The Stolen Voice

by Pat McIntosh

  Most of the folk of the steading were occupied with the barley. Three lean tawny dogs barked at their approach, and some of the shearers paused to watch them, gauging whether their intent was peaceful, and then whistled the animals in. The younger man-at-arms, Donal, dismounted and tramped up the long ridged field to account for their presence, returning with a laughing remark in Ersche and saying to Gil:

  ‘They’ll not stop the work to speak wi you, maister, but they tell me Andrew Murray’s Sìle is keeping the house, since the babe is too young to be leaving.’

  The group of houses seemed to have been abandoned to the hens, but eventually they located Sìle by the gentle singing drifting from her door. She proved to be a pretty young woman with her baby at her breast, and assured them in vehement Ersche which needed no translation that she knew nothing about the tale of David Drummond. Questioned further, she pointed to a barn at the top of the settlement, dislodging the suckling baby, which began to wail angrily.

  ‘Euan Beag nan Tobar,’ she said firmly through the noise, and ducked back into her house. They turned to lead the horses up between the low buildings, the baby falling silent behind them as its mouth was stopped.

  ‘Euan’ll no be much use,’ objected the older man, whose name, Gil had established, was Ned.

  ‘Who is he?’ Gil asked.

  ‘He’s had an eye to the barn and the stackyard here, for ever so it seems.’ The man guided his horse round a discarded plough. ‘He’s wanting four of his five wits. Fell down a well at the market in Callander when he was a bairn, they say,’ he explained to Gil, ‘and was lacking in his head afore ever that happened. He’s harmless, is the best you can say o him.’

  ‘He’s no that bad,’ said the younger one. ‘He’s a Christian soul. He speaks Scots, a bittie.’ He tethered his own beast in the shade of the barn and stepped into the shadowy interior. ‘Euan? Euan Beag? There’s a man here wants a word wi you.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Come out, you daft loon,’ ordered Ned from the doorway.

  The silence continued, but Gil had the feeling of someone keeping silence rather than that of an empty space. Behind him Tam swallowed, and said quietly, ‘Could it be a trap, maister?’

  ‘No, it’s no trap,’ said Gil, and moved to the door in his turn. ‘Euan Beag, are you within? Might I have a word?’ Inside the barn, straw rustled. ‘I was told you might know something.’

  The straw rustled again.

  ‘They’ll be pointing their big knives at him, and cutting his good ropes,’ said a quavering voice. It sounded very old.

  ‘No, for I’ll not allow it,’ said Gil.

  It took a little more coaxing, and Ned and Donal had to be persuaded to move away from the barn door, before the owner of the voice would come out from the shadows. When he finally emerged, he hardly seemed human, a crouching figure with crooked limbs and big hands, his neck twisted so that his face turned sideways and up. He was clad in a filthy shirt and doublet, yellowish-white hair hung round the back of his head, clumps of darker beard sprouted along his jaw and a brown hen was perched comfortably on his shoulder. His eyes were large, dark and very lovely. Advancing crabwise across the packed earth floor, a hank of heather rope dragging behind him, he said in that cracked, quavering voice:

  ‘Who wants Euan Beag, then? What is it you would be asking him?’

  Gil, aware of Tam beside him making the horns against the Evil Eye, raised his round felt bonnet to the extraordinary figure and said, ‘Good day to you, Euan Beag. How are you?’

  A smile spread over the tilted face, exposing three yellow teeth and a quantity of gum.

  ‘Good day to you, maister. Euan’s well, and yoursel?’

  ‘I’m well, thanks,’ returned Gil. Was this conversation really happening? ‘Might I have a word?’ he asked again, and wished he had a pomander, or one of Lady Stewart’s pots of burning herbs. The creature had probably never been washed since he was pulled out of the well.

  ‘Aye, but no a long one,’ said Euan warily. ‘He’s got things he needs to get done. The ropes is all to be checked, and the barn swept and the stackyard make ready, afore the hairst comes hame, and all’s for Euan to do.’

  ‘And right well you’ll do it, I can be sure,’ said Gil. ‘I’ll not keep you long, I hope. Someone was telling me you’d mind when David Drummond vanished away.’

  ‘David Drummond,’ said the twisted man thoughtfully, scraping with bare, powerful toes at the dusty ground. The hen stretched out her head, tilting it to peer down at the movement.

