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

capable of cold-bloodedly planning murder. Life had not been kind to her; she had lost the man she loved, she had been forced to abort his baby, she had found herself in a land of strangers with a man she could never love as a husband, and given birth to his child who, though she played with her now and then with what appeared to be an offhand sense of duty, was being brought up by nurses, as had happened presumably in royal households everywhere for generation after generation. Her relationship with her own parents had veered from distant to outright hostility, and now she was planning to murder her mother’s lover, a mother who had orchestrated the slaying of her daughter’s intended. Her life had been a Shakespearean tragedy. She was impossible to like, and yet Bea found she could not look away. Was this obsession? Maybe. But she had it under control and she needed to know what happened next. And she wanted to talk to Nesta again.

Slowly and carefully she picked up her stone and closed her eyes.

Eadburh sent Hilde with the king’s messenger back to her father’s court at Sutton. The messenger carried letters for Offa and for Cynefryth, respectful greetings from their dutiful daughter in Wessex with no comments or questions about Alfrida’s fate. And for her sister herself Hilde carried a private, more impassioned missive, begging her not to go, though Eadburh knew deep in her heart as she was writing it that it was probably too late. By the time Hilde arrived Alfrida would be long gone. Hilde carried something else as well. Sewn into the hem of her gown were two tiny hidden packets, and these were secret.

Bea settled back on her cushion, watching Hilde riding through the summer countryside with a small escort of warriors from Beorhtric’s personal bodyguard, staying at night in the guest houses of monasteries and convents as she rode steadily northwards over the Wessex border into the kingdom of Mercia and back to the court of the king at Sutton.

She delivered the letter to the queen at last, and greeted the women who had been her friends in the household of the princesses and who now served their mother, and she settled in to gossip and exchange news. The second letter, to Alfrida, she burned as instructed when she learned that Alfrida had left the court at dead of night, only three days after her betrothed had been killed. Her tears and anger had swept through the king’s hall like a raging fire, according to the women who had witnessed her grief. They made no mention of accusations or blame, and only spoke of unknown outlaws who had attacked in the night and who had never been caught. They all knew where Alfrida had gone – to the heart of the kingdom of which she should have been queen, to the lonely abbey at a place called Crowland, on a fearsome lonely marsh deep in the reeds, under a huge unrelenting sky amongst the birds and otters and beavers, and there she had dedicated her life to God. Her father had not dared send after her.

As Hilde sat with her companions by the fire in the great hall of the king late in the evening, her gaze passed thoughtfully over the assembled company. Queen Cynefryth was seated a little apart, a man at her side, a tall good-looking man, richly attired with gold buckles and armlets, a man some fifteen years or more younger than the king. The man was leaning towards her, his eyes fixed on her face, a little too close beside her for propriety.

‘Who is that with the queen?’ she whispered to the woman seated next to her, who was lost in thought, toying with her spindle. The woman raised her eyes briefly and Hilde saw her eyebrow rise, merely a flicker. ‘Grimbert. He is the queen’s adviser. He oversees the lands and rents of the convents of which she is benefactor.’ The woman bent back to her spindle, wrenching a hank of soft sheep’s wool from her distaff, her fingers tightening momentarily on the frail thread until it broke.

‘And the king allows this?’ Hilde’s murmur was barely audible.

‘The king is preoccupied with his penance from the pope. He pores over plans to build a new church over the holy well that sprang from the ground where the body of the boy was first hidden. He sees nothing and says nothing.’

Hilde watched the queen in silence, surprised that her companion dared speak out so frankly. Her eyes strayed to the king, a strong man still, though in his sixties now, his grizzled hair and weathered skin belying the intense force of his eyes. ‘And the king’s son?’

‘Ecgfrith is seldom here. He keeps his own household at Tamworth, so we hear. He does not frequent his mother’s presence.’

Hilde stared at her, again startled to hear such frank speech. Cautiously she turned back to the couple sitting there so brazenly near the king. Cynefryth was still very beautiful. Her hair, long and heavy, streaked now with silver, was only partially covered by her headrail which was held in place by a coronet of enamelled gold set with amethysts. Her face was unlined, her eyes fixed on the face of the man next to her, but the hardness was still there. Hilde remembered how the queen had treated Eadburh, how she had had Brona killed – the women all guessed it, though nothing had ever been proved or even hinted at. She was a vicious, dangerous woman and nothing and no one, not even her husband, could ever control her. Hilde smiled a little to herself. Only, perhaps, another equally dangerous woman. She could feel the slight weight of the two little pouches in her hem dragging on the rushes of the floor, and she turned away from the queen and Grimbert. She had been told to wait for the bees.

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