‘How good is his voice?’ he asked. ‘What does he sing?’
‘He’s countertenor,’ said Kilgour. ‘A high tenor, ye ken. And he’s no bad, no bad at all. In fact he’d come on a lot last winter, you’d think he’d been practising or something.’ This raised another laugh; it seemed to be a joke. ‘It was the kind of voice we don’t get to keep very long, it’s no surprise he’s left us. The only by-ordinar thing about the business, Maister Cunningham, is the way he slipped off wi never a word to say he was away or where he was going. And that nonsense of his laddie’s about seeing the Deil at his window,’ he added.
‘That’s two things,’ said Adam.
Kilgour swung a friendly fist at him, but said to Gil, ‘So if you find him, maister, we’d be glad to hear it.’
‘If I find him,’ said Gil, ‘I’ll send you word.’
Chapter Four
In the morning, nursing a headache, Gil asked the Bishop’s steward how to find Canon Drummond. This got him a close look, and a dubious,
‘Aye, m’hm. You’ll need to speak to him, right enough, though I’ve no notion what good it might do.’ The steward, a lean-faced individual with straggling grey hair, looked down at the towel and bread-knife he carried, and absently wiped the knife with the towel. ‘He’s had his troubles to bear, Maister Cunningham, and he’s badly afflicted by them.’
‘Troubles,’ repeated Gil, lifting an eyebrow.
‘His, er — his, er — a woman dear to him,’ said the steward euphemistically, ‘dwelling outside the town, dee’d a month since, and the bairn wi her. It seemed as if he’d ha been right enough, what wi his faith in God and His saints, and the comfort o his brothers in the Chapter, but then he’d the letter telling o his brother David’s return, and then ten days syne another, and since that time he’s fell straight into a great melancholy. His folk say he neither moves nor speaks the most o the time.’
‘Why should that have sent him melancholy?’ Gil asked in surprise. ‘I’d ha thought it would help him.’
‘Aye, well.’ The steward looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m no one to gossip, maister, you’ll understand — ’
‘Of course not,’ said Gil reassuringly, ‘but anything you can tell me that helps — ’
‘Aye. His man tellt me. The bairn lived a few hours, see, but it was never like to do well, and they gied it baptism in the name o David for his brother. And then it dee’d.’
‘And then his brother came back from wherever he’s been,’ said Gil. ‘I see.’
‘Aye. The way I heard it, it’s as if he’s thinking, if they’d gied the bairn some other name, it might no ha been taken.’
‘Hardly the way for a clerk to be thinking,’ observed Gil.
‘A man canny aye school his own thoughts,’ returned the steward sagely. ‘So you can call at Andrew Drum-mond’s manse, maister, but you might no get much good o’t.’
Thus warned, Gil was almost prepared for the sight of Canon Andrew Drummond, seated in the arbour at the far end of his little pleasure-garden, hands dangling between his knees, his felt hat on the bench beside him and the sun beating down on his tonsured head while he stared blankly at a knot of clipped box-hedge.
‘Here, Canon, you’ll get stricken by the sun,’ said the servant who had led Gil out from the well-appointed house. ‘Put your hat on, now,’ he instructed, lifting it. He placed it over the tonsure as if his master was a child, turning it so the single silver badge on the brim showed to advantage. ‘Here’s a man to speak to you, sent by Robert Blacader, so you’ll need to gie him an answer.’
There was a pause.
‘Blacader,’ repeated the Canon dully, and turned his gaze on Gil. ‘Aye, I feared he’d send someone. You can tell him I’m full aware o my guilt, maister. Or am I summoned to make a confession?’
‘No, sir,’ said Gil, bowing politely and trying to conceal his dismay. ‘I’m right sorry for your loss. But I’m here about another matter entirely. May I sit and talk wi you?’
‘I kent it,’ stated Drummond, his speech slow and hoarse. He was a big-boned man in his forties, in clothes which hung on him as if he had lost weight lately. Pink cheeks slumped over a square jaw, blue eyes ringed with dark shadows stared guiltily at his audience. Below the brim of the hat fair frizzy hair, clipped short, exposed his bare neck and showed a long shiny mark like an old burn scar. Sweet St Giles, thought Gil, if that was the mark of the rope, he was lucky to lose no more than his voice. ‘I kent she would dee, right from the moment she said she was howding again. And the bairn and all.’
‘It’s a great grief,’ said Gil awkwardly, and sat down uninvited so that he could put a hand on the man’s arm in sympathy. ‘Death comes to us all, soon or late, but it’s a sad thing for those left living.’ Hoccleve, he thought. That chaunge sank into myn herte-roote. Poor devil, and he has no means of mourning his mistress officially, either.
‘Now, Canon,’ said his man in bracing tones, ‘you’ve two bonnie bairns yet. Think on them, and take heart, maister.’
‘They’ve gone from me and all,’ said the Canon in his croaking voice, and sighed again. ‘A’ that’s close to me, wede awa.’
‘There’s no telling what’s God’s will,’ said Gil. ‘No sense in going to meet grief.’
‘Come away, now, maister, Mistress Nan was shriven in childbed,’ the servant pointed out, ‘and the bairn baptised all in his innocence. They’d be taen straight to Paradise, borne up by holy angels, the both o them. You’ve no call to grieve on their account, maister. And yir ither bairns are only the length o Perth wi their grandam, you can see them any time you’ve a mind to it.’ He made sympathetic faces at Gil over the Canon’s felt hat, and said in what was obviously intended as an aside, ‘It was just after we’d took the bairns to Perth, when the second letter came from Balquhidder, that he fell into this state, and I’ve no notion what to do for him.’ He bent to the Canon’s ear and went on encouragingly, ‘Brace up, now, sit nice and talk wi Blacader’s man, and I’ll bring you a wee drink and some o the honey cakes, will I?’
He departed without waiting for an answer. Drummond looked briefly at his retreating back and then at the gravel beneath his feet. Gil cleared his throat, wondering whether he should remain. The Canon’s condition answered his major question; it was hardly surprising that a man in this state had not ridden out to Balquhidder to greet his returned brother.
‘She must ha been very dear to you,’ he said. ‘Had you kent her long?’
The shadowed blue eyes flickered in his direction, and the man nodded.
‘Ten year,’ said the hoarse voice.
‘Long enough. What drew you to her? Was she bonnie?’
Another blue glance, another nod. ‘A bonnie, loving lass wi no tocher,’ pronounced Drummond in that harsh voice.
A strange epitaph, thought Gil, though he knew the kind of arrangement a cleric would offer. For a girl with no dowry like Mistress Nan, it was often an attractive alternative to a life as a poor relation in another household. What did a churchman’s mistress do to please him, apart from the obvious?
‘Did she sing for you? Play the harp?’
The Canon’s broad shoulders straightened a little, and he said more attentively, ‘What way would she be singing? I’ve to listen to the choir all day, I’ll hear no singers in my own home. She would harp for me, maister. She harpit as good as any woman in the realm o Scotland. She could ha played for the King, my poor lassie.’ Another of those huge sighs.
‘God hath her tane, I trowe, for her good fame,’ Gil quoted, ‘the more to plese and comfort his seintis.’
‘That’s bonnie,’ said Drummond after a moment. ‘Aye, that’s bonnie. My poor lass. To plese and comfort his seintis,’ he repeated, on a bitter note.
The servant returned, crunching down the gravel path with a wooden tray. The drink he had brought tasted of fruit and honey, and the little cakes were sweet and spicy. Gil was not hungry, but nibbled one to encourage Drummond, and said: