The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine (best ereader for pc TXT) 📗

From his hiding place in the edge of the wood, Burgred watched the two figures emerge from the sheepfold, retrieve their horses from the shelter of the old thorn and ride towards him eastwards down the spine of the ridge. He waited a while for them to disappear over the edge of the hill then he ducked back through the trees to where he had left his own horse grazing. Behind him the ravens cried out their warning unheeded.

*

The sound echoed through the attic room and died away. As Bea opened her eyes she saw the candle flame flicker and die. Only a trail of smoke was left to remind her of what she had seen. And now she knew where they had been. Elisedd, Prince of Powys and Eadburh, daughter of Offa, had been making love on the ridge where Simon was writing his book. That original tumbled stone wall had been part of what in Wales they call a hafod, a place of refuge for the beasts up on the mountain for the summer grazing. Until the beginning of May, the ancient time of Calan Mai, it would have been deserted.

She sat staring into space for a long time. There was only the faintest ray of light in the sky now above the rooftops and she watched as it faded. Outside in the town the street lights came on one by one and she could hear the swish of tyres on the wet road in the distance. It must have rained while she was there on the open hill in the early spring sunshine. Was she riding too? She had no sense of how she had seen everything, how she had watched the events unfold. She looked down. The stone had fallen from her fingers and lay on the carpet. She reached forward and picked it up. Had Eadburh held it at some point, left her emotions and her dreams imprinted on the surface of this small smooth lump of rock?

She felt a sudden wave of excitement. What she had seen was amazing; unbelievable. She had been privileged and blessed by her experience. She pictured the two young people in one another’s arms. Was she being voyeuristic, watching two young people make love? But she had been unable to look away. Thank goodness Eadburh had not noticed her watching. She did not think the girl would have been pleased to see a stranger hovering in the shadows of the shepherds’ summer retreat. The thought of those cold angry eyes made her shiver. Better to think instead about the hares boxing in the grasses, the sound of the wind in the thorn tree, and the ravens calling a desperate warning.

A warning. The man in the trees. A grizzled warrior in leather breastplate and helmet, his eyes angry as he spied on his king’s daughter and her lover, his hand on his sword as he rode after them into the darkness.

The insistent knocking on the front door two floors below dragged Bea back to reality. Unwillingly, she stood up and made her way downstairs. The house was still deserted. Turning on the kitchen lights, she stood staring into space for several minutes, still there, on the hillside in her head, unable to drag herself back to the present, then she heard the knocking again. The last person she expected to see standing on the step was Sandra Bedford. Outside the rain was pouring down. The air in the Close smelled of wet grass and flowers.

‘My dear, I am so sorry!’ The woman propped her dripping umbrella against the wall, and stepped past her into the hall. ‘I’ve been so worried. It never occurred to me I might be embarrassing you by telling Mark you were looking for him. I made assumptions and I shouldn’t have. It was none of my business who you were meeting in the cathedral and none of my business if you were there to pray.’

She walked uninvited towards the drawing room, pushing the door open, pausing only for a second to reach for the light switch as she realised the room was in darkness. Behind her, Bea watched her open-mouthed. This room, overlooking the front of the house, mostly furnished courtesy of Bea’s mother-in-law, was very formal, the furniture beautiful – rejected by Mark’s brothers’ families as too big for their London flats – but austere. Mark and Bea kept it for the formal entertaining that was part of his job and as the perfect place for Anna’s piano. ‘Don’t worry,’ Sandra beamed, ‘I’m not stopping. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t cross with me. Where is the dear canon? Is he here? No, of course not. He’s gone to the mayor’s reception hasn’t he, to represent the dean. Good! So, we can have a nice chat.’

It seemed to dawn on her at last that the room was cold, the curtains open onto the darkness. ‘Ah. Are we in the kitchen?’

Already she was backing out of the room again. In the parish, the kitchen was common property. Everyone would head in that direction, offering to help, making sandwiches and cauldrons of tea. Cursing herself for opening the front door in the first place, Bea followed. At last she was beginning to pull herself together. ‘Sandra, I’m so sorry. I was about to go out. It’s sweet of you to call in, and there is absolutely no need to apologise about Mark. It was all a misunderstanding.’

‘Are you sure, dear?’

Bea saw the woman was wistfully looking at the kettle. ‘Absolutely sure. Look, you must come round another time and have tea, but I really do need to get on now. You know what it’s like. Never a moment to oneself.’ As hints went, that was as direct as she could make it, but it still took another few minutes to usher Sandra back to the front door. Finally closing it behind her, Bea leant against it with a sigh of