The Stolen Voice (14 page)

Gil frowned, trying to reconcile this image of Andrew Drummond with the others he had received. It did not seem to fit.

‘When I saw him in Dunblane the other day –’ he began.

‘And that’s another thing,’ Mistress Ross pursued. ‘He brought the bairns here, would have me accompany them, then paid me off, and he’s away back to Dunblane and left me here. He never asked if it would suit me to be set down in Perth wi no employment, nor gave me the gown and velvet headdress my mistress left me in her will.’

Could this be the crux of her resentment? Gil wondered.

‘He seems to have slipped into a great melancholy since he was here in Perth,’ he continued. ‘Is that like him, would you say?’

She gazed at him, arrested for a moment, then leaned forward and poured more ale for both of them while she thought about this.

‘I’d never ha said so,’ she pronounced. ‘I’d ha thought it more like him to fly in one of those quiet rages and take it out on those round him. But there’s no saying how a man will react to a great loss, and when all’s said he was right fond o my mistress, however ill he treated her. None of your great romantic passions like in the ballads,’ she qualified, ‘but you’d only to see him smile at her, and the way he wept the night she –’ She broke off, and turned her head away. It was clear she had loved her mistress too.

‘Did he speak to you before he left the Blackfriars?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, he was here that evening. He came to let me know he’d be away and leaving me here, and that they’d cease to carry my food here after that night’s supper.’ She faced him again, a sour smile on her lips. ‘We’d plainer fare to eat after that, I can tell you, maister. The friars keep a high diet, poverty or no poverty. And Jennet – Mistress Niven – swears they went off wi two of her good dishes instead of their own when they collected the last ones.’

‘What time would that be, that the Canon was here that evening?’

‘About the time Niven came home from the dyer’s yard,’ she said promptly, ‘for he passed him in the vennel there.’

‘And what time would that be?’ he persisted. She paused to consider.

‘Niven was late that evening,’ she said at length. ‘Jennet was home afore him, on account of wishing to see to his supper and her tasks was finished. She works at the dyeyard and all,’ she explained. ‘She was in at maybe her usual time, and she’d got the stewpot on the fire and simmering, for the Canon made mention of how good the smell was. She was right gratified, till he turned round and gave me my place wi no notice.’

‘So that was an hour or so after she got home?’ Gil hazarded, with a glance at the peat fire in the centre of the room.

‘Aye, likely,’ she agreed, in a tone which left him disinclined to rely on the fact. ‘What’s your interest in Drummond, maister? What’s it to you when I last set eyes on him?’

‘I’m tracking this man that’s missing,’ he explained, ‘the Bishop’s secretary, and it seems as if Canon Drummond was the last to speak wi him. He was alone when he came here?’

‘Oh, aye.’ She hesitated, then went on, ‘Maybe that would account for his mood, if he spoke to a man that’s disappeared.’ Gil made an encouraging noise, and she gave him a reluctant glance. ‘I’ve no liking for clypes, maister, but –’ She closed her mouth tightly, stared at the two pewter dishes on the plate-cupboard for a moment, then began again. ‘There was one of the songmen at Dunblane that just up and vanished one day a month or so back, they’ve never got to the bottom of it and folk were saying it was the Deil flew off wi him, though why – I’d spoken wi the man mysel a time or two, and one of my cousins is in Bishop Chisholm’s household and knew him to be a decent body, you’d never take him for a man the Deil would – though they tell us any of us is wicked sinner enough –’ She broke off this muddled utterance and drew a breath. ‘The Canon was right satisfied about it.’

‘Satisfied?’ Gil repeated, puzzled.

‘Oh, aye. As if he’d had a nice wee gift. All lit up and gratified he was, out at our house the next day, telling my mistress all the tale, which she’d heard already for I’d spoke to the soutar’s wife that cooked his food to the songman, the very day it happened.
Vanished
, he said to her,
and none kens where he’s gone, and that’s one singer the less in Dunblane
.
A judgement on him
, he said, but when my mistress wished to hear more he would have her harp for him instead.’

‘A judgement on him?’

‘That’s what he said. And why I’m minded o this, maister, is he was in much the same mood when he cam here to turn me off. Lit up, as if he’d been gied some great benefit, or seen someone else cast down, I thought, but if another man had vanished – was he a singer?’

‘No, he was the Bishop’s secretary, though he was a singer when he was young, and knew Canon Drummond then as well. But this was before the man vanished away, for he was seen down by the Ditch later that evening,’ said Gil. ‘I suppose it might have been something they said when they were speaking together.’

