The Stolen Voice (13 page)

‘It’s a help,’ said Gil. ‘It’s a lot of help, Maister Gregor.’ It means I can probably dismiss the problem, he was thinking. I don’t see how there can be any connection.

‘I’m glad,’ said the old man. ‘We want to know what’s come to him.’ He peered round in the dusk. ‘I’d best go indoors, maister. The night air’s no a good thing. Are you coming too?’

‘I am.’ Gil lifted the empty platter and turned towards the house. ‘I’m surprised I’m not being bitten here. You can’t sit out like this in Balquhidder.’

‘It’s the smoke,’ explained Maister Gregor. ‘They stay away from all the smoke.’

‘I think you packed away all Maister Stirling’s property,’ Gil said, gesturing for the old priest to go in front of him.

‘I did that,’ agreed Maister Gregor in a distressed bleat. ‘Never thinking but that he’d come back for it. Poor Jaikie!’

‘Was it all in good order? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about it?’ Gil saw that for a foolish question as he spoke. This gentle old soul would hardly recognise trouble if it bit him on the hand.

‘No, no, nothing by-ordinar. Save for the crossbow.’ Maister Gregor stopped still and nodded, the movement dimly visible in the twilight. ‘Save for the crossbow.’

‘What was wrong with that?’

‘Oh, nothing wrong wi’t, it works well, I ascertained that, if you could but draw it. Only I never kent Jaikie had a bow, you see. He’d aye to borrow mine when we went out to the butts.’

Stifling his response to the image of Maister Gregor with a crossbow in his hands, Gil said, ‘You and Maister Stirling have been good friends, then, if you’d lend him your bow.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed. He’s a – he’s a good friend,’ said the old man earnestly. ‘There’s some finds his humour a bit sharp, but he’s aye a good laugh, and he’ll do you a good turn sooner than an ill.’ He chuckled. ‘Only the day afore he went off, he’d a good crack at Wat our steward, fair made me laugh. See, Wat had misplaced his tablets, and Jaikie found them at the back o a bench, fallen down behind the cushion.
Oh
, he said,
if I kent where to take it, that would be worth a penny or two, wi all the tally o my lord’s household in it
. Wat was no best pleased, but the rest o us laughed.’ He peered at Gil in the shadows. ‘Maybe you had to be there. But the other was better, wait till I tell you. The very day we last saw him, Wat was on about a new way o cooking mutton he’d got off Robert Elphinstone’s steward when we was last in Edinburgh, that he’d tried to teach my lord’s cook and the man couldny get the rights o’t, and Jaikie said,
You should write it down, Wat, and sell it in the Low Countries
. Wat was right put out.’

‘I think you and Maister Stirling had a disagreement, too,’ Gil said, with faint malice.

‘We did,’ said Maister Gregor sadly. ‘We’d a word in the morning. Sic a small matter, it was, to fall out over a misplaced shoe, and thanks be to Our Lady we were friends again by noon.’

‘A shoe?’

‘Aye, is it no daft? Jaikie was hunting it all through the chamber, and found it down my side o the bed, and would have it I’d kicked it there in the night. But as I said,’ offered the old man earnestly, ‘he’d as likely thrown it there hissel while he searched for it. So we got a bit sharp wi one another, and disturbed my lord, who wasny well pleased. But we shared a jug of ale wi the noon bite, and he’d that crack about Wat and the Low Countries, and all was just as usual again.’ He sighed, and crossed himself. ‘And now he’s dead, my poor friend, and him as much younger than me. What are we doing standing out here in the night air, Maister Cunningham? Come away in, afore you take a chill.’

Gil followed the old man along the path and helped him up a set of steps by the house door, running these things through his mind. Just before he set his hand on the latch, he said, ‘Where was the bow when you found it, then?’

‘In his kist,’ said Maister Gregor. ‘In his kist.’

