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

the services as each day passed, living only for the evenings when her visitor could make his way secretly into her chamber and they could lie in one another’s arms.

They planned to leave in the third week of Lent in order to reach a neighbouring convent in time for Holy Week. Eadburh allowed the younger sisters to pack a travelling trunk and she realised they would have to take an escort of lay brothers from the farm. The abbess making an official visit with her honoured guest could do no less. No matter. They would send the men home when they reached their first destination. She let it be known that after Easter her guest would go on alone towards his distant home. There was no hint that she planned to go with him.

Weeks after the first thaw and only days before they planned to leave they were lying in one another’s arms after making gentle, lingering love, whispering sleepy plans for their future as the firelight died and the room grew dark when the sound of loud persistent knocking echoed through the convent buildings.

They lay there, listening, frozen with horror at the sound of shouting, the clash of swords, the splintering of doors, and then the hurried tramp of feet through the stone passages of the buildings. There was nowhere to hide. Within minutes the abbess’s door burst inwards and the room filled with men. Ignoring her, they dragged Elisedd from her bed.

He flailed out wildly, looking round desperately for something to use as a weapon. His fist closed around a candlestick, but it was struck from his hand and as he was hauled away down the passage and out of her sight she screamed his name once.

‘By the order of the emperor!’ their commander sneered as Eadburh was dragged from the sheets and held, half-naked and sobbing with fear, to stand before him. ‘One of the servants here reported to the sisters her suspicions that you had a lover and they made sure the emperor came to hear of it. He has had you watched. You have betrayed your vows, and shamed your name and that of this convent, and you have dishonoured God. The emperor commands that your lover pay for his sacrilege with his life. As for you, my orders are that you be thrown into the fields. You came here as a queen. You will die naked in the snow. Should you survive the winter blast, you can live as a penniless beggar, grovelling in the backstreets of some lonely city. Do not go crying to the emperor. He will not allow you into his presence. His orders were clear. “She is to be thrown out like the whore she is!”’

She glimpsed the shocked faces of the nuns, brought from their prayers by the commotion and the cold triumphant face of one of her servants, a face strangely familiar, as she was dragged from her chamber, her shift torn from her shoulders, her feet bare, scrabbling wildly on the stone flags as she was pulled helplessly through the long passages and out across the courtyard. There was no sign of Elisedd or of the armed men who had wrestled him away, no sounds of shouting. As her own screams died away, she heard for a brief moment the anguished howl of a dog, swiftly cut short, then the convent fell eerily silent. The men who had seized her hauled her towards the entrance to be pushed out into the slush of the thawing fields.

Behind her, the gates were slammed and she heard the bolts drawn across. As she lay face down in the snow where they had thrown her there was no sound now except for the wail of the icy wind across the plains and her own broken-hearted sobs.

‘Bea? Wake up, sweetheart.’

The arms into which she snuggled were Mark’s. She turned back to see the figure of Eadburh lying in the mud, wearing nothing but her torn shift, her legs and feet bare, her arms scrabbling in the snow at the field’s edge, then darkness closed in over the scene and she was sitting on the bench in the garden with Mark beside her.

‘Don’t cry. It was a dream.’

‘Someone betrayed her. They told Charlemagne that she had a lover and he was furious, or jealous or both, and poor Elisedd was murdered and she was thrown out of the convent to die a beggar.’ Bea clung to him. Mark was wearing his cassock, she realised, with his silver pectoral cross on its black cord around his neck. He must have come straight from church. ‘What time is it?’ she snuffled.

‘After midnight. I’ve been at the hospice.’

She pulled away from him and looked up at his face. ‘Oh, Mark. Was it your friend?’

He nodded. ‘He died a couple of hours ago.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘He was at peace with the world and ready to move on to the next where he would be out of his pain. A brave man.’ He eased her out of his arms and stood up. ‘Are you all right now?’ He held out his hand.

She nodded. ‘It was a very bad dream.’ This was not the time to pour out the horrors of Eadburh’s story. Stiffly she stood up. The garden was cold and very dark as they went back into the kitchen and closed the door on the night and on the anguish of Eadburh lying broken in the melting snow. Bea took a couple of tumblers out of the cupboard and poured him a small shot of whisky, then one for herself.

‘Do you want to talk about Eadburh?’ Mark sat down at the table. Under the bright strip light she could see the strain and exhaustion in his eyes.

‘Not now. She’s waited twelve hundred years to tell her story. She can wait a little longer.’

‘Thank you,’ he whispered. He took a sip from his glass. ‘I think I might go up to bed. We’ll talk about it all tomorrow, I