The Stolen Voice

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Where is St Dymphna’s shrine?’ he asked. ‘This Irish saint that cures the mad.’

  He could see, even in the poor light within the house, how Davie considered the question and found the answer harmless.

  ‘Gheel,’ he replied. ‘So they say.’

  ‘Gheel,’ repeated Gil, sounding the guttural at the beginning of the word. ‘Where good singers are always wanted, Maister Doig? No wonder that laddie took you for the Devil himself, wi your leather cloak down your back like wings, talking about Hell at the window.’

  ‘Where?’ said Doig. ‘What window would that be?’

  ‘Did he so?’ said Davie, laughing rather madly. ‘Billy, you’ll need to keep that quiet, or the Bishop’s men’ll no come calling.’

  ‘What Bishop was that?’ Doig said, with that monitory stare.

  ‘Och, maybe I dreamed it,’ said Davie, suddenly deflated. Gil made no comment, but got to his feet.

  ‘Davie, I’d like to know what you’ll do next. Robert Blacader put me in here to find out who you are, and now I’ve discerned that my task’s done, but if I can assure him you’ll not pursue a place in the choir at Dunblane he’ll be happier.’

  ‘Was that what fetched you here?’ said Doig in amazement. ‘One old woman’s daft notion?’

  ‘I’ve no notion to sing in the choir at Dunblane, maister, and I’ll swear it by any saint you care to name.’

  Gil studied him for a moment.

  ‘Will you talk to my wife?’ he suggested. Davie nodded. ‘Good. She can likely help you, she’s an ingenious lassie. Now I’ve to get to Perth afore supper, so I’ll leave you.’

  ‘And, by the Rood, I’ll be glad to see you go,’ said Doig.

  ‘It’s quite a tangle,’ said Bishop Brown. He leaned back from his desk and stroked his dog’s soft head. ‘But are the two matters connected other than by the man Drummond?’

  Gil hesitated, staring out of the study window at the evening sunlight on the fields across the Tay and trying to put his thoughts into words.

  ‘There’s a pattern,’ he said at length, ‘and it seems to me it involves both matters. All three, indeed,’ he added, ‘though I’m certain the three singers are safe enough in Gheel.’

  Getting the explanation and apology for his sudden departure accepted had not been easy. The Bishop was inclined to be affronted by what he saw as desertion, and Gil had had to invoke Blacader’s original commission and stress its priority. He had still not been offered any refreshment, though he had missed supper, and he had only achieved this private interview by insisting on it.

  ‘So what will you do now?’ asked Brown. ‘Where will you hunt next?’

  ‘I’ll need a word wi your steward,’ Gil said, ‘to learn if there’s been any answer to those questions we were having cried through the town. Then I’ll have to ask more questions.’

  ‘Aye questions,’ said the Bishop. ‘I need answers, maister. You’ll ha heard, maybe, that there are folk in the Low Countries know more than they should about the English treaty?’ Gil nodded. ‘I want to learn whether my secretary was Judas or Sebastian, and I want it afore we bury him.’

  ‘I’ll be out first thing,’ Gil promised, appreciating the reference, ‘and I’ll keep you informed, sir.’

  ‘Aye, do that,’ said the Bishop. ‘But my carpenter tells me he’ll no keep long, tanpit or no tanpit, lead coffin or no lead coffin, so I’d be glad if you brattle on wi’t, maister.’

  Jerome suddenly jumped down from his knee and bustled over to inspect Gil’s boots, tail going. Gil bent to make much of the pup, and Brown’s expression softened.

  ‘Whether he’s traitor or martyr, that’s one thing Jaikie did for me,’ he said, ‘fetched me my wee dog.’

  ‘He’s a bonnie pup,’ Gil said. ‘A good memorial, sir.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said the Bishop. ‘Well, if that’s all you’re wanting to let me know the now, you’d best go and get a bite to eat and shift your clothes. Wat will see to all for you. And he’ll tell you,’ he added, ‘the constable has took up the tanner for Jaikie’s death. I’m no convinced, but the Shirra gave his approval.’

  ‘Andy Cornton the tanner?’ said Currie, pouring ale for Gil. ‘The constable lifted him, oh, about noon yesterday, and one o his journeymen and all. Quite a scene it was, so they say, his men wereny for letting him go quietly and the constable had to break two o their heads. He denies any connection wi Stirling’s death, a course, but what I say is, Willie Reid must ha had something to go on, whatever my lord thinks.’

