The Dream Weavers

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘She already thinks I’m mad,’ Simon couldn’t stop himself.

  Emma reached over and put her hand on his for a second. ‘She does love you, Dad. You do know that, don’t you? It’s this weird job you do. She would much rather you were an accountant.’

  Simon let out a splutter of indignation. ‘An accountant! Where on earth did you get that idea?’

  ‘I heard her say so. She was on the phone to one of her friends. She didn’t mean it. She’s very proud of you really. But it is a bit weird, going away every couple of years or so and locking yourself away in remote places for months at a time to get away from us. It’s kind of rejecting everything we stand for.’

  Simon was silent. Was that really how his family saw him? He had thought Val understood.

  ‘I’m not rejecting you, Em. Never that. You know how much I love you all,’ he said at last. ‘But I have to get my head round so many facts when I’m putting my books together, and I need silence to concentrate, not just for an hour or two but for weeks at a time.’

  ‘And you’ve ended up in a cottage with a ghost who yells at you!’

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it.’

  ‘Can we get your exorcist back?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake! How am I supposed to sleep?’ The front door opened so suddenly they both jumped. ‘Nattering out here at three in the morning!’ Felix appeared, clad in only a T-shirt and shorts, his hair standing on end. He stood on the doorstep, his feet bare. ‘You’ve been smoking, Em. I can smell it.’

  How, Simon found himself thinking, can he smell it out here with all this glorious fresh air.

  ‘I haven’t. I don’t smoke!’ she denied it automatically. ‘And as for us talking, you should hear yourself snoring. Neither of us could sleep a wink. You were making the whole place rattle!’

  ‘I wasn’t. I don’t snore.’

  ‘Kids!’ Simon stood up wearily. ‘This is why I need peace to write. Can we adjourn the argument until morning? Please?’

  17

  Bea heard the clock strike the half hour from the cathedral. It was 2.30 in the morning. She must stand up, put away the stone, go back down to bed.

  Soon.

  But first she must repeat her protective ritual. Make sure she was safe. With or without the protection of her cross, she never wanted to feel Eadburh’s icy gaze on her again. She shuddered at the memory.

  Eadburh had always known Nesta for what she was. Though modestly dressed, and with downcast eyes as the queen approached her, she gave off an aura of confidence and power, and at her girdle she wore the tools of her trade, one of them a tiny ball of rock crystal set in a silver mount. She and Eadburh had formed a strange bond long ago, perhaps strengthened by the knowledge that although it had never been mentioned between them, she knew about Eadburh’s pregnancy and had probably helped concoct the mixture that had led to the miscarriage, though Eadburh had no doubt in her own mind that the idea and that particular charm had been entirely of her mother’s making. Eadburh beckoned her away from the throng and led the way through the palisade and out into the gardens.

  ‘I need your special help.’ She held Nesta’s gaze, expecting her to look away. She didn’t. ‘I need certain medicinal plants I don’t see growing here.’ Her glance swept the windblown herb beds. ‘And charms I don’t know myself. I need to have a child.’

  ‘There can be no child as long as your womb is elfshot.’ The woman stated it as a fact.

  Eadburh took a step back. She had not expected such frankness.

  ‘I can give you charms to help you conceive and we will make a potion to make your woman’s parts soften to your husband. At present the spirit of your dead child fights for its place in your affections. It must not be allowed to win.’ The woman was taller than Eadburh and older by at least a dozen years. For the first time in her life, Eadburh could feel another’s power reducing her to obedience. This was, she realised with sudden apprehension, someone stronger even than her mother. She felt a shiver of fear. ‘You speak nonsense! What dead child?’ She pulled her veil round her face.

  ‘The child I see clinging to your spirit shield, begging to be let in.’

  Eadburh staggered back a step, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You lie!’

  ‘You loved it and you wanted it; you knew what your mother’s potion would do and you still drank it. You killed the child in your womb. You must send it on its way with your blessing. Every woman has love enough for dead children as well as living.’ The woman’s eyes softened momentarily, then they were once more cold and calculating. ‘I will give you what you need. Follow me.’

