A Novel

by Sean Pidgeon

  Caradoc Bowen bows his head, makes a show of polishing his lenses on the frayed lining of his tweed jacket. ‘I was not aware that anyone was still reading that poem,’ he says. ‘I have not looked at it myself for a very long time.’

  ‘I came across it by accident,’ Donald says, scarcely bending the truth. ‘I think it is quite remarkable.’

  ‘And on what possible basis,’ Bowen says, his voice suddenly rising, cracking with indignation, ‘do you imagine that such a poem might be connected to the discoveries at Stonehenge? Are you forgetting that the Welsh battles it describes are removed from the events at Devil’s Barrow by several hundred years at least, to say nothing of the geographical challenges?’

  Donald begins to deploy his carefully rehearsed argument, trying hard to ignore the evidence of Bowen’s rapidly mounting impatience. ‘But would you not at least agree,’ he says, ‘that Siôn Cent intended those lines in his poem to be read as an allusion to Stonehenge? He speaks of a giant-wrought circle, a temple brought from farthest west by a god-like power. Does that not seem a close parallel to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s description of Stonehenge in the Historia Regum Britanniae?’

  Now the professor offers the thinnest of smiles. ‘You are very astute, Dr. Gladstone,’ he says. ‘In this case, however, I believe you are entirely on the wrong track. Of course, I noticed the connection with Geoffrey’s remark when I first came upon the poem. But over the years I have come to understand the mind of Siôn Cent. He had a jackdaw eye, picking up twinkling little images here and there across his reading. He will have known the Historia intimately, of course, steeped as he was in the Merlinic tradition of which Geoffrey was largely the progenitor. He merely borrowed the Stonehenge reference and adapted it to his own ends.’ Bowen looks critically at Donald, one eyebrow raised almost imperceptibly. ‘You may wish to invoke some other explanation, but Occam’s Razor tells us we should doubt the more complicated interpretation.’

  ‘And the theme of the threefold death?’ Donald says. ‘There is evidence of this practice in the archaeology from Devil’s Barrow, and a corresponding reference in the Song of Lailoken. Surely, at the least, that’s an interesting coincidence.’ As he speaks these words, he can feel himself falling into the professor’s well-laid trap.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ Bowen says, ‘you seem to be losing touch with the essence of Siôn Cent. His clear intention was to embed a sense of authenticity in his poem. It is no accident that he named it the Song of Lailoken. Perhaps you will recall, from your study of Celtic mythology, the story of St. Cyndeyrn’s encounter in the forest with the bard Lailoken, who had been driven to the brink of madness by visions of death and gruesome battle. He told Cyndeyrn that he knew the manner of his own death, that he would be killed three times, by stone, stake, and water. This episode is related in a twelfth-century manuscript now preserved in the British Library, which suggests that the story was widely known by that time, and would certainly have been familiar to Siôn Cent writing three hundred years later.’

  This analysis does not quite seem to answer the question, but Donald has no chance to respond. Caradoc Bowen rises abruptly from his chair and steps to the blackboard behind his desk. He uses an old yellow cloth to erase the cryptic text that is written there, snatches up a piece of chalk and begins fiercely scribing circles and lines.

  ‘It is clear,’ Bowen says, ‘that Siôn Cent was greatly concerned with verisimilitude, and that he deliberately populated his verses with totemic figures who seemed to speak of a distant mythical past. On the side of the white serpent, we have the one called Belak-neskato with her twin protectors, Araket and Madarakt.’ Bowen writes these names in the three circles on the left. ‘Speaking for the red dragon, we have the one called the crab, together with his warrior-champion whom Siôn has named Arthur.’ Bowen fills in the circles on the right. ‘Why, you might ask, should he write of Arthur when he might have spoken of Glyn Dŵr? The answer is clear. It is because he wanted to leave no doubt in his listeners’ minds that Owain Glyn Dŵr was a true Celtic hero, that he was Arthur returned to them in their time of trouble. He wanted his audience to believe they were listening to authentic Merlinic prophecy, symbolic words that came straight from some ancient mythological substrate.’ The professor underscores this last point by shading a vigorous layer of white at the foot of the blackboard, joining it with dotted lines to the encircled names. ‘Our poet went so far as to claim that the Song of Lailoken represented the very words of Merlin taken from an old book that happened to fall into his hand, though we may of course dismiss his book of Cyndeyrn as a convenient fiction, a clever ruse borrowed from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Perhaps by now you begin to understand the sophistication of Siôn Cent’s method?’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Donald says, feeling the full weight of Caradoc Bowen’s scrutiny. ‘But do you think this is the only possible interpretation of the poem?’