‘Maybe the Canon got the better of an argument wi him,’ she agreed, accepting this. ‘That would please him and all.’

‘And that was the last time you saw Canon Drummond?’

‘Well, it’s the last I spoke wi him,’ she qualified, ‘and no loss to me that is, save for my mistress’s gown and velvet headdress.’

‘Do you mean you saw him again?’

‘We all three saw him.’ She gestured round the quiet house. ‘We’d gone in across the Red Brig after our supper, Jennet and her man and me, for a stoup or two at the Horn tavern on the Skinnergate, seeing I was kind of cast down about losing my place at no notice, and we set eye on the Canon both coming and going. It was Jennet pointed him out to me, and –’

‘Where was he?’ Gil asked hopefully. ‘Was anyone with him?’

‘Just in the Skinnergate, away at the far end. He’d be going into the town to his supper, likely. If you’ve met him, sir, you’ll ken he’s a big man, easy to be seen in a crowd. I just caught a glimp of him among all the heads, but I thought maybe he’d wee James wi him, the way he was looking down and talking as he went, though it was ower late for the laddie to be out. And then when we cam out the tavern and across the brig again, there he was ahead of us on the path his lone. I mind it well for Jennet said,
You’ll not get away from the man!
and we all laughed.’

It had been a good evening in the tavern, Gil decided.

‘Was he coming or going on the path?’ he asked.

‘He was just taking the road back to Blackfriars. I suppose he’d new come from the town, or maybe been a walk along by the waterside. It’s a pleasant walk of an evening, there’s aye one or two folk on the path.’

‘And that was late on?’

‘Oh, aye. The sun was not long down – we was near the last out through the gate afore they barred it. There was light enough in the sky to go by, it was a clear night, and no mistaking the man given I’d been ten year in my mis-tress’s household. The way his hair looks when he needs barbered, you’d ken him a mile off.’

Gil looked reflectively into his beaker. Misreading his intent, Mistress Ross leaned forward to pour more ale.

‘Did you see any others on the path?’ he asked. ‘Or coming into the town across the Red Brig?’

She thought briefly, but shook her head. ‘There’s aye one or two folks stirring, it’s no like Dunblane. I wouldny mind one evening better than another, sir.’

‘The man I’m looking for had a hat like no other,’ he said, and described Stirling’s collection of badges. This got a more definite shake of the head.

‘No, no, sir, I’ve not seen sic a thing.’ She laughed tolerantly. ‘There’s aye something folk likes to collect, but I’ll wager that cost him plenty in shoe leather and candles, to win that mony badges.’

The boy Malky had said much the same thing, Gil reflected.

‘Did you take the bairns direct to their grandam?’ he asked.

She snorted. ‘You’re right to ask me, sir, for I did not. He bore them off while Niven’s brother that’s a lay-brother walked me out here, and I’d never a chance to say farewell, poor wee souls.’

‘Have you seen them since? Spoken to Mistress Cornton?’

‘I have not,’ she admitted. ‘I never liked – I was feart she’d think I was after a place, and it would never suit. I’ve a good prospect now, and –’

‘I’d think Mistress Cornton would be glad to see you,’ he said. ‘Your mistress was her only daughter, she’d likely welcome hearing of her life in Dunblane.’

‘That’s a true word,’ she said. ‘And I’d like fine to see the bairns. It’s a good thought, maister.’

He walked back towards the Red Brig, thinking hard, then turned aside along the path by the Ditch and sat down with his back against an alder tree to consider this information. It was now certain that he should return to Dunblane and interview Canon Drummond; at the very least the man must have been the last to see James Stirling alive but also, he thought grimly, he might have been the first to see him dead as well. Did that add up? What do I know? he asked himself, and took out his tablets.

Stirling had left the tanyard about four of the clock, by Cornton’s account. He had fetched up at the dog-breeder’s yard, where he had encountered Drummond. That tallied with what the Blackfriars had said of Drummond’s movements. By six of the clock Stirling and Drummond together were walking out here on the Ditchlands, talking about Judas and forgiveness. The next few hours held several sightings of Drummond alone, but none of Stirling until Mistress Doig recognized him at sunset on the track going into Perth. Going towards the town, he corrected himself. Where was he all that time? Where did he find his supper? Meanwhile Drummond had not eaten with the Bishop, and was finally seen on this path by the Ditch, no more than half an hour after sunset, alone.

