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

high garden wall the town lights came on one by one. Emma’s eyes had closed. Quietly Bea stood up and lit a piece of charcoal in the little brass dish she kept for the purpose, then she reached for a bottle of dried herbs and scattered a pinch onto the glowing embers. A wisp of fragrant smoke drifted up into the still air. She reached for her phone and quietly tapped in a message to Simon. Don’t wait. This may take some time. I’ll bring her back to the cottage later. Then she pulled out a second cushion, sat down, leant back against the wall and she too closed her eyes.

22

In the Hampshire palace of King Beorhtric, Eadburh was once more with child. She was sick and miserable and lonely, begging Nesta for tisanes to ease her nausea. At last she had received a letter from Hilde and she sat up and pulled a cloak around her shoulders as she read it. It had been brought back by the king’s bodyguard when they returned from Sutton and delivered into her own hand, and she smiled as, tucked amongst the other news, she read the one phrase she was looking for. And the thane Grimbert was killed by the sting of a bee in his ear. That was all. She gave a grim smile. She would wait for Hilde to return to hear the further detail, but she was not expecting the woman for a while. She had another errand to perform. Somewhere else to go. Another death to avenge.

The women’s bower was draughty and the fire had burned low. There was no sign of any of her maidens or indeed any servants at all. She wasn’t surprised. They all seemed to hate her, resenting her manner, still resenting the fact that she was Mercian, resenting the fact that she ordered the court and took over so much of its running from her husband. She guessed where they all were. There was a new minstrel in the great hall of the king and they had crept out of her chamber while she slept to listen to him. She walked down the roofed walkway that had been built between the hall of the queen and the mead hall, towards the sound of shouting and clapping, and stood for a while in the doorway looking in. The guards had uncrossed their spears at her approach. No one else noticed her. They were all concentrating on the young man standing on the dais at the far end. The sound of shouting and applause had died now, and there was intense silence. He was playing a lute and his voice was particularly sweet. She listened for a while, feeling herself relax for the first time in weeks, her hand on her belly where the child was quickening at last, a tiny flutter beneath her ribs. That was another source of resentment in the court, that she hadn’t given Beorhtric a son. Well, God willing, she would soon rectify that failing at least. This child would be a boy. She was certain of it. It was then she looked round for Beorhtric. He wasn’t there. With a frown she made her way through the crowded hall, seeing the men and women shrink away from her as she pushed her way towards the doorway into the private royal chamber behind the dais and pulled the curtain aside.

Beorhtric was there, sprawled on his great chair, and there was someone sitting on his lap. He was kissing her, fondling her body as he sat with his back to the door. Eadburh watched for several seconds, stunned into silence before the wave of fury and jealousy hit her. While she languished, sick and heavy and ugly with the misery of carrying her husband’s child, he was playing with another woman against all the laws of God and the Church! ‘Husband!’ Her cry made him jump violently and the woman on his knee almost fell to the ground, recovering herself, spinning round to face her queen.

His queen.

The person on her husband’s lap was a man and he was naked.

Bea opened her eyes with a start, reeling with shock and sat not daring to move, her heart thumping, completely disorientated. The room had grown dark and Emma was fast asleep, curled on her cushion. It was several minutes before Bea stood up and groped her way to the bookshelf, turning on the lamp. The room filled with a gentle ivory light as the music of the lute, a twenty-first century lute, played on. She checked her phone. The battery was very low. As she tiptoed towards the door she heard footsteps on the stairs. Mark must be home. She pulled the door open, meeting him on the landing and put her finger to her lips. ‘Emma’s here. She’s asleep,’ she whispered. He nodded and turned away.

‘Poor kid. She must be in a bad way after last night,’ he said as she followed him into the kitchen.

‘She is. And it’s worse than that. She’s been having nightmares and visions, which explains why she ran off the way she did. She sees, Mark. She’s a natural. She has to be shown how to control it all or she’ll be destroyed by it.’

‘She sees?’ He grimaced.

‘Sees. The past; perhaps the future. She is a sensitive, Mark.’

He sighed. ‘Are you sure? It sounds a bit improbable.’

‘Why?

He hesitated. ‘Her parents aren’t exactly …’

He stopped, groping for a word.

‘Wacky? Hippy?’ Bea supplied it for him. ‘Neither were mine. It’s not hereditary, Mark. Look at our two. They have a vicar and a weirdo like me for parents and they both ended up normal!’ She had, perhaps conveniently, forgotten about her grandmother.

‘Sorry!’ Mark raised his hands in surrender. ‘I was I suppose a bit worried you were reading more into her …’ he groped again, ‘her teenage angst, than was actually there.’

Bea stared at him. ‘No. I’m not,’ she said shortly.

He gave an apologetic