Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

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 cajfei 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. "

Chapter 28

Bennet put his hand on Jo's forehead for a moment. "Quiet now. Lady, rest, " he