The Stolen Voice (2 page)

‘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.’