Authors: Pat Mcintosh
The door creaked thinly again, the latch clicked, those small movements reached her. Whoever it was, returning.
Turning all this over in her head, she must have drifted into sleep, because she dreamed about the shouting before she realized she was hearing it. Then there were dogs barking, and she was awake in a muddle of arms and legs. The girls were exclaiming in Ersche, and Socrates spoke urgently by the bed-curtains in the soft, embarrassed bark he used indoors.
‘What is it?’ she asked, and realized that some of the shouting was Steenie’s voice.
‘Fire! Fire! Rouse the ferm! Fire!’
‘Our Lady protect us!’ she said, and tumbled out of the bed after Ailidh, in time to see Mòr kindling a light which showed Jamie struggling into his huge sark. He pulled it down round his knees and seized his belt, fumbling with the buckle as he hurried out of the door. Alys identified her own kirtle by touch and dived into it, stepped into her shoes, and followed the other women out into the noise of the yard, the dog anxious against her knee.
It was the thatch of Mistress Drummond’s house which was burning, and it was well alight already. Bright flames leapt from the bundled bracken, smoke towered in their light, a red glow showed at the house door. Alys stood frozen in horror for a moment beside Mòr’s house, the ends of her kirtle laces in her hands, then collected herself, knotted the laces, tugged at the arm nearest her.
‘Buckets!’ she said. ‘Water – where is the water?’
‘The burn,’ said Ailidh, pointing. ‘Jamie is there now.’
The men were already running back and forth, but the water they threw made little impression. First Steenie, then Murdo, appeared with pitchforks and began tugging at the eaves with it, scattering burning bracken on to the cobbles, the wooden forks beginning to smoulder almost immediately. Ailidh ran to join them, and Alys went to help handle buckets, aware of Socrates still at her knee and of the tethered horses squealing on the grazing land, the cattle bawling in the fold by the byre. Hens squawked, the changeling boy screamed somewhere, once and not again, the farm dogs were barking madly in the leaping shadows. Caterin came stumbling up the yard into the firelight, and behind her two of the tenants arrived to help, joining the bucket chain. The water seemed to come from beyond the stackyard.
Agnes raised her voice with a shrill demand in Ersche. Something about the
cailleach
, and then Davie’s name. Alys realized she had seen neither since she stepped into the yard. Were they still within, below the burning thatch? she wondered in horror.
At that moment Davie appeared at the door of the house, coughing, gesturing, pointing back inside. Murdo, nearest to him, thrust the pitchfork into Ailidh’s hands and ran to join him, and they both plunged into the red glow of the interior. Ailidh screamed, several people shouted, but almost immediately they reappeared, carrying the old woman as an awkward bundle between them. Patrick reached them as they staggered, received his mother’s limp form, dragged her away from the flying sparks and flakes of burning thatch to the other side of the yard. One of the younger girls followed, patting ineffectually at the burning spots on the old woman’s striped kirtle.
Under Jamie’s direction, the bucket chain was now concentrating on bringing water to the roof of Patrick’s own house, where the drifting fragments had already started one or two small blazes. Someone freed the beasts from the cattle-fold at the end of the house, and they galloped off into the night, stumbling and bawling in their rush to get away, several goats bleating shrilly among them.
Mistress Drummond had been laid down on someone’s plaid, and Patrick and Davie were both kneeling over her in the firelight, more shadowy figures beyond them. Why not take her into the house? Alys thought, and answered herself: If the house roof caught, they would have to move her again. Standing in the middle of the yard she passed empty buckets, tubs, bowls one way, full ones the other way, water slopping on her feet and skirts, the heavy wooden vessels tugging at her arms and back, while she tried to see what was happening. Behind her Steenie was arguing with Murdo,
I tell you I saw it!
What had he seen? she wondered, peering anxiously through the leaping firelight. Caterin and Mòr were by Mistress Drummond, conferring anxiously with Patrick, and Davie was holding the old woman’s hands, talking urgently to her.
Patrick looked up, stared around. Elizabeth ran over and seized the next bucket.
‘She is asking for you, mistress,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Will you go to her?’ She dashed at her eyes with a hand momentarily free. ‘I think she will be leaving us.’
‘Leaving you?’ Alys hurried across to the anxious group, and Davie looked up as she arrived, tears glittering on his face in the leaping light.
‘She is not good,’ he said. ‘The smoke, and the fright. I did what I could, but –’
‘Usquebae?’ Alys suggested.
