The Stolen Voice

Chapter One

‘And you are telling me,’ said Gil Cunningham, ‘that this David Drummond vanished away forty year since, and is now returned seemingly not a day older?’

‘That’s about the sum of it,’ agreed Sir William Stewart. He cut a substantial portion off the haunch of venison on the platter before him, looked round the supper table, and conveyed the slice to his own pewter trencher. Satisfied that all four present were served, he addressed himself to his supper.

‘Not quite,’ qualified his lady. She accepted the sauce dish from Gil’s wife Alys and went on, ‘It was thirty year, for one thing, not forty, and for another I’d aye heard he was eleven or twelve when he vanished, and he’s at least sixteen now by the look of him.’

‘It still seems very strange,’ said Alys, ‘but this is a country where strange things happen, I think.’

She turned to the window, and Sir William’s steward, bare-legged and bearded and swathed in a vast checked plaid, looked enquiringly at her from where he stood by the sideboard. She shook her head and smiled, looking beyond him at the distant view of loch and mountains, woods and farmland, and the long narrow glen of Balquhidder.

They were in the solar on an upper floor of the impressive fortified house of Stronvar, on the shores of Loch Voil. It was a pleasant, comfortable room, furnished in the modern style with light linen hangings and pale carved oak, the open windows bringing in evening air and late sunshine. A pot of herbs smouldered on the sill. Beside Gil’s feet, Socrates the wolfhound sprawled full length, snoring faintly.

‘It’s more than strange,’ said Gil, ‘it’s unbelievable. What do you think, sir?’

‘I don’t credit it either,’ Sir William assured him, and bit a lump off the piece of meat impaled on his knife. Bailie of Balquhidder and second cousin to the young King James, he was a stout, long-nosed man, with the dark red Stewart hair now turning grey and thinning somewhat, and even here in this remote place he was clad in taffeta and velvet to receive guests. His big-boned Campbell wife was equally finely dressed; Gil found himself comparing her unfavourably with his own slender, elegant Alys, glowing opposite him in dark blue silk faced with apricot, her rope of pearls pinned to the bodice with the sapphire jewel he had given her on her birthday, her honey-coloured hair hidden under black velvet. He and Alys had arrived at Stronvar that afternoon, after two days’ journey from Glasgow, and had been made lavishly welcome, but he was still not completely certain why they were here.

He ate for a while in silence, while Sir William expounded on the other unlikely things which were claimed for the neighbourhood, until Marion Campbell, Lady Stewart said, ‘Aye, very true, Will, but the lad is there at Dalriach, there’s no getting round it.’

‘You have seen him, then, madam?’ said Alys.

‘I have,’ agreed their hostess. ‘They hold the tack direct from us, so I rode up the glen to Dalriach a month ago as soon as the word reached me, to congratulate Mistress Drummond.’ Gil appreciated this turn of phrase. ‘The lad is certainly a Drummond, you’ve only to look at him, and the old woman claims she knew him for her son as soon as he came over the hill.’

‘It sounds like one of my nurse’s tales,’ said Gil. ‘How old is Mistress Drummond? Is her eyesight that good?’

‘Oh, a good age. Near seventy, I’d think. Caterin Campbell, poor woman, that’s wedded to her son Patrick, tells me she has eyes like a hawk at a distance, can tell you how many stooks of barley are on the top rig, but can scarce see to eat her dinner.’ Lady Stewart mopped green sauce with a piece of wheaten bannock. ‘So young Davie is welcomed home and established in the midst of the township, and if you set him in a row with the other youngsters — they’ll be his nephew and nieces, I suppose — there’s not a hair of difference between them all, except the changeling.’

Changeling? thought Gil. What does she mean?

‘What about the rest of the family?’ Alys asked. ‘Patrick must be his brother. What do he and his wife think? Are they pleased to see him returned?’

Gil shot her a quick look, but her face was as innocent as her voice. Lady Stewart shook her head.

‘No knowing,’ she said. ‘They would never say to me, of course, if the old woman went against them.’

‘And does he himself claim to be David Drummond?’ Gil asked, staying with the point. ‘Where has he been these thirty years, if so?’