  ‘Have they been put to the question?’ Gil asked. ‘This is an uncommon good pie,’ he added, and cut himself another wedge. The steward, when applied to, had taken him to his own chamber and sent a man for a tray of food; Gil hoped the two men at arms who had ridden in with him were as well looked after.

  ‘We keep a good kitchen,’ said Currie, nodding at the compliment. ‘Question? No, by what I hear, they’re waiting for you to come back afore they proceed.’

  Gil chewed on the mouthful of meat and pastry, thinking guiltily that if he had not gone to Balquhidder he might have prevented the arrest.

  ‘I learned a few things, these two days, just the same,’ he said aloud. ‘I’ve found the second badge, for a start.’

  ‘So I can send the bellman round, can I, to tell folks no to bring me any more lead St Jameses?’ said Currie with a rueful grin. ‘What’s it doing at Balquhidder, then?’

  ‘Andrew Drummond has it. He says Stirling gave it to him.’

  ‘St Peter’s bones, why’d he do that?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me,’ said Gil evasively.

  ‘That’s no like Maister Stirling,’ said Currie, ‘he set great store by those badges, I’d never ha thought he’d part wi one. Oh – speaking o the bellman, the Precentor at St John’s Kirk, what’s his name? Kinnoull, that’s it, he sent to say he’d a word for you about something the bellman was crying.’

  ‘Did he say what? There were several things we sent to the bellman about.’

  ‘Never a word. That was all the message, sent wi one of the laddies in his choir.’

  ‘I’ll go by the kirk tomorrow,’ Gil said, glancing at the window of the chamber where they sat. ‘It’s near sunset now.’

  ‘Your man Tam’s late,’ said Currie anxiously. ‘He’ll maybe no get into the town if he’s much longer.’

  ‘I’m not looking for him till the morn,’ Gil said.

  ‘You’re no? Just the lads you had wi you thought he’d come ahead, they were right confounded when they didny find him here already wi his boots off.’

  ‘No, no, I sent him an errand, and two more men wi him.’ Gil selected a plum from the dish of fruit and bit into it. ‘They should be here by the morn’s noon. Where are Cornton and his man held?’

  ‘They’re in the Tolbooth, in chains by what I hear, and they’re saying his wife’s in a rare taking, poor woman.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Gil.

  Maister Gregor, accosted in the hall before Prime next morning, was disinclined to chat. It took Gil a little work over his bowl of porridge to persuade the old man to think about the evening his friend had vanished.

  ‘It’s none so easy,’ he said glumly, ‘for a course I didny realize then that he’d vanished, so I took no note of the evening, any more than I did the previous one.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Gil said. ‘It was that day you had the argument about the shoe, did you tell me?’

  ‘Aye, it was.’ Maister Gregor rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his old-fashioned buttoned gown. ‘To think it was near the last words we spoke, it fair makes me greet.’

  ‘But you were friends again by noon?’ Gil prompted.

  ‘Aye, we were, you’re right. Jaikie cam to sit by me here at the board, see, and we shared a mess of boiled mutton wi two Erschemen from Lorne and spoke Latin wi them. Their Latin wasny very good,’ the old man recalled, ‘they couldny understand the most o what I said to them. And Wat was on about a new way
to cook mutton, wait till I tell you this.’ He recounted his friend’s witticism again, obviously forgetting that he had already told it to Gil.

  ‘What happened after that?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Why, Jaikie went out about my lord’s errands, about the rents, and I went to copying the diocesan returns for my lord. They go to Rome, you’ll understand, maister, so they’ve to be in a good clear hand, and my lord’s aye commended mine.’

  ‘A dull task,’ said Gil, pulling a sympathetic face. ‘How long did that last you?’

  ‘Aye, but a needful. I stayed at that till Vespers, and then seeing the supper was a wee thing late I walked in the garden for a bittie. My lord was there and all, wi his wee dog, and he asked me where was Jaikie,’ he rubbed at his eyes again, ‘and a course Jaikie never cam here again.’

  ‘I think my lord had a great trust in Maister Stirling,’ said Gil. Maister Gregor nodded. ‘Did he tell you anything about the English negotiations while he was caught up in them?’