  ‘Wee Davie from Dalriach,’ prompted Donal. Euan turned to bring the young man into his view. ‘Thirty year since, it was.’

  ‘Aye, it was,’ agreed Euan. He turned to face Gil again. ‘Aye, Euan can mind o’t.’ He waited, apparently for the next question. Gil, resisting the urge to twist his own neck so that his head was tilted like the one before him, said:

  ‘Can you tell me about it? What do you mind?’

  ‘Why, he was lifted up.’ Euan waved his free hand in the air, describing an airy flight. The hen scrabbled with her yellow feet, finding her balance. ‘They lifted him from the path, wi ropes.’

  ‘Wi ropes?’ repeated Ned. Euan gave Gil a sly smile full of purple gums, and nodded.

  ‘Aye, wi ropes. Many ropes, and made o hemp, better than Euan’s. That’s how he would ken them for the Good Neighbours, you ken.’

  ‘You saw them?’ Gil asked, startled. ‘What happened?’

  The creature nodded again, a strange movement of his head on the wry neck, parallel to the ground.

  ‘That’s right, maister, Euan saw them. It was a great party o folk on fine horsies, as fine as your big horsie there, and they lifted wee Davie Drummond wi their ropes, and bore him away,’ again the airy gesture with the free hand, ‘and Euan fell down wi fright and never saw Davie again. Billy grat for him,’ he confided. ‘And Euan grat and all.’

  ‘Where was this?’ Gil asked. Euan turned to look up the glen, where small trees bent over the burn’s rocky descent.

  ‘Yonder,’ he said. ‘Euan was gathering heather for rope, you ken, maister, and he seen it all.’

  ‘Euan makes the ropes for the whole of Drumyre,’ supplied Donal, ‘and further afield and all, don’t you, Euan.’

  ‘On the open hillside,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘What like were the people?’

  ‘Oh, fair folk, fair folk. Dressed as fine as fine, in silk-satin-velvet, all bright colours, all in green, all wi their bonnie ropes, and the bodach in a red doublet in their midst. Euan never saw them.’

  Now was that complete nonsense, or was there a grain of truth? Gil wondered.

  ‘And what way did they carry him off?’

  Another sly smile.

  ‘Och, is the maister saying he believes Euan?’

  ‘I do,’ said Gil. At least, he prevaricated, I believe he thought he saw something strange, probably involving ropes.

  The bent figure before him struck its grimy hands together and said joyfully, ‘It’s a many year since anyone was believing Euan! Och, he’ll be lighting a candle for the gentleman, so he will! Away south they took him, in a great whirl and noise, maister.’

  ‘South,’ repeated Gil, glancing at the sky. ‘Not westwards? Not up to the pass?’

  ‘South, they were going, maister,’ Euan reiterated. ‘And he was coming back from the south when he came home. Just last month, that would be, maister, and he’s in his own place over the hill now.’

  ‘How would you ken what way he came, you daft body?’ demanded Ned, from where he stood by the corner of the barn. ‘He cam down Glenbuckie, no Strathyre.’

  Euan turned his misshapen back on the man, and gave Gil a significant look.

  ‘He was in Strathyre afore he was in Glenbuckie, for Euan seen him.’

  ‘You saw him come back?’ said Gil. ‘When was that?’

  ‘Euan was watching when they set him down,’ Euan agreed in his creaking voice.

  ‘Tell
me about that,’ said Gil, trying to conceal amazement. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Och, little to tell. A great whirling and sound of horses, like the first time, and they set him down on the track yonder,’ he waved a hand southward, ‘and then they were off and left him standing there. There was no ropes, not a single one. But Euan saw the bodach, aye,’ he added, ‘all in his red velvet again.’

  ‘What way did the horses come?’ Gil asked.

  ‘There’s a track up this side o the loch,’ said Ned.

  ‘Why would those ones be using a track?’ objected Donal.

  ‘Euan never saw,’ said Euan sulkily. ‘Just they were there, and set the laddie down, and bade him Godspeed and gie’s your scrip, and send word if you want us, and then they went away. They went south,’ he added, turning again in order to glower at Donal.

  Gil held his breath, setting this story against his own speculations.

  ‘Did you speak to David?’ he asked gently. Euan turned back to consider him.

