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

She slept and the scene changed. She was once more at the court of Offa at Sutton. It was daylight. Eadburh’s confidante, Hilde, had slipped outside and in the queen’s herb garden the flowers were alive with bees. There was a basket on her arm, pruning shears lying amidst a scatter of cuttings, but she wasn’t looking at the plants, her eyes were fixed on the gate in the palisade which opened onto a path through the orchard that led to the river. She had to hurry. There were bees everywhere, their hum urgent beneath the song of the blackbird high in the apple blossom behind the hedge. There was no one else in sight. The bell had rung for the meal in the hall and everyone from the king down to the lowest serf was there awaiting the feast. Almost everyone. She had seen Grimbert slip out of the hall after a barely perceptible nod from the queen. She had seen his secret smile,

Their trysting place was down on the riverbank hidden by a stand of alder trees. Grimbert spread his cloak on the ground and sat down, waiting, watching a kingfisher perched on the stump of a fallen willow as it peered down into the water. The water played its part, rippling, flickering, mesmerising. Still the queen did not come. Grimbert lay back, his arm over his eyes against the sunlight as it danced through the pale green leaves of the willow. A bee buzzed near his face and he brushed it away, sending it veering angrily into the air. Another bee joined it and they homed in on a patch of dandelions near his head.

Bea’s dream shifted back to the great hall. She watched as the queen leaned over to whisper to Offa and saw his nod, the flash of anger in his eyes followed by the slightest of shrugs as his wife stood up and left the table to slip through the curtain into the private area behind.

Hilde crept closer. She had anointed her wrists with the essence of rose favoured by the queen. When Grimbert smelt it, he smiled.

The agonising pain in his ear made him lash out, but the poison was instant. When they found his body there was a dead bee lying on his chest.

Hilde slipped back into the banquet and took her place amongst the queen’s ladies. If she had been missed, she would have used an urgent trip to the latrines as an excuse, but no one had noticed her absence and no one had noticed that Grimbert had gone. When the queen returned to the hall, white and trembling, some time later, Hilde suppressed a smile. She knew the queen could make no fuss, raise no alarm, for how could she explain what she was doing down there on the bank of the river when she should have been by the king’s side at his feast?

Hilde stayed several more days at the court – to have hurried away too soon in the uproar and mourning after Grimbert’s untimely death and the queen’s furious grief might have roused suspicion – then she went on her way. But this time she was alone and on foot, her escort sent back to Wessex, while she took the road north and then west towards the cloud-shrouded mountains and deep valleys and passes of Powys on the second part of her quest.

‘Jane?’ Simon struggled to place the woman’s voice on the other end of the phone line.

‘Jane Luxton. From the cathedral library.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry.’

‘Listen, I’ve persuaded Kate and Phil to let me bring the chronicle, the folio, and one or two other books in their collection here to the cathedral where they can be stored in our underground archive. We have temperature and humidity control here, and our conservator can have a look at them. I’ve also had a word with an expert from the Bodleian, who has promised to come over and advise us. After that, it will probably be a valuation by Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Kate thought you might like a heads-up. One last chance to see your chronicle before we lock it away.’

‘Yes. Please.’ Simon didn’t need to think about it.

‘It will have to be today, I’m afraid.’

He glanced at Felix, who was once more at the keyboard. Emma hadn’t surfaced yet. He had left a cup of tea by her bedside an hour ago and stood beside her looking down with a strange feeling of tenderness such as he didn’t recall feeling since she was a toddler with golden curls and huge dark blue eyes. ‘No problem. I’ll be there.’

‘Let Kate know you’re coming.’

It was a no-brainer that he would take Emma and Felix. They should both have been studying, but he didn’t think that was going to happen and he didn’t want to leave them alone. It would be good to get them out of the cottage for a few hours. He left a message on Bea’s phone before they left. ‘I thought a change of scene might be in order. Can we talk tomorrow instead?’

They were a little subdued as he retraced his carefully memorised route, but the long winding drive and the overgrown parking space with its mossy gravel in front of the ancient house woke them up. They sat in stunned silence as he drew up and put on the handbrake. ‘This is well cool, Dad,’ Felix breathed at last.

‘Sleeping Beauty’s palace,’ Emma whispered.

Simon climbed out of the car. ‘Come and meet Kate and Phil.’

‘Let me take some pictures, Dad. My phone has a much better camera than your old thing. I reckon we could do even better than the ones you’ve taken,’ Felix announced when his father queried the need for more pictures as they gathered upstairs in front of the long table and as his father turned the pages of the ancient book with a careful hand while his son took a fresh sequence of photos. It was as they were finishing that Emma