The Dream Weavers

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘And I,’ Jane looked over at Simon, ‘found what I suspect are treasures beyond imagining.’ She grinned. ‘I was wondering what to do. Ideally, I should take them back to the cathedral, where we have a strong room with the correct humidity and climate control, although, to be fair, they seem to have been safe here for a very long time. I was going to arrange to consult someone about a valuation when you walked into my office, and suddenly I had someone on the spot who can read Old English far more fluently than I can, which I suspect is what this one particular book is. Kate and Phil would love it if you could take a look and hopefully confirm my suspicions.’

  Their coffee drunk, and their hands thoroughly washed on Jane’s instructions, Simon followed the others back up the broad oak staircase to a shadowy landing on the first floor. As they walked down it, the sun broke through outside, shining through the window at the far end of the corridor, illuminating the dust that rose from the wooden floorboards as they walked. He smiled. There was something about dust motes dancing in the sunlight that spelled magic. They were making their way towards what must have been one of the main bedrooms in the house. He had been expecting to see the library itself, but instead he found himself in an empty room, with nothing more than a large trestle table on which lay a selection of old – very old – books, with a few mismatched dining chairs scattered round the walls.

  ‘We brought them in here so we could see them properly,’ Phil put in. ‘The library itself has no tables or chairs. Most of the furniture in the house is rotten, to be frank, and we’ve been warned that the lovely old oak pieces that have survived probably have no value these days anyway, so we are counting on the books.’

  There was an Anglepoise lamp on the table, attached to a trailing lead. Phil leaned forward to switch it on.

  ‘That’s an old Welsh Bible,’ Jane explained to Simon, pointing at a huge vellum bound volume, and these are diaries of some kind; judging by the writing, they could be fifteenth or sixteenth century.’ Her finger pointed along the line of books. ‘One or two of these have bookworm and need urgent conservation, but most are in reasonable condition, considering their age. There is an early Shakespeare here. That on its own, if it’s a first folio, is probably worth a million or two, I would guess.’ She paused for effect, glancing from one to the other with a delighted grin. ‘But this is our pièce de résistance.’ She stopped to pull some foam supports from her bag and arranged them on the table, then she carefully lifted a volume towards them into the pool of light from the lamp and, cushioning it on the rests, she opened it at the first page. It was fairly large and heavy, and as Jane opened it, Simon saw the neatly inscribed writing on the pages, the coloured initials.

  He stared down at it in awe. Pulling forward a chair, he sat down and stared at the page.

  ‘Yes, that’s Old English,’ he breathed.

  ‘What does it say?’ Kate whispered. ‘Can you read it?’

  ‘In the year of Christ’s Nativity, 494, Cerdic and Cynric, his son, landed at Cerdicessora with five ships.’ He looked up. ‘It’s a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.’

  ‘A copy?’ Kate looked devastated.

  He smiled at her. ‘Everything was a copy, don’t forget, until the invention of printing. There are various surviving versions of the chronicle. They are histories of the island of Britain. It’s believed that the original version was written for King Alfred and then copies were sent around the country to various monasteries, where they were kept. Each monastery then continued to keep the chronicles up to date by adding to their own version. The closest one in this part of the world that I can think of offhand is the Worcester Chronicle, but these chronicles would have been copied and distributed all over the place. Which doesn’t,’ he added hastily, seeing Kate’s continuing disappointment, ‘detract from the value. To be honest, I haven’t a clue how much it would be worth. You would need a writing expert to date it, but it’s obviously a very early copy, and it’s written in Old English. Some of the marginally later copies – and I’m talking perhaps twelfth century rather than eleventh – were written in Middle English.’

  He desperately wanted them to go away and let him read it. His fingers were quite literally itching to turn the pages.

  He turned to Jane. ‘Are you going to advise sending it to London?’

  Jane nodded. ‘I think that’s what Kate and Phil will probably decide to do. I have suggested we might invite someone here from one of the auction houses to have a look.’

  ‘Would you allow me to transcribe some of this into modern English first?’ Simon was carefully turning the pages. He looked up at Kate. ‘I wouldn’t take it away. I would come and do it here. As I think Jane told you, I am writing a history of Mercia, and this is the nearest thing I will ever come to first-hand reporting of what I am writing about. It might be a different version to the one I know. It might have extra bits we don’t know about. Local bits.’ He reached out and laid his fingers gently on the page. He was gabbling, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  Kate glanced at her husband. ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘And with your permission, I will meanwhile contact one or two people I know who deal in medieval manuscripts,’ Jane said. ‘I won’t tell anyone where you are, and neither will Simon, until you have had a chance to make a decision about what to do and who we should show them to. In the meantime, I do advise you to keep these under lock and key.’

  As Simon climbed back into Jane’s car he could feel himself shaking. ‘I don’t think I had let myself believe you. If that is genuine, they’re sitting on a fortune that would probably make a Shakespeare first folio look cheap.’

  ‘I hope so, for their sake.’ Jane reversed the car and headed back up the overgrown drive. ‘And in the meantime you can go back tomorrow and start copying. So you are hoping for something that isn’t in the other versions?’

  Simon lowered his window and took a deep breath of cold air. ‘You mentioned Offa and his family?’

  Jane nodded. ‘One of the pages I looked at when I first came over seemed to contain his name a great deal, with some women’s names. And there are pages that have been scratched out. You’ll see when you go through it.’

  Simon felt his stomach tighten with excitement. ‘It’s unlikely there will be anything new, but as you say, I won’t know till I read it. The narrative stopped, I noticed, in 1055. Some versions went on into the twelfth century. Just touching it was something so special, and with a bit of luck a local monk might have inserted something extra. That’s the joy of the chronicles. Mostly they are annals, as you know, a year-by-year account of the most important things that happened, but occasionally a flash of personal opinion breaks through. Or even better, gossip.’

  Jane laughed. ‘All historians are romantics at heart in my opinion, and us librarians are more so than most. I saw you stroke the page. I wanted to do the same. Those books have almost certainly sat there unread for centuries. They showed me the library downstairs. Very dark and musty. The books must have been collected at some point by an antiquarian ancestor of Kate’s, but I suppose they’re now destined for a glass case somewhere.’ She sighed. ‘I wish we could acquire that chronicle for the cathedral, but Phil and Kate need the money and we could never afford it.’ The car bumped over the cattle grid at the end of the drive and turned onto the road. ‘You think you’ll find your way back here?’

  Simon laughed. ‘Or will it disappear into the mist like Brigadoon and we’ll never find the house again.’

  ‘Or the people in it.’ Jane shivered. ‘Did that place strike you as haunted?’

  Simon looked across at her sharply. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No, it didn’t.’

  It wasn’t Mark who had given Bea the little cross, but her mother’s cousin. ‘I thought it apt, dear, as you’re marrying a vicar,’ the old lady had said, pressing the small velvet-lined box into her hand. Bea had never worn it, but now she sat on the bed, the closed box in her hand, staring down at it. Last night, Mark
had returned after she had finally gone to bed and he had taken care not to wake her. This morning he finally left at about ten o’clock, kissing her on the top of her head as she sat, still in her dressing gown, over the last dregs of her coffee.

  She had awoken late, with a splitting headache, and he had offered to cancel his appointments for the day to look after her, but she’d insisted she would manage without him. ‘I think I might go back to bed for a bit, catch up on some sleep. Don’t worry about me. I will be fine.’

