Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  “She went to Wales.” Sam took a sip from his port. “She decided to try to check some of the facts and locations of these regressions for herself. And now, I gather, she has begun to regress spontaneously.”

  Bennet sighed. “Autohypnosis. I was afraid that might happen.”

  “And not entirely involuntary, I think. I gather you believe in this reincarnation?”

  Bennet smiled warily. “I try to be objective about my patients. In fact I had contacted one or two people with whom I would like to have confronted Joanna. A medieval historian. A linguist who would question the Welsh she has begun to speak from time to time. A colleague, Stephen Thomson—you’ve probably come across him—all of whom would be better equipped to judge the material she is producing. They could tell us so much about where all this is coming from if she could only be persuaded to return.”

  Sam gave a slow smile. “She will return, I’m sure of it. My brother is with her in Wales at the moment, and I think he’ll see to it, one way or another, that she comes back. You met my brother, I believe?” he added thoughtfully after a moment.

  “On more than one occasion.” Bennet laughed ruefully. “He does not trust me, nor my trade.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” Sam fell cryptically silent. He helped himself to some more port and passed the decanter on around the table. “I would be interested myself in your experts’ views. And so I think would Nick.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “He worries me sometimes, Nick,” he said reflectively.

  Bennet refrained from commenting. He was watching Sam closely.

  “He is becoming more and more unstable,” Sam went on. “With violently swinging moods. If he were a patient I would be a little concerned by now. As his brother I find it hard to be objective.” He gave a disarming grin.

  “There didn’t seem much wrong with him to me.” Bennet leaned sideways, his elbow on the back of his chair. “He is worrying about a woman with whom he is obviously deeply in love, that’s all.” He paused. “He also is, I think, a deep trance subject himself. I should like the chance to regress him. I sense a soul much troubled through the ages. I should hazard a guess that you think so too.”

  Sam’s hand, lying on the table near his glass, had closed into a fist. “I am not sure I share your belief in reincarnation, Dr. Bennet.”

  “That surprises me.” Bennet smiled faintly. “I pride myself in having a nose for these things, and I should say you have reason to believe you have much in common with your brother.”

  “Possibly.” Sam gave him a cold glance. “If I were to persuade him to bring Jo to you again, will you assemble your experts? But no more suggestions that she forget Matilda. She has to follow the story through.”

  Bennet frowned. “Has to?”

  “Oh, yes, she has to.” Sam stood up. He held out his hand. “It’s been very interesting meeting you, Dr. Bennet. I’ll be in touch when Jo and Nick return to London…” He gave a small bow and turned away, walking slowly back along the table toward his original seat.

  Bennet watched him as he went, a preoccupied frown on his face. There was something about Dr. Sam Franklyn that disturbed him greatly.

  ***

  Jo and Nick arrived in Carl Bennet’s consulting room the following Tuesday. Besides Carl and Sam there were three strangers present.

  Bennet took Jo’s hand when she came in. “Let me introduce you to my colleagues, my dear. This is Stephen Thomson, a consulting physician at Barts. He is something of an expert on stigmata and other phenomena of that kind.” He gave her an impudent grin. “And this is Jim Paxman, a medieval historian who knows a great deal about Wales, and this is Dr. Wendy Marshall, who is an expert on Celtic languages. She is going to try to interpret some of the Welsh words and phrases you come up with from time to time. She will know at once if they are real—and from the right period.”

  Jo swallowed. “Quite a barrage of experts to try to trip me up.”

  Bennet frowned. “If you object, I shall ask them all to leave, Jo.” He was watching her anxiously. “I don’t mean this to be an inquisition.”

  “No.” Jo sat down resolutely. “No, if I’m a fake, no one wants to know it more than I do.” She gave Sam a tight smile. He was seated unobtrusively in the corner of the room, watching the others. He had nodded to her briefly, then his gaze had gone beyond her, to Nick.

  Bennet glanced at Sarah, ready by her tape recorder, then he smiled. Around them the others were arranging themselves, leaving Jo alone, seated in the center of the room. “Shall we begin?” he said gently. He sat down next to her.

  Jo nodded. She sat back, her hands loosely clasped in her lap, her eyes on Bennet’s face.

  “Good,” he said after a moment. “You have learned to relax. That’s fine. I heard you had been practicing.”