  ‘Aye,’ he said after a moment. ‘Euan was speaking to the laddie.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’ Gil prompted, and got another display of the purple gums.

  ‘Euan said, Billy’s no here, he couldny wait.’

  ‘Daft,’ muttered Tam at Gil’s elbow.

  ‘And what did David say to that?’ Gil asked.

  Careful questioning got him the substance of the exchange. David Drummond had known Euan, had addressed him by his name, and then said that thirty years was a long time for Billy to wait and enquired if his friend was well. Euan had given him the news of Drumyre and its folk, which Gil suspected would have taken some time, and then David, asking if the way over the pass was still fit to use, had extracted himself with what was obviously tact and charm and set off up the side of the burn. Euan seemed in no doubt that he had been speaking to Billy Murray’s friend.

  ‘How easy is the way over to Glenbuckie?’ Gil asked. ‘Could I find it?’

  Euan emitted a wheezing noise which seemed to be a laugh.

  ‘No, no, maister could never take it,’ he said kindly, ‘no wi a great horsie to drag along the path. The horsie would fall down and be hurtit,’ he explained.

  ‘He’s right at that,’ commented Ned. ‘It’s a track for a man afoot, no for a powny. But it’s no so difficult to make out, and it’s an easy enough walk down to Dalriach from the crown o the way. If you knew it was there, you’d find it no bother.’

  Euan laid a huge, filthy hand on Gil’s arm, peering up at him with those beautiful eyes. The hen tipped her head and eyed him with a very similar expression.

  ‘Was that all the word you was wanting?’ he asked. ‘For Euan has to sweep the stackyard afore the hairst comes home, you ken.’

  ‘Aye, you get on wi your work.’ Gil patted the hand and stepped away. ‘That was a good word, Euan. My thanks, and God’s blessing on you.’ He raised his hat again, and watched as the crouched figure made its crabbed way back into the barn, the hen spreading her wings to keep her balance.

  ‘Daft thing,’ said Ned, leading Gil’s horse forward.

  ‘Waste o time that was, maister,’ said Tam.

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Gil. ‘It was well worth it. I’m glad you pointed the place out, Tam.’ He glanced at the sky. ‘Now, have we time to call at the Kirkton afore we get back to Stronvar, do you think, Ned?’

  The Kirkton of Balquhidder hardly seemed a larger settlement than the group of buildings which made up Drumyre. Having sent Ned and Tam onwards from Gartnafueran with the weary horses, Gil followed Donal on foot across the flat valley floor, and paused at the end of the resonant wooden bridge to study the clachan. There was the little kirk itself, perched on a natural platform some way back from the river. Perhaps half a dozen houses lay around it, a ring of tall grey stones stood on a grassy slope below, and there was enough farmed land round about to make it clear that more than the old priest’s glebe was being worked, although the harvest was not quite ready. Several small black cows were making their slow way home from the water-meadows, with a herd laddie singing among them. Above the kirk, on the steep, imposing bare rock he had seen from the garden at Stronvar, two goats were perched casually nibbling tussocks of grass.

  ‘No, no, Sir Duncan is not dwelling in the kirk any longer,’ said Donal when asked. ‘He would be falling off the loft ladder, you understand, the age he is. Sir William got him a fine house built on the glebe land, with a good stout door and a latch, and even a tirling-pin as if you were in Callander.’

  ‘He’ll be there now, I suppose,’ said Gil, looking about. ‘It’s a wide parish for an old man to take care of. Who has the living? Can Sir William not get a younger man put in?’

  ‘The way I was hearing it,’ said Donal, ‘Sir William was asking them at Dunblane to name a new priest for the parish, last year it would be, and one of the Canons came himself to see.’ He grinned. ‘It was maybe one of Sir Duncan’s good days. He was having more of those, you will understand, maister, what with young Rob Ruaidh that is keeping him washed and fed now, even if the laddie can’t be making a peat fire stay alight. Whatever, Canon Fresall went home saying it was all as it should be and no need to put the old man out of his living. We were thinking,’ he said with an innocent expression, ‘he’d maybe have to pay a new man more to dwell here, so of course he would be pleased to think all was well.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt of it.’ Gil paused beside the ring of stones. Several children playing in its heart scattered to peer shyly at the stranger from under a group of hawthorn trees. ‘Which is Sir Duncan’s house?’

