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

‘What did Mark say about all this?’ Heather asked cautiously.

‘He was upset,’ Bea admitted. ‘He wanted to believe it was a nightmare. Then he asked me if I could stop it happening. I told him I could.’

The morning went well. Simon drove the kids to the small town of Knighton where they explored the Offa’s Dyke Centre, followed the path along the River Teme, standing with huge embarrassment at the appointed place on the national border, with one foot in England and one in Wales, for a photo for their mother, and then walked a surprisingly long way along the footpath before returning to Knighton to devour a huge lunch and supervise the shopping at the local supermarket. By the time they got back to the cottage, both children were suffering from phone withdrawal symptoms, but to Simon’s delight, while Emma retired to the garden to sit in the sun and catch up with her friends online – not revising, he noticed – Felix, having looked up some links, pocketed his own phone and headed for his father’s laptop and the photos of the chronicle. It appeared he had been thinking all morning about the task of enhancing those blank pages.

Simon watched over the boy’s shoulder, holding his breath as he saw the texture of the vellum on the first page swimming into focus on the screen, the tiny dots where the scribe had pricked guidelines on the page before beginning to write, and then there it was: a page of text, faint but just about readable. ‘I looked up the inks they used,’ Felix muttered. ‘Some of them bonded with the skins and are much more durable than others. I think you’re in luck here, Dad.’ He looked up at his father, trying to hide the triumph in his eyes. ‘The guy tried to scrape it off, but the marks are indelible. Shall I spell it out for you?’

Simon was aching to get back to his chair in front of the screen, but he sensed this was something he needed to allow Felix to do. He reached for his notebook and nodded. ‘Your eyes are better than mine. Spell away.’

There was a long silence, then Felix pushed back his chair. ‘I can’t read it. The letters are all different. It’s in Anglo-Saxon.’

‘Old English,’ Simon automatically corrected him. ‘But I will still need your help. Perhaps, if I get stuck, you can draw the letters out for me.’

Between them they began to decipher the story.

In the year 793 the heathen raided the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne and slaughtered those monks who could not flee, much to the distress of King Ethelred, newly married to Ethelfled, daughter of our king. In her terror and weakness, the lady miscarried of a son.

‘Weakness!’ Emma looked up indignantly from her phone. Obviously she had been listening with half an ear. ‘The woman had witnessed a massacre!’

‘Or at least heard about it from men who were there. I’m afraid monks didn’t have much time for women,’ her father replied. ‘And he is writing as a historian.’

‘Historians being famously insensitive.’ His daughter’s muttered retort did not register with Simon, who hadn’t raised his eyes from the screen.

The following year Offa the king promised his daughter Alfrida to Ethelbert, King of East Anglia. When Ethelbert came here to collect his bride, Cynefryth the queen was consumed with jealousy that her daughter should be wed to such a godly man, and at her command Ethelbert was foully done to death, his head struck from his body …

‘Wow, Dad! This is awesome! He was murdered!’ Felix was leaning over his father’s shoulder as Simon read the words out loud.

‘It’s a well-known story.’ Simon’s eyes were fixed on the screen. ‘But this is special. This is written by someone local and it gives a motive, or at least what the local gossip gave as a motive for the murder.’

By the Grace of God, Ethelbert wrought miracles wheresoever his head lay and it was borne at last here to the priory of St Guthlac and hence on to the minster …

He looked up. ‘Do you know the most important word on this page? It’s “here”. This chronicle was written in Hereford!’ He could barely contain his excitement. ‘You’re a genius, Felix! And now the end date of the last entry in this particular chronicle, 1055, makes sense. It was the year the Welsh invaded Mercia yet again.’

‘So, Offa’s Dyke didn’t work?’ Felix stared at the screen, fascinated.

‘No, it didn’t. In that splodge of ink at the end, Felix, if I’m right, perhaps you can see history happening.’

‘Can we go and see where it all happened?’ Emma looked up again. It appeared she had been listening after all. ‘Like the murder of the king. I’d like to see where the miracles took place.’

Simon nodded. ‘Let me find my book about the history of Hereford. I believe the modern hospital is built on the site of the old priory, so there’s nothing to see now. But we can go to the place where, according to legend, Ethelbert was murdered; a sacred spring was said to have gushed up from the ground after he was killed, and they built a church on the site. Then we can go to Hereford itself to see the cathedral which is dedicated to him – because obviously he became a saint and there is a holy well there somewhere dedicated to him which we can see.’

‘What did they do with his head? How gross!’

‘According to the records, it was eventually taken to Westminster.’

‘Why?’

Simon looked up at his children and beamed. ‘Why don’t we try and find out.’

Emma went back to her phone with a sigh then she looked up again with a shiver. ‘There is the most awful draught in here,’ she complained loudly. ‘When are we going to get supper?’

Simon looked up. He hadn’t noticed that it was already growing dark outside. ‘Now,’ he replied, reluctantly closing the laptop. ‘We can go on