‘It was never proved,’ said Kilgour quickly. ‘Several folk had had the chance. But you ken what boys are. Andrew got the blame among his fellows, for none of the others seemed like to have done such a thing.’ He grinned wryly. ‘Our maisters paid no mind. All that happened was the lad that belonged to the ball got beaten for bringing it into the school.’
‘I see,’ said Gil. ‘And then at Easter the rope slipped.’
‘And he never got his voice back,’ agreed Adam. ‘That’s how he hates singers.’
‘There’s plenty folk sing well as boys and lose it once the voice changes,’ said Kilgour, ‘but this was different, you see, Andrew’s voice was stolen from him, and he’s got no love for those that can still hold a tune. He speaks well enough,’ he added, ‘but kind o hoarse, and he sings when he has to like a heron croaking.’
‘Was that before his brother vanished away, or after it?’ Gil asked.
‘It must ha been after it,’ said Kilgour, considering, ‘for he was singing well at the time his brother was stolen. It was the two of them sang the great hymn at Lammastide, just the two voices. I mind them practising it, and old Rob Clark that was our succentor shouting at them for not holding the tone.’
‘It was just after that David Drummond disappeared, was it no?’ said the man in the corner. ‘Do you mind of that and all, Jockie?’
‘No much,’ said Kilgour. ‘You ken what it’s like when you come back, you’re straight into the rehearsals for St Blane’s feast, working all the hours of daylight to get the music by heart. It was a wonder for a few weeks that David hadny come back like the rest of us, but he wasny the only one, there were other folk went on to the college at St Andrew’s or Glasgow, or maybe the Grammar School at Perth. Then we forgot about it, except maybe for Billy — aye, Billy Murray that’s at Dunkeld now, and the Stirling boy, that was his bedfellows.’
‘Where do the boys lodge?’ Gil asked. Kilgour paused in reaching for the ale-jug.
‘At the time,’ he said, ‘we dwelt in the succentor’s attics, and studied in the chapter-house. Some of the younger ones found it hard. These days they’re lodged about the town, in one household or another, which is fine if they get on wi the wife.’
‘How did his brother no disappear wi him?’ asked another voice.
‘Geordie, it was thirty year since. I canny mind,’ said Kilgour, and took a pull at the ale-jug. After a moment he offered, ‘Likely Andrew never went home wi him, went to a friend’s or stayed here in the town. There’s some of them do that,’ he added to Gil. ‘If they’ve no notion to the walk home and back.’
‘Maybe if Andrew had gone home and all, the wee one would never ha vanished,’ said someone. ‘He’ll ha fallen into some crack in those hills, or been lost in a drowning-pool, or the like.’
‘It’s strange he was never found then,’ objected Kilgour.
‘If you can lose a beast and never find it, you can lose a laddie. Eleven, was he? That’s no a big corp to be seeking.’
‘How far do the boys come to sing here?’ Gil wondered. This gave rise to a long discussion, which concluded that the furthest anyone had ever come was one Duncan McIan from some place Gil had never heard of, five days’ walk to the west.
‘Most of them’s from Stirling or hereabouts,’ said Adam. ‘But there’s aye a few from further away.’
‘How do you find them?’ Gil asked. It was not a problem he had ever heard the Glasgow songmen discuss; there was a sufficient crop of youngsters in the burgh and its immediate surroundings to keep the choir, and the sang-schule in St Mary’s Kirk, well supplied.
‘Word gets about,’ said the man in the corner. ‘The most of us has kin that can sing, and we pass names to the succentor. You hear of a laddie wi a good voice in another parish, or the Archdeacon when he visits takes note of a soloist’s name — ’
‘That’s if the Archdeacon can tell In nomine from In taverna,’ said someone else sourly, and they all laughed again.
‘And is that how the men move about and all? Would that be how John Rattray went?’
There was an awkward silence.
‘It’s a strange thing, that,’ said Adam at last.
‘How so?’ asked Gil.
‘The Ratton just vanished. Like the Drummond laddie — ’
‘No, no, Adam, the Drummond boy was on his way back, by what we hear.’
‘There’s no knowing that,’ argued Adam. ‘He’d maybe not have told his kin if he was planning to go a long journey.’
‘Aye, but he’d a gied his bedfellows some notion, surely!’
‘The Drummond boy met wi some accident, how could he warn his bedfellows?’
‘So you’d no inkling Rattray was going away?’ Gil put in, before this could build into an argument. ‘You don’t think his servant was right and he’s been taen off by the Deil?’
‘Ha!’ said Kilgour.
‘Walter Muthill’s a daft laddie,’ said someone else. ‘The Deil kens what he saw, but it wasny the Deil.’ This got a laugh, but the speaker protested, ‘Aye, fine, but you ken what I mean. There’s plenty folk in Dunblane I’d sooner believe had been borne off by the Deil than John Rattray. He’s aye been a good-living kind o fellow.’
‘It’s a funny thing just the same, he’d got across Andrew Drummond,’ said the man called Adam, ‘and then vanished the same as Drummond’s brother.’
‘Adam, I tellt you, it was nothing like the same,’ said Kilgour. ‘Besides, the way Andrew Drummond came speiring about it, he knew no more than any of us.’
‘He was interested, was he?’ asked Gil.
‘Oh, aye, asking all around.’
‘What about Rattray’s kin? Has he nobody else that might hear from him?’
A short debate turned up the fact that John Rattray was the last of his house, save for a brother teaching, or perhaps studying, the Laws in some university in Germany. That would account for the length of time it took before anyone was concerned, Gil thought.
‘I mind he did say his parents were carried off in the pestilence,’ said someone.
‘And when he left, he never said anything, or gave any sign? What generally happens?’
‘Not a word,’ said the man called Geordie.
‘It’s usual for one Precentor to write the other,’ said Kilgour. ‘Dougie Cossar had a message only last month, to ask if we’d a tenor we could spare to Stirling.’
‘So it’s arranged between the Precentors?’ Gil prompted.
‘Aye, in general. Wi maybe an offering to sweeten the exchange. But Dougie had no notion John Ratton was off either.’
‘He did buy the ale that night,’ said another voice.
‘Aye, that’s right, Simon, he did,’ agreed Kilgour. ‘We take it in turn,’ he explained to Gil. ‘It wasny John’s turn, but he bought the ale, and bannocks too.’
‘But he never said a thing about going away,’ said Geordie, shaking his head.
‘You never found anything in his chamber when you took it on, did you, Nick?’ asked Kilgour. A man perched on the end of the bench shook his head.
‘Nothing at all, save a couple o Flemish placks away under the bed where Muthill’s wife hadny swept far enough. I found them when I shifted it round — I canny abide to sleep wi my head to the window.’
‘He’d never been to the Low Countries, had he?’ said Geordie.
‘No, but we all get enough o those, this close to a market the size o Stirling,’ said Nick Allen. ‘I’d another three in my purse only last month.’
‘And you’ve never heard where he went to? Where do you suppose he’s gone?’
‘Somewhere they pay their singers better,’ said the man in the corner.
‘Near anywhere in Scotland, you mean?’ said Adam, and got a general sour laugh.
‘Aye, but Maister Belchis writ every other diocese,’ objected Kilgour, ‘asking was he in their pay now, and they all said he wasny.’
Gil privately doubted this. If Rattray owed nobody money there was no motive to hunt for him, and there was by far too much work to do in any diocese to pursue a single missing singer for no reason.