‘We tried that,’ said Caterin in the shadows. ‘Will you be listening to her, mistress? She has a word for you.’
Puzzled, Alys knelt obediently on the hard stones. The old woman did indeed look deathly, her face fallen in, her white hair tangled and sticking to her brow. Her kirtle was ill settled and unlaced, as if she had collapsed in the midst of dressing herself. From the smoke? Alys wondered. The hand which groped for Alys’s was cold, and so was the usquebae-laden breath that reached her cheek.
‘Lassie? Lassie, will you tell your man?’
‘I will,’ she promised. Tell him what? she wondered.
‘This is – truly my bairn,’ said the laboured whisper. ‘Tell him. Davie is my bairn.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Alys. At the foot of the folded plaid Caterin, kneeling, was intoning prayers in Ersche on a strange low humming note. Quite irrelevantly, it occurred to Alys that the boy Iain had fallen silent some time ago.
‘Just as Patrick,’ Mistress Drummond’s gaze travelled to the man kneeling by her shoulder, ‘and Jamie, and Ailidh.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘Agnes. Elizabeth. Andrew, Bethag, David. All my bonnie bairns. My son James, and Caterin’s James, and Iain. Mòr, Caterin, my dear good-daughters.’
‘Mammy!’ said Davie in anguish. She opened her eyes again and smiled at him, and he leaned forward, made the sign of the Cross over her lips with his thumb, swallowed hard and began to sing. An expression of great peace came over the old woman at the first notes. It was a slow gentle song with a tune as ancient as the hymn to Angus, almost like another lullaby, but the only familiar word Alys could make out was
anam
, soul. It must be a prayer for the departing soul. Caterin ceased her chanting and stared, but Patrick joined in with
Amen
at the end of the verse. Davie went on, and one by one the family drew near until by the end of the fourth short stanza they were all close enough to sing the amen together, on two long-drawn notes.
There was a silence in the circle, though outside it there was noise. Away down the infield, where the hens had fled from the frantic scenes in the yard, the Dalriach cockerel suddenly lifted up his morning voice. The old woman said something in Ersche, smiled gently at Patrick, at Davie and then looked beyond them, sudden delight in her face. Alys looked up, but saw only the hills black against the first light of dawn.
‘Och, Seumas
mo chridh!
’ said Mistress Drummond clearly, and did not speak again.
After a moment Patrick reached out and closed his mother’s eyes. His daughter and nieces began a heartbroken wailing. And then, to Alys’s amazement, Patrick too began to sing, another painful, ancient melody. This time Caterin joined in, and those around them took up the song, and still singing turned back to the urgent work, handing buckets and tugging at the burning thatch. Flames still leapt and crackled, but they did not reach so high into the tower of smoke, and the broadcast blossoms of fire on Patrick’s house had withered under the drenching from the bucket chain. The song rose solemnly above the noise, a weary lament punctuated by the hissing and splashing of water in the flames, and the cries of the animals. Alys watched and listened, the hair standing up on the back of her neck, and beside the dead woman Davie knelt, his face buried in his hands.
The burning thatch fell in with a crash. Sparks and flying scraps of bracken rose up, drifting on the light wind, but the other houses were safe, and the stackyard was upwind of the flames. The song ended, and Patrick touched Davie’s shoulder.
‘There is work to do, brother,’ he said in Scots. ‘The House of Fire is burning.’
‘I ken that,’ said Davie, raising his head. ‘That was why I cam home.’
Patrick hardly seemed to hear the words. He bent to gather up one end of the plaid on which his mother lay.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘we will take her indoors, out of harm’s way.’
‘I’d ha thought, Maister Gil,’ said Tam, spurring his horse alongside his master’s, ‘you’d want to bide at Perth while they called the quest on the man you found, same as you aye do at Glasgow. Will they not need you to swear to the facts?’
‘I’ve no remit in Perth,’ Gil said, without looking round. The desperate feeling was much less now than when it had woken him before dawn, but he was still pulled onward, away from Perth, on towards Balquhidder, as if by a strong cord. ‘I gave the Bishop my report last night, he can order the quest and hear the facts from those that were there. I’ll go back when I get the chance.’
‘So what’s this about?’ demanded Tam. ‘Is it something up wi the mistress?’