  Every eye in the room was on him as gently he talked Jo back into her trance. Within seconds he was content. He looked over his shoulder at Sam. “The self-hypnosis we were discussing has made her easier to regress. She doesn’t really need me, save as a control.” He straightened and looked at the others. “She is ready to be questioned. Who would like to have a go first? Dr. Marshall, what about you? Would you perhaps like to ask her something in Welsh? She has, as we all know, maintained that she has no knowledge at all of the language in this incarnation, and I suspect that would be very easy to prove one way or the other. Easier than questions of historical detail.”

  Wendy Marshall nodded. She was a tall, slim woman in her early forties. Her hair, an attractive brown, was drawn back into a clip at the nape of her neck, to fall in undisciplined curls down her back. Its exuberance contrasted sharply with her severe expression and the puritanical simplicity of her linen dress. Picking up the clipboard that had been resting on her knee, she stood up and walked toward Jo.

  “Nawr te, arglwyddes Mallt.” She launched at once into a torrent of words. “Fe faswn i’n hoffi gofyn ichwi ychydig cwestiynau, os ca i…I have told her that I’m going to ask her some questions,” she said over her shoulder.

  The silence in the room was electric. Nick found he was clenching his fists, as, like everyone else, he watched for Jo’s reaction.

  “A ydych chi’n fyn deall i? Pa rydw i’n dweud? Fyng arglwyddes?” Wendy went on after a moment.

  There was a long pause. Jo gave no sign of having heard her. Her attention was fixed somewhere inside herself, far from the room in Devonshire Place. Wendy gave a shiver. She glanced at Bennet. “I just asked her if she understood me,” she said in an undertone. “She looks completely blank. I am afraid it looks as though she has been fooling you.”

  Nick stood up abruptly. He walked toward the window and stared out, forcing himself to stay calm. Behind him, Sam’s gaze followed him thoughtfully.

  Nick spun around. “You think she’s been lying?” he burst out. “You think the whole thing is a hoax? Some glorious charade we’ve all made up to amuse ourselves?”

  “Nicholas, please.” Carl Bennet stood up. “I am sure Dr. Marshall is implying no such thing.” He turned to Jo. “Can you hear me, Lady Matilda?” His tone was suddenly peremptory.

  Slowly Jo looked toward him. After a moment she nodded.

  “You have told us that you speak the language of the hills,” he said firmly. “I want you to answer the questions this lady asks you. You can see this lady with me, can’t you, Matilda?”

  Jo turned to Wendy, looking straight at her. Her eyes were strangely blank.

  “Speak to her again now,” Bennet whispered.

  Wendy raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

  “Fyng arglwyddes, dywedwch am y Cymry sy’n drigo o gwmpas y Gelli, os gwelych chi’n dda,” she said slowly, speaking very distinctly. “Ydych chi’n fyn deall i?”

  Jo frowned. She pushed herself forward in the chair, her eyes focused now intently on Wendy’s face.

  “Y…y Cymry o gwmpas y Gelli?” she echoed hesitantly.

  “That’s it! I’ve asked her to tell me something about the people of
Hay-on-Wye,” Wendy said quickly over her shoulder, her face suddenly tense with excitement.

  “Eres ych araith,” Jo said slowly, fumbling with the words. “Eissoes, mi a wn dy veddwl di. Managaf wrthyt yr hynn a ovynny ditheu…pan kyrchu y Elfael a oruc Rhys…”

  “I will tell thee of what thou desirest…of Rhys’s attack on Elfael,” Wendy murmured, scribbling in her notebook. “Slowly. Yn araf.” She had forgotten her irritation with Bennet and with Nick as soon as Jo had started to speak. Sitting down close to her, she waited for a moment, her eyes intent on Jo’s face. “Siaradwch e, yn araf, os gwelych chi yn dda,” she repeated at last. “Slowly, please. Yn araf iawn.”

  Jo gave a little half smile. She was looking beyond Wendy now, toward the windows as if she were watching Nick.

  “Rhys a dywawt y caffei ef castell Fallt a gyrrei ef Wilym gyt a’y veibion o Elfael a Brycheiniog megys ry-e yrrassei wynteu y ymdeith Maes-y-fed.” She paused thoughtfully. There was silence in the room, broken only by a quiet rattle as Sarah dropped her pen on the table in the corner; it rolled unnoticed across the polished surface to fall silently onto the carpet.