  She pressed the little button on the velvet-lined box and opened the lid. The gold cross was about three centimetres high, a proper crucifix with a tiny slim figure of Christ on a twisted, strangely arboreal cross, beautifully engraved in minute detail. She picked it up, the chain slipping through her fingers, and studied it critically. Some of the house healers she knew made a point of wearing a cross when they worked, on the grounds that the predominant culture of this country had been Christian for two thousand years and even for non-believers it was part of a common reference point from which to work. She always took her small hand-held wooden cross with her, but she had never felt the need to actually wear one, conflicted as always between her reluctance to label herself in any way and her loyalty to Mark and the Church she had been brought up in. But now. Now, she felt oddly at a loss. She sat for a long time, the gold cross in her hands, staring across the room towards the window. Eadburh had thought her an evil demon and invoked the cross of Christ against her. Would it put the woman at ease to see her wearing the symbol of their mutual faith, or was that the most awful hypocrisy on her part? And what was she thinking even contemplating the idea that she might encounter Eadburh again, that she would defy common sense and do the very thing Mark had begged her not to do.

  Putting the cross down on the bedside table, she began to dress. Jeans and sweater. She was not planning on going out. She made the bed and went to the door, hesitated, turned back and, grabbing the cross, slipped the chain over her head, tucking it inside her sweater, then she headed for the attic stairs. She couldn’t leave the story there, she just couldn’t. If Eadburh was prepared to tell her more, then she needed to find out what happened next. However scared she felt, she believed the cross would give her courage to go on with her quest and use the knowledge she gained to help the woman’s soul find peace. She was fully prepared this time. It wouldn’t be dangerous and Mark would never know, unless she told him herself, and she had no plans to do that.

  13

  Cynefryth had insisted that Nesta ride close to them on the long journey through the kingdom of Mercia, back to the most spacious and the grandest of Offa’s royal palaces, his base at Tamworth. The herb-wife, brighter than most, she had grudgingly to admit, and a source of knowledge derived from Celtic roots as well as life at the Saxon court, seemed to have formed some kind of friendship with her unruly youngest daughter as they worked together over the herbs in the stillroom, and the queen hoped that she would be able to deflect some of Eadburh’s tantrums which were beginning to upset the entire household. She was not accustomed to enquiring about the serfs and peasants who served her, and was not sure what Nesta’s background was; for all she knew the woman was the daughter of some local ealdorman, but she was intelligent, literate and experienced, and in spite of her relative youthfulness she had a certain confidence about her that occasionally called for respect and a certain wariness. She knew the women of the household thought she was a sorceress, a witch. So much the better. She was happy to wash her hands of Eadburh and leave her to Nesta.

  Nesta watched and waited.

  *

  Eadburh had missed her monthly flow and she felt sick and tired and aware of an increasing sense of panic. It could not be that she was with child. It had to be because of the exhaustion of the ride back to Tamworth. Settled once more into the comfort of the women’s bower, she would soon recover her spirits, of that she was sure. She demanded restorative drinks from Nesta and sat dreaming in the spring sunshine. And she wrote Elisedd a letter. ‘I would like to see your dragons and the beauty of your mountains and hear the songs of your heart.’ It was romantic foolishness, and she dared not say more. If they could but meet, she would tell him everything and they could be wed. Her father need not know where she had gone. Even in her most optimistic dreams she realised that to run away with the Prince of Powys would probably cause a war, all plans for the dyke forgotten. She didn’t care. All she wanted was to feel the strong arms of the prince around her, telling her all would be well.

  She entrusted the letter to Burgred, confident that he could not read, promising him riches beyond his comprehension when he brought her back a response from the royal court at Mathrafal, and threatening him with dire consequences if he spoke of this to anyone.

  Then she waited.

  Burgred took the letter straight to the king. Offa read it then threw it on the fire. He turned to Burgred, his face contorted with anger. ‘How many times did she meet with this man alone?’

  Burgred met the king’s gaze defiantly. ‘Only the once.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Offa’s eyes, the colour of a jay’s wing-flash, were hard as iron.

  Burgred felt himself quail. ‘Only the once, great king, and for no time at all.’

  For barely a heartbeat Offa thought, then he looked up, his decision made. ‘You will return to Sutton and stay there. The princess will think you are on your way to deliver her letter and no more will be said of the matter.’

