She nodded. ‘The Low Countries would be nearest, and the most convenient to find a ship, wouldn’t it? So do we assume that David, the older David I mean, is there now?’
‘If he still lives, it seems likely.’ Gil moved on to another finger. ‘You know, it fits. If it was Doig enticed the singer in Dunblane away, rather than the Devil himself, it seems most likely he called away the two in Perth as well, and if he then took them to the Low Countries he could well bring young Davie back with him.’
‘I wonder if brother Andrew knew about Doig,’ said Alys.
‘He certainly knows him. He went to the yard at Perth looking for him.’
‘It’s all supposition,’ she said, ‘we’ve no firm evidence, but you’re right, it does fit. It makes a structure.’
‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Andrew said the same thing. What gain is there in pretending to be his own father? Why not just — ’
‘It might have begun as a joke,’ she said doubtfully, ‘or a game. Or even — ’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘Old Mistress Drummond told me the first thing he said to her was, Are you my grandmother?’
‘Oh!’
‘And then she said, No, it’s your own mother. So he can’t have intended the pretence when he arrived.’
‘That makes better sense,’ he said. ‘He said Euan Beag gave me my name, assumed he was David. He didn’t correct that either, but it wouldn’t be easy to disabuse Euan of an idea he’d settled his mind on, I’d think. And having let Mistress Drummond assume he was David, it could be very hard to confess that he wasn’t.’
He sat turning these conjectures over in his mind. As Alys had said, it was all supposition, there could be a separate explanation for each of the points they had considered, but placed together they did offer a coherent story.
‘I don’t imagine it was Doig who took the older David away,’ she said suddenly.
‘It might have been, you know,’ said Gil. ‘I’ve no idea how old Doig is. Past forty, I suppose, but how far is another matter.’
‘And Andrew knows him.’ She sat up straight, turning to stare at him. ‘Gil!’
‘Andrew knows him,’ he repeated. ‘Well, well.’
‘No,’ said Andrew Drummond. ‘William Murray confessed nothing to me.’
‘Or you to him?’ Gil asked carefully.
‘Nor I to him.’
‘In that case,’ Gil observed, ‘you’ll be able to tell me what you spoke about.’
‘Why would I be doing that?’ Drummond looked hard at Gil, his expression giving little away. ‘That is surely my own business and Billy’s.’
‘I think it may be mine as well,’ said Gil, ‘as Archbishop Blacader’s quaestor.’
‘Is that right?’ said Drummond.
They were standing a little aside from the great door at Stronvar, waiting for a long procession to set off for the Kirkton. Before the door horses stamped, grooms shouted, Sir William on the fore-stair bawled contradictory orders and pointed in several directions at once, but where they were it was reasonably quiet.
Drummond had arrived at the house early in search of his servant and the rest of his baggage, and was now wearing the felt hat with the silver badge on its brim, set off nicely by a gown of dark green broadcloth faced with crimson taffeta. Alys, eyeing this, had said nothing, but slipped up to their apartment and returned with Gil’s better gown, the blue brocade he had worn at their wedding, and persuaded him into it despite his protests. As he had feared, he was already much too warm.
‘Canon Drummond,’ he said, going on the attack, ‘when you were at Dunkeld did you have any words with a man of the Bishop’s household, by name of Mitchel?’
‘No,’ said Drummond blankly. ‘Who is that? Should I have spoken with him?’
‘He attended James Stirling the day you walked with him in Blackfriars Meadow.’
‘Oh,’ said Drummond, in a changed tone. Then, ‘When I was at Dunkeld, I’d no notion Jaikie Stirling was dead. I’d have no reason to speak wi the man even if I set eyes on him.’
‘True,’ agreed Gil. And how far on the road to Dunkeld was Tam by now? Was Mitchel still there? ‘So what did you speak to Murray about? A Drummond and a Murray embracing in the streets of Dunkeld? There must be a strong reason.’
‘Aye, and all the more private for that.’
Murdo the steward strode past them, feathered bonnet askew, issuing brisk instructions in Ersche. One of the ponies broke free and was pursued through the mêlée.
‘When you left Stirling on the meadow, what was he going to do?’
Drummond blinked. ‘He said he’d walk there and muse a while. We’d both a deal to think on. He sent his man, Mitchel did you call him? He sent him back into Perth.’
‘Did you see him there on the meadow later, when you went into Perth yourself?’
‘No,’ admitted Drummond. ‘I was not looking, you’ll understand, but he’s — he was a tall man, near as tall as me, he would be easy seen if he was still walking there. Not if he was sitting under a whin-bush, mind you.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ agreed Gil. Nor if he was lying under one with a crossbow bolt in his neck, he thought. ‘Returning to the point about William Murray, Canon, you realize I can easy ride to Dunkeld and get the tale from him. You might as well tell me what you spoke of.’
This did not appear to have occurred to Drummond. He scowled at an inoffensive clump of foxgloves for the space of a Gloria, and finally sighed deeply and said, ‘We spoke of the past. Of events which — we’d much to forgive one another for, maister, and it took a long evening’s talking to get to the root of it, but we found forgiveness. Is that enough to your purpose?’
‘Why now?’ Gil asked. ‘What brought the past to mind?’
Drummond gave him a goaded look.
‘My brother’s return,’ he said. ‘Is that no enough?’
‘Yesterday you said he wasn’t your brother,’ Gil objected.
‘I spent last night in talk with my brother Patrick,’ said Drummond. ‘He gave me good reasons to think that the young man is our brother David, and it was my mother’s stated belief and all. I’ll not go against that, maister.’
That feeling of wrestling with salmon came over Gil again. Unable to answer civilly, he swung away from Drummond and located Alys, standing aside with Lady Stewart watching the commotion.
‘I won’t wear this,’ he said firmly, pulling off the brocade gown and thrusting it at her in a bundle. ‘I’m by far too warm already.’
She met his eye and took the garment reluctantly, but only said, ‘Have you looked at the badge on the Canon’s hat?’
‘Not yet,’ he admitted.
‘It’s a fine one,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘I was admiring it earlier. From the Low Countries, he tells me, though I had no notion he had passed overseas on pilgrimage.’
‘What saint’s shrine is it from?’ asked Alys casually, without glancing at Gil.
‘One I’ve not heard of. A princess, with a sword and a lamp. Some Irish woman, who cures the mad, so he said. Doris, or Daphne, or something of the sort.’
So Marion Campbell reads the classical authors, thought Gil, and recalled the sheep-like Maister Gregor. It began with D, he had said. It seemed as if nobody could recall the name easily.
‘They’re mounting up,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘Best go and take your places, both of you. Give me the gown, my dear, and I’ll put it safe.’
‘I took refuge,’ said Davie Drummond, ‘because I was wrongly accused, and I was afraid.’
He was standing braced in front of the altar in the chancel of the little church, behind a row of five of the village men, who had left their work in the fields when they saw the string of riders clattering along the causeway. By the time Sir William and his entourage had dismounted and entered the kirkyard there were ten or twelve men and a handful of women round the door of the Eagleis Beag. They had been invited, with great courtesy, to leave their weapons outside; when Sir William identified Gil, Andrew Drummond and two of his own men to accompany him their numbers were scrupulously equalled. There was no doubt, Gil thought, where the sympathies of the Kirkton lay. He looked down at Alys, watching intently at his elbow, and wondered whose side the villagers had placed her on.