Mistress Doig’s house and yard were in the midst of the northern suburb, their gateway further from the port than Gil had thought from the sound of the barking. Following the man Peter again past the low turf-walled houses and middens in the morning light, he avoided chickens, goats and a marauding pig and wondered what the Blackfriars thought of the addition to their neighbourhood. The continuous noise from the dogs must affect the singing of the Office. Then again, he reflected, the Blackfriars’ convent in Glasgow was right in the centre of the burgh, with full benefit of the sounds of market and traffic.

Mistress Doig herself was at work in the yard, sweeping out an empty pen. When they stepped in all the dogs began barking again, and she straightened up from her task with a swift glance at Peter’s livery, then turned from him to survey Gil with displeasure but no surprise. She was a gaunt raw-boned woman wrapped in a sacking apron, sleeves of gown and shift rolled well up above her elbows, the grubby ends of her white linen headdress knotted at the back of her neck. Some of the dogs began scrabbling at the fencing of their pens, eager to get at the visitor.

‘Quiet!’ yelled Mistress Doig. A silence fell, in which she said, ‘It’s you, is it? If it’s Doig you’re after, he’s no here.’

‘You remember me?’ said Gil, raising his hat politely.

She unbent slightly at this, but her tone was still resentful as she said, ‘Aye, I mind you. We’d never ha had to move if you’d kept away from Doig. That was a good place we had at Glasgow. Better by far than this.’

He looked about him, and had to agree. The yard here was smaller and the house far less well-constructed than the one he recalled, although the wooden fencing of the pens was new and solid. Peter had wandered off to admire some of the dogs.

‘What brought you here?’ Gil asked curiously. ‘Why not Stirling or Edinburgh?’

She shrugged one bony shoulder, and scraped at something with her brush. ‘I’ve kin here, it was as good as anywhere else. You kept that wolfhound pup,’ she remembered. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s well, and growing,’ Gil said, aware of smiling as he thought of his dog. ‘The handsomest wolfhound in Scotland. A rare beast.’

She unbent further at this.

‘I thought that myself. Is it Doig you’re wanting?’ she demanded, her tone almost friendly.

‘Yes, but maybe you could help me if he’s not here.’

‘I’ve no idea where he is,’ she said hastily. ‘He never tellt me where he was off to.’

‘No, I’m not looking for him,’ Gil reassured her. ‘I’m trying to find this man that’s gone missing, the Bishop’s secretary, a fellow called James Stirling.’

‘Him.’ She came out of the pen, leaned the besom against the fence, and skilfully extracted one small dog from the next pen without letting the other escape. Pushing it into the newly swept space she shut the gate and twirled the two turnbuttons, then turned to Gil. ‘He was here, aye.’

‘You know him, then?’

‘He was here about the Bishop’s wee spaniel. My cousin Mitchel brought him here first, and he cam back a time or two wi word from my lord.’ Her grim expression cracked as she smiled. ‘A rare litter, that was. Off this bitch here,’ she pointed to the next gate along. ‘Right good wee pups she throws.’ The inmate of the pen stood up, scrabbling at the fence and squeaking exactly like her son, and Mistress Doig leaned in and caressed her soft ears. ‘Aye, Blossom, that’s my bonnie girl.’

‘And what about the time when he vanished,’ said Gil. ‘Had he been here then?’

‘That’s what I meant. He was here.’ She glanced at the sky. ‘Doig was home that week, and the man – Stirling, you cried him? – came around looking for him.’

‘Did he say why?’

‘He did not. Nor did I ask. Doig was in the town, so Maister Secretary said he’d wait, and hung about my yard getting under my feet,’ she said pointedly, lifting the besom again, ‘and getting my dogs excited wi too much attention.’

‘What time was this?’ Gil asked.

She shrugged. ‘About the time I make their evening –’ She broke off significantly, and Gil recalled all the dogs in the yard in Glasgow barking at the word
dinner
. He grinned, and nodded.

‘So an hour or two afore Vespers, maybe?’

‘About that or sooner. He hung about for a while, and then another fellow cam in seeking Doig, and the two of them knew one another.’ She made a sour face. ‘If they’d been dogs, there would ha been blood shed. Walking round one another stiff-legged wi their fangs showing, they were, though since they were both priests it was all done very civil.’

‘Both priests?’ said Gil quickly. ‘Do you know the name of the other man?’

‘A Canon Andrew Drummond, so he said. From Dunblane.’

‘Well, well,’ said Gil. ‘And he knows Maister Doig as well?’

‘So it seemed,’ she said, ‘but no need to ask me how or why, for I’ve no notion.’

‘So then what happened? Did they speak to your husband? Did they stay here?’

She propped the besom resignedly against the fence, extracted another dog, dropped it neatly in beside its neighbour, and began to sweep the empty pen.

‘They stayed here,’ she said, ‘the half of an hour or so, talking about nothing, very civil as I said. Then they saw Doig would no be back any time soon, and went off thegither the pair of them. Which I was glad to see,’ she admitted, pausing to look round for the shovel, ‘since if there was to be blood shed I’d as soon it wasny on my yard.’

‘What were they talking about?’

‘Nothing.’ She lifted the shovel. ‘A lot of havers. They looked at Blossom, and spoke of the Bishop’s wee pup, and Maister Secretary said he’d ha had another of her litter, but that two brothers in the one place are often jealous, which is daft. Maybe it’s true of folk, but not of dogs if they’re handled right. Then the other said, a dog’ll not forget an ill turn done to him as a pup. Now that’s true I’ll admit, but what was it to the point?’

Well, well, thought Gil.

‘And then they left here,’ he said.

‘They did.’ She emptied her shovel into a reeking bucket by the gate of the pen. ‘Drummond was back later on his own, no even his man wi him, looking for Doig, and I tellt him where he’d likely get him, but I haveny seen him since, for whenever it was he caught up wi Doig it wasny here. Maybe it was in the town.’

‘Did you see Stirling again?’

‘Aye, later on.’

‘Where?’ he asked eagerly. She straightened up and stared at him.

‘When I was walking the dogs,’ she said. ‘I take them out yonder,’ she gestured northwards, ‘along by the river, and when I cam back I saw him away down this track ahead of me, making for the Red Brig, just his lone, his head and shoulders showing over the rise in the track. You couldny mistake him, wi the last o the sun shining on the badges on his hat. Never saw so many badges on a hat,’ she added.

‘You’re sure of that?’ Gil asked.

‘Sure of what? I saw the sun catch on the badges, I ken what the time was. They were just ringing St John’s bell to shut the gates.’ She cast a glance round the pen, stepped out, and retrieved its occupant from behind the neighbouring gate. ‘Now, maister, if there’s naught else I can help you with, I’d as soon get on wi this task. It’s never-ending, you’ll believe.’

‘I’ll believe it,’ Gil said. ‘Many thanks, mistress.’ He reached for his purse. ‘Maybe you’d buy the dogs a treat for me.’

The Blackfriars’ accommodation for guests was spacious and well appointed. It was hardly surprising, Gil reflected, admiring the brocade cushions and rich hangings of the chamber where he had been asked to wait for Brother Cellarer. The court had not used the place for fifty-odd years, not since James First was assassinated here, but it had certainly been founded, long before that, to provide somewhere suitable for the King and his entourage to lie when they came to Perth. Alys would like the detail of the stonework, he thought, studying the carved foliage on the capital of the pillar between two window-openings.

‘Can I help you, Maister Cunningham?’ asked a soft voice in the doorway. He turned, to find a small fair-haired Dominican watching him with faint amusement.

‘It’s a fine building,’ he said.

‘We are blessed,’ agreed the friar. He came forward into the chamber. ‘They were craftsmen that built it to God’s glory. Did you see this?’ He stepped into the window-space beside Gil and pointed upwards. Gil followed his gaze and found a tiny head carved in the angle of wall and roof, grimacing at him. He laughed, and Brother Cellarer smiled, then raised his hand and delivered the friars’ conventional blessing.

‘I am Edward Gilchrist. I oversee the smooth running of this guesthouse. And how can I help you?’ he asked.

‘I’m looking into this matter of James Stirling,’ Gil explained. ‘Secretary to Bishop Brown,’ he prompted, as the other man frowned.

