Pat McIntosh - The Stolen Voice

Gil considered this, gazing at a brown butterfly which was sunning its wings on the bed of marjoram nearest them.

‘It’s a good story,’ he admitted. ‘But did the man say why he and Stirling were in the Doigs’ yard? What took him there?’

‘He said,’ said Tam doubtfully, ‘it was an order from their lord. From the Bishop.’

‘From the Bishop? ’

‘That’s what Ned said. And Mitchel said, Aye, he was sent from the house to find Maister Stirling, that was still walking on the meadow by the Blackfriars, and bid him go to the dog-breeder’s yard and ask for a bar of her soap against fleas, for the wee dog.’

‘Sent? Who by?’

Tam shrugged.

‘We tried asking that, but he just said it was the Bishop’s errand. He seemed mighty certain it was the Bishop’s message and all.’

Gil contemplated the idea. It did not seem to fit into the picture at all. He visualized Stirling, summoned from his meditation by the Ditch. He would have walked round to Mistress Doig’s yard taking Mitchel with him, waited in the yard for Mistress Doig herself to return, perhaps talked to some of the dogs again. Did the liver-and-white bitch go for him too? he wondered. Then, almost silent, wholly unexpected, the crossbow bolt struck home, Stirling dropped dead. But who held the crossbow? And by whose order?

‘Maybe the Bishop right enough?’ Tam suggested. ‘Could he ha wanted rid o him?’

‘Maybe.’ Gil stared at the butterfly again. ‘Did Mitchel say anything else at all, Tam? Why was he in Dunkeld? Who sent him there? Did he mention the hat?’

‘Oh, that was the mimmerkin’s idea, by what he said. Mitchel had to leave it by the Ditch so folk would think he’d fell in. As for who sent him to Dunkeld, he never said, only that he was ordered there as soon as he showed his face the next morning, no even time to let his kinsfolk know he’d be away.’

‘And then kept there kicking his heels, with nothing but maintenance work to do, for two weeks,’ said Gil. He sprang to his feet and strode up and down, as if that would make his mind work more clearly. He was nearly there, he knew it. Some of the cords that linked this knot to the one in Balquhidder still had to be loosened, but he was fairly sure of why James Stirling had been killed. If he could just establish who it was who had killed him, he could take the whole thing to the Bishop, and account for his summons to Mitchel MacGregor in the same breath.

‘Did you say the man was shot, Maister Gil?’ said Tam.

‘Aye, with a crossbow.’ Gil paused in his pacing. ‘He was enticed out to the dog-breeder’s yard, and someone shot him while he stood waiting there.’

‘I was out that way when we were in Perth afore,’ said Tam. ‘It’s right in the midst of other yards and gardens, is it no? How would he get close enough?’

‘It must have been a longish shot, but our man could have hidden close to the yard. He could even have stood on the track itself and aimed across several fences. I’m certain he was a good shot, it had struck the base of the skull just where it needed to.’

Tam nodded his understanding of this, but said gloomily, ‘And how would you find out who in Perth would be that good a shot? There must be plenty folk can use a bow.’

‘Near a’body can use a bow,’ concurred Ned, suddenly opening his eyes. ‘That’s what for they all goes out to the butts on a Sunday.’

‘And there’s my answer,’ said Gil. ‘I need to find Brother Dickon.’

Making his way back to the Bishop’s house by the busy streets, he thought through all he had learned so far today. It was extraordinary how the two problems had proved to be linked; he wondered briefly if Blacader had suspected that, or if he had simply assumed that his quaestor could handle two sets of questions at once. Either possibility was gratifying, he considered, stepping round a stout burgess who was bargaining with a patten-maker.

Deep in thought he might be, but his senses were alert, and when the man darted out of the crowd, the short blade glinting as it rose, it did not take the stout burgess’s cry of ‘Ware cutpurse!’ in his ear to rouse him to action. Almost before he knew it his whinger was in his hand, his other arm was swinging up across the attacker’s throat, his blade was striking the knife aside. He stared, briefly, into a worried, sweaty face under an ordinary blue bonnet, and dimly noticed a leather doublet, hempen shirtsleeves, bare forearms, a smell of horses. The stout burgess was still shouting, and lunging forward to help. His whinger came round again almost of its own volition, caught the weapon hand.

His assailant cried out and ducked sideways, dropping the dagger, and took to his heels through a rising torrent of exclamations and grasping hands. Gil turned and pushed after him, shouting ‘Stop thief! Hold him!’ through an eddy of noise which built up along the street as people turned to see what was happening, exclaimed, reached for one man or another.

With some trouble, he managed to get as far as the corner of the Northgate, and realized he had lost his quarry. He stood still, heart hammering, breathing deeply and staring over the heads, but there was no disturbance to the cheerful bustle of the street. The man must have ducked down a vennel, or else simply stopped running and lost himself in the crowd. Every other man in the burgh wore a blue bonnet, and in this weather many were in doublet and shirtsleeves, he would never pick him out by his clothes.

‘Did you ever!’ said a voice in his ear. It was a stout citizen in a blue stuff gown and felt hat, clutching his own purse securely at his belt and puffing slightly. ‘I never saw sic boldness! To try for your purse in broad day, and then to get away like that!’

‘Was it you that shouted?’ said Gil, understanding. ‘My thanks, man.’

‘It’s up to us all to keep an eye to each other’s purse,’ declared the burgess, ‘and Our Lady be thanked he never got your money.’

It wasn’t the money he was after, Gil thought, turning towards the Bishop’s house again. That blade was going for the heart. Now I know I’m close to the solution.

‘Do you say, Maister Cunningham,’ said George Brown formally, ‘that you have discerned who slew Jaikie?’

‘I have, sir,’ agreed Gil. At the Bishop’s side Rob Gregor bleated in what seemed to be dismay. ‘And I think I’ve learned more than that.’

‘Well, let me have his name, maister,’ requested the Bishop. His dog, curled in the basket by his feet, raised its head to look at Gil.

‘First, could we have your steward in, with Maister Stirling’s kist?’

‘His gear’s all in order,’ said Maister Gregor. ‘I packed it up mysel, my lord, when Wat asked me, and made a list and all.’

‘Why do you want Wat present?’ asked the Bishop over his chaplain’s assurances.

‘If he could bring the kist,’ Gil said, ‘I’ll make all clear.’

Brown rang the bell on his desk and gave the order, then sat in brooding silence, his round face shadowed and serious, until Currie arrived with two servants bearing the kist by its rope handles.

‘Wat,’ the Bishop said. ‘Set it down there and wait. Maister Cunningham has something to tell us.’

Currie turned a startled face to Gil, but dismissed one of the servants and muttered in the ear of the other, the man Noll, who looked sharply at his superior then nodded and went out. Jerome bustled across the chamber to inspect the kist, snuffling at the leather strap which held it shut. Currie bent and patted the dog, then stood back against the wall to wait as he was bidden.

‘Well, maister?’ said the Bishop.

Gil settled himself on the padded backstool, gathering his concentration, wishing Alys was present. If I could explain a head in a barrel to the King, he thought, I can explain a man in a tanpit to a Bishop. But I’d sooner be more certain of the facts.