The Dream Weavers

by Barbara Erskine

  Eadburh shivered miserably as a cold breeze blew across the garden. She knew what her mother would use. Pennyroyal and rue, mugwort, marjoram … There would be other ingredients, too, to make sure, and spells, of that she was certain. But maybe, just maybe, even now Burgred might return with a letter for her, offering her a route out of her dilemma, a way to certain happiness.

  Burgred did not come.

  The drink when it arrived was bitter and made her gag. Her mother stood over her while she drank it, then summoned her ladies to pull screens around her bed before leaving the chamber. She beckoned one woman to remain with her daughter. Brona, the eldest of the group, who generally served food to her young mistress. ‘Do not leave the princess, do you hear me? This medicine will clear away the evil spirits that have made her ill, but anything she passes must be thrown on a fire outside. You will fetch no one else and care for my daughter yourself, alone.’ The queen glared at the woman. ‘Have I made myself clear?’ Brona bobbed a curtsy. ‘Very clear, lady.’ She pursed her lips. Eadburh’s women were a close group and observant. They knew what was wrong with their young mistress, though none would have dared comment. As soon as the queen had appeared with her jug in her hand, they had guessed what was going to occur. None of them wanted to be there when it did.

  Cynefryth left a second goblet of the drink on the table beside the bed. ‘If nothing happens before the candle burns down, give her this second dose,’ she said, then she swept out of the chamber without a backward glance.

  Eadburh groaned. ‘It’s disgusting. The taste of it makes me want to vomit.’ She lay back on the pillow. She was very scared.

  The candle had only half burned down when the first cramps began. The pain grew worse and worse. She was drenched in sweat, doubled up with pain and had vomited twice when at last the blood came. It was a long time before Brona scuttled out of the chamber, carrying a bowl covered with a cloth, leaving Eadburh, white as a sheet and exhausted, lying on the bed. ‘Come straight back,’ she gasped as the woman disappeared through the screens. ‘Please, don’t leave me.’

  She slept at last, awoke and slept again. There was no one there to answer her calls and when, as it grew dark, her mother came, it was to remove the unneeded second dose, pull her covers straight, and briefly put her hand on her daughter’s hot, damp forehead.

  When Eadburh awoke next morning the screens had been removed, the fire was burning cheerfully and her ladies were chatting in subdued tones as they went about their business as usual. She never saw Brona again.

  14

  Bea sat at the kitchen table shivering. She couldn’t get the scenes she had witnessed out of her head, or the smell of blood and vomit. She took several deep breaths and stood up, going to switch on the kettle. She had been there, watching a man die swiftly and silently on the lonely track amongst the hills, and she had been there in the shadowy candlelit chamber, watching the girl writhe, sobbing, on the bed. Whatever had been in the mixture her mother had administered had been pretty near lethal. And the woman, Brona. What had happened to her? It was obvious she had not come out of the situation well. Bea dropped her head into her hands, rubbing her face hard to dispel the picture of the servant hurrying through the screens and out of the building into the night, carrying the cloth-covered bowl before her. Thankfully Eadburh had shown no signs this time of realising she was being watched from a distant time and place. She had been far too preoccupied with her own troubles, and when at last someone had come to look after her it was one of her other attendants who, grim-faced, had sponged her face and hands and brought her a bowl of what looked like bread and milk. She had taken only a couple of sips from the horn spoon and then lain back on the pillow, her eyes closed.

  Bea reached up and clutched the gold cross hidden under her sweater. It was a long time before she staggered to her feet and headed across the kitchen to retrieve the jar of instant coffee from the cupboard. The strong-and-black, that was what Mark called it when there was no time to make the real thing. It was their private code. It meant something truly awful or stressful or complicated had happened at work and he was trying to contain his exhaustion or frustration or both. As she drew the mug towards her and took a sip, she found herself longing to confide in him about what she had seen, but she knew she couldn’t. Not about this. He wouldn’t understand why she had deliberately gone back to the cottage again and he would be distraught and furious when he realised she had once more deliberately put herself in danger. But was it danger? Or was she just being voyeuristic, watching other people’s dramas as one would watch a TV box set? With a sigh she finished the coffee.

  Upstairs she had wrapped the stone in the silk scarf and put it in a wooden box on the top shelf of the bookcase. It could stay there for now. She somehow doubted if she would need it again.