‘I got no word wi him on his own. Aye, take it, Murdo, it will do another meal.’ Lady Stewart leaned back to allow her steward to lift away the platter of meat. ‘He said almost nothing in front of the old lady, I would say out of shyness rather than anything else, and she gave me a great rigmarole about the sidhean on their land, and how the ones who dwell there were envious of the boy’s voice. He was a singer at the Cathedral down in Dunblane when he vanished, you ken.’

‘Sheean?’ Gil picked out the unfamiliar word.

‘Sidhean,’ she repeated. ‘It’s an Ersche word. It means a hill where the Good Neighbours dwell. The Fair Folk — the People of Peace,’ she amplified. ‘The one on Dalriach land, away at the head of Glen Buckie, is a great fearsome stony mound wi tall pine trees growing over it.’ Gil recalled more of his nurse’s tales, and nodded, getting a glimpse as he did so of the steward Murdo crossing himself and mouthing something.

‘So we’re to believe young Drummond has been all this time in this sheean?’ he asked.

‘So it seems. Murdo? What do they say in the glen?’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Murdo solemnly. ‘That is what they are saying. He has been thirty years under the earth, and the time passing as if it was no more than a day or two.’

‘Then how’s he got six years older, then, Murdo?’ demanded his master. ‘Tell me that?’

‘I would not be knowing,’ said Murdo, offended. ‘I have not the learning Sir William has.’

‘When did he vanish?’ Gil asked. ‘How long ago was it?’

‘It would be the year of the long drought,’ supplied Murdo, ‘just before St Angus’ fair.’

‘Long afore my time. Sixty-three, according to old Sir Duncan,’ said Sir William. Gil raised his eyebrows, and the other man gestured at the window with his knife. ‘Priest yonder in the Kirkton. He’s been priest here man and boy since James Fiery-Face’s day and longer. They say he recalls the eclipse in thirty-three, though I’m no certain he was here then.’

‘Poor old soul,’ said Lady Stewart thoughtfully. ‘Robert gives me a sad report of him.’

‘Aye, well,’ said her lord. ‘He may not be able to tell his hat from a jordan but he minds the history of the place like no other.’

‘He’s getting childish,’ Lady Stewart explained to Alys. ‘His clerk’s near as old as he is, but we’ve got a laddie to look after him, this past year. It’s made quite a difference.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘The kirk smells better, for one thing. But the old man is sinking now, just this last week or two. He may not have much longer, so Robert says.’

Alys tut-tutted in sympathy, and Gil said, pursuing his own train of thought:

‘So the boy’s been gone thirty years, as you said, madam. How did he disappear?’

‘Set out from the house after a few days’ leave of absence,’ offered Sir William, ‘to walk back to Dunblane, and never was seen again.’

‘It’s a long walk for a boy that age,’ observed Gil. ‘Was he alone? Was it winter?’

‘No, no, St Angus’ fair’s in August. Next week, indeed. He was to meet a friend in Strathyre, another singer, but he never came to the tryst.’

‘He was sought by all the paths out of Glenbuckie,’ said Murdo, setting clean small glasses on the table. ‘My own father was among those that would be searching. But by then it was over a month since he had left his home, the time it took to be knowing he was not at Dunblane nor at Dalriach neither. You would be grieved to see how my mother wept when he was not to be found. They were thinking he must have fallen into a drowning pool or the like, for all Euan nan Tobar said he had seen him lifted up and borne off, but now it seems they were wrong and Euan was right.’

‘Did you know him, Murdo?’ asked Lady Stewart. He straightened up and looked at her, dignified in his velvet doublet and colourful plaid.

‘I did. We were playing at the shinty together.’

‘Have you spoken to him,’ said Gil carefully, ‘since he came back?’

‘I have,’ said Murdo. ‘I was getting a word with him only on Sunday there, when all of Dalriach was coming down to the kirk, except for Mistress Campbell who could not be leaving the changeling.’ There it is again, thought Gil. Are they serious?

‘Did he mind you?’ asked Sir William abruptly.

‘Oh, he did.’ Murdo laid a dish of what looked like cream before his mistress, and a jug by Sir William’s hand. ‘I had to tell him who I was, but then I was a beardless laddie when he saw me last, Sir William would be thinking, and it was him recalled what we were doing at that time.’

‘And what was that?’ asked Sir William. Murdo looked sideways at him, and he snorted. ‘Some mischief, I suppose. Who else would have known of it?’