‘I must get back to Balquhidder.’ He could not put the feeling into speech. He had found himself, in the dead of night, suddenly awake from a dream full of flames, his throat tight with the utter conviction that Alys needed him, that he must go to her. He had prayed for her safety, though it helped him little, and wrestled with the feeling till the first grey light of morning, then rose and dressed, and as soon as the household began to stir he had found Wat the steward, sent his apologies to the Bishop, ordered his men roused and the horses made ready. They had been on the road before sunrise, had changed horses and seized a bite eaten standing at Crieff, and were already nearing St Fillan’s Kirk at the foot of Loch Earn. It was not fast enough for Gil, still silently petitioning St Giles for Alys’s protection, but he accepted the need for care on the rough roads. If they lamed a horse it would slow them down still more.
‘Aye, but is it the mistress? Or is it about that fellow that’s been in Elfland?’
He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then admitted, ‘I think it’s your mistress. I think she needs me.’
‘Right,’ said Tam, with a flat acceptance which both reassured and chilled. ‘Will you and me ride on, maister, and let Ned and Donal follow wi the baggage?’
‘Best we stick thegither,’ said Ned from behind them. ‘These hills is full of Murrays and Drummonds, and worse. Were you not seeing thon burned farmhouse a mile or two back? That was young Murray of Trewin’s work, just a month since.’
‘So what’s worse than a Drummond or a Murray?’ demanded Tam sceptically.
‘A MacGregor,’ said Ned succinctly. ‘They’ll slay their granny for a hen’s egg.’
‘Ride on,’ said Gil impatiently, ‘and stop the chatter. I want to get to Stronvar.’
It was nearly two hours longer before they reached the mouth of the glen, where the view of Loch Voil opened out and the smoke of the Kirkton and of Stronvar and the other settlements rose blue in the warm air. As they neared the stone that marked St Angus’ entry to the glen, Gil became aware that there were riders ahead of them on the track, a party larger than their own to judge by the freshly trampled grasses at the side of the way.
‘Aye, they came up Strathyre,’ agreed Ned when he commented. ‘I think they’re peaceful, they’ve a couple baggage-mules wi them, I saw the traces back down the road a bit. Likely they’re bound for Stronvar, if it’s no Andrew Drummond come home to see what’s what at last.’
Despite their haste the two Stronvar men insisted on halting by the stone, to uncover their heads and recite the saint’s blessing. Gil, staring round while he waited, saw nothing to suggest any reason for anxiety, nothing untoward. The glen lay quiet under a smiling sky, birds sang in the bushes, sheep called on the slopes. A goat bleated indignantly somewhere nearby. The barley straw was drying in its stooks, the oats were not quite ripe, a handful of women turned the hay down by the river, their work-song drifting on the light wind. He was still uneasy, but the fear, the feeling that Alys needed his help, had dwindled and faded.
The party of horsemen had halted near the bridge. There were five or six riders on better horses than the hardy stout beasts Sir William kept at Stronvar, a pair of sumpter-mules, and in the midst of the group Canon Andrew Drummond, as Ned had surmised, seated on a pretty bay gelding and glowering under his broad-brimmed straw hat at Robert Montgomery.
‘I’ll not be thwarted by an ignorant clerk!’ the churchman was saying in his harsh voice as Gil approached. ‘I’m a Drummond of Dalriach and Canon of –’
‘I ken fine who you are, sir,’ said Robert, only the sudden high colour on his cheekbones betraying his anger at this description. ‘But I tell you, if the Holy Father himsel came from Rome, he wouldny lodge his retinue wi Sir Duncan. My master is dying,’ he emphasized, ‘and I’ll not have him disturbed.’
‘Sir Duncan’s like to live for ever,’ said Drummond scornfully. ‘Stop your nonsense and take my men wi you as I bid you.’ He looked round and stared as Gil and his escort came down to the bridge. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said after a moment. ‘What’s your name again, Cunningham is it? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Perth.’
‘Staying at Stronvar,’ said Gil unhelpfully, nodding to Robert. ‘What brings you here, Canon Drummond? Is aught amiss at Dalriach?’ And if you knew I was in Perth, he thought, how did you not know Sir Duncan is dying?
‘You ken well things are amiss,’ retorted Drummond. ‘I’ve come – I’ve come to see what’s all this nonsense about my brother David come home.’
Gil opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted as, with a rattle of hooves, a riderless pony scurried towards them, down the slope from the Kirkton. Several of the horses stamped uneasily; Gil’s mount pricked its ears and snorted at the sight, and he tightened his grip on the reins. The row of haymakers paused to stare at the beast.
‘That’s our Bawsie!’ exclaimed Ned. ‘Donal, catch him!’
Donal heeled his pony towards the runaway, but it jinked sideways, ears flat, stirrups flying, avoided the grasping hands of several of Drummond’s followers, and got past them all, making for the bridge. Several of the standing horses tossed heads and shifted uneasily, eager to run with it.
‘Will I follow him?’ said Donal, as the sound of the hooves changed to a rumble on the planks.
‘We’ll see where he’s come from,’ Gil corrected, and followed Ned up the slope. ‘Was it the kirk or the priest’s house?’
Robert overtook them running, making for the priest’s house. It stood silent, though the old man must be within and smoke rose through its thatch as everywhere else. But ahead of them in the kirkyard several men stood round the door of the little church, hay-forks in hand, staring anxiously at the door itself which was moving, slow as a clock hand; Gil was just dismounting when it thumped shut. Throwing his reins to Tam, he drew his whinger, and went quickly up the path with the two Stronvar men at his back. There was an exchange in Ersche, with gestures which seemed to confirm that someone had run into the little building.
‘Davie Drummond, it is,’ confirmed Donal. ‘They are telling he came up from the bridge at the gallop, just before the Canon’s men came into the glen, and left the pony here in the kirkyard. They were trying to catch it, though maybe not very hard,’ he admitted, ‘and now it’s away. I think none of them is liking to go into the kirk.’
Gil nodded, glanced at Ned to see that he was ready, and in one swift movement kicked the door open and slipped in and to one side, ready for any attack from behind the heavy planks. Both Stronvar men followed him, equally wary.
There was a horrified gasp from the shadowed chancel, and a voice said, ‘No! I claim sanctuary! I’ll not – I won’t –’
‘Who is it claims sanctuary?’ Gil demanded, peering into the dimness. The church was small and bare, its chancel even smaller, and the narrow windows admitted very little light. He could just see a low insubstantial form near the altar.
‘It’s Davie Drummond, right enough,’ said Donal.
‘I’d never ha thought,’ said Ned, sheathing his blade, ‘a Drummond would take refuge in a kirk, after Monzievaird.’
‘Maybe he would not be hearing of Monzievaird,’ suggested Donal. Gil stepped forward, and there was another shuddering gasp from within the chancel. As his eyes adjusted, he made out a huddled figure clinging to one leg of the altar table, a shock of light Drummond hair surrounding a pale face in which huge dark eyes stared at him.
‘I’m unarmed,’ said the panicky voice. ‘I claim sanctuary.’
‘I’ll not hurt you,’ said Gil, putting up his own blade, ‘but it’s not for me to grant sanctuary or deny it. Why are you here? Has something happened at – at Dalriach?’ he asked urgently. ‘Is my wife safe?’
‘Mistress Alys? Last I saw she was well.’
The church seemed to whirl round him, and darken briefly, though that might have been because Andrew Drummond stepped in at the door.
‘What’s happening?’ he demanded in his harsh voice. ‘Who is it claims sanctuary?’ he went on, striding forward to stand beside Gil at the chancel arch. ‘Who is it, Cunningham? Why should he want sanctuary?’
‘It’s your brother David,’ said Gil, and saw the man jerk backwards as if the words had run him through. ‘As to why, I’ve no notion yet. Maybe you should ask him.’
‘Andrew?’ said the kneeling figure. ‘Is that you? My, but you’re like my father.’
There was a tense pause, in which Gil was aware of the two Stronvar men watching with interest. Then Andrew Drummond seemed to relax, and stepped forward into the small chancel.
‘You’re no David,’ he said. ‘You’re mighty like him, and the voice is good, but you’re no David.’
The pale figure by the altar sat back on its heels, looking up at Andrew’s face.
‘Patrick thinks I am.’
‘Patrick was aye a fool. What’s brought you here – here to the kirk, at this time? Why would you need sanctuary, if you’re who you claim to be?’
‘Ca – Caterin,’ said Davie, his voice breaking on the name.
‘What about her?’ said Andrew swiftly.
‘She – she – she accused –’ Davie whispered, and gulped as if suppressing tears. ‘Andrew,’ he said more clearly, ‘I have to tell you. The
cailleach
is dead.’
Andrew crossed himself, muttered something, and said, ‘When?’
An interesting response, thought Gil.
