‘What did you discuss?’
‘A matter relating to what we — to his confession.’
That trail was blocked, it was obvious. Gil thought for a space, and then said, ‘Did you see anyone else while you were with Stirling?’
‘Och, yes indeed.’ The man’s Ersche accent seemed to be strengthening with every word he spoke. ‘Let me see,’ he said slowly, ‘there was the woman who breeds dogs. Mistress Doig. It was in her yard we met. There was passers-by on the road to the Blackfriars’ meadow. There was folk on the path by the Ditch. And of course there was my man and his.’
‘Your men?’ repeated Gil, startled. ‘I had thought he was alone!’
‘No,’ said Drummond.
‘Who was it with him?’
Drummond shrugged. ‘It was just an indoor servant in Georgie Brown’s livery. I was never speaking with the man. You could ask at my Benet, the two of them was sitting under a tree the whole time we was talking on the meadow.’
‘I will,’ said Gil, trying to fit this to the information he already had. It did not seem to connect well. ‘Canon, how much are you able to tell me without breaking the seal of confession? Is there anything else he said that might help?’ Drummond turned an unreadable stare on him. ‘James Stirling was killed, and his death hidden,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m charged wi finding his killer, and any wee sign that might point me to him would be of value.’
‘Aye, well, I’ll consider of it,’ said the other after a moment. ‘If I mind he said anything not connected with his confession, I’ll write it down. But at this time, maister, my chiefest concern is to come to my home and offer prayers over my mother’s body.’
‘Then we ride on,’ said Gil. ‘We — ’
There was sudden shouting ahead. One of Sir William’s men came crashing back through the woodland, calling to Gil, pointing up the slope. Heart hammering, he urged his stout pony onward, and as he came level with him the man exclaimed:
‘Is your lady, sir. She safe!’
His heart leapt, but went on hammering. He could scarcely breathe. The pony, having decided to run, thundered on up the hill and out from under the trees, into the open green space of Glenbuckie, though he did not see that nor Murdo feeling his son all over as if he was another pony, because twenty yards away Alys was at the centre of a knot of riders, sitting on a weary beast, clad in a ruined kirtle, her hair loose down her back. She saw him at the same moment, and broke free of the group to ride towards him, Socrates bounding forward at her side.
In front of such an audience they neither kissed nor embraced. Instead, as their ponies halted nose to tail, they reached out in silence and gripped one another’s hands as tightly as if drowning. And he could almost have drowned in her eyes, he thought, seeing his relief reflected in her face as she absorbed the fact of his presence. The dog danced round them, pawing at his knee, and his mount tossed its head uneasily, but he ignored them.
‘I’m safe,’ she said in French after a while, answering what he had no need to say. ‘Are you? What — why are you — ’
‘I’m safe,’ he agreed. ‘Nothing touched me. But you — ’ He took in her dishevelment, and groped for something to lighten the moment. ‘Goying in a queynt array With wind blowing upon hir tresse — If you’re going to make a habit of riding about Scotland in your kirtle, wife, you’ll be a deal cheaper to gown than I feared.’
She giggled, though tears sprang to her eyes.
‘Steenie is hurt, he has a burn to his ear and face. But Gil — there is so much I need to tell you, so much to — Davie has fled to the kirk, he — ’
‘We spoke to him.’
‘So you know — ’ Her mouth trembled.
‘We know.’ He finally broke his grasp of one of her hands, to pat his importunate dog. She reached across with the freed hand to caress the animal’s ears, saying shakily:
‘And Socrates has been a very good dog.’
‘Best to get these folk home to Stronvar,’ said Sir William briskly beside them. ‘Your wife needs her bed, Cunningham, and your man needs something for that burn. As for young Murdo here — ’ He clapped the steward’s son on the shoulder. ‘He’s earned your favour the day, I can tell you.’
‘Indeed, Gil, he has,’ agreed Alys earnestly.
‘It was no more than my duty,’ said Murdo Dubh, the dark lashes sweeping his cheek as he looked down, his father beside him trying to look impassive at the compliments.
‘Will you come wi us, Cunningham, or see your wife down the road?’
Her hand clung to his, but her eyes had a different message.
‘I must talk to you,’ she said in French, ‘but later. You need to see what — ’ She looked hard at him. ‘Talk to Jamie Beag, Gil, and try to get a sight of the dead.’ She put up her other hand and ran it around the back of her head, fingers against her skull. Gil understood the gesture. One of the deaths at least was suspect; she wished him to inspect the bodies closely.
Chapter Ten
The smell of the burnt thatch met them fully a mile downwind of the farm. Drummond’s face darkened at the first tang, and he spurred his bay gelding forward more urgently.
‘Is it just my mother’s house that has burned,’ he demanded, ‘or is it the whole farm?’
‘Just the house, my son was saying,’ said Murdo the steward.
‘I don’t like this business of accusing the laddie of arson,’ said Sir William. ‘Bad enough the woman making the accusation, folk make mistakes in the heat of the moment, but to uphold it against your man’s evidence, that’s a worry. Either she’s right sure or it’s a malicious charge, and I’d as soon not get mixed up in either. How trustworthy is the man?’
‘Steenie? He’s a good fellow, and I’ve aye known him truthful.’ Gil called up what Alys had reported while the dazed groom was helped on to a horse fit to carry two. ‘He said he had seen someone set the flame and run away across the yard, and when he hammered on the house door to raise the alarm, Davie Drummond answered him from within.’
‘Aye, that’s it,’ agreed Sir William. ‘And here’s Caterin Campbell saying she saw the laddie set the fire himself.’
‘He swears he has done no such thing,’ said Gil. ‘Kneeling by the altar as he said it.’
‘Aye,’ said Sir William sceptically.
They came over the flank of the hill to see the township laid out below them, the blackened rafters and walls of the burnt house nearest to them and beyond that the yard busy with neighbours, peat-smoke rising blue from the two stone-built houses at either side, more people coming and going from the smaller habitations further down the slope.
‘Christ aid!’ said Sir William. ‘It’s going like a bees’ byke!’
‘We’re expected,’ observed one of his men.
This was clearly true. Gil, armed with all Alys had told him of her first visit, identified the little group waiting in the centre of the yard to receive them readily enough. The foremost must be Patrick, big and broad-shouldered, his fair skin reddened by outside work; next to him stood his nephew. Both wore velvet bonnets and their clean shirts were half-hidden by layers of carefully pleated wool, Patrick with a silver-mounted belt and pouch restraining the chequered folds. Behind them was a much older man in a mended plaid and blue woollen bonnet, whom Gil could not place, and off to one side were the women, plaids drawn modestly over their faces, the two weaving sisters-in-law and the oldest granddaughter distinguishable nevertheless.
As their landlord entered the yard the two Drummond men swept off their bonnets and bowed with a grace one might barely see equalled in Edinburgh. The oldest granddaughter stepped forward with a lugged bowl in her hands, to offer refreshment to the guests, and amid Sir William’s bluntly expressed sympathies and the general dismounting, Gil thought he was the only person to notice Andrew Drummond’s expression as he stared at the black ribcage of his mother’s house. He moved to the man’s side and said quietly: