The Stolen Voice (16 page)

‘Let’s hope it did,’ said Cornton. ‘But why? What was he doing to be shot in my yard? Why’s he in my tanpit anyway? Did he –’ He paused, open-mouthed, and Gil saw him realize for the first time that he might be under suspicion himself. ‘No. I never. I swear I never.’

‘Do you have a bow?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, I do. A’body does, crossbow or longbow, to take to the butts on a Sunday. You’ve one yoursel, maister, I dare say.’

‘Did you leave here at the usual time that day?’ Gil went on, nodding to this.

‘So far’s I mind, aye, we all left as usual, and I was last wi the keys and locked the padlock on the gate as I aye do.’

‘And where were you the rest of the evening?’ Gil asked.

‘Home wi my wife and household, helping her decide on where Drummond’s bairns would sleep and who would nurse them.’ He laughed sourly. ‘After two nights wi the wee lass pissing our bed, if I was to slay any man in secret murder it would ha been Andrew Drummond, no my good landlord.’

Gil nodded again, accepting the force of the argument, and looked down at the flaccid corpse. This made less sense than ever, he thought, but it also made it less urgent to find Andrew Drummond. There was simply not time after they had both been seen last for him to have killed this man, got the corpse back here and into the tanpit, and then reached Blackfriars at the end of Compline.

‘Here’s Willie Reid now,’ announced Ally importantly. The journeyman Simon appeared from further down the yard, carrying a bucket and cloth and followed by a tall lean-faced fellow in the burgh livery, his official staff over his shoulder.

‘Well, now,’ said the constable, and grimaced as he caught the first waft from the corpse. ‘What have we here, then?’

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.