Even worse was his brooding about what had happened. As the days passed his mood grew blacker. Part of him believed it had all been a dream. Stupid bloody fool, he told himself, why keep mooning over people who never really existed?
But another part of him wept for the loss of Meri. And Bear and Bedwyr. They had seemed so real. They had to be real!
He grew surly, and snapped at his father and Puddy.
His father bit back angry words and put up with his bad temper. Puddy gave back as good as she got. “The way you speak to your father is a scandal,” she scolded David after one visit. “And him trying to be so nice to you and all.”
David scrunched down on his pillows and avoided her accusing gaze. “What do you know about it, anyway?” he mumbled.
“Oh, I know the two of you have problems. And probably not all your fault. That’s clear enough,” she said sternly. “But still and all, that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it? You have to go on from here, somehow. What else can you do?”
“I’m not over-nice to you either, am I?” he said, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Not especially. But it goes with the job, doesn’t it?” she snapped. And bustled off, with a crackle of starched apron.
They did some tests, not very nice ones, to make sure his brain hadn’t been damaged.
“Though I told them there was nothing wrong with you but black temper,” said Puddy. “And that wouldn’t show up on any test!”
Still David couldn’t eat. Slept poorly. Puddy was on the night shift again, and he often roused from a fitful doze to find her beside his bed.
“Haven’t you got any other patients to pester?” he snapped at her one night.
“None like you. You’re weird, you are,” she said tartly. “Did you know that you cry in your sleep?”
David brushed the back of his free hand across his cheek. It was wet.
“You’d better pull yourself together, my lad,” she said frankly. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but they’re thinking of sending in a psychiatrist to find out what’s bothering you.”
“A shrink?” David was fully awake now. “I won’t talk to him. I just . . . can’t.”
There was a long pause. Then, “I guess I do need to talk to someone, though,” he admitted. “I can’t keep going over it all in my head.”
Somewhere a distant church bell chimed three. “Could you talk to me?” asked Puddy. “My ward is quiet this time of night.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” said David.
“Make a nice change from nasty, that will,” she shot back, sitting down beside the bed.
So he told her all of it. Slowly, hesitantly, at first, then faster and faster, stumbling over his words as he tried to make her understand what had happened, how it had been.
“And I went back for the harp,” he finished. “That was when it happened. A sword . . . And then I woke up here.” He looked across at her, bracing himself for her disbelief.
But Puddy’s eyes were shining, and her cheeks were flushed. “That’s . . . that’s the most wonderful tale I’ve ever heard,” she said softly. “It’s like a romance, isn’t it? Meri and all. But that Bear! There was something special about him, there was. Ah, that’s the kind of lad to make a girl’s heart beat faster!”
“You talk about them as if they were real,” said David cautiously. “Not . . . just some sick fantasy.”
“But there is something real about it all, isn’t there? I mean, it wasn’t like a normal sort of a dream.” Puddy sighed, then added, “Though I suppose it must be. But oh, I wish I could dream like that.”
“I can’t bear it to be a dream,” said David miserably. “That’s what’s been eating me all this time. I miss them. There’s nothing here for me that means as much as they do.”
Puddy got up and smoothed the sheet across his chest. “But there were bad things, ugly things there too,” she said.
David sighed. “Yes. But the world seemed so clean and green. And people were easier to understand, somehow. Even the ones I didn’t like. And in the end they accepted me.”
She thought for a moment. “I’m no psychiatrist, but I think that if you could cope with all that you can surely find a way to manage here,” she replied. “Maybe that’s what your mind is trying to tell you.”
“I guess,” he said, trying to smile. “But oh, Puddy, I’m so lonely. I feel . . . different, as if I’ve changed, somehow. Nothing seems to fit anymore.”
She went over to the window and twitched back the curtain. “Nearly dawn,” she said. “You must try to rest. Matron will skin me if she finds out I let you lie awake so long.” But she lingered for a moment, biting her lip, then went on, “Do you know, though, there’s someone else you could tell this to.”
“The shrink?” countered David.
“Certainly, if you want to. But no, I was thinking of an uncle of mine. He was some great boffin at the university until he retired. Knows all about Welsh history and such. I’ll give you his address, if you like. He lives over Cardiff way. You could go see him when you get out of this place. You might feel less lonely talking about it with someone who knows about that kind of thing.”
“Maybe I will,” said David, closing his eyes again. “And, Puddy . . . thanks!”
SIXTEEN
The man at the door of the cottage was not at all what David expected. He had pictured a retired professor as someone wizened, tall and thin, bald maybe, and definitely severe. Professor Geraint Davies was tiny, like Puddy. But where she was plump, he was slender. He didn’t even look particularly old, though his dark hair was thickly streaked with silver. His heavy brows were dark, as were the sharp eyes below them. David thought he looked a bit like an elf.
“Come in, come in,” he said, smiling. “I’m Geraint Davies. You’ll be David Baird, then. My niece has been telling me about you.”
“I’ll bet,” said David. His crutches thumped on the polished floor as he followed the professor through the hall into a tiny living room. “What did she say—that I was her most troublesome patient ever, and daft into the bargain?”