‘Just the two of us,’ averred Murdo. ‘And maybe the two MacLarens from Auchtoo,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘and Angus MacGregor at the Kirkton that were there with us.’

‘Small proof in that, then,’ said Sir William irritably, ‘if half the glen was in it.’

Alys, seeing how Sir William’s colour rose, turned to Murdo and said what sounded to Gil like, ‘Jay sho, lair toll?’ Both Lady Stewart and her servant looked sharply at her.

‘Cranachan, it is, mistress,’ said Murdo, distracted. ‘Cream, and burnt oatmeal, and new raspberries that Seonaid gathered this day morn. And there is the good Malvoisie to go with it.’

‘Ha ma,’ she said, smiling. The hint of an answering smile twitched at his beard and Lady Stewart, lifting the chased silver serving-spoon, said:

‘You never said you spoke Gaelic, my dear. As well as French and Scots?’

‘Murdo, man,’ said Sir William, recovering his countenance, ‘see us anither glass. You’d best ha some of this Malvoisie, and tak a seat and tell us what you know of the matter.’

To Gil’s amusement, the steward accepted the glass of wine with alacrity, but had to be persuaded to sit down in the presence of his lord. At length, formal and upright on a stool by the sideboard, he sipped the golden wine and reluctantly answered questions.

It began, naturally, with a genealogy. Old Mistress Drummond, ‘that is Bessie MacLaren,’ amplified Murdo, ‘a MacLaren of Auchtoo she is,’ and her late husband James Drummond, had had four sons and one daughter who was married to Angus MacLaren and dwelling away along the glen — here Sir William cut off the steward’s intention to detail all their offspring — and one son was now working the farm.

‘Aye, and a good farmer he is,’ confirmed Sir William. ‘Mind you, it’s sound land up Glenbuckie, but Patrick Drummond makes the most o’t, him and his nephew. They pay a good tack, in cheese and flax and two kids every spring.’

‘And the cloth,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘The daughters-in-law,’ she explained. ‘Caterin spins and dyes, she has the best dye-pot in Balquhidder, and Mòr weaves. Lovely stuff they turn out, them and their lassies.’

‘I thought you said there were four sons,’ said Gil. ‘This Patrick, and the one that disappeared and has turned up again — what happened to the other two?’

‘There was James,’ agreed Murdo, counting on his fingers, ‘and Patrick, and Andrew, and Davie. James is dead ten year since, and left Patrick with all the work of the farm, seeing the bairns were young, and Andrew is away at Dunblane.’

‘Canon in residence,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘He’s sub-Treasurer, doing well.’

Gil glanced at her and nodded.

‘What does he make of it?’ he asked. ‘I’d ha thought a churchman would have strong views on the matter.’

‘Och, I could not be saying,’ said Murdo.

‘Patrick could do with another pair of hands about the farm,’ said Sir William, ‘and he and Jamie Beag can as well share the tack with one more. But what Andrew makes of it there’s no knowing, seeing he’s not shown face yet. Carry on, Murdo, man.’

The steward set his empty glass on the sideboard.

‘They are saying along the glen that old James Drummond must have offended the Good Neighbours in some way,’ he paused to cross himself, muttering something in Ersche, ‘for though the farm is doing well the family has no fortune.’

‘They’ve no worse fortune than any other in Balquhidder!’ expostulated Sir William. Murdo shook his head.

‘Sir William would be knowing better than I,’ he said, sounding unconvinced. ‘Davie vanished away, and then his father, James Mor Drummond, was dead in a night, in his full strength, after a day at the reaping, and then Patrick’s first son James Breac was taken of a fever. And after that James, that would be Mistress Drummond’s eldest son, fell in the stackyard, and was taken up for dead, and buried a week after and left three bairns — ’

‘I mind that,’ said Sir William, ‘it was a year or two after we came here. Murdo, you ken as well as I do, in thirty years on a farm, these things happen! No need to talk of offending the — the Good Neighbours. You’d as well say they had a dislike of the name James Drummond!’

‘It could be so,’ agreed Murdo politely. ‘It could be so, indeed, but it would not be the only name they were disliking, for they stole away John the other son of Patrick Drummond and left a changeling.’

‘You mentioned that before,’ said Gil. ‘What makes you say he’s a changeling?’