  Nesta’s workroom was on the far side of the palace grounds, a small wooden hut with a sturdy roof. Around it she had planted a new garden of herbs, surrounded by a wattle fence to protect it from the weather. She pulled open the gate and led the way in. ‘These plants are more sheltered in here. They are grown with the blessing of the sun and rain. If we walk the path together, I will sense what you need and pick them for you when the moon and stars are in the right places in the firmament.’ She turned sharply, so she and Eadburh were face to face, no more than a foot apart. ‘Once this magic is in train you will not be able to step back from it. You are certain you want a child by Beorhtric?’

  ‘Of course.’ Eadburh’s mouth was dry. ‘He is my husband.’

  ‘By treaty, maybe, and by the blessing of a Christian bishop, but you do not love him in your heart and the stars decree you are destined to be his downfall.’

  Eadburh looked at her askance. For a moment she couldn’t speak. ‘You know nothing,’ she said at last. ‘My father sent me here to seal an alliance between our kingdoms. For our marriage to be blessed, I need a son.’

  Nesta grunted. ‘Then you must put aside your love for another. If you are eaten with grief and the need for revenge, there is no place for a new soul to come in.’ She walked on and stopped again, facing the line of carefully tended plants. ‘You know your herbs. You know as well as I do what is needed to make you conceive. Send your women away.’

  ‘What women?’ Eadburh turned in time to see Hilde and two other ladies standing uncertainly by the gate. They had followed her from the king’s hall. One angry command from her and they fled.

  ‘You will need to know who are your friends in this country,’ Nesta commented tartly. ‘That is, after all, why you insisted that Hilde and I accompany you to Wessex. You are sleepwalking, queen, and what you require of me is dangerous. Take care.’ She stooped and picked a sprig of mugwort. ‘Tuck this into your gown and I will give you a pouch of fern seed. It will hide you and your thoughts from those sent to spy on you by your husband. He uses guile with you, but you can use a far more powerful magic against him.’ She gave a grim smile. ‘Ideally, we need a stone from a lapwing’s nest to hide you from him, but for now this will do.’

  Eadburh held out her hand for the leaves. ‘You serve the old gods,’ she said flatly. ‘But so do many. Their ways are strong and their magic works. Do you want a reward of gold for this special service?’

  She saw the look of disdain on the woman’s face, but her words contradicted her expression. ‘We all want gold, lady.’

  ‘Then you shall have it.’ She hesitated as she tucked the herb into her bodice. ‘Where did you learn your craft, Nesta? I suspect your magic is stronger even than my mother’s.’

  ‘My family came from the forest.’ The woman seemed to feel that was answer enough. Eadburh looked past her, peering into the dark shadow beyond the palace’s wooden ramparts that signalled the miles of wildwood with its lonely empty tracks and hidden patches of moorland, forest that stretched east and northwards, unbroken as far as Mercia and beyond. She shivered. Turning away, she walked slowly back to the gate. As she let herself out of the herb garden she glanced round, the wind catching her veil, her eyes narrowed in the sunlight.

  Bea jumped back out of the way, feeling herself brush against a bush of rosemary by the gate.

  For several seconds Eadburh paused,
and as her gaze hardened, Bea felt herself grow cold. ‘So, you watch me still.’ She was speaking directly to her. ‘You are not my husband’s spy and you do not come from my father, so who has sent you?’ The power of her gaze and the force of her anger made Bea quail. ‘Come near me again and you will die!’

  She didn’t realise she had cried out loud until she heard Mark running up the stairs, and then he was there, his arms around her, holding her close. ‘Bea! What is it, darling? What’s happened? I heard you shouting—’

  ‘I … I’m sorry. I must have been asleep. Dreaming.’

  ‘You’re shivering.’ Helping her to her feet, he guided her to the door and down the stairs into their bedroom. Reaching for her dressing gown he wrapped it around her shoulders, then he sat down on the end of the bed beside her and put his arm round her again. ‘I came back late and the house was in darkness, so I assumed you’d gone to bed. I was working in the study and I must have fallen asleep.’

  Her teeth were chattering ‘I … went upstairs to meditate.’

  ‘Bea!’ He stood up. ‘You must realise how dangerous this is.’

  ‘And I’ve told you, I’m being careful.’ But however careful she was being, her safety ritual hadn’t worked. She shuddered. ‘I’m cold, that’s all. I didn’t realise how late it is.’

  ‘Then why did you scream?’

  ‘I didn’t scream.’ She stared at him, astonished.

  ‘Oh believe me, you did.’ His voice betrayed how frightened he was. ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs. It’s warm in there and we need to talk.’

  According to the bedside clock it was ten past three in the morning, but she got up and led the way down the stairs. Mark, sensing her tension as she peered into the corners of the hall and through open doorways into the darkened rooms beyond, sat her down at the kitchen table and put off any further conversation for a few minutes while he made them both a mug of hot chocolate.

  ‘So.’ He sat down beside her at last. ‘What really happened? Why did you scream?’

  ‘I’m sorry for waking you.’

  ‘Bea!’

  ‘I was dreaming about the kingdom of Wessex. About a wise woman called Nesta who makes herbal potions. She said she came from the forest.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound so frightening.’ He was trying hard to keep his voice calm.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened next?’ He could read her so easily. He put his arm round her shoulders again.

  She took a deep breath. ‘OK. I was back the past. It’s so vivid. So real. And she was there. Offa’s daughter.’

  She felt him freeze. Literally. His arms had grown rigid and she sensed a chill run through him. She saw his lips move and she waited for an explosion of fury. Then she realised he was praying for her.

  ‘Whoever it was, it was a dream,’ he said at last.

  ‘She saw me, Mark. She looked at me, out of the past and saw me. It wasn’t a dream. I saw her make the sign of the cross. She thought I was evil.’ She could hear the disbelief in her own voice. ‘And she wasn’t scared of me, Mark. She was angry.’

  ‘Dear God!’

  She wasn’t clear whether that was his prayer or an expression of horror.

  ‘I was scared. I admit it. Very scared.’ She took a deep breath. ‘My fault. I obviously didn’t do things properly, I didn’t protect myself, I didn’t shut the door behind me.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as though she would have much of a problem with doors.’ His face was ashen.

  ‘Not that kind of door.’ She gave a wistful smile. ‘It’s never happened before. I’m experienced enough to know better.’

  But it has happened before, hasn’t it. He didn’t say it out loud. ‘Have you shut the door now?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And she won’t come back.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sure.’

  He heaved a deep sigh. ‘Bea, you can’t go on like this.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Can you stop?’

  She gave a hesitant smile, reaching for her mug. ‘Of course. I don’t know why I cried out. I didn’t mean to wake you.’ As she lifted the mug to her mouth, she smelt a sharp herbal smell on her fingers and remembered the rosemary bush. Only then did she remember to visualise the doors between that world and hers and slam them tightly shut.

  ‘I wanted to make sure you were OK.’ It was Heather, on the phone next morning. ‘Have you got time to come over for a chat?’

  Heather led Bea into her cosy living room looking out onto a narrow garden full of spring flowers.

  ‘So, has anything else happened?’ Heather sat down opposite her friend and studied her face.

  ‘It happened again. Last night. I was in the past with Offa’s daughter and the wise woman who seems to be advising her.’

  ‘Was that where you wanted to be?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it was!’ At first hesitant, suddenly Bea was full of enthusiasm. ‘It was amazing, Heather! I was there with them.’

  ‘Actually there?’

  ‘Yes. I could see every detail and, more to the point, they could see me!’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Swear this won’t go any further. I could put out my hand and feel the plants in the hedge around the herb garden. I touched a bush of rosemary and rubbed it with my fingers, and when it was over and I was awake again, I could smell the rosemary on my fingers.’

  Heather stared at her. ‘Are you saying you were really truly there? As in, not here any more. Gone.’