“Not exactly, but she warned me you’d probably say something like that about yourself. Let me take your jacket.” He glanced down at the heavy cast on David’s leg. “It must be awkward getting about with that on,” he said. “Does your leg still pain you much?”
“A bit,” David admitted. “But it’s great to be out of traction. And out of the hospital.”
“Sit down and be comfortable.” The professor pointed to a worn armchair that looked ready to burst at the seams. He picked up a poker and tried to stir up a small, messy fire smouldering in the grate. “Now, then,” he said, turning around, “I was about to have tea. Will you join me? Or, let me see. You’re Canadian, aren’t you? Perhaps you don’t like tea. I’m not quite sure what else I can offer you. I haven’t any—what is that odd word you call minerals over there—pop?”
“Tea’s okay,” said David, who didn’t really like it much.
He sat looking about the room while Professor Davies clattered about in the kitchen. Books were piled everywhere, and there was a strong smell of pipe tobacco in the air. Some kind of old map, framed, hung over the fireplace. There was a music stand in one corner with a flute propped against a page of music.
“Here we are.” The professor bustled back with a laden tray, which he set on a low table before the fire. He sat down opposite David and lifted the chipped brown teapot. “Will you take milk and sugar? I recommend plenty of both. I make my tea fierce.”
“That’ll be fine,” said David.
“And do try the seedcake,” Professor Davies added. “Made with real Welsh butter, of course. I make it myself. It’s my one domestic skill. And if I do say so, you’ll never taste better.”
David took a bite of the cake, which was rich with butter and tasted of caraway seed. Clever one, he is, he thought to himself, chewing. Rambling on like this, letting me get used to the situation. I wonder how m
uch Puddy told him? He took a sip of his tea. It wasn’t so bad. The sugar helped a lot.
“So then,” said the professor, setting down his cup and leaning back comfortably, “I hear you have a story to tell me.” He tented his long fingers together and looked at David with piercing dark eyes.
“Did Puddy . .?”
“She told me nothing, really. Said she’d leave that to you. But that I’d be interested.”
“I, um, don’t know how to begin,” said David, hesitating.
“When in doubt, it’s usually best to do as Lewis Carroll suggested in Alice in Wonderland,” the professor said dryly. “Begin at the beginning. Go on until you come to the end. Then stop. And by the way, don’t worry about how long it takes. Retired professors aren’t very busy people.”
“Yes. Well . . .” So David told it again. First, how he and his father had come to be in Wales. The way things were between them. The quarrel. Taking Hywel’s motorcycle. Then the accident, and then . . .
The spring evening drew in as he talked. Darkness pooled in the corners of the room, then crept around the two of them, until only the fading glow of the fire lit their faces. Geraint Davies neither moved nor spoke, but sat as he had at the beginning, his eyes fixed on David.
On and on David went, until the story was all told, and his words fell away into silence.
“Fascinating,” said the professor, after a few moments. He added a small piece of coal to the embers in the grate. Then he stood looking out the window for a minute before pulling the curtain across and turning on a lamp. Its glow lit his face strangely from below.
“Your story is a variation I’ve never heard before,” he said, looking across at David. “And I thought I knew them all. You know what I’m talking about, of course?”
“No,” said David. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Ah, yes. You mentioned you didn’t care much for school. Didn’t ever do much reading, I suppose?”
David shook his head.
“And the names really don’t mean anything to you?”
“You mean Meri . .?” said David, puzzled.
“Not that one. But the others. Bear. Bedwyr. Cai. Even Cabal, the wolf hound.”
“Well, I did think Bear was a funny kind of name,” said David. “Though it did suit him somehow . . .”
“The word for ‘bear’ in the ancient Celtic language of Prydein—ancient Britain, to you—is ‘artos’,” said the professor slowly. “Some people think the name was given to a leader of the British Celts. A very great leader.”
He went back to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel, folding his arms across his chest. He fixed his eyes on David. “He’s known in literature as King Arthur,” he said quietly.
“King Arthur!” David’s mouth fell open. “That’s . . . that’s crazy! Of course I’ve heard of King Arthur. Knights of the Round Table. All that stuff. But Bear wasn’t a king! And Cai and Bedwyr weren’t knights! They didn’t have shining armour. They didn’t even have horses!” He paused a moment, then added, “Well, Lord Rhodri and his war band did, I guess.”
“There’s no King Arthur known to history,” said the professor. “All that knights of the Round Table—stuff—was invented by poets. But in everything they wrote about Arthur, there is a Sir Bedivere and a Sir Kay. It’s as if the poets drew on some old half-forgotten tradition.”
“But if there was no king, who was Artos?” asked David.
“He may have been a war leader of the British Celts. Not a king, but someone who led them successfully against the invading Saxons. Someone who won peace for a generation, maybe more. An achievement so great that his name was never quite forgotten. Artos the Bear. He might well have lived in about the period you’ve described to me. Around 500 A.D.”
Bear holding a great sword gleaming red with sunset light.
His own anguished words. Can’t someone stop the dying?
Bear’s eyes widening, his voice saying, I will.
