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

took her and she had found it hard not to struggle and turn away, for his kisses left her cold. She hoped he would assume that her resistance was natural in a maiden.

As the long procession wound its way south, the rains set in. They stopped at various royal palaces along the way, none of them as prosperous and well appointed as Tamworth or Sutton, but they would do. She refused to allow herself to think of the riches which would greet her eldest sister if she married the son of the great King Charlemagne. She, Eadburh, was now a queen. It was up to her to guide her husband to greatness as her father’s obedient ally.

Within the first weeks of their marriage she discovered that her husband intended to leave her to her own devices; at night in the royal bed he demanded her obedience and submission, crowing that he was a stallion, a rutting stag. She gritted her teeth and bore it all in silence. In the daytime he was like her father, constantly overseeing his vast and sprawling kingdom, dictating letters, meeting with the ealdormen and thanes who ruled it for him, distracted by the shocking raid of three heathen longboats on the most southern part of his kingdom and the slaughter that ensued before the raiders put back to sea.

She began to assert herself slowly, tentatively at first, asking whether she could appoint her own ladies of the household. He waved her away and told her to do what she thought best; he was preoccupied with matters of state. Slowly, cautiously, she increased the range of her influence. The wives of her husbands’ thanes were her companions. She disliked most of them and knew the feeling was mutual. She was seen as an outsider, a symbol of Mercia’s perceived aggression, but she quickly became more confident, realising that the women were afraid of her. Once, in a fury at the clumsiness of one woman who had dropped her spindle, she swore she would have the woman’s hand chopped off. That same night Beorhtric arrived in their bedchamber white with anger. One of his most senior thanes had complained to the king that his wife had been threatened and he had left the court not only with his wife but his entire retinue and his war band.

‘I only shouted at her because she was so careless!’ Eadburh was full of righteous indignation. ‘The woman is a fool.’

‘The woman is the wife of one of my most valued thanes. Why was she spinning like a serf?’

‘We all spin, Husband.’ She was genuinely astonished at his anger. ‘In her case, badly. If her husband cannot control her outpourings, he is weak and you are better off without him!’

The king had stared at her in silence. She could read his thoughts so easily she was actually sorry for a man who could not dissemble. He was shocked, he was angry, but above all he was full of admiration. She met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘I understand people, Husband,’ she said quietly. ‘I learned from my father.’

She saw the muscles of his jaw tighten and she suppressed a smile. She understood Beorhtric himself well enough by now to know that any mention of Offa would stop him in his tracks and remind him that his was now in every sense a client kingdom.

Push and pull. Demand and give. She was working out her own way of controlling him. Before he had time to process her words, she reached for her girdle and began to slip out of her gown. She knew by now he was not a man who could resist the lure of flesh. As he shouted his climax loudly enough to alert the whole hall of his triumph, he would forget any doubts he had about this forceful young woman who was sharing his kingdom and his bed. He would never know that as he mated with her she closed her eyes and, grasping for a modicum of comfort, pictured her dead prince.

It had not been part of the arrangement that Val would arrive a day early at the cottage on Offa’s Ridge, drop the children off and then go. Simon stared at his two offspring in sheer bewilderment, trying to process his wife’s reaction to the cottage, the rain, the mess of papers and books, his own scruffy, unshaven work attire. She, as usual, was immaculate, even in casual clothes, chosen no doubt to look good in her role of elegant, relaxed chauffeur arriving at a country cottage: slimline jeans, designer trainers, expensive sweater that had somehow managed to survive a 150-mile drive uncreased, her ash blond hair as always softly waved, seemingly untouched by the Welsh wind and rain that had assaulted them on their way up the path from the car. He couldn’t help comparing her with Bea in her functional but slightly arty attire, woven tops and dresses, linen trousers, beads and scarves and the little cross she had taken to wearing.

Val’s look of barely disguised dismay registered with him only too painfully. ‘I had already guessed this place would be too small for all of us, Sime, so I made a back-up plan.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’m going to leave the kids with you and then go and stay with the Fords in Worcester. I didn’t think you’d mind. They’ll be revising a lot of the time anyway so you can still work, and you don’t want me kicking around here getting in your way.’ She wandered into the kitchen, which thanks to his landlady was spotless, and he could hear her voice as she talked urgently into her phone. He looked ruefully from his son to his daughter and back. They avoided his gaze, both standing uncomfortably near the front door as though they too might change their minds about spending the Easter holidays with him. Val returned after a full five minutes. ‘OK. That’s fixed. I can do my own thing