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

She reached over to the stack of books on the dresser and found the local road map.

The Iron Age hill fort at Sutton Walls, one of the places Simon had mentioned, was five and a half miles to the north of Hereford. She stared at the page for several seconds then dropped the book and reached for her iPad. There were several mentions on line of Offa’s missing Herefordshire palace and its possible location. She smiled to herself as she swiped her way slowly through the various entries. That long hill she had seen through the door of the herb room was the right shape for a hill fort. The palace, busy and fortified as it was, had been on the flat land below it, where she had seen Eadburh and her Welsh prince riding through lush meadowland in the bend of a gently meandering river towards the line of higher ground. She traced the line of the River Lugg with her finger on the map, then found the dotted line of Offa’s Dyke, following it as it veered westwards across the contour lines towards the trig point on Offa’s Ridge, and realised her hands were shaking. It was at least twenty miles away, but do-able on a horse, surely?

Twenty minutes later she was back in the attic, sitting in candlelight, nervously holding the stone once more between her hands. Performing her protective rituals, surrounding herself with light and love and muttering her prayer, she emptied her mind to connect with the story again.

She awoke much later as the candle flickered and burned out, leaving her huddled on her cushion in the dark. The cathedral clock was striking midnight. It hadn’t worked. There had been no dream, no vision of the past. Nothing but deep exhausted sleep.

‘I wanted to thank you. You seem to have fixed my ghost.’ Simon rang shortly after nine the next morning, minutes after Mark had left the house with a folder of notes for his finance committee. Bea was standing in her attic, staring out of the window as she held the phone to her ear. ‘I’m not sure what you did, but I haven’t had a peep out of her since you were here.’ He sounded cheery. ‘She seems to have decided to leave me in peace. I wanted to catch you before you left to let you know and save you a wasted journey. I got a lot of work done last night, thanks to you.’

His words took her aback. It had never occurred to her that Simon might not want to continue the hunt for the voice.

‘I’m so pleased,’ she said, a reflexive polite response, her voice flat. ‘But to be honest, I didn’t do anything.’

He laughed. ‘Perhaps she realised she had met her match. Or perhaps you showed her there was nothing here for her. Next time I’m in Hereford, let me buy you a coffee to say thank you.’

Bea gave a rueful smile. ‘I would like that. And do contact me if she does return.’

As she switched off the phone and tossed it down onto the windowsill she felt completely deflated.

The stone was lying where she had left it the night before on the sill, next to the phone. Picking it up, she held it thoughtfully, feeling it grow warm between her palms. ‘So, have you really gone away?’ she murmured. She felt a prickle of excitement as her vivid memory of the women gossiping came back to her, the sorting of herbs, the strong smells of plants, and sawn wood and something else, something indefinable, in the room where they were standing.

Were they haunting the cottage? She realised she wanted to know the answer to that question incredibly badly.

Deep in thought, she walked away from the window. There could be no harm in trying again, surely. She didn’t need Simon’s permission, after all, to pursue her enquiry. If it worked, she could at least identify the place. The people. Find out if this was more than a dream, and if so, why the owner of the voice was anchored in this world. Mark need never know. She would tell him later that Simon had called off the investigation, which would be true, but meanwhile, the house was quiet, no one was going to disturb her; she had to try one more time to find out what happened next.

The direction the great dyke was to follow was marked out with stakes. To the north the line it followed was clear, near completion, the earth still raw, the deep groove across the land topped to the eastern side by a high bank. Behind them the vast encampments of the workers sprawled through the fields and woods, the neater offices and tents of the supervisors and the king’s surveyors in a cluster a short way beyond. Here and there as far as the southern horizon smoke still rose from the systematic burning off of brushwood to clear each section as the next area of work began.

‘So, does it meet with your approval?’ Eadburh turned to the prince, who was standing near her, his eyes narrowed as he gazed at the massive earthwork.

‘It hardly matters if I approve,’ he commented quietly. ‘As long as it follows the planned route. My father’s surveyors and yours have agreed the detail.’

‘And it allows your people some rich areas of good border land,’ she reminded him.

He nodded. ‘It seems the great Offa is tired of being defeated by the armies of Powys.’

‘Or that the armies of Powys are defeated, once and for all,’ she retorted.

They were both squinting into the setting sun. Glancing across at him when he didn’t reply to her barb, she saw he was smiling. Months earlier a raiding army had ridden out of the night to burn some farmsteads near Hereford, threatening yet again its monastery and its minster, and a furious Offa had come south in person with his war band