And you did. Oh, man, you did it! David thought, with rising excitement. You stopped the killing. And I saw the beginning of it!
Then he remembered the rest of the story, and his elation faded. “He lost though, didn’t he, in the end?” he asked.
Professor Davies nodded. “He did. He was betrayed, and the killing times came again. But who knows? Perhaps that space of time he won for peace changed other things. Perhaps the Dark Ages that followed were less dark because of Artos. Perhaps that’s why he has never been forgotten.”
David let out a long sigh. “But what does it all mean?” he asked, after a moment. “How do I know all these things about . . . Bear. And all the rest?”
“Who can say?” said Professor Davies. “You tell me you’ve had the dream about the fire for as long as you can remember. That in it you were always looking for something precious that you couldn’t find. It’s as if your dream were some kind of echo from the past.”
“How could it be? Unless—you mean I really lived all that before, but just couldn’t remember?”
“Perhaps. There are those who believe such things. Or perhaps that time is still there somewhere, and you went sideways or whatever Emrys said it was. By the way, he’s another part of the puzzle. In Welsh he’s called Myrddin Emrys. We’ve always known he was a wise man—a mage and a bard. It’s the English who called him Merlin and turned him into a dotty wizard.
“Are you telling me you actually believe me? That you don’t think I’m crazy?” David paused, then he blurted out, “You must be crazy too!”
The professor chuckled. Then he shrugged. “I can’t accept what you say as historical proof, of course. My training gets in the way. But I’m Welsh, after all. And we’re a great people for tales and mysteries. I’ve spent my life studying the ancient Celts in Wales. And the details you’ve told me certainly don’t sound crazy. In fact they reflect much of what we know.”
He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his old cardigan. “My boy, I’d give ten years of my life to have had an experience like yours. Dream or no. All the things we scholars have wondered about, spun theories about—in some strange way, you’ve lived it!”
“But I’ve lost it all, don’t you see?” said David bitterly. “I can’t get back!”
“Would you go back if you could?” asked Professor Davies.
“I . . .” David hesitated. Would he? Then, “Yes!” he said. “I’d come to care about them all, you see. And there’s no-one here I much care about. I don’t fit in somehow.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I told you how things were before my dad and I came here. I did a lot of stupid stuff. And when I go home, I’ll probably do it again. Or worse.”
“Not necessarily. What about your music?”
David looked down at his hands, then he met the professor’s eyes. “It’s all that holds me together. Always was. But even that’s not enough now. Not the way it was before I came here. It . . . it was a shared thing in the . . . dream, you see. It meant something. It wasn’t just me sounding off on my own anymore.”
“Then why not make your music mean something here? You’re a poet, a minstrel. You’ve just told me so yourself. So why not use what happened to you to make a difference for yourself? And for others.”
David was puzzled. “I don’t get it.”
“You’ve said that in that other world there was both ugliness and great beauty. There was cruelty, but also loyalty and love. Our world isn’t so different. If you were truly a minstrel there, you can be one here.”
“You mean . . . use music to say things?”
“Yes! If you want a greener world, why not sing for it? A less violent world? Sing for that, too.”
“Oh, sure. A fat lot of difference that would make!” said David.
Professor Davies shook his head impatiently. “A lot, a little, who knows? But music can be a powerful persuader. And if making music is what you’re put on Earth to do, then you must do it. You’ve found out something important about
yourself. You can’t just turn your back on it!”
Abruptly, he turned and strode out of the room. David wondered if he had offended him somehow, but before he could say anything, the professor returned.
He was carrying a harp, which he set in David’s lap.
David’s hands trembled as he touched it. It was old and battered-looking. Not nearly as wonderful as Beauty. But a harp. He cradled it on his lap, realizing just how empty his arms had felt these last days.
“It was my wife’s. We used to play together before she died,” explained the professor, with a nod in the direction of the music stand. “My poor old flute doesn’t sound the same without her harp to keep it company.” He held out a harp key. “Here,” he said. “It needs tuning.”
“You want me to play it?” asked David.
“If you dare,” replied Professor Davies.
“Dare?”
“You know what it will mean, don’t you, if you can play it? Really play it, I mean. Not just start figuring it out.”
“That . . . that what happened was real?”
“That you can’t escape. That you can’t go back to your past here any more than to that distant one. That something has changed you, and you have to go forward.”
David said nothing. It took him some minutes to tune the harp. Then he settled it against his shoulder and ran his fingers across the strings. His throat suddenly felt dry. He swallowed, then said, simply, “Culwych and Olwen.”
He took no time to think but swept into the piece he had played so many times before. He could almost see Lord Rhodri’s hall around him. Emrys nodding sternly. Bear and Bedwyr grinning at him. Meri’s eyes shining . . .
He finished at last, and came back to himself. He looked across at the professor.
Geraint Davies said quietly, “You can’t have learned that here. Not in this century, even. The technique, the style . . . It’s amazing! Quite amazing!”
“So now I know.”
“Yes. You’ve been given a great gift, David. The rest is really up to you, isn’t it?”
David made to hand over the harp, but the professor shook his head.
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