He turned to look at her. She had a momentary impression of a bony face, of an unnaturally high forehead (or was he bald? or shaved?) before she was swamped by a sea-green stare which seemed to look right into her soul. Without having to think about it, she curtsied.
‘Davie needs you, daughter,’ he said.
‘Me?’ she said, startled. ‘Where is he?’
‘Yonder.’ He nodded towards the priest’s house. ‘Go now, daughter. This is nearly done.’
Hurrying up the path towards the stone house, she could hear the voices. They were so intent on their discussion that she reached the door unnoticed.
‘I can’t go yet, Billy. There’s things to sort out. I’ll not leave without telling them — ’
‘I have to go now, you wee daftheid! If yon Cunning-ham’s got so far, he’ll have jaloused the rest by Vespers, I need to be out of sight for a bit.’
‘Then go, and I’ll meet you in Perth, or Leith, or somewhere — ’
‘Aye, and how will you get to Leith on your own? I’d never look your faither in the ee again if I — ’
Alys rattled at the pin and the argument was cut off. She stepped into the house, to find Davie Drummond standing by the glowing peats on the hearth, facing an indignant Doig who scowled at him across the width of the house.
‘My husband has left Balquhidder already, Maister Doig,’ she said politely. ‘Does that affect your decision?’
‘Spoke to you and all, has he?’ Doig snorted, and turned away, opening one of the kists against the far wall. ‘Robert has the rights o’t. Best no to get into conversation wi thon one.’
‘Mistress Alys,’ said Davie. ‘What — I thought you — ’
‘I was told you needed me,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, puzzled. ‘I sent no word. Will you — will you have a seat?’
She took the stool he offered, and looked from one to the other of them.
‘It’s good to see you, Maister Doig,’ she said. ‘The wolfhound is doing well.’
‘I seen the brute,’ said Doig, delving in the kist. ‘Heard it was you he wedded,’ he added. ‘I’ll wish you good fortune, mistress.’
‘Thank you, maister,’ she replied composedly, hoping he referred to Gil and to Socrates separately. ‘Are you just leaving Balquhidder? Do you have a horse?’ A dwarf from the cyte of Camelot, on horsbak as moche as he myght, she thought, relishing the image. This forceful man could equal any of Malory’s characters.
‘I’ll manage, thanks,’ said Doig, without looking round.
‘Will you have — will you have some refreshment?’ Davie offered. ‘Ale, or buttermilk, or the like?’
Drinking the buttermilk, enjoying its sharp flavour, she studied Davie and said, ‘You’re right, there are things that must be said before you leave.’ Bright colour washed up over Davie’s face. ‘How many of them know?’
‘Know what?’
‘What you have to tell them.’ Two could play at this game. ‘Now Mistress Drummond is gone, there is no need to pretend further.’
Davie looked down at the glow of the peats, and nodded reluctantly.
‘Maister Cunningham bade me talk to you,’ he admitted. ‘He has the rights of it, it was my father that was stolen away thirty year since. I never meant — it was one thing Euan Beag taking me for my father, poor soul, but then the cailleach did the same, and I was so amazed I didn’t contradict her, and then — ’
‘It would be hard to explain,’ Alys agreed, ‘and it would get harder.’
‘Every time I spoke!’
‘And it was Maister Doig fetched you here.’
‘No such thing,’ said Doig sharply. Davie shook his head, apparently to contradict this denial.
‘Billy here was one of the company that lifted my father away, and saw him to the Low Countries.’ Doig growled at this and went on stuffing a scrip. ‘He came back a few year syne to see how my father got on.’
‘I cam back,’ corrected Doig, ‘when yir Dimpnakerk burnt down, and found yir faither high in the choir, chapel-maister or whatever they cry it, and him widowed.’
‘Never one to miss an opportunity, is Billy,’ commented Davie. ‘We’re building a fine new Dimpnakerk, and there’ll be a fine new choir to sing in it.’
‘And you already have three of the voices,’ said Alys, understanding.
‘And more,’ said Doig. ‘Scots singers are weel thought on, but they’re no the only ones.’ He looked round the house, and crossed with his rolling gait to fetch a pair of heelless shoes from the shadows under one bed. ‘Right, that’s me. I’ll just need to wait for Robert, I’ll not go without a word to him.’
‘But Sir Duncan — ’ objected Davie.
‘The two o you can sit up wi him, and see you behave yoursels. He’ll no last the night, particular after this.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the preaching-field.
‘Dimpnakerk,’ Alys repeated. ‘That is the shrine to St Dymphna, am I right? And she heals mad people?’
‘The folk o Gheel heal the mad people,’ corrected Doig.
‘With St Dymphna’s help,’ said Davie.
‘They take them into their own homes,’ Doig said to Alys, ‘and treat them like family. More than I’d do, for no kin — ’
‘Billy, we are all kin! We’re all God’s children, and Our Lady is our mother!’
‘Hush,’ said Alys. ‘What’s that?’
‘Is that him away?’ said Doig, listening.
There were only a few voices at first, singing in Ersche. Then gradually more joined them, some above the note, some below it, rising in the song Alys had heard before, the song for the departing soul. More and more voices, high and low, swooped through the summer noon, till the melody seemed to be braided out of shining ribbons of sound, slow and heartbreaking.
‘Lead this soul on your arm, o Christ,’ Davie translated softly, ‘o king of the Kingdom of Heaven. Since it was you that bought this soul, have its peace in your keeping. May Michael, high king of the angels, prepare the path before the soul.’
‘That was what you sang for your grandmother,’ Alys said. He nodded, his eyes glittering in the glow from the peat fire.
‘They’re coming back,’ said Doig from the door. ‘I doubt he’s no deid yet, the way they’re carrying him.’
‘Mistress Alys,’ said Davie, in a sudden rush. ‘Would you — will you — if Billy’s leaving, will you come back and watch wi Robert and me?’
When she returned some hours later, the house was surrounded. Still clutching their talismans, linen and crosses and rosaries, against the dangers of the night, Sir Duncan’s people watched with him, a steady murmur of prayers drifting into the darkening air. Leaving her escort by the little kirk Alys approached through the velvety summer twilight and they made way for her, but she felt like an intruder, a stranger in the house of the dying. As she and Lady Stewart had suspected there was no need of a third person under Sir Duncan’s roof; there was a group of people at the door, waiting to take their turn within the house, and Robert and Davie had been relegated to the bench at the gable of the house.
‘Martainn clerk is with him just now. I’d be just as glad if you stayed, mistress,’ said Davie, when she commented.
‘Robert?’ she asked.
‘You might as well,’ he said in his ungracious way.
‘Doig got away, did he?’
‘He did,’ said Robert. ‘Thanks to your man that he had to go.’
‘We went into all that, Robert,’ said Davie. The two were dark shapes against the stonework of the gable, still glowing faintly in the green remnants of the sunset. They seemed to be sitting shoulder to shoulder, as if for comfort. She sat down at Davie’s other side.