she added to Murdo, ‘but he could not bear to know that Jamie would get a half-share of the tack.’

A voice rose from the house door, speaking in Ersche. Alys looked round, and saw Mòr standing there. Catching sight of her, the woman switched to Scots.

‘Will you be coming away in, the whole of you, and you too, mistress. You will be missing the best of the singing. And we were hoping our guest might have a song or a tale for us,’ she added as Alys passed her in the doorway, into the lighted room.

So the moment was on her. She caught her breath, smiled and nodded, seated herself again, while her mind whirled and Steenie clambered over legs and bodies, back to his corner. A song or a tale, a song or a tale? She tried to recall Annec’s amusements for a small girl, and could only see her nurse’s face and the white linen on her head. None of the tales she had heard in her years in Glasgow would come to mind either.

‘A song, maybe,’ suggested Mistress Drummond, her hand curving round Davie’s jaw as he leaned against her knee again. ‘We would like to be hearing what songs they sing in Glasgow or France.’

‘A song,’ said Alys. That was easier. She thought briefly, opened her mouth, and found she was singing Machaut, one of his endless hymns to his Peronelle. Sweet and demanding, the music took concentration, but she was aware of interest, of careful listening, of a rewarding audience. As had happened for the children, there was no direct praise when she finished, but instead a lengthy discussion of the song itself, which she had to translate into Scots, and then a point-blank request from Caterin.

‘Would you be singing more, mistress? I would like fine to hear another like that.’

‘Another one?’ she said. ‘Yes, of course.’ She paused, and the evening a few weeks since when she had last sung the Machaut came clearly to mind. They had had some new music from Edinburgh, and she and Gil and her father had explored it happily, but they had finished with some songs they all knew. Gil had played the monocords, and she had sung Ockeghem to the spidery notes. She found her pitch, and began.

Halfway through the first line, she was aware of recognition from somewhere in the room. Somewhere close to her. She looked round in the shadows. Not Murdo, who was engrossed in a wordless communion with his Ailidh again. Not Steenie, surely? No, closer than that — someone at the hearth knew Ockeghem, knew this song. She continued to enumerate the charms of the nameless beloved while looking from face to face, at Patrick listening politely, Caterin gazing at her son still asleep in the cradle, Mistress Drummond nodding gently in time with the tune. Mòr sat with that sour, faintly triumphant smile; her eyes were on the lad who swore his name was Davie Drummond, who was staring at the glow of the peat fire, small movements of mouth and fingers betraying to the watchers how well he knew words and music. He had both played and sung the same piece, Alys judged, many times.

Once her bedfellows finally fell into sleep, she was able to think.

When the gathering ended, the other folk at the ceilidh set out with lanterns to pick their way back to one settlement or the other, and the family began the process of readying houses and people for sleep. Alys had tried to lend a hand in the carrying of kists and benches out of Mistress Drummond’s house, but it had been firmly refused. Now Mòr’s house was quiet, the dogs in the yard and byre had settled down and Ailidh and Agnes, one on either side of her, were warm and somnolent. The ceilidh had been an extraordinary experience, one she was eager to discuss with Gil, and the ritual of the night, the smooring of the fire, the washing of feet and covering of dishes, had been fascinating to watch, but she needed to examine what she had learned and observed. She lay staring into the dark interior of the box bed, turning things over in her mind.

Whoever had taught David had taught him well. If he could swear to the name he used, he must be blood kin of the family here at Dalriach, either a legitimate son or an acknowledged bastard. Old Mistress Drummond said that her man was the only child her English mother-in-law had raised. Since the thistledown hair came from the Englishwoman, we need not consider descent from any further back, she thought, counting off the family, but could Mistress Drummond’s man have had a child elsewhere without her knowing? It would need to be a son, to pass on the name. Something to ask down the valley, she thought, rather than up here. And in the next generation — well, whatever their mother said, her sons might have issue elsewhere. Indeed we know that Andrew has children, she realized. The two sons left on the farm would have less opportunity, perhaps, and less chance to acknowledge the result without her knowing. Word spreads fast in the glens, she recalled. I wonder if either of them went as far as Stirling, like their father. Seonaid the tiring-maid had assured her that the daughter, Bethag Drummond, wife to Angus MacLaren, had been no further than the Kirkton these three years, nor had she had any strangers to stay at her house, so it was not her teaching which made Davie so confident.

And that left David. Not this young man calling himself Davie Drummond, but the boy who vanished thirty years ago. Where is he now? she wondered. Could he be alive, and this one his son, and all the impressive knowledge of the place and its music learned from him?

