The Dream Weavers Barbara Erskine (e ink ebook reader txt) 📖

He stood up. ‘I suppose I must get back to my own story. The politics of Mercia seems very dull without Offa and his family.’

‘So who became king after Offa’s son?’

‘A chap called Coenwulf. A descendant of one of the great King Penda’s brothers, so, I suppose, Offa’s distant cousin.’

‘And how would he have regarded Eadburh?’

‘With horror, I should imagine. I think we can probably assume she would not have been welcomed back to Mercia even if she had survived, and she would not have dared to go back to Wessex, so where could she have gone? Perhaps that’s where Pavia comes in. She had no reason to go back to Britain.’

‘Wouldn’t she have looked for her daughter?’

‘I have tried to look the daughter up. There is no mention of what happened to her as far as I can see. I think we must hope that the best outcome for her, if she ever existed, would have been in a happy convent as a happy nun.’

Bea made a face. ‘You’re probably right. What a sad time.’

‘To them, God was real. He would have been there for them at the end.’

‘But he’s not real for you?’

‘Ah. Sorry. I forgot I was talking to a clergy wife who lives within spitting distance of a cathedral.’

‘What an unfortunate choice of words!’ She grinned.

He put his hands together and bowed. ‘Time to go.’

‘Keep me in the loop, Simon, please. I care greatly about Emma. I haven’t tried to contact her. I really think it’s better if I keep my distance for now, but I’m there if she needs me.’

‘Oh my goodness, that reminds me!’ He turned back from the door, reaching into his pocket. ‘Another reason for coming to see you. Emma asked me to give you this before she left.’ It was a small envelope. Inside was Bea’s cross. ‘She said to tell you she thought you might need it more than she does now she’s back in London. If she does need one, she’ll buy one herself.’

After he had gone she closed the door with an unexpected pang of loss. Their parting seemed almost final. She looked down at the cross in her hand and sighed.

*

Simon was cursing himself as he drove away from Hereford. How could he have handled that conversation worse? He wanted to stay in touch with Bea. He wanted to know she was there at the end of the phone, that she would come if he needed her.

He walked up to the cottage and stood on the terrace looking into the distance. The afternoon had turned hazy; the sheep had fallen silent and for once there were no great birds circling in the sky. It was as if time was standing still.

And then he heard it, in the distance. The voice calling.

Elise.

Elisedd.

43

Cwen carried a knife in her belt and flint and steel in her pouch, and she found them shelter in a cave out of the wind and rain where they made beds of dead leaves. Ava seemed to know they needed game. After feeding herself, she caught them rabbits and hares and even a squirrel. Cwen cooked them over the fire, scraping the skins clean and saving them. As the season turned they ate the young leaves of hawthorn and gathered herbs to make into potage, improvising a cooking dish from a hollow stone. Eadburh was very ill at the beginning and they both thought she would die; but she improved and slowly grew stronger as she became accustomed to the hard way of life.

And they talked.

‘Where was your home, Cwen?’

‘My mother was captured by the king’s armies when I was a child.’ The girl had startlingly blue eyes and a ragged lock of blond hair that escaped routinely from her head-rag to trail across her face.

‘And your mother is a slave at the abbey?’ Eadburh reached forward to brush the hair out of the girl’s eyes.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since I was brought there to work in the kitchens.’

Eadburh saw the wistful sadness in the girl’s face; until now, she’d never thought of her as a person, merely a servant. Cwen had saved her life, there was no doubt about that. The girl was resourceful and loyal and could read the countryside round them, finding food and following the stars. At first they headed north, anywhere to put more distance between them and the convent, but it was up to Eadburh now to decide where they should go. One thing was sure, they had to leave the territories of the emperor. She had no way of knowing how far they extended or what lay ahead of them. All they knew was that there was a long, long journey ahead.

There was a choice to be made. If they made their way towards the west she would be in Charles’s territories until she reached the coast of the Northern Sea where she could try to find a boat to take them across to Kent or East Anglia or even Northumbria. She allowed herself a brief moment of hope. In either of the latter two kingdoms she might find herself near one of her sisters, if they still lived. Kent was the most dangerous. There she would be among allies of Wessex who might still be her enemies. Supposing, having reached the shores of Britannia, she headed back overland towards Mercia? But she was not wanted there, and her dream of the mountains of Powys was gone. There was no one there for her now. Her beloved, the hero of her dreams, was dead. As long as she didn’t allow herself to think about Elisedd, didn’t dwell on those few treasured hours beneath her blankets, didn’t let herself remember that by coming to find her, his only love, Elisedd had lost his life, she could carry on, if not for her own sake then for the sake of this girl at her side.

With renewed bitter resolve