  “Don’t tell me that’s not real Welsh she’s speaking,” Bennet said triumphantly. “What is she saying now?”

  Wendy shook her head. “It is Welsh,” she said quietly, “but it’s hard to understand. The pronunciation is unusual and the syntax…that use of the old perfect form dywawt is striking. It’s an early Middle Welsh form that has disappeared. And also very odd is her use of the verbal particle ry with the pronoun -e, meaning ‘them,’ following it. Such usage is very early.” She looked around at the others. “You would not expect to find it even in the Middle Welsh of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. It is very, very interesting.”

  “She is talking to you from the twelfth century, Dr. Marshall,” Sam put in quietly. “You would not, I am sure, expect anything other than twelfth-century speech.”

  Wendy swung around to look at him. “She speaks modern English,” she said sharply. “Using your criterion I would expect her to speak the language of Layamon, or even more likely Norman-French. But not the English of the 1980s.”

  Sam shrugged. “She has a twentieth-century brain, Dr. Marshall. The memories she is drawing on include the languages she would have spoken at the time. But they are being relayed through the medium of a twentieth-century woman who, until now, has been instructed to answer in the twentieth-century idiom. Why don’t you address her in old French? Or even Latin. See what happens!”

  “Pan dducpwyt chwedyl o’n orchyfygu vi bydwn yngastell Paen,” Jo went on suddenly, completely oblivious of the exchange going on over her head. “Gwybuum minheu yna ymladd a wnaem ninneu. Nyt oed bryd inni galw cymhorthiaid…”

  “What is she saying now?” Bennet leaned forward urgently.

  “Wait! I am trying to understand her,” Wendy snapped. She was frowning intently. “She said she would have to fight. There was no time to summon aid…”

  “Where? Where is she?”

  “Pain’s Castle is it? She is going to defend Pain’s Castle.”

  “Y glawr mawr—Y bu yn drwmm etto,” Jo went on.

  “The heavy rain, it was still heavy…” Wendy echoed under her breath.

  “Oed goed twe ymhob cyfer—”

  “There was thick forest all around—”

  “Y clywssam fleiddyeu pellynnig—”

  “We could hear distant wolves.”

  Jo was sitting bolt upright suddenly, and she had begun to talk very fast, growing more fluent by the second as her tongue became accustomed to the unfamiliar sounds she was uttering. Her eyes were wide open, the pupils dilated, and she was becoming more and more excited.

  “Tell her to speak English!” Bennet interrupted sharply. “I think we’ve proved our point beyond any doubt. Tell her, quickly…”

  “Dyna igud. Siaradwch Saesneg yn nawr, os fues dim ots gyda chi.” Wendy leaned forward and touched Jo’s arm almost reluctantly.

  Jo drew away. She was staring beyond the people sitting around her in the room, into the far distance, where she could see an untended fire, burning low, the acrid smoke billowing around the castle hall as first one log and then another slipped from the dogs and fell into the ashes.

  She was hearing the silence of that cold desolate night, torn by the ugly shouts and screams of men and the angry clash of swords as the first wave of attackers was beaten back from the scaling ladders they had flung up against the walls. She and she alone must take command. The lives of every man and woman in the castle depended on her now that the castellan was dead. Slowly she stood up and drew her cloak around her, then she turned toward the door. Somehow she must find the strength to take up his sword.

  “Seasneg, fyng arglwyddes. Nid ydyn ni ddim i’n eich deall chi!” Wendy cried. “Speak English. We can’t understand you!”

  Jo stopped abruptly in the middle of her flow of words. “Avynnwch chwi y dywettwyf I Saesneg?” she repeated, puzzled. “Saesneg…English…I must talk English?” Then, haltingly, she began to speak once more in a language they all understood.

  28

  Bennet put his hand on Jo’s forehead for a moment. “Quiet now. Lady, rest,” he commanded gently. He looked at Nick. “So now you know about the siege of Painscastle. Your Matilda was a courageous lady, to hold the place until help came. She doesn’t seem too tired. Shall we go on?”