‘It’s a terrible thing,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘He’s eight, of an age wi my own John. He was the bonniest bairn, bright and forward and talking already at two year old, I mind it well, and then he was changed to this shrivelled creature they have wi them now, willny walk, screaming all the time and eating enough for four.’

Gil thought of the sturdy eight-year-old Stewart who had brought them the welcoming cup of mead, handing the beakers with a solemn greeting in Ersche. It must be painful to compare the two children, particularly for the Drummonds.

‘The bairn was sick,’ pronounced Sir William. ‘They sicken like flies at that age. That’s all it was.’

‘Caterin his mother,’ said Murdo solemnly, ‘that is the wife of Patrick Drummond, was leaving him asleep in his cradle, and she was outside, no further than the spinning wheel at the end of the house, working away, when there was a — a whirl of wind, oiteag sluaigh, travelling on the tall grass stems, went by the house door. And the bairn burst out in screaming, from his cradle where he was, and would never be stopped since that time.’

‘Caterin should have thrown her shoe at them,’ said Lady Stewart, and the steward nodded agreement.

‘Aye, well,’ said Sir William. ‘We get a lot of these whirlwinds in the summer,’ he informed Gil. ‘You’ll be out in the open, not a puff of air stirring, and all of a sudden here’s this eddy crossing in front of you, lifting the straws and the dust. The Ersche says it’s a party o the Good Folk on the way past.’

‘Indeed I think there are many of the Good People dwelling in these parts,’ said Alys seriously. Gil met her gaze across the table, startled, and she smiled quickly at him.

‘Get on wi your tale, Murdo, man,’ commanded Sir William.

‘There is little more to tell, Sir William kens. Thirty year ago, that was the year of the great drought, like I was saying, Davie and Andrew was away singers at Dunblane, for they were singing like linties the both of them. Davie came home to Dalriach at Lammastide, and he went away scarce a week later before St Angus’ fair, though his mother wished him to be staying to sing at the great service in the kirk here. He was going away up the glen by the track that goes over into Strathyre, and past the sidhean, and was never seen more in this world for thirty years, until a month since he came walking down the glen and his mother spied him coming a great way off and knew him for her son.’

‘It’s quite a surprise, your wife speaking Ersche,’ said Sir William.

‘She’s a surprising creature,’ said Gil. ‘A periwinkle of prowess.’

‘Aye, and a bonnie one.’ Sir William, ignoring the quotation, strolled along his gravel path towards the last of the sunshine. Gil followed, Socrates at his knee. ‘How long since you were wed? Eight month? Aye, too soon, too soon. I don’t wonder you wanted her wi you.’

Gil repressed comment, and looked about him in the evening light. They were in the garden, a hard-won patch of small flower beds defined by low aromatic hedges, with a sturdy fence round it against the goats. Below them lay the house of Stronvar, from where Sir William was expected to keep order and the law of Scotland in a sprawling, unruly stretch of the Highlands. Below it again hills and sky were reflected in Loch Voil as in a mirror, and across the narrow water smoke rose from the group of houses around the little kirk, the great bare rock above them catching fire from the westering sun. Apart from the clouds of biting insects, kept at bay by the herbs burning pungently in a little pot which Lady Stewart had given them, it was very pleasant out here, but Gil thought he could imagine it in winter. He had never expected to feel so much of a foreigner in his own country.

‘How much did Robert Blacader tell you?’ said Sir William abruptly.

‘Very little,’ said Gil. There had been one hurried interview with his master when the Archbishop halted in Glasgow two days since, on his way to Dumbarton with the King and half the Council. ‘Something about vanishing singers, and now that this one has reappeared his mother wants him back in his place at Dunblane. The Chapter at Dunblane were in disagreement about it, and Bishop Chisholm referred it to the Archbishop. My lord seemed to feel the two matters were connected, and directed me here.’

‘Aye,’ said Sir William, sitting down on the bench at the top of the little enclosure and placing the smoking pot beside him.

‘They’ve moved gey fast at Dunblane,’ Gil commented, and hitched the knee of his best hose to seat himself beside his host. The dog, who had trotted ahead, returned and settled on his feet. ‘In general sic a thing would take months to be resolved even that far.’

‘Aye, well. It’s a Drummond,’ said Sir William, as if that explained all.