‘Yes, of course.’ Gilchrist’s face cleared. ‘The Bishop sent this morning, and the lay brothers are out just now, searching the Ditchlands.’ He nodded at the window, through which several black-habited men were visible on the open ground, peering under gorse bushes. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, maister, but I –’

‘Almost the last action of Stirling’s we know of,’ Gil pursued, ‘was to speak to Andrew Drummond, Canon of Dunblane, who was lodged here at the time. I’ll have to go back to Dunblane and speak to the Canon, but in the meantime I hoped, if you can tell me anything about his movements that day, it might shed some light on what Stirling did next.’

‘Ah.’ Gilchrist studied Gil for a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ll fetch the record book. Take a seat, sir. I’ll no be long.’

In fact he was nearly a quarter of an hour, slipping back into the chamber with a big leather-bound volume clasped against his white scapular.

‘Forgive me, maister,’ he said, drawing another stool up to the small table by the window. ‘I’d to deal wi another matter. The laundry seems to have lost three of the good linen sheets. Now, when was Canon Drummond here? About two week since, am I right?’ He leafed backward through the book. Its pages were filled with columns of neat tiny writing and figures, a total at the foot of each in red ink. ‘Aye, here we are. Andrew Drummond from Dunblane, stayed three nights with four, no, five men, and what’s this? Oh, I mind. He’d a woman wi his company, which was awkward as the women’s guest-hall was empty at the time. It’s unusual, but it happens.’

‘A woman?’ said Gil blankly. ‘Oh – he was bringing his bairns to their grandmother. Maybe he brought one of the maidservants along to see to them on the journey.’

‘I’d say she was more than a serving-lass,’ demurred Gilchrist. ‘She was maybe his – some woman’s companion. I set eyes on her myself, Mistress Ross she was cried, a decent enough woman past forty I’d say, but we’d to put her in a lodging out-by, and Maister Canon insisted we send her food out to her. So hardly a maidservant.’

‘That must have been inconvenient. Was she far away?’

‘No, no, just at Duncan Niven’s house by the dyer’s yard. He’s kin to one of our lay brothers, we’ve lodged other folk there afore now, though we don’t usually carry their food. The kitchen-folk swears we never got all the dishes back.’

‘Irritating,’ said Gil. ‘So what have you recorded here?’

‘It’s a note of all the dole offered,’ Gilchrist turned the book so that Gil could see the pages, ‘the provisions made use of, who ate what and where it was served up. Here’s Canon Drummond, see, two messes of food, one manchet loaf and two of maslin, ale and clean water, brought here to the guest hall from the kitchens, and the woman’s portion carried forth on a platter from here.’

‘You’re meticulous.’ Gil studied the orderly columns. ‘You even record the amount of the broken meats?’

‘We’re the stewards of what’s given over to us for charity,’ Gilchrist pointed out. ‘It’s no more than our duty to make certain it’s used well. The broken meats goes for feeding the poor at the gates the next day, and since the poor never get any less in number, Brother Almoner needs to have an idea how much broth he’ll need to make up the amount.’

Gil nodded, a finger on the date he wanted.

‘Did Drummond’s company leave in ones and twos?’

‘No that I recall,’ said Gilchrist, staring. ‘Why d’you ask?’

‘They’ve eaten well, though not inordinately.’ Gil paused, calculating. ‘Two messes of food served to six people, there would be enough left most days to feed another two mouths at least. Yes, here on the twenty-fourth you’ve noted exactly that. But on the twenty-fifth, you served up one mess of food only, and there was still some left over.’

‘I see what you’re saying,’ said Gilchrist, tilting his head. ‘Salmon in wine with onions and mustard, and they’ve barely picked at it.’ He lifted the corner of the page and peered at the verso. ‘Ah – here we are. Drummond left the next day. I recall that one of his men went ahead to order up the fresh horses and that, so he’d have been away before supper on the twenty-fifth.’

‘That’s only one down.’

‘Aye, but Canon Drummond ate his supper at the Bishop’s table that day.’

It was Gil’s turn to stare.

‘Did he so? The Bishop never told me that.’

