Finding Camlann (11 page)

Donald tries hard not to smile. If he is to keep his promise to Julia, this is the moment when he must press the case. ‘Do you think it’s possible, though, that there is a connection between the archaeology of Devil’s Barrow and the description of the first battle in the Song of Lailoken?’

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 Occa Kionaccident,m’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 D
ŵ
r? The answer is clear. It is because he wanted to leave no doubt in his listeners’ minds that Owain Glyn D
ŵ
r 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 inten Kes paded 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 D
ŵ
r, 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 mind 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 subje Kon ofessor Boct 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.