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

with a track winding through desolate hills down towards a shallow river valley and there was a church there, more than a church, a community of buildings, stone-built, roofed with thatch, a broad river nearby. She noted the cross on the roof of the church, the busy community of men and women coming and going about their work, a monk wandering between them on his way to church or into one of the other buildings. There were old yew trees in the churchyard, signs that it was an ancient holy site.

The girl was moving forward, but she was still frightened, not sure of her welcome, creeping closer under cover of the trees.

Sandra probed gently. ‘Who are you looking for?’

The girl was startled, looking round. ‘Elisedd. I’m looking for Elisedd. Bea? Is that you?’

So, she was accustomed to Beatrice being there beside her in her head.

‘Of course.’ Sandra smiled. ‘I want to help you, Emma.’

‘You don’t sound like Bea.’ The girl was raising a boundary wall. She was suspicious and she had been well taught.

‘I’m your friend, Emma. I can take you to Elisedd.’

‘Why are you calling me Emma?’ Now she was bristling with indignation.

‘What should I call you?’

‘Eadburh.’ She pronounced it Edba. ‘I’ve come to look for him. I’ve travelled so very far to find him.’

‘Then let’s go in together.’ Without even realising she had done it, Sandra held out her hand over the cards.

Emma flinched. ‘Don’t touch me!’

‘I won’t touch you.’ Sandra withdrew her hand. ‘Is Elisedd in the church?’

‘Elisedd is dead!’

Sandra felt a prickle of fear. ‘What makes you think he’s dead?’

Emma whirled round. ‘Because I killed him! Because I have brought him nothing but misery! Because I have spent a hundred lifetimes looking for him to beg his forgiveness. His death was my fault and mine alone. I need you to go. You’re not Bea. Why are you interfering? Why are you spying on me? You are not wanted here.’ Her eyes were boring into Sandra’s skull. The transition had happened. Emma had gone. The eyes were blue. Eadburh’s eyes.

In Hereford Sandra groaned with frustration after her initial shout of triumph. She sighed. Then she drew back, turning sharply away. She shuffled the cards together in front of her. When she opened her eyes again, Eadburh was still there. She was dressed in a long gown, with a mantle of black wool, a white scarf around her hair, a carved wooden cross hanging on a cord around her neck. A nun.

A nun with a knife in her hand and vicious fury on her face. She was no longer a girl of seventeen, she was a woman in her fifties, strong, experienced, tired of life and very angry.

45

Bea was seated towards the back of St Tysilio’s church in Meifod, beside a pillar in the darkest corner she could find. She was watching Eadburh as she boarded a small trading vessel anchored off the fishing port of Wissant. Still accompanied by the boy Theo and by her great dog, she was with a band of pilgrims, most of whom had made the long arduous journey to Rome and were now returning home, following the ancient pilgrim route, the Iter Francorum, so named, her companions had told her, by an ancient bishop called Wilibald who had written about his own journey a hundred years before. She had joined them at a pilgrim hostel in the town of Besançon. No one had recognised her, no one had bothered her unduly and now, so many exhausting miles later, she was within sight of the sea. She had decided that after they made landfall she would continue to travel with the group as far as their destination, which was Canterbury. Once there, she would work out where to go next. She had no wish to go back to Wessex or to Mercia. She had thought often about Wessex on her long journey west, and about her little daughter, but the child would be much older now, no doubt having been fed innumerable lies about her mother, and perhaps resigned to a life in God’s house. The risk of being recognised if she went in search of her daughter was too great. The remaining choices were stark; she had already discounted journeying to find her sister Alfrida at Crowland in the far away Fens, or travelling north in the hope that Ethelfled was still alive. If she was, she too would no doubt be an abbess, probably in some remote abbey on a rugged coast facing across a hostile sea. Perhaps some of her travelling companions were planning to go further once they had visited the shrine of St Augustine and she could go with them. Life on the road as a pilgrim was not unpleasant. Thieves and footpads tended to leave them alone, knowing they would be unlikely to be wealthy, on foot as they were, and for the most part dressed in near rags. They were cordial to one another and she had even forged a cautious friendship with one or two other women in the party.

There was one choice left. To make her way in disguise across the kingdom of Mercia, avoiding the court, avoiding anyone who might have a remote memory of King Offa’s daughter, travelling on towards the western stars that still called her incessantly. To Powys. To the land Elisedd had loved so much, to see if she could find his ghost.

Bea watched their journey across the choppy sea, their landfall beneath the white cliffs and the last leg of their journey towards the cathedral, disjointed scenes from Eadburh’s dreams. She saw her walk with her friend, Freda, up the aisle of the cathedral, followed by Theo and Ava, still there in her wake, and give thanks before the shrine of St Augustine at the end of the journey for God’s protection and deliverance before she and Freda hugged and kissed goodbye. How strange, Bea found herself thinking. She had seen Eadburh show