‘Well, so Drummond’s man told my sub-Cellarer,’ qualified Gilchrist. ‘I know he came back late, for he’d to make quite a noise to waken Brother Porter and we all heard him as we came from Compline.’

‘Was he alone? When did he go out?’

The Cellarer shook his head.

‘Sometime after Nones. It would have been when we were all at our studies, I suppose. Brother Porter might remember – or James my Sub-Cellarer. Certainly he was on his own when he returned, for his man had to be woken to see him to bed.’

Gil looked at the columns of neat writing. If Drummond had eaten with Bishop Brown, it altered matters a lot, but if he had, why had he not taken his man with him? If he had not, then why had he said he was doing so? Was it the delusion of a man in the grip of melancholy? No, surely, his servant had said it was after they returned to Dunblane, after the second letter came from Balquhidder, that the melancholy settled on him. But could it have been starting already?

‘How was Canon Drummond in himself?’ he asked. ‘Did you have any words with him while he was here?’ Gilchrist raised his eyebrows. ‘The man had just lost his mistress,’ Gil expanded. ‘I wondered how he seemed to be taking it.’

‘So his servants told us,’ agreed the Cellarer. ‘I wondered at it, a bittie, for you’d never have thought it from his demeanour. Serious, yes, as befits a clerk, but not inordinately so, and not – not irrational, I’d have said.’

*    *    *

 ‘He did not,’ said Wat Currie. ‘We’d ha tellt you if he had done, Maister Cunningham. My lord’s reputation’s well known – he would never invite a churchman to his table who’d openly kept a mistress, particularly when it was a Perth lassie. Different if he’d already set her aside, or if we’d had to deal wi him on Holy Kirk’s business, a course.’

‘Yes, I see that,’ said Gil. ‘I wonder where he went? The Blackfriars’ sub-Cellarer said he went out about five of the clock, and his servant came back later saying the Canon would dine with Bishop Brown. He returned after Compline. Where has he been? And unattended at that.’ He glanced at the steward. ‘That reminds me, Peter thought Maister Stirling was unattended the day he vanished away. Is that right?’

‘Well, there’s none under this roof admitted to being wi him,’ said Wat. ‘More to the point, we’ve not found where he went. No sign of him on the Ditchlands by the Black-friars, no sign in the Ditch, and the households opposite saw nothing.’

‘He was seen,’ said Gil, suddenly recalling Mistress Doig’s statement. ‘In the last of the sunlight, making for the Red Brig as if he was coming back into Perth.’

‘Was he, now?’ said Wat, frowning. ‘After nine that would be. He’d a been gey late for his supper by then.’ He smacked a fist into the other palm. ‘Where has he got to? St Peter’s bones, how can a man just disappear like that, unattended or no?’

Easier than you’d believe, thought Gil. Aloud he said, ‘Did he go drinking? Did he have friends in the town? Maybe the alehouses along the Skinnergate could tell us something. And where do you suppose Canon Drummond ate his dinner, if it wasn’t here?’

‘No a notion.’ Wat pulled at his lower lip, scowling. ‘I’d say it wasny on the Skinnergate, for the Blackfriars likes to drink there when they’re in the town, they’re aye in one alehouse or another.’ He thought a little further. ‘If he went to a friend, we’ve little chance of finding out, but I suppose he could ha been wi a woman. Why d’you want to know?’

‘He’s still the last person we know of that spoke to James Stirling,’ Gil said. ‘If I know where he was, I might find where Stirling was.’

‘Aye.’ Wat reached for his tablets. ‘I’ll send the men out again after they’ve had their noon bite. They can ask at the taverns, and maybe at the various kirks in the place, supposing he was wi a colleague after all. And maybe we could get the crier to it and all. For the both of them. He’s already crying those two badges off Jaikie’s hat, and Rob Chaplain and I’ve been turning away folk wi lead St Jameses all morning.’

Fortified by a slab of bread and cold meat and a handful of raisins, Gil went back out across the Red Brig. Some enquiry took him to Duncan Niven’s house by the dyer’s yard; it proved to be a neat timber cottage down a vennel, where hens picked around the midden and a stout woman in a crisp white headdress and huge dye-splashed linen apron was sweeping the flagstones before the door. She glanced up at him curiously and bobbed a curtsy as he came down the vennel.

