Lady of Hay (55 page)

“John?” Nick whispered. He could feel the goose bumps rising on his skin.

Jo looked at him directly for the first time. “Prince John,” she said. They stared at each other in silence.

Nick tried to swallow the sudden bile that had risen in his throat. “And he did that to you?” he said slowly.

She nodded. He could see the accusation in her eyes. “It
was
you, Nick—”

“No!” He launched himself from the bed. “Jo, get a grip on reality! It was not me! You were in a trance. No one touched you except inside your head. I took you to the hospital and they kept you there for hours while they examined you. There wasn’t a mark on you. Not yesterday, not last night. It happened in your sleep, Jo!” Gently he took the pillow from her and put it back on the bed, then he caught her hands. They were ice-cold. “Jo. I think we should see Bennet. As soon as possible.” He pushed her into a sitting position on her bed.

She was looking up at him. Tentatively she raised her hand and traced her fingers lightly over his eyes and nose. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears and she threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Nick, don’t let it be true. Please,” she cried desperately. “Don’t let it be true.”

***

After-dinner cigar smoke wove around fluted silver candlesticks and drifted up to the high ceiling, curling beneath the plastered moldings. Ponderously Sam stood up, a glass of port in one hand, and walked down the long table to a vacant chair near its head. He put down his glass and extended his hand. “Dr. Bennet? My name is Samuel Franklyn.”

Bennet looked up and surveyed him briefly, then he indicated the empty place beside him. “Please, sit down, Dr. Franklyn. I hoped we might meet here this evening,” he said. He reached for the decanter. “We have a patient in common, I believe.” He glanced up once more, his eyes narrowed. “One of the most interesting cases I have ever come across. Cigar?”

Sam shook his head. “She has finally changed her mind about our conferring—now that it is too late for me to stop your becoming involved—did she tell you?”

Bennet raised an eyebrow. “She did not. But I did intend to have a word with you anyway, I must confess.” He was studying Sam’s face with interest. “When did you last see her professionally?”

“On the twelfth. You were away, I believe.”

Bennet nodded slowly. “I saw her the following week. We had a very disturbing session during which I tried, at her request, to suggest to her that her interest in her past life would lessen or be lost altogether. She rejected the suggestion and became very disturbed. It was necessary to sedate her. I have not spoken to her since then. She missed her next appointment.” Thoughtfully he kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s face.

“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.”