‘Does your steward genuinely believe it’s his playmate come back, do you think?’

‘Murdo?’ Sir William looked about him, as if to make certain they were not overheard. ‘No telling, to be truthful. I like these wild Ersche,’ he said, in the tone of one admitting to liking squirrels, or hares, or some such unchancy creature, ‘but there’s no denying they go their own way. If the old woman accepts the laddie, the rest of the Drummonds will, as my lady was saying, and if the Drummonds accept him Balquhidder folk would never tell me if they’d any doubts.’

He was silent for a little, then went on, ‘So Blacader never tellt you the full tale?’ Gil made a small negative noise. ‘Aye, well.’ He stared out across the loch, apparently seeking inspiration. ‘These singers,’ he said at length. ‘The great kirks aye hunt about for good singers, you’ll ken that, but in general they arrange matters atween themselves, maybe a donation of money or the gift of a benefice in exchange for a good high tenor. Good tenors are like hen’s teeth, so they tell me.’

‘I’ve heard that.’ Gil rubbed Socrates’ ears and grinned, thinking of his friend Habbie Sim’s strictures on the high tenors in the choir of Glasgow Cathedral.

‘But now there’s been three or four songmen left their posts in Perthshire alone in the last year, and no sign of where they’ve gone to. It’s almost as if they’re no still in Scotland.’

‘No trace of them anywhere?’

‘None. Spirited away like the Drummond lad.’

‘These are grown men?’ said Gil. ‘Priested?’

‘As it happens, no. In minor orders, naturally, but none of them priests.’

‘So none of them has broken any vow of obedience. Where have they vanished from? When? Do you have the details? And are they all tenors, indeed?’

‘One Dunkeld man,’ said Sir William, ‘one from Dunblane, two from Perth.’ He paused. ‘One less than two weeks since, the two Perth fellows in May, one in March. Not all tenors. I think they’re different voices. One was an alto, I recall.’

‘This is hardly the best place to start from, if I’m to ask questions in Dunkeld or Perth,’ said Gil. ‘Hidden away in the mountains like this.’

‘It’s closer to either than Glasgow is,’ said Sir William unanswerably. ‘Forbye you’ll find George Brown spends the most of his time in Perth. It’s safer than Dunkeld.’

‘And what else has gone missing?’

The older man turned sharply to look at Gil. After a moment he said, ‘Aye, I see why Robert Blacader speaks well of you. That’s the nub of the matter,’ he acknowledged. ‘No so much what’s missing as what he took wi him in his head, so to speak. The last one that’s vanished, the Dunkeld man, that went in July there just ten days since, is no singer. He’s secretary to Georgie Brown.’

‘The Bishop of Dunkeld.’ Gil stared into the gathering evening. The fire had fallen away from the rock above the little church, and the sky was darkening above it. ‘Who assisted William Elphinstone when he received the ambassadors from England in June.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Sir William.

‘But why should that be a problem?’ asked Alys. ‘The truce was signed six weeks since. Surely the terms are common knowledge across Europe by now.’

‘I assume,’ said Gil cautiously in French, ‘there must be more to learn than that, since the Council is concerned about it.’

They were alone. The dog and the two grooms they had brought with them were snug above the stables with the other outdoor servants, but Gil and Alys had been lodged in a guest apartment on the principal floor of the house. Its two chambers were furnished with ostentation, and the images and crowned IS monograms on the painted linen bed-hangings suggested that it had housed one King James or the other, presumably on a hunting expedition, in the time since Sir William was put in place here. Two candle-stands and another pot of burning herbs made it a little stuffy, but it was both comfortable and private, and the girl whom Lady Stewart had supplied to be Alys’s tire-woman had left giggling, after unlacing the blue silk gown and hanging it reverently on a peg.

Now Gil shut the door behind her, and sat down on the faded embroidery of one of the folding chairs by the bed. ‘They would hardly tell me what it is, I suppose, but they are clearly anxious about where the information has gone,’ he added.

‘They must be,’ said Alys, closing her jewel-box. She drew off her linen undercap, shook out her hair and took up her comb. ‘So where must we begin?’