‘Good day, mistress,’ he said, raising his hat. ‘I’m seeking Duncan Niven’s house.’

‘And you’ve found it, sir,’ she said civilly, taking a closer look at him under well-groomed eyebrows. ‘What can we do for you, then? Was it a lodging you was wanting?’

‘No, I’m suited, thanks, but I’m hoping to find someone that did lodge here. A Mistress Ross, from Dunblane.’

Her intent look persisted. ‘What might you be wanting wi her?’ she asked, propping the broom against the house wall.

‘I’ve some questions for her, about Canon Drummond that brought her here.’

He waited, while a sequence of expressions chased across her face: surprise, interest, irritation at the mention of the Canon. Finally, confirming his growing suspicions, she said, ‘Well, ask away, maister. I’m Kate Ross, that was waiting-woman to Nan Chalmers, Christ assoil her. You’re lucky to find me – I’ve stayed on here, where I’m suited and Mistress Niven too, to lend a wee hand wi the house for a while, but I’ll go the morn’s morn to a new situation.’ She lifted the besom, and turned to the house door. ‘Will you come within, sir, and take a seat, and we can talk in comfort.’

Seated by the house door, her apron discarded to reveal a good gown of checked wool, she served him Mistress Niven’s ale and answered his questions. It quickly became clear that she needed to talk, as several years’ observation of Drummond’s treatment of her mistress spilled over and swamped him in a wash of rising resentment. He listened carefully, trying to retain as much as possible to share with Alys later; he was aware that she was much better at this sort of conversation than he was. Nevertheless, with two married sisters and five years’ practice at law, he had some grasp of the reality of human relationships. That shared by Andrew Drummond and his mistress had not been uniformly sweet, but he suspected it had not been as sour as Mistress Ross conveyed.

‘He would have no singing in the house,’ she was saying. ‘Not even a servant lassie singing at her work. It’s a strange thing, maister, how you never notice them singing until you’ve to prevent them doing it.’

‘No music at all?’ said Gil.

‘Oh, he’d to hear my mistress harping whenever he visited. Right fond of listening to the harp, he was. I’ve no notion where it went, either, that harp,’ she added, frowning. ‘By rights it should ha gone to wee Annie. But he’d have never a note of singing. She aye said it was the cost o her good life, but I’m no so certain it was a good life.’

‘Tell me more about Canon Drummond,’ he invited.

She snorted. ‘Canon, he calls himsel! No much of a priest, that one. Forbye his having my mistress in his keeping, and getting three bairns on her, may Our Lady receive her into grace,’ she paused to dab her eyes with the long ends of the fine linen kerchief on her head, ‘he was well acquaint wi the rest o the seven sins.’ Gil cocked an eyebrow at her across his empty beaker, and she wiped her eyes again and elaborated. ‘I never kent such a man for envying his fellow mortals. All his conversation was how this or that one about the Cathedral had been honoured above him, or the vote had gone against him at Chapter, or Bishop Chisholm had snubbed him. My poor mistress had her work to do keeping him sweet-tempered, and times it defeated even her to turn his thoughts to a Christian frame of mind.’

‘Lust, envy, pride,’ said Gil, counting off the sins she had identified.

‘Anger,’ she agreed, nodding so that the damp ends of her kerchief swung. ‘If he disliked aught you’d done or thought he’d been disobeyed he’d go all quiet, wi a voice like ice down your back, and nothing for it but to undo what had angered him and apologize.’

‘That’s four out of the seven,’ said Gil.

‘Aye, and him a priest.’ She shook her head. ‘And the way he treats those bairns – see, wee James would make a bonnie singer if he’s ever taught right, and the lassie, Annie, would aye sing at her play the way a bairn will, and if he heard them he’d call them afore him in a rage and though he’d never lay a finger on them, just talk at them wi that same voice like ice, they were both feart of his temper. I saw the laddie wet himsel one time his father was chastising him.’