‘A hardworking man,’ Gil commented, and went on, ‘And can you tell me anything about the other singer, maister? I’m told one of the quiremen vanished from here earlier in the year,’ he lifted the tablets and referred to a leaf, though he had no need to, ‘a man called John Rattray.’
‘Aye, that’s right. Sometime in Lent, it was, and it’s still a speak for the whole countryside.’
Gil nodded; his note said Eve of St Patrick. Five months ago, he reflected. The trail was long since cold. Aloud he said, ‘Mid-March. Hardly the best season to go off travelling. What happened?’
‘The Deil kens,’ said Maister Belchis, and popped another cake into his mouth. ‘Indeed, his man tried to say,’ he went on through it, ‘it was the Deil himself had carried him off, but I put a stop to that. A good singer and a good-living man, John Rattray, and the two are no often to be found in the ane person, I’ve no doubt you’ll agree, maister.’
‘Very true,’ Gil said. ‘What, was there no sign at all of where he’d gone to?’
‘None.’ Belchis reflected briefly. ‘You’ll want to speak to the servant, I’ve no doubt, but best if I gie you the rights of it first. We’ve no enclosed street for the singers here the way you have in Glasgow, you’ll understand, they all dwell in rented chambers here and there about the town, and Rattray was lodged behind Muthill the soutar’s shop.’ He leaned towards the window and pointed. ‘That’s it yonder. His man is Muthill’s young brother and dwells wi him and his wife, two doors along from the shop.’
‘That’s clear enough,’ said Gil. ‘Convenient for all, I suppose.’
‘Aye. And one morning in Lent the brothers Muthill went down to the shop to open up, and found it lying open. Street door unlocked, though the latch was still drawn, the soutar’s shop closed up as he’d left it but the door to John’s chamber along the passage standing wide. No sign of an inbreak or any ill-doing, the laddie’s wages left on the table, John’s clothes and valuables gone but his household gear left — ’
‘Valuables?’ Gil questioned. ‘Did he have much?’
‘This and that. A couple of books, a bonnie wee carved Annunciation which I’d envied him myself a time or two, a painted Baptism of Christ,’ Belchis enumerated, ‘a seal-ring, two-three jewels for a hat so his man said. That kind o thing.’
‘Nothing of any size,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘And I think he’s in minor orders only?’ His colleague nodded, his mouth full of cake again. ‘So it looks as if he went deliberately enough, with what he could carry easily, rather than being carried off unwillingly.’
‘It never occurred to me to think he was carried off,’ said Belchis in surprise, swallowing. ‘No, no, the soutar came straight to me the first thing, seeing I’m so close. I saw the chamber mysel afore the laddie had a chance to redd it up, and all was in good order. Andrew Drummond,’ he paused, pulled a face, and nodded. ‘Aye, Andrew Drummond came wi me the second time, and neither of us saw anything untoward. There was never a struggle or fight in it. I’d say you’re right there, the man took time to pack what he wanted and then just rose and went out.’
‘And there’s nothing to show why he went?’
‘Nothing. His friends, the other quiremen ye ken, were as amazed as the soutar.’
Gil nodded, and drank down the last of his wine.
‘I’ll get off and speak to the succentor,’ he said. ‘Thanks for this, maister. And I can speak to the soutar and his brother, I should be able to catch the quiremen after Vespers, and then I’ll need to see when Canon Drummond can speak to me.’
‘Aye, well, I wish you luck at that,’ said Belchis obscurely.
There were two or three boys of the choir-school playing football in the street as Gil approached the succentor’s manse. It was a well-built two-storey house of stone, thatched with reeds from the low-lying valley of the Forth above Stirling, but the lower part of the walls and the stair to the battered side door bore scrawls and scribbled drawings in chalk or charcoal, interspersed with the characteristic round muddy prints of the ball. Enquiring for the succentor, Gil found he was at home; he came out on to his fore-stair to greet the guest and waved at the boys, who ran off laughing and shouting fragments of Latin parody.
‘They mostly behave well enough while they’re in school,’ said Maister Cossar tolerantly. ‘They have to kick their heels up when they’re free. And how can I help you, maister?’
He had been rearranging the benches in the empty schoolroom, and still had a sheaf of crumpled music under his arm. He was not a lot older than his charges, certainly younger than Gil, with a lean face and dark eyebrows, and the powerful fists and distant, listening look of an organ-player; he saw the purpose of Gil’s enquiry immediately, but shook his head.
‘It would be in the old records. My predecessors’ papers are mostly in the kirk, I would think, in one great kist or another.’
‘Nothing here?’ asked Gil hopefully.
‘There might be. Oh, not in here,’ he added, grinning, as Gil looked about the room. ‘The boys would have the o’s and a’s inked in and faces or worse drawn in all the white space if I left anything in reach.’ He exhibited the battered music with its crop of marginalia, and set the bundle down on his tall desk. ‘Come away ben, and we’ll take a look in the register cupboard. You never ken when you’ll be lucky.’
The registers of the sang-schule, like any other records Gil had ever dealt with, had been kept up very unevenly by different succentors, some with meticulous accounts of each singer’s attendance and standard, some merely noting lists of names not even divided into different voices. It must be difficult, he reflected as he sorted through the dusty volumes, to hold a post where the superior was always absent and the man who did all the work got little of the credit for it. Maister Cossar was obviously one of the more careful record-keepers; he was exclaiming in disapproval as he worked backwards through the sequence.
‘What year did you say?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Sixtythree, was it? Register of yhe sangschuil at Dunblain yeirs 1458 to 1466. This should be it.’ He set the volume down before Gil at the window.
‘We’re getting dust on your table-carpet,’ Gil said.
‘No matter.’ Cossar flicked at the fragments of leather which fell from the edges of the binding. ‘My man Gregor will sort it. Is there anything there? It’s no a bad record,’ he added critically as Gil turned up the year he wanted. ‘There’s the laddie there, wi the trebles.’
‘There he is,’ agreed Gil, running a finger down the page. ‘And his brother wi the altos.’
‘I never knew Andrew Drummond was a singer,’ said Cossar. ‘He’s no voice to speak of now, a course.’ He tilted his head to read the column of names. ‘Aye, no a bad record. See, he’s keeping a note of which boy sang in which of the great services, so as not to strain their wee voices by making them do too much. This David Drummond sang first treble at Easter, along wi James Stirling and William, William Murray is it? I wonder if that’s any kin of old Canon Murray? And Andrew Drummond wi a big part, he must ha been good to sing Judas.’ Gil turned a page, and they both read on. ‘There’s your laddie again, first treble at Pentecost, wi the same boys, William Murray and James Stirling. You know, the succentor at Dunkeld is a William Murray,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘he’ll be about forty I’d say. I wonder could it be the same man?’
‘At Dunkeld,’ Gil repeated.
‘And the boys that sing together regularly tend to make friends wi one another. Thirty year ago I suppose a Drummond and a Murray could well ha been friends, though it’s different now since Monzievaird a course. Did this William and David sing at Yule?’
Gil turned back the pages. Outside, across the square, a bell rang five times somewhere.
‘Yes, here they are,’ he said. ‘And the Stirling boy too. The Vigil of Yule. Then on St Stephen’s day, and the morrow of Holy Innocents. Alternate days, in effect.’
‘Good practice,’ said Cossar approvingly. ‘Lets the voices rest. Mind you, it looks,’ he ran his finger down another column, ‘as if your David was the Boy Bishop that year.’