  ‘Me? No, no, I kept away from that,’ said Maister Gregor virtuously. ‘I think my lord was feart I’d let something slip at the wrong time,’ he added. Surprised by this show of self-awareness, Gil nodded. ‘And a course Jaikie was maist discreet. Never a word till all was signed and sealed, and then it was only a bit gossip about the ambassadors,’ he said with regret, and sighed heavily. ‘Aye me, it’s hard to think I’ll not see him again in this life.’

  St John’s Kirk was busy with folk making their morning observations. Several priests were saying Mass at different altars, their bright vestments catching the light, the incense rising up into the high roof past the gleam of the huge silver chandelier on its chain, and another two appeared to be showing some relics to a group of pilgrims. Enquiring for Kinnoull led Gil to the choir itself. It was empty and quiet just now, between Prime and Terce, except for the Precentor poring over the great choir-book on its stand while the clerks of the choir refreshed themselves with a jug of ale in the vestry.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said as Gil made his way through the curtained doorway in the choirscreen. ‘I sent you word, did I no?’

  ‘You did,’ agreed Gil.

  ‘I think we’ll use this one the day.’ Kinnoull spread the great pages flat, and drew the bar down on its hinge to keep the book open. ‘I’m still short o basses since the Moncrieff lads left us, maister, and it limits which settings of the Mass we can use, it limits them. You’ve no idea where they’ve gone, I suppose?’

  ‘The Low Countries, I suspect,’ said Gil.

  ‘Aye, I feared as much,’ said Kinnoull, nodding gloomily. ‘They’ve more wealth than us, maister, we’ll never get our singers back now. Where in the Low Countries?’

  ‘A place called Gheel.’

  ‘Never heard of it. Well, maister, I’ll ha to get on, we’ve Terce to sing, but just afore you go, was it you was looking for where Andrew Drummond o Dunblane ate his supper one night?’

  ‘It was,’ agreed Gil, without much hope.

  ‘I thought it was. Well, I canny help you there, maister, but I can tell you where he was after it. He was in here.’

  ‘In here?’ repeated Gil, startled. ‘You know him, do you?’

  ‘Oh, I know him well. I’m fro Dunblane mysel, maister. So when I saw him here in St Andrew’s chapel, I said to mysel, You’re not wanting disturbed, man, I’ll just leave you be.’

  ‘He was at prayer?’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you. He spent the most of an hour or maybe more on his knees afore St Andrew. I was in here, looking through the choir-book just as you find me now, maister, and when I’d finished I should ha gone out and locked the place, but I didny want to chase Andrew Drummond away. Times you can tell when a man needs a quiet word.’

  ‘So you weren’t close enough to tell whether he’d been drinking.’

  ‘Drinking? No, I smelled no drink. Frying, maybe, I’d say he’d had fried bread to his supper, but no drink. Anyway I just sat here till he left.’

  ‘And what time would that be?’ Gil asked hopefully.

  ‘Near curfew,’ said Kinnoull confidently, ‘for I’d to hurry mysel to get a jug of ale afore they rang the bell. And now I’ll have to hurry mysel to lead the choir in for Terce.’ He gave the great book one last glance, and moved away from the stand. ‘But when I heard the bellman asking where Andrew ate his supper, I thought to mysel, that might be what the man needs to hear.’

  ‘It is,’ said Gil. ‘My thanks, maister. It’s something I needed, right enough.’

  ‘I can ask,’ said Brother Dickon. ‘But it was two weeks afore we sought him, maister, and I’d ha thought if any o my lads – my brethren,’ he corrected himself, ‘had found aught like that, they’d ha said so at the time.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Gil, ‘it’s a long shot, but I have to check.’

  ‘So you want to know,’ said the senior lay brother, a wiry grizzled fellow with a scar across one eye, ‘if there was any sign o a struggle, or a patch of blood.’

  ‘Any sign of where the man died,’ Gil agreed, wishing he had brought Socrates. But even the dog might have difficulty after two weeks, he thought, supposing the man did die out on the Ditchlands.

  Brother Dickon jerked his head at the open doorway.

  ‘We’re just come from Terce,’ he said, ‘so you’ve catched us all thegither. Come and wait while I ask them.’

  Gil rose and followed him out of the snug porter’s lodge into the first courtyard of the convent, where half a dozen lay brothers, bearded men in the black Dominican habit with the black scapular instead of white, were clattering across the outer courtyard in their sturdy boots, making for the gate. Brother Dickon summoned them with a piercing whistle and a wave of his arm, and all six came to stand obediently before him, hands tucked into their wide sleeves, heads bent, faces half hidden by their hoods. Dickon glared at them, and they looked sideways and shuffled into a straighter line.