And what had he come back to? Why had he come back? Very different questions, she reflected. The welcome he had met varied greatly in tone. It seemed to her that the young Drummonds had accepted the stranger on other terms than their elders. Patrick now seemed as convinced as his mother that this was his brother returned; what Caterin and Mòr thought was still unclear, but their children had a different attitude. The girls were almost protective, she thought, recalling the way they had gathered round Davie when he appeared in the yard, and Jamie treats him as an equal. I wonder what they know? No hope that they will tell me.

Beside her in the darkness Ailidh and Agnes slept, their breath even and innocent. In the wider space of the house, beyond the bed-curtains, something stirred. She lay listening to tiny movements, sounds so faint they were drowned by the rustle of the bedclothes when Ailidh sighed. Mice? she wondered. Or rats? Then there was a click, and a thin creak. The door. Mòr or her son, she thought, going out to the yard. Nothing to fear.

The daughters-in-law were both hostile, in very different ways. Hardly surprising, she thought, if it means the land must be further divided. I must check that with Lady Stewart. She considered the two women, Mòr tall and sardonic and simply, politely, hostile, with her prodding remarks designed to trip Davie into giving himself away as an impostor, none of which had yet succeeded; Caterin, oddly ambivalent, jealous perhaps of Davie’s effect on her son, and yet valuing his ability to soothe the boy, as well as wary of his claim on the estate. She thought again of the searing bitterness in the woman’s face as she watched Davie singing.

The door creaked thinly again, the latch clicked, those small movements reached her. Whoever it was, returning.

Turning all this over in her head, she must have drifted into sleep, because she dreamed about the shouting before she realized she was hearing it. Then there were dogs barking, and she was awake in a muddle of arms and legs. The girls were exclaiming in Ersche, and Socrates spoke urgently by the bed-curtains in the soft, embarrassed bark he used indoors.

‘What is it?’ she asked, and realized that some of the shouting was Steenie’s voice.

‘Fire! Fire! Rouse the ferm! Fire!’

‘Our Lady protect us!’ she said, and tumbled out of the bed after Ailidh, in time to see Mòr kindling a light which showed Jamie struggling into his huge sark. He pulled it down round his knees and seized his belt, fumbling with the buckle as he hurried out of the door. Alys identified her own kirtle by touch and dived into it, stepped into her shoes, and followed the other women out into the noise of the yard, the dog anxious against her knee.

It was the thatch of Mistress Drummond’s house which was burning, and it was well alight already. Bright flames leapt from the bundled bracken, smoke towered in their light, a red glow showed at the house door. Alys stood frozen in horror for a moment beside Mòr’s house, the ends of her kirtle laces in her hands, then collected herself, knotted the laces, tugged at the arm nearest her.

‘Buckets!’ she said. ‘Water — where is the water?’

‘The burn,’ said Ailidh, pointing. ‘Jamie is there now.’

The men were already running back and forth, but the water they threw made little impression. First Steenie, then Murdo, appeared with pitchforks and began tugging at the eaves with it, scattering burning bracken on to the cobbles, the wooden forks beginning to smoulder almost immediately. Ailidh ran to join them, and Alys went to help handle buckets, aware of Socrates still at her knee and of the tethered horses squealing on the grazing land, the cattle bawling in the fold by the byre. Hens squawked, the changeling boy screamed somewhere, once and not again, the farm dogs were barking madly in the leaping shadows. Caterin came stumbling up the yard into the firelight, and behind her two of the tenants arrived to help, joining the bucket chain. The water seemed to come from beyond the stackyard.

Agnes raised her voice with a shrill demand in Ersche. Something about the cailleach, and then Davie’s name. Alys realized she had seen neither since she stepped into the yard. Were they still within, below the burning thatch? she wondered in horror.

At that moment Davie appeared at the door of the house, coughing, gesturing, pointing back inside. Murdo, nearest to him, thrust the pitchfork into Ailidh’s hands and ran to join him, and they both plunged into the red glow of the interior. Ailidh screamed, several people shouted, but almost immediately they reappeared, carrying the old woman as an awkward bundle between them. Patrick reached them as they staggered, received his mother’s limp form, dragged her away from the flying sparks and flakes of burning thatch to the other side of the yard. One of the younger girls followed, patting ineffectually at the burning spots on the old woman’s striped kirtle.

Under Jamie’s direction, the bucket chain was now concentrating on bringing water to the roof of Patrick’s own house, where the drifting fragments had already started one or two small blazes. Someone freed the beasts from the cattle-fold at the end of the house, and they galloped off into the night, stumbling and bawling in their rush to get away, several goats bleating shrilly among them.

