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

Outside, Sandra put up her umbrella and frowned. The canon’s wife had been deliberately disingenuous. Otherwise, surely, she would have told her who she was meeting and why. And there was something odd about her tonight. She looked guilty, almost as though there was someone there with her, someone she didn’t want Sandra to see. She shivered. It felt as though a black shadow had settled over the Treasurer’s House. As she headed across the Close she glanced back over her shoulder. The fanlight above the Dalloways’ door, a semicircle of light in the darkness, suddenly disappeared. Bea had turned off the hall light.

*

‘I thought it best you know, sir.’ Burgred looked up under his eyebrows at the king. ‘They did not have long together alone, but if they plan further encounters …’ He was trying to guess the king’s reaction He had been charged with keeping the king’s daughter under his surveillance, a simple enough task, but he had allowed Eadburh out of his sight and failed to keep her safe. Brave man though he was, he had seen men killed for less and he felt himself quaking with fear. He had no intention of admitting that the two had spent an afternoon together before he had tracked them up to the ridge.

He saw Offa’s face redden with fury and felt his throat contract with terror. ‘Do you wish me to kill him, sire?’

‘No!’ Offa’s roar of anger could be heard beyond the heavy curtain in the great hall itself, where men and women stopped abruptly in what they were doing and looked fearfully in the direction of the king’s private chamber. ‘You cannot kill the wretched boy. I am trying to make peace with his father! If they had only minutes together,’ he paused and glared at Burgred, lowering his voice, ‘no harm was done. Were it long enough to endanger my daughter’s reputation, you would pay with your life.’ There was a heavy silence in the room. Cynefryth had warned him that the girl was besotted. He should have listened.

‘Your daughter’s virtue is safe, sire.’ Burgred breathed a prayer to Woden that this was true. ‘I will swear it on the bones of St Chad.’ Double surety.

Offa saw the man’s fingers tighten on the hilt of his sword to stop them trembling and his eyes narrowed, but he let it go at that for now. If no harm had been done, then all could be resolved naturally. Already the enormous cavalcade of wagons and packhorses was being readied and assembled so the king’s court could return to his favourite palace at Tamworth for Easter. Distance would effectively solve the problem.

He sent for Prince Elisedd the next morning, presented him with generous gifts and messages for his father and bad him farewell. It was left to Burgred to ensure that the young man would have no chance to say goodbye to Eadburh, escorting him and his party with a guard of honour back towards the dyke, across it and on his way towards the distant mountains in the west.

Eadburh had been thinking about Elisedd all night, her body alive with longing, planning how they would ride up once more to see the site of the dyke and be alone together again, but first, with the small part of her that still clung to her mother’s cold, analytical training, she wanted to ensure that the plan for her future was in place.

‘When will you announce our betrothal, Papa?’ It had been hard to find a moment with her father, but at last she managed to corner him in the solar, commanding his astonished housecarls to leave them alone. ‘You have not said a word about my forthcoming marriage and we are about to set off for Tamworth.’

She had managed to sweet-talk her father before, after all, when she had wanted a particular silky-coated white pony that he planned to give to her eldest sister. One pleading look from her wide blue eyes had won his doting agreement in seconds. She had no doubt at all that acquiring a husband who was a royal prince would be as easy.

‘Your marriage?’ Offa narrowed his eyes suspiciously, well aware that she was playing him with those big cornflower eyes and wheedling tone. ‘I have made no plans to announce your marriage, child. If any betrothal is at the forefront of my mind it is your eldest sister’s.’

‘But surely, you should do it here. Now. Before we go. While the prince is here.’ Her heart was thudding with sudden fear as she stared at her father’s implacable face. She had convinced herself that the engagement was as good as arranged. It made sense, it was everything she wanted and dreamed of.

‘What prince?’ Offa sat back in his chair by the fire. ‘Surely you don’t mean that boy from Powys?’

‘Of course I mean Elisedd.’ Her eyes were hard now, holding her father’s gaze.

He studied her thoughtfully for several seconds, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘Your mother told me she suspected you nursed such foolish dreams, and she assured me she had made it clear to you that it would be impossible. I would not waste an opportunity for alliance on any Welsh kingdom. Why do you think we are building our dyke? I want to keep them at a safe distance, you stupid child. Forget him. Forget this godforsaken corner of my kingdom! We will be leaving for home tomorrow, stopping to celebrate Easter at Lichfield along the way. You will not see him again. He’s already gone. I have sent him on his way with golden gifts for his father. That should keep them happy.’ He leaned across to the table and picked up a horn of mead, raising it to his lips with an expression of intense enjoyment. As he set it down on its stand he looked back at his daughter. ‘Are you still here?’

Her face was white with anger. For a moment he felt a