‘Canon Drummond, I’m sorry to break in on your grief — ’
‘No matter, for I’ve no right to mourn her,’ said Drummond harshly, ‘I’m guilty o her death.’
‘I wanted to ask you,’ persisted Gil, ‘about your brother David.’
‘I’ve no brother David. He’s been gone these thirty year, whatever my mother’s writ me.’
‘What do you recall of the time he vanished?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Where were you when he disappeared?’
Another shadowed glance.
‘I was here. I never left the town.’
‘Why did you not go home with him?’ Gil wondered. ‘Did you not want to see your family too?’
‘Hah.’ Drummond shook his head with a bitter laugh. ‘Walk that distance to help wi the reaping, when I could stay here and — ’ He broke off the sentence.
‘What about St Angus’ fair?’ Gil asked. ‘That would be worth the journey, surely?’
Drummond put up a hand to straighten his hat, though it had not moved.
‘Another ancient saint out of Ireland,’ he said, rather bitterly. ‘Not to me, maister.’
‘Had you any reason to think your brother might not come back to Dunblane?’
‘No!’ said Drummond sharply.
‘So he’d never said anything to suggest he might go away from here, like John Rattray?’
The Canon’s blue stare settled on Gil’s face, unreadable.
‘Like Rattray?’ he said. ‘How do you think it’s alike? The two cases are no the same.’
‘They’ve both vanished,’ Gil said, grateful for this show of alertness.
‘Aye, but Rattray was — ’ Drummond turned his gaze on the knot of trimmed box. ‘Rattray left all in good order, he’d clearly planned to go, as you’d find out if you questioned the soutar that rented his room to him, maister, whereas my brother was borne up and taken away unexpected.’
‘By the fairy-folk,’ said Gil. Drummond gave another of those small bitter laughs.
‘So my mither aye said. It contented her.’
‘And now he’s returned,’ said Gil deliberately.
‘Aye. I should never ha baptised the bairn in his name. It’s fetched him back, hasn’t it?’
‘I’d have thought his friends would be glad to hear he’s home,’ Gil offered. ‘Has William Murray at Dunkeld heard, do you know?’
Drummond was still for a moment, then raised his head.
‘His friends,’ he said. ‘Aye. He’d more than one. I’d forgot Billy Murray.’
‘And you? Were you glad to hear it?’
A sour smile spread across Drummond’s face.
‘That depends,’ he said. ‘That depends on how well he can sing now.’
Riding back past the winding loch, with the men joking at his back, Gil tried to fit the new information into the picture he held already. It seemed to do little to clarify matters. The songman did appear to have left peacefully and of his own accord, but what was one to make of Walter Muthill’s account of the figure at the window in the twilight? The boy was very clear about what he had seen and heard, but in the absence of a smell of sulphur or scorch marks on the windowsill, Gil was not inclined to believe the interpretation Walter had supplied. There seemed no obvious reason why the Devil should carry away a decent man. And why had the decent man given his friends no sign that he was leaving? He must have had at least a day in which he could have said his farewells, and yet he seemed to have gone to some lengths to leave in secret.
As for the older matter, the only gain there was another tangle of questions, and some new names to ask them of. If David Drummond had really fallen into some crevice in the hills, thirty years since on his way back from Dalriach, then the young man using that name now was not the same person. If he had not — if he had vanished in the same way as John Rattray and the other adults this year — then he still seemed unlikely to be the same person, but in that case who was he? His brother Andrew would make little sense any time soon, Gil judged, and Kilgour’s account suggested there was not much more information to be got in Dunblane. More useful to ask around Balquhidder, and perhaps in Dunkeld.
‘Haw, Maister Gil,’ said Tam from behind him, and urged his horse forward alongside Gil’s. ‘See yon farm?’ He pointed across the loch, where a burn tumbled down a narrow glen from a saddle-like pass between a vast rugged shape and a smaller one. A huddle of low buildings lay near the foot of the glen, where the slope eased before it met the loch shore. ‘They’re saying that’s where the lad-die’s friend dwelt.’
‘What, there?’ Gil looked about, surveying the landscape. They were near the head of the loch; there would certainly be a track to that side of the glen. ‘How did you learn that, Tam?’
His servant shrugged eloquently.
‘Lachie, him that’s head o the stables at Stronvar, minds when the laddie vanished, and he tellt me and Steenie all about it, and how he was to meet Billy Murray o Drumyre at the foot o the pass and never came there. And now these fellows,’ he jerked his head at the two sturdy men of the escort, ‘are saying yon’s the pass, and yon’s Drumyre, and still a Murray holding it.’
‘Well, I think we’ll go and call on them,’ said Gil, looking over his shoulder, ‘see if anyone minds the day. Can you guide me there? It’s no so far off our road, after all.’
The senior of the two men nodded.
‘Aye, I can take you there. But you’ll need to watch, maister,’ he cautioned, ‘it’s a Drummond you’re asking after, and these are Murrays. Gang warily, won’t ye no?’
‘I will,’ promised Gil. And don’t mention Monzievaird, he thought. How long is it — five years? No, it’s no more than three. He recalled news of the atrocity reaching Glasgow in the autumn of 1490. A scion of the house of Drummond had burned Monzievaird church, together with all the Murrays who had taken refuge inside it, shocking even his wild contemporaries. It had shocked the King and his Council too, and young Drummond had paid with his head despite the pleading of his mother and sister. This was barely sufficient for the Murrays, who still hoped to see the Drummonds wiped out in retaliation, and it seemed likely that tact would be needed.
Most of the folk of the steading were occupied with the barley. Three lean tawny dogs barked at their approach, and some of the shearers paused to watch them, gauging whether their intent was peaceful, and then whistled the animals in. The younger man-at-arms, Donal, dismounted and tramped up the long ridged field to account for their presence, returning with a laughing remark in Ersche and saying to Giclass="underline"
‘They’ll not stop the work to speak wi you, maister, but they tell me Andrew Murray’s Sìle is keeping the house, since the babe is too young to be leaving.’
The group of houses seemed to have been abandoned to the hens, but eventually they located Sìle by the gentle singing drifting from her door. She proved to be a pretty young woman with her baby at her breast, and assured them in vehement Ersche which needed no translation that she knew nothing about the tale of David Drummond. Questioned further, she pointed to a barn at the top of the settlement, dislodging the suckling baby, which began to wail angrily.
‘Euan Beag nan Tobar,’ she said firmly through the noise, and ducked back into her house. They turned to lead the horses up between the low buildings, the baby falling silent behind them as its mouth was stopped.
‘Euan’ll no be much use,’ objected the older man, whose name, Gil had established, was Ned.
‘Who is he?’ Gil asked.
‘He’s had an eye to the barn and the stackyard here, for ever so it seems.’ The man guided his horse round a discarded plough. ‘He’s wanting four of his five wits. Fell down a well at the market in Callander when he was a bairn, they say,’ he explained to Gil, ‘and was lacking in his head afore ever that happened. He’s harmless, is the best you can say o him.’
‘He’s no that bad,’ said the younger one. ‘He’s a Christian soul. He speaks Scots, a bittie.’ He tethered his own beast in the shade of the barn and stepped into the shadowy interior. ‘Euan? Euan Beag? There’s a man here wants a word wi you.’