Mistress Drummond had been laid down on someone’s plaid, and Patrick and Davie were both kneeling over her in the firelight, more shadowy figures beyond them. Why not take her into the house? Alys thought, and answered herself: If the house roof caught, they would have to move her again. Standing in the middle of the yard she passed empty buckets, tubs, bowls one way, full ones the other way, water slopping on her feet and skirts, the heavy wooden vessels tugging at her arms and back, while she tried to see what was happening. Behind her Steenie was arguing with Murdo, I tell you I saw it! What had he seen? she wondered, peering anxiously through the leaping firelight. Caterin and Mòr were by Mistress Drummond, conferring anxiously with Patrick, and Davie was holding the old woman’s hands, talking urgently to her.

Patrick looked up, stared around. Elizabeth ran over and seized the next bucket.

‘She is asking for you, mistress,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Will you go to her?’ She dashed at her eyes with a hand momentarily free. ‘I think she will be leaving us.’

‘Leaving you?’ Alys hurried across to the anxious group, and Davie looked up as she arrived, tears glittering on his face in the leaping light.

‘She is not good,’ he said. ‘The smoke, and the fright. I did what I could, but — ’

‘Usquebae?’ Alys suggested.

‘We tried that,’ said Caterin in the shadows. ‘Will you be listening to her, mistress? She has a word for you.’

Puzzled, Alys knelt obediently on the hard stones. The old woman did indeed look deathly, her face fallen in, her white hair tangled and sticking to her brow. Her kirtle was ill settled and unlaced, as if she had collapsed in the midst of dressing herself. From the smoke? Alys wondered. The hand which groped for Alys’s was cold, and so was the usquebae-laden breath that reached her cheek.

‘Lassie? Lassie, will you tell your man?’

‘I will,’ she promised. Tell him what? she wondered.

‘This is — truly my bairn,’ said the laboured whisper. ‘Tell him. Davie is my bairn.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ said Alys. At the foot of the folded plaid Caterin, kneeling, was intoning prayers in Ersche on a strange low humming note. Quite irrelevantly, it occurred to Alys that the boy Iain had fallen silent some time ago.

‘Just as Patrick,’ Mistress Drummond’s gaze travelled to the man kneeling by her shoulder, ‘and Jamie, and Ailidh.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘Agnes. Elizabeth. Andrew, Bethag, David. All my bonnie bairns. My son James, and Caterin’s James, and Iain. Mòr, Caterin, my dear good-daughters.’

‘Mammy!’ said Davie in anguish. She opened her eyes again and smiled at him, and he leaned forward, made the sign of the Cross over her lips with his thumb, swallowed hard and began to sing. An expression of great peace came over the old woman at the first notes. It was a slow gentle song with a tune as ancient as the hymn to Angus, almost like another lullaby, but the only familiar word Alys could make out was anam, soul. It must be a prayer for the departing soul. Caterin ceased her chanting and stared, but Patrick joined in with Amen at the end of the verse. Davie went on, and one by one the family drew near until by the end of the fourth short stanza they were all close enough to sing the amen together, on two long-drawn notes.

There was a silence in the circle, though outside it there was noise. Away down the infield, where the hens had fled from the frantic scenes in the yard, the Dalriach cockerel suddenly lifted up his morning voice. The old woman said something in Ersche, smiled gently at Patrick, at Davie and then looked beyond them, sudden delight in her face. Alys looked up, but saw only the hills black against the first light of dawn.

‘Och, Seumas mo chridh!’ said Mistress Drummond clearly, and did not speak again.

After a moment Patrick reached out and closed his mother’s eyes. His daughter and nieces began a heartbroken wailing. And then, to Alys’s amazement, Patrick too began to sing, another painful, ancient melody. This time Caterin joined in, and those around them took up the song, and still singing turned back to the urgent work, handing buckets and tugging at the burning thatch. Flames still leapt and crackled, but they did not reach so high into the tower of smoke, and the broadcast blossoms of fire on Patrick’s house had withered under the drenching from the bucket chain. The song rose solemnly above the noise, a weary lament punctuated by the hissing and splashing of water in the flames, and the cries of the animals. Alys watched and listened, the hair standing up on the back of her neck, and beside the dead woman Davie knelt, his face buried in his hands.

The burning thatch fell in with a crash. Sparks and flying scraps of bracken rose up, drifting on the light wind, but the other houses were safe, and the stackyard was upwind of the flames. The song ended, and Patrick touched Davie’s shoulder.

‘There is work to do, brother,’ he said in Scots. ‘The House of Fire is burning.’

‘I ken that,’ said Davie, raising his head. ‘That was why I cam home.’

Patrick hardly seemed to hear the words. He bent to gather up one end of the plaid on which his mother lay.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘we will take her indoors, out of harm’s way.’