‘He hasn’t said he does think it,’ said Gil, unlacing his doublet.
‘But he has sent you here to investigate both matters.’
‘So it seems.’
She continued combing in silence for a little, then said, ‘I could speak to the family here, while you go to those other places.’
‘Yes.’ Gil hung the doublet on a nail considerately placed in the panelling beside him. ‘That’s why I wish you hadn’t come with me, sweetheart. If we aren’t to be together, I’d sooner you were safe in Glasgow than stranded alone here while I ride all over Perthshire.’
‘Do you wish to send me home, Gil?’ she asked, looking straightly at him.
‘No,’ he admitted. Then, ‘Besides, if you speak Ersche, how can I waste your talents?’
‘It was fortunate that Murdo answered me in Scots,’ she confessed. ‘I have only a few words that I have learned from Ealasaidh McIan, and at times I confuse those with Breton.’
‘Breton?’ he repeated in surprise.
‘When we lived in Nantes,’ she smiled reminiscently, ‘until I was nine, all our servants were bretons bretonnants, they spoke Breton rather than French. My nurse Annec used it all the time. Many of the words are the same, which I find astonishing. Ty is a house, for instance.’
‘That is extraordinary,’ he said, digesting all our servants. He knew her father was a wealthy man, wealthy enough to have fostered Ealasaidh McIan’s motherless nephew without a second thought, and now it seemed he had been well-to-do for most of Alys’s life.
She set her comb down on the little table beside her, and began to braid her hair for the night.
‘So I can speak to the family,’ she said again, ‘and find out what I can.’
‘That would be — ’ he began. There was a tapping at the chamber door.
‘Mo leisgeul,’ said a male voice. They stared at each other, and Gil snatched up his whinger and drew the blade.
‘Och, the gentleman has no need of his weapon,’ said another voice.
‘Seonaid?’ said Alys.
‘It is Seonaid, mistress, and Murdo Dubh MacGregor, that would be wishing a word?’
Gil gestured, and Alys nodded, lifted her linen cap and moved to the far side of the bed. Whinger in hand, he padded to the door and opened it cautiously. The girl Seonaid was revealed in the lamplight, a plaid drawn over her hair. The man beyond her, far enough away to be half-shadowed, wore doublet and great belted plaid like Murdo, but was dark-haired and beardless.
‘You aren’t Murdo,’ Gil said.
‘The gentleman will pardon me, maybe,’ said the young man. He stepped into the light and drew off his feathered bonnet in a graceful bow. ‘Murdo Dubh mac Murdo mac Iain MacGregor, to serve you,’ he said. His face was lean and handsome and he had an amazing wealth of long dark eyelash.
‘So you’re Murdo’s son,’ said Gil in puzzlement. ‘Is that a reason for lurking in our chambers after the rest of the household’s abed?’
‘He is to wait on you,’ said Seonaid, bobbing a curtsy, ‘and it’s myself is telling you, mistress,’ she craned her neck, searching for Alys within the chamber, ‘he is a good servant, if maybe he is talking too much.’
Alys came quietly forward from her concealment, her hair covered once more, and the young man’s glance flicked to her and back to Gil.
‘I am to wait on you, as this — as Seonaid says,’ he said, and bowed again, with a glowing smile. ‘My father was giving me the instruction just now, and I thought I would be coming to make myself known.’
‘And?’ said Gil.
‘Och, nothing more,’ Murdo mac Murdo assured him. ‘Nothing more. Excepting only — ’
‘Yes?’ said Gil unhelpfully.
‘Would there be orders for the morning, maybe?’
‘Not yet,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve made no decisions.’
‘I have,’ said Alys. ‘I would like to meet this David Drummond who has returned — who has been away for thirty years. Can you arrange that, Murdo?’
‘Och, he’s just a laddie,’ said Seonaid. ‘Hair like bog-cotton, he has, like all his kin, and never looking at the lassies in the Kirkton at all when he comes down on a Sunday.’
Murdo spoke sharply to her in Ersche, and she giggled, pushed him playfully, bobbed another curtsy to Alys, and departed. As soon as the outer door closed behind her Murdo said, ‘That can be easy arranged.’ Had he relaxed a little? Gil wondered. ‘Indeed I can be taking the lady to Dalriach myself. If you were to ride up Glen Buckie to see the sidhean, what more natural than to call at the house? The more so since I am well acquainted with the family.’
‘Are you, then?’ said Gil.
‘I know everyone in this country,’ said Murdo Dubh modestly. Allowing for the common use of country to mean the stretch of land bounded by the mountains one could see, Gil felt he could believe this.
‘Mistress Drummond has granddaughters living with her at — at Dalriach, I suppose,’ said Alys.
‘She has indeed,’ agreed Murdo, with that brilliant smile. ‘There is Elizabeth nic Padraig, and Agnes nic Seumas,’ he enumerated, the Lowland and Highland names mixing oddly, ‘and Ailidh nic Seumas. That is all her granddaughters that lives up the glen.’
‘Two daughters of James’s and one of Patrick’s,’ Gil elucidated, as much for his own understanding as Alys’s. Murdo nodded. ‘And there are two grandsons, I think.’ Another nod. ‘Quite a household. Now if that was all you wanted, Murdo — ’
‘Is it?’ said Alys. She glanced at Gil, and looked back at their visitor. ‘I think Murdo wanted a longer word, not?’
‘Bha,’ he agreed, a little reluctantly. There was a pause. ‘It was just,’ he said, and swallowed. The eyelashes swept his cheek as he looked down, then up again, and then he went on hurriedly, ‘Just there is a — there is need of taking care if you are going about the country.’
‘Why?’ asked Gil. ‘Are you warning us? What danger d’you mean?’
The dark gaze slid sideways away from his.
‘There has been a bodach seen hereabouts,’ he said. ‘In Glen Buckie, and here by the side of the loch.’
‘A bodach?’ said Gil. He had heard the word before. ‘An old man?’
‘Not just an old man,’ said Murdo, again with that reluctance. ‘He is not — he is being — ’
‘Is it a spirit of some sort?’ Alys asked. ‘A wicked spirit?’
‘Not wicked,’ prevaricated Murdo. ‘Not friendly, just. That would be it,’ he nodded in satisfaction. ‘Not very friendly at all, at all. So you will take care going about the place? Go nowhere by night, and never by your lone?’
‘Not very friendly,’ Gil repeated. He had met this feeling when trying to talk to other speakers of Ersche. It was like wrestling with fish, or fighting with a featherbed; no sooner was one aspect of the conversation under control than another surged up from nowhere to overwhelm him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Maister Cunningham,’ said Alys, at her most formal, ‘might we ask Murdo to enter, so we can be seated and hear him in comfort?’
‘I was about to be leaving you,’ said Murdo Dubh hastily, half turning away. ‘No need to be putting you out.’
‘Come in,’ said Gil, recognizing that Alys was right. The young man had all the appearance of an Erscheman with something to impart, but it would have to be coaxed from him.
Like his father Murdo was unwilling to accept a seat, but stood, lean and upright in his swathing of checked wool, looking from one to the other of them as they asked questions. Alys was more successful at getting answers; gradually they pieced together a tale of a small misshapen figure seen at a distance by twilight, where nobody was absent from the township or shieling. Murdo himself had not seen it, but Ailidh nic Seumas of Dalriach and three others together had watched it from the high shieling the same day that Davie Drummond came home. It certainly brought ill luck, Murdo stated simply, for now things were happening at the farm.
‘What sort of things?’ asked Gil resignedly. It had been a long day, and a long ride from Stirling; he was deeply aware of the bed behind him, with its embroidered counterpane and pile of pillows.