‘Last night. This morning.’ Davie swallowed again. ‘Just about dawn, it was. I was – I was singing for her, the soul-song, and then we all sang her home, everyone that was in the yard.’
There was a pause. Then Andrew said, as if the words were dragged from him, ‘Whoever you are, I am glad you were doing that.’
‘So am I,’ said Davie. ‘Though I would rather not have had the need.’
‘But what came to her?’ Andrew shook his head in bafflement. ‘In the yard, you said? What was she doing in the yard? And Caterin, what was she – do you say she accused you of the
cailleach
’s death?’
‘Not that.’ Davie scrambled closer to the leg of the altar. ‘No, it – it – the Tigh-an-Teine is burned –’
‘Burned?’ said Gil sharply. They both jumped, as if they had forgotten he was there. ‘Is anyone else hurt? You said my wife was safe!’
‘Aye, she’s safe,’ began Davie.
‘What’s your wife to do with it?’ demanded Andrew. ‘What came to my mother? Did she burn wi the house? But she was unharmed when she came –’ He checked, and Davie said:
‘No, no, we got her out, Murdo Dubh and I got her out. I think it was the fright. Her heart, maybe.’
‘Aye, I’ve wondered about that. And she was full old. But my good-sister Caterin,’ persisted Andrew. ‘What has she to do with it? What has she accused you of? They’re saying out-by you came down here at the gallop on a Stronvar pony. Is that why, then?’
‘Yes,’ said Davie uncertainly. ‘Yes, she was accusing me of setting the fire, and – and causing the
cailleach’
s death. And I never would.’
Gil moved forward. ‘David, give us the short tale, will you, from the start, and then I think we must leave you to whoever is in charge of this kirk for now, to make the decision about your sanctuary. Canon Drummond needs to ride up Glenbuckie, and I’d as soon go wi him and find out what’s ado.’
‘But who’s in charge?’ said Drummond, staring round as if a rural dean might emerge from the damp stonework. ‘If old Sir Duncan is finally on his road out, is it that impertinent clerk that’s minding the place?’
‘Sorry to say it,’ said Robert Montgomery, stepping past the two Stronvar men where they still stood gaping under the chancel arch, ‘but you’re right at that.’ He peered at the pale figure of Davie Drummond still clinging to the leg of the altar table. ‘It is you, then? Sir Duncan said it would be, and bid me promise you shelter here, at least till Sir William gets his nose into the business. What are you feart for, any road?’ he went on, over Davie’s grateful exclamation. ‘What are you accused of?’
‘Arson and death,’ said Gil. ‘Mistress Drummond is dead.’
‘Two deaths,’ said Davie. ‘There is two are dead, up at Dalriach.’
‘Canon Drummond, I must speak wi you,’ said Gil.
‘Must you?’ returned Andrew Drummond.
They were working their way up the steep side of the glen towards the hanging mouth of Glenbuckie, in the midst of a party of men from Stronvar led by Sir William himself, who was now deep in consultation with his steward about what aid they were able to offer Dalriach. Encountering them at the fork in the road, the Bailie of Balquhidder had demanded what they knew about the riderless pony, extracted the kernel from the explanations which reached his ears, and offered Gil one of the beasts with him. Its rider, Gil’s weary men, Drummond’s retinue, had all been despatched to Stronvar, and Sir William had observed:
‘Well, if it’s no your bonnie lass or Murdo’s boy lying wi a broken limb, the saints be praised, it’s still a trouble, and I’ve no doubt they’ll welcome a bit help at Dalriach. Let me ha the tale again, maisters, and get it clear in my mind.’
He listened acutely while Gil recounted the news Davie Drummond had stammered in the dim chancel, and frowned and shook his head at the news of Mistress Drummond’s death.
‘This is all at second-hand,’ Gil said apologetically, ‘and if you’d sooner go over to the Kirkton and hear it from David, I can ride on alone.’
‘No, no, I’ll trust you for a messenger,’ said Sir William. ‘This is no good, maister. Arson and murder are the Crown’s business, and I’ll not ha folk accused of them on my land and sit by on my backside watching the play. I’m right sorry to hear of old Bessie Drummond’s death, Andrew, she’s been a good tenant and a good woman.’ Andrew bowed over his saddle-bow and crossed himself at this. ‘And this second death – and the laddie accused of it – I canny tell what to think. Maybe when we find your wife, maister, we’ll get a clearer tale.’