He looked at the list he had made. That space between sunset and darkness seemed to be the important slot. Was it long enough for two men to meet and quarrel somewhere along here, for one to be slain and hidden so securely that he had not yet been found, his hat left by the path where the boy found it in the morning? I suppose it is, he answered himself, if the quarrel was carried over from their earlier talk together. Would the path be deserted? Perhaps not, but it would hardly be busy. No more than three persons had passed while he sat here thinking, in late afternoon. And where would the body go? The Ditch was the obvious place, and with a current like that, and the depth of water it contained, it would take some dragging to find a corpse, even one two weeks old which should have floated by now.

But what was their quarrel about? What did the reference to Judas imply? Judas the traitor hanged himself, not another. Whose death had one of these men brought about? Or had Drummond accused Stirling of treason? Questions, questions, he thought impatiently, but that one might lead me on a sound trail. Doig had been trafficking in information when he lived in Glasgow, he might well be doing the same here, and James Stirling was at the Bishop’s elbow when he negotiated the last truce with England. There were princes overseas who would pay to learn the precise terms of the truce, not to mention Margaret of Burgundy. Suppose either Doig or Stirling was involved in that, could Drummond have learned of it? And how did Drummond know Doig anyway?

And then there was the matter of the badges missing from the hat. Did it have any bearing on Stirling’s disappearance, or not? I need to speak to Andrew Drummond, and that soon, he told himself. How early can we be off in the morning?

He got to his feet, tucking his tablets back into their pouch. As he stepped on to the path a small figure twenty or thirty yards off waved wildly and shouted his name. He paused, and Maister Cornton’s boy Malky ran up, saying in excited tones:

‘I kent I’d seen you gang this way, maister. My maister’s begging a word wi you. He’s found a strange thing at the back o the yard, he’d like you to take a look at.’

‘What kind of a strange thing?’ Gil asked. The boy shook his head.

‘I never seen it,’ he said regretfully. ‘Just my maister and Rob and Simon, that’s the journeymen,’ he explained, ‘was up that end the yard and came down and sent me and Martin and Ally out to find you. And they’ve both went into the town, but I thought I’d seen you gang along here by the Ditch.’ He turned hopefully, obviously expecting Gil to follow him, and looking exactly like a puppy waiting for a stick to be thrown. Gil grinned, gave him a penny, and obligingly set off towards the tanyard.

Maister Cornton was in his counting-house, seated by his desk and gazing thoughtfully at a small bright object on the green baize. He looked up as Gil tapped at the open door, and nodded.

‘They found you,’ he said. ‘What d’you make of this?’

Gil stepped over beside him and discovered the object of his contemplation to be a pilgrim badge, probably of silver, in the shape of a horse. On its saddle were an anvil and hammer big enough to have brought the creature to its knees. Tiny letters incised on the anvil read S ELIGIVS.

‘St Eloi’s horse from Noyon,’ he said.

‘So it would seem,’ agreed Cornton, ‘though it’s far better quality than other Eloi badges I’ve seen. Is it familiar to you, maister?’

‘It could be one of the two we’re looking for,’ he admitted. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘Put it safe, and I’ll show you.’ Cornton set off out through the drying-loft and into the yard, saying over his shoulder, ‘The bellman was crying two missing pilgrim badges, as well as the question of where my landlord ate his supper the day I saw him last, and who saw some fellow of Dunblane, so when my man Rob found this I reckoned I’d best send for you.’

He picked his way into the further reaches of his domain, past open sheds containing trestles and racks of skins, vats of strong-smelling liquors, reeking stacks of raw skins, the two small carts Gil had seen earlier. Beyond the sheds were a series of pits like the one near the gate, but these were covered by weighted planks. It was easier to breathe out here, Gil found.

‘That’s the tanpits,’ said Cornton, waving at them. ‘See, we do the first soaking and bating down the front of the yard, where it’s under my eye, because the skins needs turned or shifted daily. Right?’ Gil nodded. ‘But once they’re in the tanpits they lie for months – up to a year for your stoutest leathers – and we shift the bark maybe every couple of months, no oftener. So the tanpits is all up here out the road and though I take a look round afore I lock up in the evening, we’re not working in this bit that often. Which means the Deil alone kens how long that badge has been lying here, though I suppose it canny be more than two weeks. Right?’ Gil nodded again, and Cornton led him to the far end of the yard, where one of his journeymen stood by a pit morosely watching the bubbles rise and burst in the scum between the wet planks. ‘Show him where you found it, Robin.’