‘Maybe it was whoever left them out,’ suggested the girl addressed as Nannie. That must be Agnes, Gil, recalled, and her cousin must be Elizabeth, sister of the dead boy.
‘No, for that was old Tormod,’ said Jamie. ‘I called to him, and he went — aye, here is his print.’ He bent to a spot by the wooden bar at the wall’s foot. ‘See, maister, he goes shod, but his feet is twisted with the joint-ill, his track is easy known.’
‘We was all down here,’ said Agnes. ‘We came down to find buckets and the like, for the water.’
‘Not here,’ said the other girl. ‘We went that way, to the stackyard and the burn beyond it. No need to go by the wall here.’
‘Someone did,’ said Jamie. He returned to stare down at the marks Gil had pointed out, then at the prints close by the marks of the body, where the boy’s mother had lifted him. His mouth tightened.
‘But there was no need,’ objected Elizabeth again. ‘Why come by here, into the shadows, when the stackyard is yonder, and the path lit up bright as day by the — the flames from the house — ’ Her face crumpled again, and she turned away. Jamie, who had wandered off along the wall, looked up and spoke to his sister in Ersche. As Ailidh had done, she argued in the same language, but led her cousin off towards the house where they had sat before. Jamie watched them out of sight, and said quietly to Giclass="underline"
‘See this, maister.’
‘What have you found?’ Gil went to his side, and found him looking at one of the dark grey field stones.
‘That is skin,’ said Jamie. He lifted the stone, and turned it to the light. It was small in his big hand, but big enough for its purpose. It might have fallen off the top of the dyke, though if so it was not lying immediately below its place of origin, for the grass where it had lain was green rather than white. On one ragged corner of the stone something was clinging. ‘Skin, a little blood, white hair.’
‘Likely one of the beasts hurted itself on the stones,’ said another voice. Gil turned, and found the other daughter-in-law, the widowed Mòr, standing by the corner of the fold watching them. ‘Jamie, what are you doing down here, upsetting your cousin, poor lass?’
‘Is any of the beasts lame?’ Jamie challenged her. She shrugged, and moved forward with an uneven step. ‘Mammy, it’s not the hair of a beast. Look here — it’s as fine as any of ours, and curls the way Iain’s does.’
‘Or yours, or your sisters’.’
‘My sisters and I do not have a broken head. Is this what broke Iain’s skull, do you think, Maister Cunningham?’
‘Yes,’ said Gil deliberately. ‘I think it could be.’
‘Is the bairn’s skull broke?’ said Mòr with a show of indifference. ‘That would be when Those Ones were taking him back. Leave it, Jamie, we’ll not be meddling with their business.’
‘Mammy, look!’ Jamie held it out to her, pointing out the stains along its sharp edge. She took it in her hand, turned it over, looking impassively at the marks, and suddenly sent it spinning off into the rough ground between them and the nearest of the cottages. Jamie exclaimed, but she repeated, with emphasis, ‘No need to be meddling in that. Maister Cunningham, Sir William is asking for you, and my good-brother Patrick would be glad of a word before you are leaving.’
‘That will be a speak for the whole of Balquhidder,’ said Gil’s guide chattily. ‘The more so if the Tigh-an-Teine has burned after all, and the cailleach dead in the flames, and the changeling stolen away back under the hill in exchange for Davie Drummond. Is it the kirk we’re for just now, so you can be seeing young Davie again, or no?’
‘No, I’ll speak with him later,’ Gil said. He stepped on to the bridge and whistled to the dog. ‘I’m for the priest’s house. I could do with a word with Sir Duncan, if he’s equal to it, and certainly with young Robert.’
‘I was hearing Sir Duncan is good today,’ offered the guide. He was a stocky, fair-haired fellow with a broad, open, guileless face. Murdo had referred to him as Alasdair nan Clach, whatever that might mean. ‘He has good days and bad days, you understand. It’s no more than you’d be expecting, the age he is.’
‘I understand,’ agreed Gil. ‘What age is he?’
Alasdair nan Clach shrugged.
‘Maybe ninety?’ he said. ‘Maybe one hundred? Old as these hills, you would say.’
Discounting this, Gil strode on up the slope from the river, past the watchful haymakers and quietly ripening oats. A bite to eat, a word with Steenie, and the assurance of Lady Stewart and the girl Seonaid that Alys was unhurt and was now asleep had helped a lot, but he was still slightly shaky with relief, and his head was whirling with the information he had gathered this noontime. He would infinitely rather have stayed to talk it through with Alys when she woke, and hear the full tale of her adventures in Glenbuckie, but if his suspicions were correct he had already put off more time than he should before making this visit. He hoped his third quarry might not realize yet that he was pursued.
He passed the circle of tall stones, where Socrates pricked his ears at the children playing among them, and turned along the little path to the priest’s snug stone house, aware of eyes on his back from the other cottages of the Kirkton. Rattling at the tirling-pin, he pushed the door wider without waiting for an answer, saying, ‘Robert? Are you within?’
There was a startled movement, a deep-voiced exclamation. Not Robert Montgomery’s voice, not the priest’s. Socrates pricked his ears again, then rushed forward, his tail wagging wildly. Gil stepped after him under the lintel.
‘Maister Doig,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you here.’
The place was sparsely furnished, and smelled of damp earth and illness. A three-legged stool and a great chair of solid local work stood by the hearth in the centre of the house, where a pot simmered on the peats. There was a bench against the wall by the door; beyond the fire a mealkist stood on top of a bigger, painted kist, and two books and a silver crucifix were propped on a shelf. In the partition between the lodging of human and animal yawned two dark shut-beds, and there Socrates had rolled on to his back, yammering like a pup and waving his paws before a squat bulky shape, no higher than an ell-stick, which stood beside one of them.
‘I’ll no say the same o you, Maister Cunningham,’ returned the deep voice, and the outline changed as if the short figure bent, extending a big hand to rub the dog’s narrow ribcage. ‘What brings you and your dog to the Kirkton? You’re no here to distress the auld yin, I hope?’
‘I’ve no intention of distressing him,’ said Gil. ‘How is he? I’d hoped for a word.’
‘He’s asleep for now. Maybe once he wakes he’ll be up to talking.’ The dark shape moved forward into the light from the door, and became the figure Gil remembered, like someone from his nurse’s tales: short legs, broad shoulders, powerful hairy arms, a big head. Unlike his wife William Doig presented a much sprucer persona than the last time they had met, clad as he was in a red velvet jerkin and blue hose, the sleeves of his good linen shirt rolled back. Socrates scrambled to his feet and followed Doig, head level with his, nosing at the angle of his neck, tail wagging again. There was no doubt he remembered him.
‘You’ve given up the dog breeding?’ Gil asked. Doig shrugged, a seismic movement of the broad shoulders, and flung an arm round the wolfhound’s neck.
‘Herself has care of the dogs for now. She’s a good eye for it. I miss it,’ he admitted.
‘Leaves you free for other business,’ suggested Gil. Doig eyed him resentfully, much as his wife had done in Perth, but said nothing. ‘I’ve a thing or two to ask you as well. Shall we sit out at the door, no to disturb Sir Duncan?’
‘No,’ said Doig bluntly. ‘We’ll sit here. I’m no welcome in the Kirkton, I’ll no remind them I’m here, if it’s all one to you.’ He hoisted himself on to the bench next the wall, glowering through the open door at Alasdair nan Clach who was quite openly making the horns against the evil eye at the sight of him. ‘Ask if you must,’ he said grudgingly, patting Socrates, whose chin was on his knees.