  Donal pointed to the nearest of the long, low buildings. This one was stouter than some, with good stone gables and a sound layer of bracken thatch held down by a new rope net. Peat smoke filtered up through the mesh; it looked as if Rob Ruaidh was in control of the fire for the moment. Gil picked his way along the path, avoiding more hens and an inquisitive sheep, pausing at the open door to savour the smell of cooking which met him before he reached out to rattle at the tirling-pin Donal had mentioned.

  ‘Sir Duncan?’ he called. ‘Are you within? May I enter?’

  There was a clatter in the shadows inside, and something hissed on the fire.

  ‘Christ and his saints preserve us!’ said a voice. A young voice, a lowland voice. A hostile voice. ‘What in the Deil’s name are you doing here, Cunningham?’

  ‘Christ aid!’ said Gil, equally startled. ‘Who – Robert Montgomery?’

  ‘The same.’ Another clatter as something was set down, movement in the shadows, and a tall young man came to the doorway, chin up, staring intently down his nose at Gil. Dark hair sprang thickly from a wide forehead, a square jaw jutted. Robert Montgomery, nephew of that turbulent baron Hugh, Lord Montgomery who was at odds with all Cunninghams.

  ‘Of course,’ said Gil after a moment’s genealogical reckoning, ‘your uncle’s lady is a Campbell. She must be first cousin to Lady Stewart, that’s the connection. But why here –?’

  ‘Is it any of your business?’ demanded the young man.

  ‘I suppose it isny,’ agreed Gil. ‘Good day to you, Robert. Is Sir Duncan in his house? Can I get a word wi him?’

  ‘No,’ said Robert baldly. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘He’s sleeping the now. He’s no had a good day, I’ll not disturb him.’ Not for you, suggested his tone.

  ‘I’m after a bit of local history,’ Gil said. ‘Would you say he could manage that some time? How bad is he?’

  ‘Mortal,’ said Robert. He looked over his shoulder again, and stepped out into the sunshine. ‘He’s got a week or so, maybe, but he’s on his way out. He’s all too like my grandsire in his last days.’ He considered briefly. ‘You’d get more sense out of him on a morning. If you can get him on to a subject he likes, he’s clear enough yet, and the history of the parish would do that.’

  ‘Is he not even managing the Office?’ said Gil, dismayed.

  ‘No,’ said Robert again. He had a way of saying the w
ord which conveyed volumes, something which Gil recalled from his first encounter with the young man, more than a year since in very difficult circumstances. ‘Martainn Clerk and I can deal wi the Office,’ he expanded, ‘seeing I’m in Minor Orders, but there’s no been a Mass said in St Angus’ Kirk for weeks.’ His face softened. ‘He lies in his bed reciting Matins and Lauds over and over again, jumbling all the words and losing the place, certain he’s offering up what’s right.’

  ‘It is an offering, then,’ Gil observed. Robert looked at him sharply, and then away again. ‘And you have charge of him and his house, do you?’

  ‘I do.’ And do you want to make anything of it? said the tone of voice.

  ‘Not easy. Cooking and keeping him clean, as well as taking care of the Office – it’s a lot to do on your own.’

  ‘That was the point,’ said Robert, with a sour laugh ‘Anyway, it’s not as if there was anything else to do out here.’

  Gil carefully refrained from looking around at the hills full of game, the river leaping with fish, the meadows full of wildfowl. A young man reared like this one must be tempted almost hourly to go out with bow or spear or line, to fetch home meat for the pot or for salting down for winter. Fighting the temptation would almost be worse than the menial tasks heaped on him by his servitude to the dying man.

  ‘I suppose you’re here,’ said Robert abruptly, ‘about this tale of the fellow come back from Elfhame?’

  ‘I am,’ agreed Gil, raising one eyebrow. ‘What tellt you that?’

  ‘Aye, well. It’s the only thing in the parish for the last hundred years that might attract Blacader’s quaestor.’

  ‘How much have you heard about it?’ Gil asked. ‘You scrieved the letter to Andrew Drummond at Dunblane, they tell me.’

  ‘I did. Two letters, in fact. The old woman asked me to write, told me exactly what she wanted said, made her mark at the foot o the paper.’ He shrugged. ‘If she’s had an answer, I’ve heard nothing. I’ve no been asked to scrieve a reply, any road.’