‘I wish you had not come with me, now,’ said Gil, watching the light sliding down the long honey-coloured locks. He began to pull his boots off. ‘This is a different matter from — ’

‘I’m your wife,’ she said. ‘Where else should I be but at your side? But why did the Archbishop send you here? Surely we should start by searching in Perth or Dunkeld.’

‘Aye, for the missing singers. There is this other one who is not missing — who has reappeared. By what Blacader said, the Chapter at Dunblane has no wish to have him, and I imagine they hope I can prove him to be an impostor. I think he’s crossed the main trail, but it seems as if I’m expected to follow both.’

‘It would be a great attraction for pilgrims,’ said Alys, pausing with the carved bone comb in mid-stroke, ‘to have such a singer in their choir I mean, but I suppose it would be very awkward for the Chapter, since Holy Church teaches us that fairies are sent by the Devil.’ She ran the comb to the end of the lock she held, and gathered up another. ‘How does my lord think they are linked? The missing ones and the returned one, I mean.’

‘He hasn’t said he does think it,’ said Gil, unlacing his doublet.

‘But he has sent you here to investigate both matters.’

‘So it seems.’

She continued combing in silence for a little, then said, ‘I could speak to the family here, while you go to those other places.’

‘Yes.’ Gil hung the doublet on a nail considerately placed in the panelling beside him. ‘That’s why I wish you hadn’t come with me, sweetheart. If we aren’t to be together, I’d sooner you were safe in Glasgow than stranded alone here while I ride all over Perthshire.’

‘Do you wish to send me home, Gil?’ she asked, looking straightly at him.

‘No,’ he admitted. Then, ‘Besides, if you speak Ersche, how can I waste your talents?’

‘It was fortunate that Murdo answered me in Scots,’ she confessed. ‘I have only a few words that I have learned from Ealasaidh McIan, and at times I confuse those with Breton.’

‘Breton?’ he repeated in surprise.

‘When we lived in Nantes,’ she smiled reminiscently, ‘until I was nine, all our servants were bretons bretonnants, they spoke Breton rather than French. My nurse Annec used it all the time. Many of the words are the same, which I find astonishing. Ty is a house, for instance.’

‘That is extraordinary,’ he said, digesting all our servants. He knew her father was a wealthy man, wealthy enough to have fostered Ealasaidh McIan’s motherless nephew without a second thought, and now it seemed he had been well-to-do for most of Alys’s life.

She set her comb down on the little table beside her, and began to braid her hair for the night.

‘So I can speak to the family,’ she said again, ‘and find out what I can.’

‘That would be — ’ he began. There was a tapping at the chamber door.

‘Mo leisgeul,’ said a male voice. They stared at each other, and Gil snatched up his whinger and drew the blade.

‘Och, the gentleman has no need of his weapon,’ said another voice.

‘Seonaid?’ said Alys.

‘It is Seonaid, mistress, and Murdo Dubh MacGregor, that would be wishing a word?’

Gil gestured, and Alys nodded, lifted her linen cap and moved to the far side of the bed. Whinger in hand, he padded to the door and opened it cautiously. The girl Seonaid was revealed in the lamplight, a plaid drawn over her hair. The man beyond her, far enough away to be half-shadowed, wore doublet and great belted plaid like Murdo, but was dark-haired and beardless.

‘You aren’t Murdo,’ Gil said.

‘The gentleman will pardon me, maybe,’ said the young man. He stepped into the light and drew off his feathered bonnet in a graceful bow. ‘Murdo Dubh mac Murdo mac Iain MacGregor, to serve you,’ he said. His face was lean and handsome and he had an amazing wealth of long dark eyelash.

‘So you’re Murdo’s son,’ said Gil in puzzlement. ‘Is that a reason for lurking in our chambers after the rest of the household’s abed?’

‘He is to wait on you,’ said Seonaid, bobbing a curtsy, ‘and it’s myself is telling you, mistress,’ she craned her neck, searching for Alys within the chamber, ‘he is a good servant, if maybe he is talking too much.’

Alys came quietly forward from her concealment, her hair covered once more, and the young man’s glance flicked to her and back to Gil.

‘I am to wait on you, as this — as Seonaid says,’ he said, and bowed again, with a glowing smile. ‘My father was giving me the instruction just now, and I thought I would be coming to make myself known.’

‘And?’ said Gil.

