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

knew about Eadburh’s pregnancy and had probably helped concoct the mixture that had led to the miscarriage, though Eadburh had no doubt in her own mind that the idea and that particular charm had been entirely of her mother’s making. Eadburh beckoned her away from the throng and led the way through the palisade and out into the gardens.

‘I need your special help.’ She held Nesta’s gaze, expecting her to look away. She didn’t. ‘I need certain medicinal plants I don’t see growing here.’ Her glance swept the windblown herb beds. ‘And charms I don’t know myself. I need to have a child.’

‘There can be no child as long as your womb is elfshot.’ The woman stated it as a fact.

Eadburh took a step back. She had not expected such frankness.

‘I can give you charms to help you conceive and we will make a potion to make your woman’s parts soften to your husband. At present the spirit of your dead child fights for its place in your affections. It must not be allowed to win.’ The woman was taller than Eadburh and older by at least a dozen years. For the first time in her life, Eadburh could feel another’s power reducing her to obedience. This was, she realised with sudden apprehension, someone stronger even than her mother. She felt a shiver of fear. ‘You speak nonsense! What dead child?’ She pulled her veil round her face.

‘The child I see clinging to your spirit shield, begging to be let in.’

Eadburh staggered back a step, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You lie!’

‘You loved it and you wanted it; you knew what your mother’s potion would do and you still drank it. You killed the child in your womb. You must send it on its way with your blessing. Every woman has love enough for dead children as well as living.’ The woman’s eyes softened momentarily, then they were once more cold and calculating. ‘I will give you what you need. Follow me.’

Nesta’s workroom was on the far side of the palace grounds, a small wooden hut with a sturdy roof. Around it she had planted a new garden of herbs, surrounded by a wattle fence to protect it from the weather. She pulled open the gate and led the way in. ‘These plants are more sheltered in here. They are grown with the blessing of the sun and rain. If we walk the path together, I will sense what you need and pick them for you when the moon and stars are in the right places in the firmament.’ She turned sharply, so she and Eadburh were face to face, no more than a foot apart. ‘Once this magic is in train you will not be able to step back from it. You are certain you want a child by Beorhtric?’

‘Of course.’ Eadburh’s mouth was dry. ‘He is my husband.’

‘By treaty, maybe, and by the blessing of a Christian bishop, but you do not love him in your heart and the stars decree you are destined to be his downfall.’

Eadburh looked at her askance. For a moment she couldn’t speak. ‘You know nothing,’ she said at last. ‘My father sent me here to seal an alliance between our kingdoms. For our marriage to be blessed, I need a son.’

Nesta grunted. ‘Then you must put aside your love for another. If you are eaten with grief and the need for revenge, there is no place for a new soul to come in.’ She walked on and stopped again, facing the line of carefully tended plants. ‘You know your herbs. You know as well as I do what is needed to make you conceive. Send your women away.’

‘What women?’ Eadburh turned in time to see Hilde and two other ladies standing uncertainly by the gate. They had followed her from the king’s hall. One angry command from her and they fled.

‘You will need to know who are your friends in this country,’ Nesta commented tartly. ‘That is, after all, why you insisted that Hilde and I accompany you to Wessex. You are sleepwalking, queen, and what you require of me is dangerous. Take care.’ She stooped and picked a sprig of mugwort. ‘Tuck this into your gown and I will give you a pouch of fern seed. It will hide you and your thoughts from those sent to spy on you by your husband. He uses guile with you, but you can use a far more powerful magic against him.’ She gave a grim smile. ‘Ideally, we need a stone from a lapwing’s nest to hide you from him, but for now this will do.’

Eadburh held out her hand for the leaves. ‘You serve the old gods,’ she said flatly. ‘But so do many. Their ways are strong and their magic works. Do you want a reward of gold for this special service?’

She saw the look of disdain on the woman’s face, but her words contradicted her expression. ‘We all want gold, lady.’

‘Then you shall have it.’ She hesitated as she tucked the herb into her bodice. ‘Where did you learn your craft, Nesta? I suspect your magic is stronger even than my mother’s.’

‘My family came from the forest.’ The woman seemed to feel that was answer enough. Eadburh looked past her, peering into the dark shadow beyond the palace’s wooden ramparts that signalled the miles of wildwood with its lonely empty tracks and hidden patches of moorland, forest that stretched east and northwards, unbroken as far as Mercia and beyond. She shivered. Turning away, she walked slowly back to the gate. As she let herself out of the herb garden she glanced round, the wind catching her veil, her eyes narrowed in the sunlight.

Bea jumped back out of the way, feeling herself brush against a bush of rosemary by the gate.

For several seconds Eadburh paused, and as her gaze hardened, Bea felt herself grow cold. ‘So, you watch me still.’ She was speaking directly to her. ‘You are not my husband’s