The Stolen Voice Read Online Free PDF

is dwelling with the old woman in Tigh-an-Teine, and that will do for me.’
    ‘Tigh-an-Teine,’ Alys repeated. ‘The house of – of fire?’
    He nodded awkwardly. ‘It’s the name they give the chief house of the clachan. Just a name, it is.’
    ‘But is the fire particular in any way?’
    ‘No, no. But a woman from further up the glen, one with the two sights, was making a great outcry one time, and saying that she had seen flames leaping from the thatch. Before I was born, too, that was,’ said Murdo dismissively, ‘and it has never burned yet.’
    ‘And David dwells there with the old lady, and she is certain he is her son.’
    ‘Indeed, yes.’
    ‘It’s a daft tale,’ said Steenie roundly. ‘Who ever heard the like, except in the ballads or the old tales? Folk doesny get carried away wi the fairies nowadays.’
    ‘What do you think, Murdo?’ asked Alys.
    ‘I think your man should not be mentioning those people aloud,’ said Murdo. He gathered up his reins. ‘It will be another mile or so to Dalriach, past Ballimore. Will you ride on, mistress, and meet the Dalriach folk?’ He smiled, those dark lashes sweeping his cheekbones. ‘They will be ready for us by now. The hills has eyes, we have been counted already.’
     
    ‘I was never at Glasgow myself,’ said Mistress Drummond, ‘but my son Andrew was there in the year of eighty-seven.’
    Whatever Alys had expected, it was not quite this.
    The farm at Dalriach was clearly prosperous, despite the bad luck Murdo Dubh and his father had detailed. The main steading, beside the track which separated infield and outfield, contained three substantial longhouses, built of partly dressed field stones, ranged round a cobbled yard. The cattle-fold at the byre end of one of them stood empty at this hour of the day, and hens crooned to one another among mysterious pieces of farm gear. Gardens, a barn, a stackyard, several smaller cottages down the slope nearer the river, made it almost a village.
    A dozen people, men and young women, were visible shearing the barley at the top of the outfield as they approached the farm. Their work-song floated on the breeze, one voice with a line, the other voices with a rhythmic echo, keeping the swing of the sickles. The song never faltered, but the shearers paused, one by one, to straighten up and stare at the approaching riders. An old woman working with a hoe in one of the small kale-yards called to Murdo in cheerful Ersche, and he waved in answer.
    They were met in front of the biggest of the houses by two lean black dogs who glared at Socrates, and a sturdy young man of twenty or so, with fair skin burned pink by the sun and a shock of light frizzy hair above a high forehead. Alys thought at first this was the returned singer, but Murdo had addressed him as James and introduced her in Ersche; she had caught Blacader’s name and title and then Gil’s, despite the strange twist the language gave them. James had ordered the dogs off in Ersche, then saluted her gravely in good Scots with a heavy Highland accent, and led her within to meet his grandmother, before excusing himself to return to the field. The harvest would not wait.
    Now she was seated in the shadowed interior of the house, answering the inevitable civil inquisition about her background, origins and status and accepting oatcakes and buttermilk from one of the granddaughters, a plain girl of about twelve with a strong resemblance to the young man who had met them. Socrates lay at her feet; Murdo Dubh had vanished, taking Steenie with him. A surprising number of people had passed the doorway, peering casually through it with a greeting in Ersche for the old woman or the girl. Hens wandered in and out, a loom clacked somewhere, and from time to time, echoing across the yard, there was a piercing scream like a peacock’s. Through the open door Alys could see a woman spinning on a great wheel slung on the side of one of the other houses, padding back and