  Bowen does not seem to hear him, barely pauses for breath. ‘All of this, of course, was preparatory to our poet’s rousing coda, in which he turns from past victories to future glories, making a prophecy to stir the heart of any true patriot. These closing lines were intended as a clarion call to the men of the red dragon, Welsh peasantry and nobility alike, to rise against the English impostor. The words have the greater power in the archaic Welsh of the original, though few can now follow that language. If I may make so bold?’

  ‘By all means,’ Donald says. He slides his chair a little way back from the desk, then watches in fascination as Bowen stands with his hands behind his back and delivers a dramatic Welsh rendition of the final two verses of the Song of Lailoken.

  Fel hyn y syrthiodd ein harwr i’r ddaear, nid marw ond mewn trymgwsg

  Yn clustfeinio am gân y ddraig goch, atseiniau gwan o’r dyffryn

  Yn torri cadwyni daearol, deirgwaith y codwn i gri’r ddraig

  Ddwywaith eto i fawredd, ddwywaith eto fe’n torrwyd i lawr

  Pyla’r tân yn chwythiad edwinol y ddraig

  A yw’r nerth gennym? Cludwn y fflam olaf

  Llachar y llosga ein tân yng nghadarnle’r mynyddoedd

  Dicter a bair i wyntoedd udo ac i foroedd chwyddo

  Dena gobaith filwyr i’r alwad

  Bwriwn y bwystfil gwyn ffiaidd sy’n ymdorchi

  Rhwygwn ei grafangau cennog o’n pridd cysegredig.

  The professor pauses for breath, and then, with an almost equal intensity, delivers the same lines in English, his accent coming through more strongly than before.

  Thus our champion fell to earth, not dead but deeply sleeping

  Listening for red dragon’s song, faint echoes from the valley

  Breaking earthly chains, three times we rise to dragon’s cry

  Twice more to greatness, twice more cut down

  Fire glows dim in dragon’s failing gasp.

  Have we the strength, we carry the last flame

  Our blaze burns bright in mountain fastness

  Rage moves winds to howl and seas to rise

  Hope brings warriors to the call

  We strike the loathsome white beast coiling

  Rend its scaly claws from our sacred soil.

  ‘Do you not hear the dragon’s song?’ Bowen says, his eyes bright with some inner fire. His voice is hoarse, and there is a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. ‘Can you not feel the power of the poet’s call? Glyn Dŵr, he tells us, is neither alive nor dead, but granted safe passage to the otherworld. We must not forget him, nor become heedless to the perils that face our homeland, for he will assuredly return to help his people in their hour of greatest need.’

  Donald decides to say nothing, allows Bowen to sit himself down, wipe his forehead with a large white handkerchief taken from his jacket pocket. He seems more frail, drained of some vital energy. ‘You must forgive my sudden access of enthusiasm,’ the professor says. ‘It is many years since I last allowed myself to speak those lines. I trust, however, that I have helped you to apprehend with a little more subtlety the remarkable m
ind of Siôn Cent.’

  ‘I am indebted to you, Professor Bowen.’ Donald decides to risk one further question. ‘I was wondering, though, why you have not written on this subject in recent years?’

  ‘Because, quite simply, I have nothing more to say.’ Bowen’s tone is peremptory, but then softens. ‘I approve of your persistence, Dr. Gladstone, in challenging what others may take for granted. I encourage you to persevere in this approach to your work. Now, if you will kindly excuse me, I am feeling a little tired.’

  As Donald makes his way back down the stairs to the quad, he decides that he likes Caradoc Bowen rather more than he expected to. He walks out of the Jesus College gate on to Turl Street just as the sun breaks free of cloud, lighting the old college stonework in glorious tones of amber and gold.

