The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine (books you have to read txt) 📕

today. Val put the fear of God into them about revision and holiday work.’

He was waiting for her outside the pub. After she parked her car on the village green and locked it, she stood still watching him. He was looking distracted, a faraway expression on his face.

‘Penny for them!’

He jumped. ‘I didn’t hear you. Shall we sit outside?’

He went in to buy them drinks and came back with two shandies and a menu. ‘I wanted to tell you in private, without Emma hearing, about something that happened to me.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes. I think I owe you an apology.’

She listened to his account of the wild rider without comment, sipping slowly from her glass, her gaze fixed on his face. His expression was transparent as he explained what had happened and then went into more and more detail. The harness; the sword; the smell of horse; the heat coming from it in the cold of the night air.

‘And the man in the saddle,’ she said at last. ‘Did you see his face?’

‘Not really. It was dark. Wild and dark-haired Celt I would say, rather than helmeted and Saxon blond.’ He grinned.

She had never told him about her own encounter with the horseman.

‘It was Elisedd,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty sure of it. I saw him as well.’

She saw his face blanch. He drew his finger through the condensation running down the outside of his glass without seeming to see it, then at last he looked up. ‘As it happens, I was researching Elisedd just before this happened. Trying to find out if he existed. Really existed. As a historical figure.’

‘I did that too. I couldn’t find him. Did you?’

He saw the sudden twitch of her lips as she suppressed a smile. He shook his head. ‘I haven’t found him as such, but it was obviously a family name. The kings of Powys supposedly traced their pedigree back several hundred years. Handily, it was all carved on a pillar near Llangollen. If he was a younger son, he wouldn’t have necessarily been mentioned in any records.’

‘Or on a pillar.’

‘A pillar dedicated to his namesake, who was probably his great grandfather.’

It was her turn to grin. ‘Perhaps he wanted to prove his existence to you.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘But you think he attacked you.’

‘He was brandishing a sword. But to be fair, he rode straight past me. Perhaps he didn’t know I was there. Perhaps I wasn’t, in his world. If I had to choose, for preference I would opt for your theory that he was only an echo.’ He sighed. ‘It isn’t just Em who needs your help, is it?’ He stood up wearily, gathered up the menus and went in to order their food, leaving Bea lost in thought.

Their plates were delivered to the table as he talked on about his research into the royal family of Powys, about the shadowy details of early Welsh history that had opened up to him, about how the experience had suddenly altered his point of view of the history he was exploring. ‘I have never been in any doubt that Offa was a violent, unprincipled man, but he was a man of his time. I considered his politics and his military strategy, but beyond exploring his daughters’ marriages as part of his master plan, I had not really gone deeply into the human side of his machinations. They don’t really have much place in a history book – there’s too much speculation involved. But now, I’m not sure my approach is the right one.’

She pushed the remains of her salad aside and picking up her glass, turned on her seat to face away from him across the village green. He went on eating, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

‘You know I told you I thought I was dreaming Eadburh’s story,’ she said at last. ‘Elisedd is the missing segment. And this is the bit you can’t put in your book, you’re right. What if they are still searching for one another?’

He pushed his plate aside and leaned forward, his chin supported on his cupped hands. ‘Go on.’

‘That’s it. That is my theory. He went home without his promised bride – if indeed she ever had been promised, which I doubt – and he died on his way home, either by accident or he was murdered. She was sent, much against her will, to Wessex to marry another. When Beorhtric died, at her hand, either deliberately or not, she seems to have been exiled to the court of Charlemagne.’

‘That bit is true and it will be in my book. There isn’t much in history about her fate but Bishop Asser, who wrote a biography of King Alfred in 893, that’s about a hundred years after Offa’s death, tells us what happened to her, or what he had heard happened to her. He was very biased, as you can imagine. He thought she was a thoroughly bad lot.’

She gave a wry smile. ‘He wasn’t entirely wrong. She did poison her husband.’

‘Even Asser says that was a mistake. Which makes sense. To be a queen was about as good as it gets.’

‘Until your husband dies.’

‘So you wouldn’t kill him, would you?’ He thought for a moment. ‘You said you were following her story. How far have you got?’

‘After Beorhtric died she seems to have been deported. Sent to France. In my dream I saw her almost literally loaded into a sedan chair type thing after she was separated from her little girl, and sent on her way. But they didn’t send her penniless. She had a huge train of ox-carts which I gathered were full of treasure. Her dowry, I think it was said, which she was allowed to take with her.’

‘Who sent her? You said “they” sent her.’

‘A chap called Wigfrith. One of Beorhtric’s senior advisers, I assume. And his henchmen. They didn’t use force, but I got the feeling that they would have if she had protested.’

‘Wigfrith?’ Simon murmured. He groped in his pocket for a notebook. ‘My