  ‘I don’t know. Mark came up and found me and I was there in my study, so no, I hadn’t disappeared.’ She was silent for a few seconds. ‘He said I called out.’

  ‘So, Mark knows.’ Heather breathed an audible sigh of relief. ‘Thank God for that! I don’t know how all this works, but it seems very dangerous to me.’

  Bea shook her head. ‘It’s not dangerous. We may be able to see each other, but if they are ghosts to me, I must be a ghost to them, surely.’

  ‘A ghost from the future?’

  ‘A shadow. A ghost they can’t touch. Or hurt.’

  ‘You touched the rosemary, Bea.’

  For a moment both women were silent.

  ‘What did Mark say about all this?’ Heather asked cautiously.

  ‘He was upset,’ Bea admitted. ‘He wanted to believe it was a nightmare. Then he asked me if I could stop it happening. I told him I could.’

  The morning went well. Simon drove the kids to the small town of Knighton where they explored the Offa’s Dyke Centre, followed the path along the River Teme, standing with huge embarrassment at the appointed place on the national border, with one foot in England and one in Wales, for a photo for their mother, and then walked a surprisingly long way along the footpath before returning to Knighton to devour a huge lunch and supervise the shopping at the local supermarket. By the time they got back to the cottage, both children were suffering from phone withdrawal symptoms, but to Simon’s delight, while Emma retired to the garden to sit in the sun and catch up with her friends online – not revising, he noticed – Felix, having looked up some links, pocketed his own phone and headed for his father’s laptop and the photos of the chronicle. It appeared he had been thinking all morning about the task of enhancing those blank pages.

  Simon watched over the boy’s shoulder, holding his breath as he saw the texture of the vellum on the first page swimming into focus on the screen, the tiny dots where the scribe had pricked guidelines on the page before beginning to write, and then there it was: a page of text, faint but just about readable. ‘I looked up the inks they used,’ Felix muttered. ‘Some of them bonded with the skins and are much more durable than others. I think you’re in luck here, Dad.’ He looked up at his father, trying to hide the triumph in his eyes. ‘The guy tried to scrape it off, but the marks are indelible. Shall I spell it out for you?’

  Simon was aching to get back to his chair in front of the screen
, but he sensed this was something he needed to allow Felix to do. He reached for his notebook and nodded. ‘Your eyes are better than mine. Spell away.’

  There was a long silence, then Felix pushed back his chair. ‘I can’t read it. The letters are all different. It’s in Anglo-Saxon.’

  ‘Old English,’ Simon automatically corrected him. ‘But I will still need your help. Perhaps, if I get stuck, you can draw the letters out for me.’

  Between them they began to decipher the story.

  In the year 793 the heathen raided the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne and slaughtered those monks who could not flee, much to the distress of King Ethelred, newly married to Ethelfled, daughter of our king. In her terror and weakness, the lady miscarried of a son.

  ‘Weakness!’ Emma looked up indignantly from her phone. Obviously she had been listening with half an ear. ‘The woman had witnessed a massacre!’

  ‘Or at least heard about it from men who were there. I’m afraid monks didn’t have much time for women,’ her father replied. ‘And he is writing as a historian.’

  ‘Historians being famously insensitive.’ His daughter’s muttered retort did not register with Simon, who hadn’t raised his eyes from the screen.

  The following year Offa the king promised his daughter Alfrida to Ethelbert, King of East Anglia. When Ethelbert came here to collect his bride, Cynefryth the queen was consumed with jealousy that her daughter should be wed to such a godly man, and at her command Ethelbert was foully done to death, his head struck from his body …

  ‘Wow, Dad! This is awesome! He was murdered!’ Felix was leaning over his father’s shoulder as Simon read the words out loud.

  ‘It’s a well-known story.’ Simon’s eyes were fixed on the screen. ‘But this is special. This is written by someone local and it gives a motive, or at least what the local gossip gave as a motive for the murder.’

  By the Grace of God, Ethelbert wrought miracles wheresoever his head lay and it was borne at last here to the priory of St Guthlac and hence on to the minster …