  IN THE WAY of those dreams that remain etched in the mind for days and weeks to come, he finds that he can see everything in exquisite detail, the weft and the warp of the threadbare blanket that covers him, the burgeoning pattern of green and yellow lichens on the walls, the last light of sunset glancing through the window to touch the letters carved into the heavy stone lintel. Lailoken: this is the name that is spelled there. It comes to our dreamer with a distant familiarity, as if it were a garment he once wore himself. It is a comfort to see it written in stone; a sense of permanence and sanctity seems to flow from this extemporaneous alliance with the solid rock. Now he feels himself falling more deeply asleep, going to some more distant place, a dream within a dream, as he murmurs the closing lines of an old familiar poem.

  When he opens his eyes again, the world has darkened. There is a cool wind blowing in the trees. He is alert and fearful, his limbs frozen in place, his hearing attuned to a distant, insinuating voice that seems drawn from deep within the rock itself.

  Do you not see me, crab blinded by shame?

  Black raven I am called, the dream-maker

  Sending you my last-breath’s curse

  To blight your darkest sleeping

  Three times reborn, three times you will die

  By stone, by stake, by water I send you

  To sate the white serpent, three-times hungering

  Wind-lord whose breath awakes the raging storm

  Whose wrath tears thunder from the sky

  Whose magic woven through my voice

  Will still your mortal sighing.

  The breeze turns bitter cold, rises swiftly to a howling storm such that this rough shelter will not long withstand. As our dreamer awakes into his present world, the great lintel-stone is tumbling down upon him.

  JULIA HAS SPOKEN no more than a few unavoidable sentences to Hugh in the few days that have passed since their disastrous conversation. Somehow they are still sleeping in the same bed, finding reasons to go up at different times, and she is shocked at the ease with which they have been able to avoid one another. The routines of life continue, but the silence between them has grown until it fills the house like a toxic gas.

  She is in her studio on a bright Saturday morning with the shouting of children in the next-door garden drifting through the open window. They are playing hide-and-seek, three of them in turn portentously chanting from one to twenty, followed by the happy sounds of discovery in dense rhododendron thickets, behind trees and potting sheds. Julia finds herself tuning in to their game, smiling at the intensity that they bring to the task at hand; envious that they can be so much in the moment, not looking beyond the next half-minute of their lives. These are good kids, Will and Richard and Anna Speedwell, clever and polite, products of what has always seemed the unlikely pairing of Emma, a diminutive and voluble ward-sister at the Radcliffe Infirmary, and her lanky and diffident classicist husband Tom, Fellow of Christ Church. Emma has been a good friend to Julia, as has Tom, in his way, to Hugh, the two men from time to time staying up to the small hours over a bottle of single malt.

  The children’s game continues for some time in this mode of happy repetition, until a distant shout of lunchtime from the matron brings the proceedings to an end. Hugh would like to have children, Julia knows this, but motherhood has remained a frightening and inaccessible place for her. When she tries to think of it, she sees a remote plateau surrounded by unscalable cliffs. Dismissing the confusing, wistful thoughts that try to enter in, she returns her attention to the parcel on the table in front of her. The address has been written in her mother’s usual elegant, precise style, with the name of the house, Cair Paravel, segregated inside perfectly crafted quotation marks as if to emphasise Cath Llewellyn’s disapproval of such pretension.

  Julia unwraps the fraying string, strips away the brown paper wrapping to reveal a cardboard box sealed so comprehensively with sellotape that it takes a long battle with scissors to break through to the seams. Inside, she finds some of her old things: a collection of diaries bound with a pink ribbon, some strange amorphous figures that she once carved out of a wooden block, one of her father’s sketch pads, yellowed with age. A page has come loose, a pencil drawing of a dramatic tilted rock-face set in a landscape of rugged tree-clad hills beneath a gleaming cloud-filled sky. The patterns of light and shadow in the rock, the luminous quality of the cloudscape, have been picked out with exquisite care. There is a short caption beneath, Craig-y-Ddinas, and the tiny initials in the corner, drl.

