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

‘Did you see the ghost?’ The old man addressed Emma with a twinkle in his eye. ‘It takes some people like that. There is a ghost of a cavalier who was killed by the roundheads in the church tower, but if you were in the church itself, then you saw the ghost of our young king. If you saw him, it’s a blessing, my dear. More than a blessing; you will never go blind, so they say.’

‘Your young king?’ Emma repeated shakily.

‘King Ethelbert. His holy well is in the church. Did you see it? In the vestry? It’s here by the river the great man was murdered, and they buried him in secret. But his ghost appeared and Offa, who was king in this part of the world, was forced to go on his knees to the Pope of Rome to ask for forgiveness. Then the pope made Ethelbert a saint. This is a doubly sacred place. You’ve no reason to be afraid. They had to dig him up to give him a proper burial, and when they took his body away on a cart to Hereford, his head, that had been cut off, fell off the cart and bounced across the road, and it hit a blind man who could immediately see again.’ He had obviously told this story before and was thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘See the two stone heads, one on either side of the porch door over there? That’s King Ethelbert and the pope.’

‘It wasn’t a man,’ Emma said when the old man finally stopped talking. ‘It was a boy. Like my brother.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘So why,’ Felix put in at last, ‘is the church not dedicated to St Ethelbert? Like the cathedral?’

‘Because the Pope of Rome told King Offa to dedicate it to the Blessed Virgin Mary.’ The old man was back on track. ‘She keeps a special eye on our Border March, you see. She’s even come over here, you know, from heaven, over there into the Black Mountains, to make sure we were all right.’ He waved his arm vaguely towards the west. ‘You’ll find an inordinate number of churches in the March dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.’

‘My sister heard a bell as well,’ Felix went on.

The old man looked impressed. ‘Ah, that’s a whole ’nother story. We have lots of stories here. That’s the mermaid’s bell. It fell off the tower and she dragged it down into the depths of the River Lugg here, and she lives in it, so they say. And there’s another bell, the pilgrim’s bell. They found that one in the river and all. That’s in the museum in Hereford.’

He sighed. ‘I’ve got to go. You go back inside, my dear, and say a prayer for the soul of our king. He didn’t mean you to be afeared of him.’

They watched as the old man plodded back to his wheelbarrow, collected a thermos from under a yew tree and trundled his way slowly out of sight.

‘Do you think he was a ghost?’ Felix said after a moment or two.

‘I think it’s time we went home,’ Simon said firmly.

‘No.’ Emma bit her lip, then she went on. ‘He’s right. I should go in and say a prayer.’

‘You don’t pray!’ Felix sounded incredulous.

‘Maybe I should.’ She glared at him.

Emma pulled off her father’s jacket and, pushing it into his arms, headed back towards the path to the church door. Pushing it open, she peered in.

Behind her, Simon caught Felix’s arm and held him back. ‘Let her do it alone,’ he whispered.

Emma stood close inside the door and held her breath. The church was empty and quiet. ‘Are you there?’ she whispered. There was no reply.

She forced herself to walk past the spot where the figure had stood, moving steadily up the central aisle towards the altar.

She stood still for a long time, her eyes closed, trying to form a prayer, but she didn’t know how, or what to say, and at last she turned away.

Simon and Felix had come in quietly after her and were seated side by side in the back pew.

‘I want to light a candle for him. There aren’t any here.’

Simon stood up. ‘We could do that at the cathedral. They have a shrine to St Ethelbert there. Why don’t we go there tomorrow.’

And perhaps tomorrow he could contact Bea or her husband to ask what to do about a teenage daughter who had seen a ghost. Not the ghost of the powerful king she had expected to see, but the ghost of the teenager from East Anglia who had been lured to Mercia on the promise of a royal marriage, who had been treacherously murdered and at whose shrine Emma now wanted to light a candle.

18

The magic had worked. At last, after two miscarriages of the sons her husband longed for, Eadburh had conceived again and carried a child to term. It was a girl. She gazed down at the little thing, lying in its crib, and saw to her dismay in the wide dark eyes an echo of her husband. Although she knew Beorhtric was disappointed it was not a boy she smiled. Nothing would spoil her sense of triumph. This was her child and she would no longer feel so alone. She named her Eathswith.

For a while she was content. Her dreams of Elisedd had faded, and with them her plans to avenge his death. She only thought occasionally about Elisedd’s baby, whom she still pictured as a little boy, and with him the two lost children that had followed him into the dark. As Nesta had advised she had prayed for each child in turn, promised each her love, kissed each on the forehead in her dreams and pushed them gently away, back into the world of spirits.

She scarcely thought about her family at all. Her sisters seemed content with their lot and she seldom heard from them, Ethelfled in faraway Northumbria and Alfrida, as far as