  ‘Aye,’ he said at length. ‘You’ll do. Listen, lads. Er, brethren. You mind the other day when we had to hunt for that clerk that got hissel missing?’

  He propounded Gil’s question accurately, and glared along the line of black hoods. There was silence for the space of an Ave, then one of the hoods rose and its wearer said diffidently, ‘Permission to speak, sa – er – Brother Dickon?’

  ‘Speak up, Brother Archie.’

  ‘I don’t think any of us seen anything like that.’

  Heads were shaken all along the row.

  ‘Damage to any of the bushes?’ Gil said hopefully. ‘Signs of a struggle?’

  ‘Christ love you, maister,’ said Brother Dickon tolerantly, ‘there’s struggles to damage the bushes any evening a lad walks his lass across the meadow.’

  ‘Aye, and it’s never –’ began a mutter from under one of the hoods.

  ‘That’ll do, Brother Dod,’ said Brother Dickon.

  ‘Does that happen most evenings?’ Gil asked. ‘Would there have been youngsters there the night Maister Stirling vanished?’

  ‘Likely enough,’ said Brother Dickon, and heads nodded along the row. ‘But as for minding whether or no, two weeks after it, it’s more than I can do. Any of you lads?’

  Clearly, none of his troop remembered either. Gil looked from them to the spare, upright figure of their superior, and said, ‘I’ve another question, if I may. Was any of you along the Skinnergate that evening? I realize,’ he said mendaciously, ‘you’d not be in the alehouses, but I wonder if anyone saw Andrew Drummond there in the street.’

  Brother Dickon’s expression was wonderfully ambiguous. After another, longer, pause, the same man as before spoke up.

  ‘I was on the Skinnergate after our supper,’ he admitted. ‘I’d to fetch a harness to the white-faced mare, that Will Lorimer was mending for us.’

  ‘And did you see the Canon, Brother Archie?’ demanded his superior sharply. Brother Archie nodded.

  ‘I did and all,’ he said. ‘He was just going into the Northgate as I cam o
ut of Lorimer’s shop. He never saw me, but. He’d the duarch wi him, the mimmerkin that dwells at the dog-breeder’s yard.’

  ‘And what time would that be?’ Gil asked.

  Archie shrugged. ‘After supper. I’d gone into the town, I’d spoke wi Lorimer, I’d shown him why he should do the work as a gift. Eight o’ the clock, maybe?’

  ‘You’d swear to that?’ Gil said. Archie looked at Brother Dickon.

  ‘Aye, lad, brother, you can swear to it,’ Brother Dickon informed him.

  ‘I’ll swear to it, maister,’ said Brother Archie.

  ‘That’s excellent,’ said Gil. ‘My thanks, brother.’

  ‘Is that all you’re wanting?’ demanded Brother Dickon. ‘For they’ve to get on wi stacking the great barn afore the tithes come in.’ When Gil nodded, he jerked his head at the row of men. ‘Right, lads, get on wi’t.’

  They bowed, in unison, the black hoods falling forward over their brows. Then they turned and clattered towards the gate, rather self-consciously not walking in step.

  ‘What did you do before you took the habit, brother?’ Gil asked curiously, watching them go.

  ‘Serjeant-at-arms to the old King,’ said Brother Dickon.

  Mistress Doig was not at home. Several of the dogs he had seen on his first visit were absent as well, so it seemed likely she was exercising them out on the common land to the north of the suburb, as she had described. Most of the remaining dogs barked at him when he entered the yard, but he stood quietly, and after a while they settled down again, though one liver-and-white bitch pressed her muzzle into the corner of her pen and snarled steadily. He ignored her, and took the opportunity to examine the premises with more attention than before.

  Out here beyond the burgh walls – no, the Ditch, he corrected himself – the ground was not laid out in the long narrow even-sized tofts which were usual inside a town. The Doigs’ premises consisted of the house set at the further end of the ground with the yard in front of it and a long shed to one side. The yard was perhaps twenty-five or thirty paces long, and the same width as the dyer’s yard, fenced all round with woven hurdles lashed securely to solid posts. Within this space the pens had been constructed of solid timber, the lowest planks half-buried to prevent enthusiastic inmates tunnelling out, the higher ones separated enough for the occupant to see something of the world. None of them was against the boundary, so that a lean person such as Mistress Doig or Gil himself could walk right round the fence.