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

never mentioned again in the record. My next book will be about Northumbria so I might know more when I’ve written my next bunch of ghosts.’ He grinned. ‘Poor woman. I rather hope she retired to a convent. That was the best hope for redundant women. As long as she wasn’t pregnant and therefore the potential mother of a potential threat, she would probably have been OK. I think if she had been murdered too, we would have heard about it.’ He sounded shockingly offhand.

‘And then there was Eadburh.’ Bea kept her voice neutral.

He laughed. ‘Ah, now she was quite a player. Rather more feisty than her sisters, although Ethelbert’s intended certainly raised two fingers at her father by escaping to the convent at Crowland and having herself walled up.’

‘I need to know about Eadburh.’ Bea wasn’t interested at this moment in the sister in Crowland.

‘She married the King of Wessex. Don’t forget, I’ve already written my book about Wessex. I rented a cottage in the New Forest to write that one, but I was not haunted by Eadburh, something for which I am heartily glad.’ He gave a theatrical shudder. ‘You know we discussed the manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle over at Coedmawr?’

She nodded.

‘She is mentioned there. It’s a local copy. Hereford. And history knows a lot more about Eadburh than about her sisters. She wasn’t a lady to mess with. She—’

‘No! Don’t tell me any more!’ Bea wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but she genuinely didn’t want to know the cold historical version. Not yet. Not until, not unless, she had heard it first from Eadburh in person.

Simon laughed. ‘OK. Well, if you do want to find out I’ll give you a copy of my Wessex book; the source of much of our information about her is King Alfred’s biographer Asser, who was a gossipy old Welsh monk writing at the end of the ninth century, so both he and the chronicler at Coedmawr were writing pretty much within living memory of her.’

‘Just one question.’ Bea couldn’t resist asking. ‘She never married a son of the King of Powys, did she?’

‘Good Lord, no! What makes you ask that? Why are you so interested in her all of a sudden?’

Bea shook her head. ‘A dream.’

‘Yours or Emma’s?’

‘Both.’

‘Both?’ He looked startled. ‘You’re both dreaming about her?’

She nodded. ‘And that’s why I’m worried. Eadburh is too strong a presence in this story.’

‘Ah.’ Simon looked at her thoughtfully. ‘And you would be inclined to believe your and Emma’s dreams rather than the historical record?’

‘I’d rather Emma didn’t dream about her at all, to be honest. She’s too involved. Too open. Too exposed to danger.’

‘Danger?’

‘Not if we protect her, Simon.’ She wished she hadn’t used the word. ‘I have told her how to keep safe, and if she has you and Felix to watch over her, she’ll be all right.’

‘That’s a relief.’ He frowned. ‘And in your dreams, yours and hers, Eadburh married a Welsh prince?’

‘No. At least I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know what happened. Yet.’ She grimaced. ‘Watch this space.’

‘Well, let me know. There is a whole ’nother book in that theory.’ He reached for the door handle. ‘I must go and collect our fish and chips. You don’t want to join us for supper?’

‘Thank you, no. I must get back to Mark.’

‘Does he approve of all this? Genuinely believe in it?’ He bent down to look back into the car.

She sighed. ‘Yes, he does. There is a ministry of deliverance within the Church. Ghosts and demons are a recognised problem.’

‘Well, if I had to choose, I would categorise Eadburh as part of the demon department,’ Simon said cheerfully. He stood up. ‘Look after yourself. What was it my Scots grandmother used to say: “Frae’ ghoulies and ghosties, and things that go bump in the night, the good Lord deliver us!”’ He pushed the door closed.

She watched as he loped across the car park. ‘You forgot the long-leggity beasties,’ she whispered. ‘But I always thought that meant spiders.’

Bea was sitting on the sofa in the snug, ostensibly watching TV but with the sound turned down. Mark was in his study working on a sermon. She knew he was worrying about her and about Emma. He had told her he had prayed for them both, but he had said it with an apologetic grin, as if expecting her to upbraid him for his interference.

Giving up the pretence of watching the screen, she turned it off and lay back, her eyes closed. Offa had told Eadburh that Elisedd was dead. Murdered, presumably like anyone else who got in his way. But if a Welsh prince had been murdered, surely there would have been repercussions. His father would have attacked Offa, dyke or no dyke. But then she remembered, he had. In the year 796, the year Offa died.

‘Want a hot drink?’ Mark appeared in the doorway, his pen still in his hand. He looked exhausted. She had learnt not to enquire about his cathedral work, it was all too complicated. When he had been a parish priest their life had involved the warp and weft of the parish and she had been a part of it, but here it was so different. It not only involved the cathedral and its work as a pastoral centre, but in his case it was his job to oversee the finances, a huge and never-ending burden. Raise money. Apply for grants. Supervise the budgets. And on top of all that her unsought conflict with Sandra was not helping. She scrambled to her feet and followed him through to the kitchen. ‘Has she been at the dean again?’

He grinned. He didn’t have to ask who she meant. ‘Not as far as I know.’

‘She followed me out to Marden. At least, I’m pretty sure it was her. While I was talking to Emma and trying to reassure her, there was someone creeping round the church, hiding in the pulpit! I don’t know what kind