Pat McIntosh - The Stolen Voice

‘No! It canny be!’ he wailed, struggling with them.

Alys tightened her grip, breast to breast, and said, ‘Davie! All falls out as God wills! The guilt is not yours, it’s — ’ She checked, swallowed her words and concentrated on holding Davie. After a moment he was still, head bent, saying:

‘And she was so good to me, so loving, and first I deceived her and then I slew her — ’

‘No,’ said Andrew. ‘You caused someone else to do something that led to her death.’

‘I betrayed her.’

‘She named you as one of her bairns, as she lay dying,’ said Alys. ‘And your father as well,’ she realized.

‘David.’ Andrew stepped forward, reached past Alys, tilted Davie’s head up to look in his eyes. ‘Even Judas will find forgiveness. The guilt is not yours.’

Alys looked over Davie’s shoulder towards the door. Gil was standing there, as she had been certain. Their eyes met, and he nodded. He had seen the parallel.

‘Judas is not in it,’ said Murdo Dubh, letting go his grasp of Davie’s shoulders. Davie immediately gave at the knees and slid downwards through Alys’s grasp, to collapse in heartbroken sobs on the earthen floor.

‘I killed her. It’s my fault!’

‘Come, come, laddie,’ said Patrick stiffly, beginning to be embarrassed. ‘There is none of us is blaming you for it, and no need to be carrying on like this at the age you are.’

He paused, and his brother said in his harsh voice, ‘We don’t know what age he is, Patrick, but I agree he is too old for weeping like a lassie. Get up, David.’

‘Davie.’ Alys knelt beside the sobbing figure. ‘Davie, there is still something you have to tell us, isn’t there?’

‘Is he not telling us enough?’ asked Murdo Dubh. In the corner of her eye Alys was aware that Andrew had lit the candles in the chancel again. No, surely Andrew was standing beside Patrick? She moved so that the light fell on Davie Drummond’s face. Beside Patrick, Jamie Beag had stepped back, turning away from the group as if he knew what would come next.

‘Davie?’ she prompted. The sobs ceased, briefly, and then completely. Davie looked at her warily in the light.

‘What do I have to tell you?’

She sat back on her heels, still holding one wet hand.

‘What is Davie short for?’

There was another long pause.

‘Surely,’ said Murdo, ‘it’s only short for David?’ Alys shook her head. ‘Though he ought to have been called James like his grandfather,’ Murdo added with disapproval.

‘Should you, Davie?’ Alys rubbed her thumb gently on the back of the hand she held. ‘Should you have been called for your grandfather?’

Davie used the other wrist to scrub at wet eyes, and whispered, ‘No.’

‘Don’t be daft, laddie,’ said Patrick. ‘Who else should you ha been called for? If not your grandfather, then your father, that’s proper enough.’

Davie laughed unsteadily.

‘No, uncle. I was called for my mother.’

‘For your mother ?’ repeated Andrew incredulously. ‘Your mother?’ And then, with sudden comprehension, ‘What was her name, then? Was she Dymphna?’

‘Nearly.’ Davie sat back, still gripping Alys’s hand. ‘She was from Ireland, she had the Irish form of the name. Demhna. I was aye called Davie — Devi — to make a difference.’

‘Devna,’ repeated Andrew.

And no wonder, thought Alys, you could swear your name was Davie Drummond. She glanced over to the door, and saw that Gil was still watching, as fascinated by the scene as she was herself.

‘Demhna,’ said Patrick slowly, and unbelted his great plaid. He shook it out, and held it to his niece. ‘Cover yourself, lassie,’ he said gently. ‘I can see that you would travel safer dressed as a laddie, but it’s not decent now.’

There was a movement in the chancel, and Robert Montgomery came slowly forward into the nave, as if pulled, with the candle-snuffer still in his hand. He stopped on the edge of the group, staring at the kneeling figure in its midst.

‘Are you saying,’ he asked, in a tone between hope and amazement, ‘are you saying Davie Drummond is a lassie?’

There was a taut silence, in which Davie looked up and met Robert’s eye.

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

‘Well,’ said Robert, ‘Our Lord be thanked for that.’ The candle-snuffer fell to the floor, and he strode forward into the group and pulled Davie briskly to her feet, gathering up the plaid in his other hand. ‘Cover yourself, as you’re bid,’ he said, swinging the heavy folds round her, ‘and then tell me how we’re to get to the Low Countries. I’ll want to speak to your father.’

The Drummond men looked at each other, open-mouthed, and then at Davie and Robert, still and handfast in their midst, staring at the light blazing in one another’s eyes. Alys, trying not to laugh, slipped out of the circle and went to Gil.

‘Have you found who killed James Stirling?’ she asked.

‘I have,’ he said, sounding pleased with himself.

‘Good. And here I think,’ she said with equal satisfaction, ‘we’ve answered all my lord Blacader’s questions, and some more besides.’

‘Our Lady preserve me from Hugh Montgomery’s wrath,’ said Lady Stewart, putting her feet up on a low stool. ‘He’ll no be pleased at this.’

‘The boy’s near seventeen,’ said Gil, after taking a moment to work it out. As was Alys when we were betrothed, he realized. ‘He’ll certainly believe he’s old enough to make his own decisions.’

‘I was,’ said Alys, ‘and I was right.’ He tightened his arm about her shoulders, and they smiled at one another.

‘Aye, but lassies are different,’ said Lady Stewart.

‘I don’t see why,’ said Sir William. ‘Would you let your stepdaughters choose a husband, Marion? But never mind that,’ he added hastily, perhaps detecting an argument he might lose. ‘Let’s have the reckoning from Perth, Cunningham. What was going on? Was Andrew Drummond in it?’

‘Only by accident.’ Gil frowned, arranging his thoughts. ‘He was deep in the family’s own matter, and that was linked to the Bishop’s matter.’

‘Go on, and stop speaking in riddles.’ Sir William sat back in his great chair.

‘It was Andrew Drummond that got David stolen away thirty years ago. I suppose a boy’s jealousy was what drove him, and he was repaid for it, because someone arranged an accident for him. It went wrong, and he lost his voice, and might have lost his life. I think,’ he said cautiously, ‘he blamed one of the cathedral servants for it, and the man died soon after.’

‘Ailidh said he was always jealous,’ Alys remarked.

‘So did David — this David. Davie. Now, what began things this time was when Doig stole away the singer from Dunblane in March. Drummond recognized what happened, asked about, and when he was next in Perth he went to challenge Doig with it. He met James Stirling, who was close friends with David when they were boys. Stirling had heard of Davie’s return, and challenged Drummond about his disappearance, speaking very elliptically.’

Lady Stewart was watching him carefully; Sir William was frowning.

‘They went out on to the meadow and talked,’ he continued, ‘and it seems they made confession to each other. I think they both had a lot to forgive. But that’s the end of Andrew Drummond’s involvement in Stirling’s death, for he went into Perth, met Doig and talked wi him, and then spent the evening on his knees in St John’s Kirk.’

‘Ah.’ Sir William sat back again. ‘I’m glad to hear he’s out of it.’

‘So was it the tanner killed Maister Secretary?’ asked Lady Stewart.

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘It was Bishop Brown’s steward. He was the spy in the household. A good steward can learn more about his maister’s business than the maister himself, and he had the contact with Doig to get the information overseas. I think James Stirling had recognized who was responsible, and he made a serious mistake when he found out.’