  Nick nodded. “Why not? She’s not upset.”

  “Does anyone else want to question her?” He glanced at Jim Paxman, who shook his head. “For now I am intrigued. Later, perhaps, I’d like to cross-question her further.” There was a pencil in his hand. “I’m making some notes of things I’ll ask her. So far her detail is uncanny!”

  “And accurate?” Sam’s cold voice from the corner made them all glance round uncomfortably.

  “I haven’t faulted her on anything yet,” Jim replied cautiously. “But there is so much more there than I or anyone else could verify, even with the minutest study of the chronicles. No, Carl, please get her to carry on. I want to hear more of her family. And more of the campaign. Rhys didn’t leave it at that, you know. No way. He went back!”

  Carl nodded. He turned back to Jo. “Matilda,” he said softly. “Tell us what happened next.”

  ***

  It was nearly dark. Matilda sat in the window trying to match some final stitches into her embroidery, in the private solar she used as her own in the castle of Hereford, where William was now the sheriff. Impatiently she selected a length of golden thread and squinted up against the last flaming gold of the western sky to try to thread it. The knock at the door made her bend the thread and she cursed under her breath. She had been treasuring the hour of silence alone in the upper room, with even her daughters and her women chased away, and she longed to prolong the moment if she could. Her head ached a little and her eyes were sore, but as long as she could still see to sew she had the excuse to remain alone.

  The knock sounded again, more urgently, and this time the heavy handle turned. “My lady?” Elen put her head round the door.

  “Elen, I told you I want to be alone. For a while, just until full dark.”

  “I know, my lady.” Elen grinned unrepentantly. “But you’ve a visitor, see, and I thought it was time I lit the sconces and saw about sorting a few things in the garderobe here. And look at you,” she scolded suddenly. “Trying to work in the dark and ruining the sight of your eyes as you sit there, is it?” She pushed open the door and hurried across the room. Behind her, on the threshold, stood Richard de Clare. He was alone.

  In spite of herself Matilda felt her heart give a lurch at the sight of him.

  Seeing her, he bowed, his old grin unmistakable, lighting his face. He held out his hands.

  Matilda glanced at Elen, who was fussing about with a lighted spill, going from sconce to sconce, but the woman kept her back ostentatiously turned and after a moment she disappeared behind the curtain into the garderobe.

  “Richard
!” She could hold back no longer. Her hands outstretched, Matilda ran to him and felt for a moment his strong arms around her, the touch of his lips on hers. Then gently, too soon, he was pushing her away with another light kiss on her forehead. “Oh, Richard, my dear, my love! It’s been so long.”

  “It has indeed.” He stood back, still holding her hands, and looked her up and down slowly, his eyes taking in every detail of her slender upright figure. Her hair seemed as burnished as ever beneath her headdress. His own, as he saw ruefully that she had noticed, was nearly white.

  “Richard, what happened?” She reached to touch it with longing, wistful fingers.

  He grinned. “Married life, sweetheart, and premature old age, combined with our East Anglian weather and the ministrations of your son. He is with me, by the way.”

  Behind them Elen cleared her throat loudly before appearing in the doorway. “My lady, Sir William has finished with the sheriff court sessions for the day. His brother-in-law Adam Porter is here and he is with him at present, but I’m thinking he was about to come up here.” She was carrying an embroidered surcoat over her arm. “I’d best be here when he comes.”

  Matilda glanced helplessly at Richard, who merely smiled and shrugged. “He never forgave you, you know, for supporting William Longchamp against Prince John,” she whispered. Then with her voice politely social again: “Are you pleased with Reginald? I was so glad when he became your esquire. You should have brought him up with you to see me, Richard. I suppose he’s grown so large I’ll not recognize him, like my other boys.” She sighed. “It’s hard to think of myself as mother to so many enormous children, Richard. I don’t feel old.”

  He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “No one else would believe it either, sweetheart. Your waist isn’t an inch wider than when I first saw you. Do you remember? Just after your wedding, when you came to Bramber and I saw you riding across the saltings with William. So tall and stiff you were on your horse, with your hair newly put up beneath your veil and wanting to tumble down again, like a maiden’s.” He raised his hand gently to her temple and then almost guiltily let it fall. They had both heard the firm step on the stairs and they drew slightly apart.