‘And William Murray was his Archdeacon,’ Gil agreed. ‘I think you’re right, maister, they’ve been friends. What happened in August, I wonder?’ He leafed forward through the book. ‘Here we are. The two of them sang at Lammas, with the Stirling boy again. Then none of the trebles is present the next week — did they all go home for the harvest?’
‘We give them a holiday after Lammas,’ agreed Cossar. ‘Just the week, seeing St Blane’s feast falls on August tenth. They come back fresh in time for the patronal feast. And the succentor gets a holiday and all,’ he added, smiling wryly. ‘You’re about ready for it, by then.’
‘I can believe that. And here in the middle of August we have your patronal feast, Vigil of Sanct Blain, Fest of Sanct Blain, and here’s the boy Murray, and James Stirling, and there’s Andrew Drummond again, but no mention of David.’
‘So that’s when he vanished away,’ said Cossar. He turned his attention to the other names on the page. ‘Is any more of these fellows still about the place, I wonder? Is that John Kilgour? He’s one of the quiremen yet, and chaplain of St Stephen’s altar.’ He glanced at the window. ‘Here, that was five o’clock sounded from the kirk. I must away, maister — I’ve the blowers waiting for me, I need to play through the organ part for the morn’s office hymn. Maister Belchis needs a sure lead, so I’d not want to make mistakes.’
The shoemaker Muthill was a square, dark-haired man, who wore a pair of brassbound spectacles fastened on with a green cord round his head. The heavy hinged frames perched over the bridge of his nose gave him a strange predatory look, like a crow. He peered at Gil through them, listening to his cautious introduction, then removed them and rubbed at the marks they had left on his nose.
‘Aye,’ he said.
Since this was not a wholly adequate response, Gil waited. After a moment the soutar rose from his last, set down his needles and reel of waxed thread, and put his head out at the open window beside him. ‘Walter! Walterr!’ he shouted, then sat down without looking at his visitor, replaced the spectacles and took up his work again.
Gil continued to wait. In a few moments, the sound of running feet heralded a much younger man, very like the soutar in appearance though without the spectacles.
‘Is it my maister?’ he demanded as he burst into the shop. Seeing Gil he stopped abruptly, and his shoulders sagged. ‘No,’ he answered himself, and then warily, ducking his head in a rudimentary bow, ‘You haveny brought news of him, have you?’
‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I’m trying to find out what might have happened to him. Can you help?’
The brothers looked at one another, and the soutar nodded.
‘You help the man, Walter,’ he directed.
‘Can I see his chamber,’ Gil asked, ‘or is it let again?’
‘Oh, aye, it’s let,’ said Walter with a resentful look at his brother. ‘He’d no see it lie beyond the month.’
‘He’s out,’ said the soutar, biting his thread with notched teeth. ‘No harm in looking, if you don’t go poking about. Show the man, Walter.’
Walter obediently led Gil into the flagged passage which led from street to yard, and along to the next door. This he opened cautiously, peered round it, then flung it wide and stood back for Gil to look. The chamber within was much the size of the workshop, furnished with a low bed, a kist, a bench and table and a couple of stools. Its present occupant’s plaid was flung over the bed, some worn liturgical garments were heaped on the bench, and there was music, a pen-case and some ruled sheets of paper on the table.
‘It’s let to another quireman,’ Gil said. The boy looked at him in amazement.
‘Aye, it is,’ he agreed. ‘How did you ken that?’
‘Tell me what you saw when you came in here the morning your maister vanished,’ Gil prompted. ‘Was it like this?’
‘No, no, it was quite different,’ said Walter earnestly, ‘for my maister’s gear was all here, and none of Maister Allan’s.’
Careful questioning got Gil a clearer description. The bed had not been slept in, for Walter’s brother had checked and it was cold. The two wee pictures, which were right bonnie things, had gone, and so had Maister Rattray’s two books, that lived on that shelf there. Walter’s wages were set on the table, on a piece of paper with his name writ on it clear so he could read it, and beside them was Maister Rattray’s own key to the front door.
‘And there was no smell of burning nor sulphur,’ added Walter, ‘for all it was the Deil himsel carried him off.’
‘Why do you say that, Walter?’ Gil asked, looking at him curiously.
‘Is that you at that nonsense again?’ demanded Walter’s brother loudly from his shop. ‘Pay him no mind, maister, he’s been on about that since ever Rattray gaed off, for all we’ve had half the Chapter in telling him it was no sic a thing.’
‘Where does the window of this chamber look on?’ Gil asked.
‘Out in the yard.’ Walter closed the chamber door and led him to the end of the passage, where another door revealed a small yard, with two ramshackle sheds and several tubs of daisies. A gate in the fence seemed to lead out on to the cattle track. ‘Maister Allan grows these flowers. They’re bonnie, aren’t they?’
‘Why do you say it was the Deil carried your maister away?’ Gil asked again. The young man glanced over his shoulder, and moved further into the yard.
‘Acos I saw him mysel,’ he said earnestly. ‘That’s how I’m certain.’
‘You saw him?’ Gil also moved away from the door, out of earshot of the soutar. ‘When was that, Walter? What did you see?’
Walter’s face split in a gratified smile, and he crossed himself energetically.
‘It was just two days afore my maister was taen away,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I came by wi his supper, which our Mirren sends from our own table, I mean she aye sent it, and cam in by the back gate here, and my maister was looking out at his window — ’
‘In March?’ said Gil, surprised.
‘Aye, in March, and he was talking to the Deil that was standing here in the yard.’ He pointed to a spot under the window. ‘Just there, he was stood.’
‘What time was it?’ Walter looked blank. ‘Was it dark?’
‘Aye, just getting dark, I seen the first star as I came by the wynd and wished on it,’ said Walter, nodding, ‘and then I came in at the yett and seen the Deil.’
‘And what did he look like?’ asked Gil with care.
‘No bigger than a bairn, for he didny come up to the window-sole,’ said Walter, his voice hushed again, ‘and he had great wings like leather all down his back, and a big hat on to hide his horns, and he’d a great deep voice like a big man’s.’
‘What was he saying?’
The young man licked his lips.
‘I heard him threaten that he’d come for him on St Patrick’s Eve, and that good singers was needed in Hell, and then I ran away, for I was feart, maister,’ he confessed, and crossed himself. ‘And I canny rid mysel of the thought of my maister, that was aye good to me and left me my wages at the last, burning in flames and tormented by imps wi great pincers, all acos he’s got a bonnie voice.’
‘Was there snow on the ground,’ Gil asked, ‘or was it muddy? Did he leave any tracks?’
Walter shook his head.
‘He must have flew away,’ he said, ‘on his great wings. There was no sign that any of us saw.’
‘I thought as much!’ said the soutar angrily in the doorway. ‘Is that you annoying the man wi your tales, Walter Muthill? Pay him no mind, maister, and I’ll thank you no to encourage him, for he’s naught but a daft laddie.’
‘He must have seen something,’ Gil said. ‘Did you come to look, maister?’
‘I did not,’ said the soutar, pulling off his brass spectacles again, ‘for I’d my boots off, and no notion to go tramping round the cow-wynd in the dark. When this bawheid cam in crying out that he’d seen the Deil in our yard my wife made him go round by the street, for Maister Rattray paid us good rent to get his supper brought him, as well as the chamber, and he never saw any sign by the front way, and his maister tellt him the Deil had never been here.’