  At the bottom of the box is a scrap-book with a dark green cover and a stout ring binding. There is a note stuck inside it, in her mother’s writing. I want you to have this, no arguments now. A name is boldly written in rounded girlish handwriting on the inside front cover, Catherine Maud Pursey. The pages are filled with the tokens of her mother’s young and happy life in Sussex, invitations to birthday parties, tickets to the Brighton pantomime, blurred family photographs taken at the seaside. Later on, there are cartoonish drawings of schoolteachers, notes scribbled by friends, various boys’ names written in the margins. One name appears more often than the others, Peter K., the blameless Englishman whom Julia’s mother would have married were it not for a holiday in Aberdovey and Dai Llewellyn standing there at the dock when she stepped off the ferry-boat.

  Julia turns to a page at the back of the book. It is another of her father’s sketches, a young woman at a window, seagulls in the sky, small fishing-boats on the water beyond. Her hair is tied back in a scarf decorated with tiny loops and spirals. The beautiful Catherine Pursey, aged twenty-one, looks out across the Dyfi estuary with a gently mocking half-smile on her face.

  Setting the scrap-book to one side, Julia unties the pink ribbon and lays the diaries out on the tabletop, four of them bound in the same bright red leather. She opens the first one and begins to turn through the January pages. The daily spaces are filled with a bold writing in pencil, a painful coming-of-age documented with all the ordinary entangled emotion of her lonely fifteen-year-old self writing these words in her room at Dyffryn Farm. There is a tug of memory now as she comes upon the entry for Valentine’s Day.

  14 FEBRUARY

  I had a card today from Ralph Barnabas. I think he really has a thing for me, but he’s very quiet about it, I suppose he’s a bit strange really. Maybe we have that in common. None of the other boys at school seem to like me very much, not that it matters anyway because Dai has a shotgun out in his workshop and I really think he’d use it if any one of them tried to come near me. Aunt Nia is coming over later to take me out. Not sure why she chose today but Thank God she’s coming.

  There are more pages written in similar vein as the winter drags on; but with springtime comes a change, even the handwriting is neater as she composes her entries with a new style and purpose.

  12 APRIL

  I met someone at the Black Lion last night. It was Gareth Williams who introduced us, he said here’s a man I want you to meet. His name is Hugh Mortimer and he’s staying with his grandfather over at Ty Faenor, one of the Mortimers no less. He says he’s going off to Oxford University in the autumn to study history and politics. I like the way he knows what he wants from life, and the way h
e looks at me, too, a little bit mysterious as if he knows all about me.

  Julia flips through pages filled with a surprising intense narrative, glimpses of Hugh in town on a Saturday morning, occasional awkward conversations on street corners, the time she ran into him when she was out walking with Dai, who didn’t much approve of Hugh’s father, and she had to pretend not to know him.

  31 AUGUST

  Sixteen today. Ralph was there waiting for me after school. He asked if he could walk with me for a while, and I couldn’t really say no. We’d gone as far as the Rhayader bridge when we saw Hugh standing there at the other end. When I told him it was my birthday, he ran and picked a rose from Mrs. Edwards’ front garden and gave it to me with a funny sort of smile. Ralph just walked away without saying a word. After that, Hugh stayed there with me and I was sure he was going to kiss me, but then he smiled in a sad sort of way and told me his grandfather had just died and he would be going away to Oxford soon. We stood there for a long time, watching the river going over the old waterfall.

  There is some elusive significance in this final word, waterfall. It is only much later on, as Julia is preparing to go back up to the house and her eye falls on Caradoc Bowen’s journal article lying there on the table, that she realises what it is. When she first read the Song of Lailoken in the original Welsh, musing over its highly archaic constructions, she concluded that this was a true anachronistic masterpiece on the part of Siôn Cent. He wrote the poem in the vernacular of the fifteenth century but with something of the character of Old Welsh, a version of the language spoken hundreds of years earlier. It is as if Geoffrey Chaucer had chosen to compose a work in the style of the author of Beowulf, but in such a way that it would be comprehensible to the common people of his own time.