‘Och, nothing more,’ Murdo mac Murdo assured him. ‘Nothing more. Excepting only — ’

‘Yes?’ said Gil unhelpfully.

‘Would there be orders for the morning, maybe?’

‘Not yet,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve made no decisions.’

‘I have,’ said Alys. ‘I would like to meet this David Drummond who has returned — who has been away for thirty years. Can you arrange that, Murdo?’

‘Och, he’s just a laddie,’ said Seonaid. ‘Hair like bog-cotton, he has, like all his kin, and never looking at the lassies in the Kirkton at all when he comes down on a Sunday.’

Murdo spoke sharply to her in Ersche, and she giggled, pushed him playfully, bobbed another curtsy to Alys, and departed. As soon as the outer door closed behind her Murdo said, ‘That can be easy arranged.’ Had he relaxed a little? Gil wondered. ‘Indeed I can be taking the lady to Dalriach myself. If you were to ride up Glen Buckie to see the sidhean, what more natural than to call at the house? The more so since I am well acquainted with the family.’

‘Are you, then?’ said Gil.

‘I know everyone in this country,’ said Murdo Dubh modestly. Allowing for the common use of country to mean the stretch of land bounded by the mountains one could see, Gil felt he could believe this.

‘Mistress Drummond has granddaughters living with her at — at Dalriach, I suppose,’ said Alys.

‘She has indeed,’ agreed Murdo, with that brilliant smile. ‘There is Elizabeth nic Padraig, and Agnes nic Seumas,’ he enumerated, the Lowland and Highland names mixing oddly, ‘and Ailidh nic Seumas. That is all her granddaughters that lives up the glen.’

‘Two daughters of James’s and one of Patrick’s,’ Gil elucidated, as much for his own understanding as Alys’s. Murdo nodded. ‘And there are two grandsons, I think.’ Another nod. ‘Quite a household. Now if that was all you wanted, Murdo — ’

‘Is it?’ said Alys. She glanced at Gil, and looked back at their visitor. ‘I think Murdo wanted a longer word, not?’

‘Bha,’ he agreed, a little reluctantly. There was a pause. ‘It was just,’ he said, and swallowed. The eyelashes swept his cheek as he looked down, then up again, and then he went on hurriedly, ‘Just there is a — there is need of taking care if you are going about the country.’

‘Why?’ asked Gil. ‘Are you warning us? What danger d’you mean?’

The dark gaze slid sideways away from his.

‘There has been a bodach seen hereabouts,’ he said. ‘In Glen Buckie, and here by the side of the loch.’

‘A bodach?’ said Gil. He had heard the word before. ‘An old man?’

‘Not just an old man,’ said Murdo, again with that reluctance. ‘He is not — he is being — ’

‘Is it a spirit of some sort?’ Alys asked. ‘A wicked spirit?’

‘Not wicked,’ prevaricated Murdo. ‘Not friendly, just. That would be it,’ he nodded in satisfaction. ‘Not very friendly at all, at all. So you will take care going about the place? Go nowhere by night, and never by your lone?’

‘Not very friendly,’ Gil repeated. He had met this feeling when trying to talk to other speakers of Ersche. It was like wrestling with fish, or fighting with a featherbed; no sooner was one aspect of the conversation under control than another surged up from nowhere to overwhelm him. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Maister Cunningham,’ said Alys, at her most formal, ‘might we ask Murdo to enter, so we can be seated and hear him in comfort?’

‘I was about to be leaving you,’ said Murdo Dubh hastily, half turning away. ‘No need to be putting you out.’

‘Come in,’ said Gil, recognizing that Alys was right. The young man had all the appearance of an Erscheman with something to impart, but it would have to be coaxed from him.

Like his father Murdo was unwilling to accept a seat, but stood, lean and upright in his swathing of checked wool, looking from one to the other of them as they asked questions. Alys was more successful at getting answers; gradually they pieced together a tale of a small misshapen figure seen at a distance by twilight, where nobody was absent from the township or shieling. Murdo himself had not seen it, but Ailidh nic Seumas of Dalriach and three others together had watched it from the high shieling the same day that Davie Drummond came home. It certainly brought ill luck, Murdo stated simply, for now things were happening at the farm.

‘What sort of things?’ asked Gil resignedly. It had been a long day, and a long ride from Stirling; he was deeply aware of the bed behind him, with its embroidered counterpane and pile of pillows.

