Pat McIntosh - The Stolen Voice

‘You’d think these mountains was going to fall on you,’ said Steenie uneasily.

‘That is not often happening,’ said Murdo in a reassuring tone. Alys looked at him, recognized a joke, and thought that, though these people were different in build and habit from the taciturn Bretons of her childhood, they had a lot in common.

‘They are so tall,’ she said. ‘Have you climbed all the way to the top of them? One might almost be able to reach up and touch Heaven from there.’

‘These are not so high,’ said Murdo. ‘That one is Buachaille Breige, which is the Shepherd, and behind him is Beinn an’t Sidhean. And on that side it is Clach Mhor which is just meaning — ’

‘The Big Stone!’ said Alys in triumph. He nodded, with that brilliant smile again.

‘The Big Rock, maybe. There is higher ones across Loch Voil. But it is a strange thing, when you are on the top of them it is still as far up to Heaven as when you are standing by the side of the loch, though sometimes there is clouds below you.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’ asked Steenie. ‘Stand on the top, I mean. The whole thing might fall down, and you wi it.’

Murdo shrugged. ‘The hunting is good,’ he said.

They followed the narrow glen, beside the same tumbling river, with oak woods on either hand and wild flowers growing down the riverbanks. Socrates ranged round them, checking the scents of the place. Overhead the sky was blue, with fluffy clouds sailing in it, and a small wind kept the insects at bay. Alys thought of one of the poems in Gil’s commonplace-book. Dayseyes in the dales, notes swete of nightingales, each fowl song singeth . If Gil had been with her she would never have been happier. She wondered how far he had got.

‘Did Tam say him and the maister was going back to Dunblane?’ asked Steenie. ‘What are they doing there, mem? He’d as well ha stopped there on the way up from Stirling.’

‘The maister needs to talk to someone,’ said Alys. And so do I, she thought. What do I say to these people? What must I find out? That depends on what there is to find out, I suppose.

About them, the signs were growing that this was not the green desert it appeared at first sight. Some of the trees were coppiced, a dry stone wall scrambled up the hillside, a small burn gurgling down to the river spread out over a well-maintained ford where the track crossed it. Someone was about; she heard a snatch of singing on the light wind. Then abruptly the glen widened into a broad green hollow, and Murdo halted his pony.

‘Glen Buckie,’ he said, gesturing widely.

‘Good land,’ said Steenie approvingly. ‘If we were in Lanarkshire I’d almost say you were on lime here,’ he added, ‘it’s that green.’

‘Lime?’ said Murdo. ‘I would not be knowing.’

Alys looked about her. The hay crop on the flat ground near the river had been cut and turned; nearer them stooks of barley-straw marched up a slope in the sunshine. Across the river more tiny white dots bleated on the steep hillside.

‘Is that the — the sidhean ?’ she asked, pointing to a rocky knoll bristling with tall trees, the hay crop washing its margins in a green-gold tide.

Murdo crossed himself and said hastily, ‘Wiser not to be naming it, mistress, here in the open. That is Tom an Eisg, just. The — the place you named is being a lot bigger, and it is away far up the glen, beyond Dalriach, beyond the low shielings.’

‘So when the boy left home,’ said Alys, looking about her, ‘he went that way, up the glen and not down it.’ Murdo nodded. ‘I had thought of him coming down past Stronvar and the kirk, but I see that was wrong.’

‘By far shorter the road he was taking,’ said Murdo. ‘Over the high pass into Strathyre and down the burn at the other side. It would be a scramble, but a fit laddie would have no trouble. He has told us he had got that far before he was lifted away.’

‘Told you? You mean he has spoken of it? Did he describe what happened to him?’ Alys asked, trying to conceal her surprise.

‘Only that much. He saw nothing when he was lifted up, it seems.’

‘And where was he to meet his friend?’

Murdo shrugged. ‘That he never said exactly. Somewhere on the Strathyre side of the hills, I have no doubt. If my father ever heard it in his time, he has not told me.’

‘Your father says he has recognized the young man,’ said Alys carefully. Murdo looked at her, the dark lashes shading his eyes. ‘Is that right, do you think?’

‘Who am I to say?’ said Murdo, in faint surprise. ‘Davie vanished away long before I was born. The family has recognized him, and he is dwelling with the old woman in Tigh-an-Teine, and that will do for me.’

‘Tigh-an-Teine,’ Alys repeated. ‘The house of — of fire?’

He nodded awkwardly. ‘It’s the name they give the chief house of the clachan. Just a name, it is.’

‘But is the fire particular in any way?’

‘No, no. But a woman from further up the glen, one with the two sights, was making a great outcry one time, and saying that she had seen flames leaping from the thatch. Before I was born, too, that was,’ said Murdo dismissively, ‘and it has never burned yet.’

‘And David dwells there with the old lady, and she is certain he is her son.’

‘Indeed, yes.’

‘It’s a daft tale,’ said Steenie roundly. ‘Who ever heard the like, except in the ballads or the old tales? Folk doesny get carried away wi the fairies nowadays.’

‘What do you think, Murdo?’ asked Alys.

‘I think your man should not be mentioning those people aloud,’ said Murdo. He gathered up his reins. ‘It will be another mile or so to Dalriach, past Ballimore. Will you ride on, mistress, and meet the Dalriach folk?’ He smiled, those dark lashes sweeping his cheekbones. ‘They will be ready for us by now. The hills has eyes, we have been counted already.’

‘I was never at Glasgow myself,’ said Mistress Drummond, ‘but my son Andrew was there in the year of eighty-seven.’

Whatever Alys had expected, it was not quite this.

The farm at Dalriach was clearly prosperous, despite the bad luck Murdo Dubh and his father had detailed. The main steading, beside the track which separated infield and outfield, contained three substantial longhouses, built of partly dressed field stones, ranged round a cobbled yard. The cattle-fold at the byre end of one of them stood empty at this hour of the day, and hens crooned to one another among mysterious pieces of farm gear. Gardens, a barn, a stackyard, several smaller cottages down the slope nearer the river, made it almost a village.

A dozen people, men and young women, were visible shearing the barley at the top of the outfield as they approached the farm. Their work-song floated on the breeze, one voice with a line, the other voices with a rhythmic echo, keeping the swing of the sickles. The song never faltered, but the shearers paused, one by one, to straighten up and stare at the approaching riders. An old woman working with a hoe in one of the small kale-yards called to Murdo in cheerful Ersche, and he waved in answer.

They were met in front of the biggest of the houses by two lean black dogs who glared at Socrates, and a sturdy young man of twenty or so, with fair skin burned pink by the sun and a shock of light frizzy hair above a high forehead. Alys thought at first this was the returned singer, but Murdo had addressed him as James and introduced her in Ersche; she had caught Blacader’s name and title and then Gil’s, despite the strange twist the language gave them. James had ordered the dogs off in Ersche, then saluted her gravely in good Scots with a heavy Highland accent, and led her within to meet his grandmother, before excusing himself to return to the field. The harvest would not wait.