  Burgred set out the same day, relieved to have got off so lightly, raising his hand in farewell to the guards at the gate, riding fast, zigzagging towards the west before giving up all pretence of heading towards Powys and turning south as instructed by the king to join one of the old Roman roads that would take him towards Worcester and beyond it Hereford. After a while he turned his horse off the road to follow a drovers trail across a lonely windswept hill and it was there, with no witnesses beyond the curlews, that Offa’s men caught up with him and cut his throat. Once the ravens and kites had finished with the body thrown into the rushes that bordered the lonely pool nearby, there was no trace that Burgred, the guardian of Princess Eadburh’s honour and the king’s messenger, had ever passed that way.

  At the royal palace Eadburh waited in ever-growing despair. Why did Elisedd not reply to her letter? In her most secret dreams she had pictured him riding in from the west to claim her hand. In the end there was nothing for it but to tell her mother. Her mouth dry with fear, she waved Nesta away and drew the older woman to the far end of the herb garden. Making sure none of the weeding women were within earshot, mother and daughter set down their baskets and sat on the bench in the sheltered corner. ‘I have missed my courses for two months. I need a tincture to bring them on and I’m not sure which herbs to use.’ She tried to sound casual, to keep the desperation out of her voice.

  She darted a glance sideways at her mother’s face. It was not reassuring. Cynefryth turned to look at her, and she saw the woman’s gaze drop to her stomach. ‘You are with child.’ The fury in her voice cut like a dagger bladed with ice.

  ‘No! No, I can’t be,’ she stammered. ‘It is some ailment. I have been feeling ill for several days. Vomiting …’ her voice died away.

  ‘You are with child,’ her mother repeated stonily. ‘If your father finds out he will kill you. I take it, it was that little Welsh snake.’ It seemed impossible that so few words could contain such hatred. ‘We sent him on his way too late; we gave him gifts instead of slicing off his manhood and garrotting him for the traitor spy he was!’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault, Mama. I thought we were to be married.’ Eadburh raised her chin defiantly.

  ‘You lie! You knew there was to be no marriage! And even had we considered it for a single instant, you couldn’t wait for a treaty to be signed? You dragged him into the bracken like a cottar’s whore?’

  ‘I love him.’

  ‘No. You were full of lust! You are a princess of the royal house of Pybba. You could have sai
d no.’

  Eadburh wanted to stamp her foot, but she forced herself to lower her eyes meekly. ‘It was my fault and it was for me to say yes or no. And I …’ she faltered, ‘I wanted it. I admit it. If Papa had arranged the marriage, there would have been no harm. It is his fault, not mine.’ A quick flash of defiance.

  ‘But there was no plan to marry you,’ her mother repeated angrily. ‘None. We told you so. Your eldest sister will be married first and only then will your father decide on suitable husbands for you and your sister.’

  ‘Then you must tell me what to do.’ Eadburh waited, as always wary of a mother whose temper was legendary.

  Cynefryth tightened her lips. Her face was white and drawn. ‘I will procure the right ingredients from Nesta and make you a drink.’ She spoke so quietly that Eadburh had to lean closer to hear her words. ‘Have you confided in her?’

  ‘No, Mama.’

  Cynefryth scanned her face then nodded, satisfied. Eadburh realised with sudden horror that her mother would allow no one to find out about this and live. ‘The mixture will make you sick and you will take to your bed, confiding in only one of your women to help you with what will follow. The silence of that woman afterwards must be ensured.’ She held Eadburh’s gaze. ‘You understand me?’

  Eadburh understood only too well. ‘I will not kill one of my maidens for sharing my secret,’ she retorted. ‘I will choose someone I can trust.’

  ‘Indeed you will.’ Cynefryth stood up, pulling her cloak around her tightly. ‘Go to your bed now and let it be known that you are unwell.’

  Eadburh watched her mother walk across the garden, her skirts trailing against the edges of the herb beds. As her ladies fell in step behind her, Cynefryth beckoned Nesta to her. The two women talked briefly, then moved on, pausing here and there to pick a sprig of this and a few leaves of that, dropping them into Nesta’s basket.