Murdo looked down and sideways again, then said slowly, ‘There is all the wee things that happens. The hens got into the garden, the cat was at the cream. Some of them is blaming the bodach for that, but they are things that can happen any time. But — ’ He hesitated. ‘There was a ladder that broke, before Jamie Beag could climb it. There was a rope gave way, and Davie fell. There was a pitchfork dropped out of nowhere when the barn door was opened, and tore Davie’s shirt from neck to hem. There has been other things the like of those.’

‘I see what you mean,’ said Gil.

‘Does it all threaten David Drummond?’ Alys asked. The dark lashes rose like a curtain as Murdo looked at her.

‘Not all,’ he admitted. ‘But many does.’

‘And Ailidh likes her new uncle,’ said Alys.

‘I believe she likes him well,’ agreed Murdo, his face impassive.

‘You’ll be careful, sweetheart,’ said Gil into the darkness.

‘I will,’ said Alys.

Finally, finally, they were alone and curled together in the great bed. Murdo Dubh had eventually left them with promises of horses and an escort for Alys in the morning, and they had made haste to prepare themselves for sleep. But there was too much to talk through first.

‘This David could be the boy returned from wherever he has been, I suppose,’ said Alys thoughtfully, ‘all things are possible under God, but it does seem unlikely.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed Gil. ‘And yet Lady Stewart said he looks like a Drummond. We need to find out who else he might be, and where he could have come from, and who sent him, and if the family have accepted him that won’t be easy.’

‘And who is trying to kill him,’ said Alys. ‘Some of those things Murdo described sound to me like a woman’s actions. I wonder how the sisters-in-law feel about the boy’s return?’

‘No, I don’t like the sound of that.’ Gil clasped her closer. ‘Maybe I should come too.’

‘No, no, that makes it too formal. I think you should pursue these missing songmen. Is it far to Perth from here?’

‘A day’s ride, Sir William said, and another one back again.’

‘Oh!’ she said in dismay. ‘I hadn’t realized — so you’ll be gone for several days.’

‘That’s why I wish you’d stayed in Glasgow. Will you mind being left here?’

‘You have your duty to see to.’ She clung to him. ‘Tell me again what my lord said.’

Gil was silent for a moment, calling up the scene. Blacader, blue-jowled and expensively clad, had been seated at one end of a carpeted table, his rat-faced secretary William Dunbar making notes at the other end while several clerks shuffled papers for the Archbishop to sign, but he had swung away from this scene of industry when Gil entered the chamber.

‘Ah, Gilbert,’ he said. Maister Dunbar had risen to fetch a sealed packet from a rack of shelves, and brought it to his master’s hand. ‘Aye, thank you, William, I mind it. What d’ye ken of Perthshire, Gilbert? No a lot? Well, now’s your chance to learn more.’ He drew out his tablets, and peered at one leaf. ‘There’s singers disappearing all across the shire, which is bad enough and you need to take a look at it for me. But now Jimmy Chisholm’s got a wheen trouble at Dunblane wi a singer reappearing, saying he’s been in Elfhame these forty year.’ He laughed sourly. ‘Singers is aye a trouble, whatever they’re doing, but that’s a new excuse. I want you to visit Will Stewart at Balquhidder and talk to the fellow.’

‘Reappearing?’ Gil questioned, disbelieving. ‘From Elfhame?’

‘Maister Secretary will gie you the story.’ Blacader waved a hand. ‘Jimmy Chisholm’s Chapter couldny agree, so if you can find me a sound reason why this lad shouldny go back to his place at Dunblane, I’ll be pleased and so will he. This ought to cover you to begin wi,’ he thrust the sealed package at Gil, ‘and you’ll report all to me. William! Take him off and gie him the tale, will you?’

‘He never directed you,’ said Alys now, ‘to find the missing singers, only to talk to this one.’

‘I’ve to look at the matter,’ Gil said. ‘Dunbar mentioned them too, though not this matter of the Bishop of Dunkeld’s secretary. It was Sir William gave me that part of the story.’ He rubbed his cheek against her hair. ‘But I think I’ll begin in Dunblane, where the two trails seem to cross.’

‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘And it’s closer.’

‘It’s closer,’ he agreed.