  It felt ridiculous, creeping across the cathedral transept, waiting for a group of visitors to arrive and trying to hide herself amongst their number in order to avoid Sandra’s eagle eye. In the event, the woman was nowhere to be seen and Bea was able to make her way up towards the quire without being observed.

  To her relief, the chantry chapel was empty and she could slide into the safety of her corner seat unseen. No one had lit a candle today; the rack was empty save for a few burned-down stubs. After a few minutes she stood up restlessly and went over to select a fresh candle and reach for the lighter, then she knelt down. He wasn’t here, and he wasn’t going to appear. She sensed it with absolute certainty. Why? Why would he abandon her now? And where was he? For the first time she wondered if her gentle, praying priest had an existence away from the chapel. Did his life of prayer and devotion carry on in a different place, on a different plane? Somehow she had assumed he was anchored here, that this had been his whole world, but perhaps not, perhaps he was a travelling adviser, busily shuttling between different customers, as she did when she was working, whether it was at school or in the healing of a house, dropping in, being helpful and moving on.

  But I still need you!

  Fearing she had cried the words out loud, she shot a quick look towards the doorway, embarrassed, but the chapel stayed empty of enquiring faces. After ten minutes she climbed to her feet and retraced her steps, planning to go home. But that, she realised, was the last place she ought to be because she might not be able to resist going upstairs, and reaching for the stone, and plunging once more into the past. The thought terrified her. She must not lose control. But the lure of what she had seen was like a drug, dragging her back. What had happened to Eadburh after she lost the baby?

  She needed to know.

  ‘Bea? Are you OK?’ Bea was saved by her friend Heather Fawcett, who caught up with her in the middle of the Close. ‘Bea, love, what’s wrong? You look as though you’d seen a ghost!’ Heather was a small woman with neatly waved grey hair and beautiful azure eyes that had been a lethal lure to the young men she had encountered earlier in life. At this moment her eyes were full of sympathy.

  Bea and Heather had known and liked each other for many years, since their husbands found themselves in neighbouring parishes in the north of the county at the start of their careers. To have found themselves neighbours had been a serendipitous bonus to their friendship, Bea in the Close and Heather, sadly now widowed and alone but full of energy and optimism, living round the corner in a narrow winding terrace of little Victorian cottages, just outside the cathedral gates. Heather was the only person in the cathedral community to whom Bea had confided her interest in the supernatural and her self-appointed job. She had to talk to someone and Heather, a volunteer and something of a mother figure to the huge number of selfless people who helped keep the cathedral going, would understand.

  Shortly after her experience with the poltergeist they had been sitting over a coffee at an outdoor table in the market square, watching the crowds hurrying between the stalls around them, and Bea had poured out the whole story.

  ‘It was a strange place. That library must have been incredibly old; there were
some lovely books there. I don’t know who actually owned that house, but I have to say I wouldn’t have chosen Ken Hutton as my tenant. He wanted to burn all the books afterwards. I begged him not to, but God knows what he did in the end.’

  It had been a relief to talk to someone about it and even more of a relief when the lurid headlines had appeared in the paper and she was living in terror of someone finding out it was about her. Heather’s was a voice of steady reassurance.

  ‘So, did you get rid of the ghost?’ she had asked.

  Bea had nodded. ‘I think so. I would have loved to know his story, where he came from, when he lived, what pushed him over the edge like that, but I have to leave it there. That’s one of the rules. I have to leave him in peace now. I don’t want there to be a risk of accidentally calling him back.’

  They hadn’t talked about it again.

  They sat opposite each other now at Bea’s kitchen table. Bea hesitated for several seconds then she plunged into her tale.

  ‘I was asked to go up to a cottage on Offa’s Ridge – you know, that wild area up beyond Kington on the border with Wales. It’s being haunted by a wailing voice. A lost soul. I thought I could contact it – you know how I work – and I thought I would be safe. But now,’ she paused, grasping for the right words. Now, I think I’ve got myself in too deep and I don’t know how I’m going to get myself out of it. I don’t want to get myself out of it.’

  Heather reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I thought you told me you’d learnt from that experience with the poltergeist.’

  Bea gave a wry smile. ‘I’m not proud of the way I’ve handled this. I should have known better.’

  ‘Indeed you should. Bea, darling, if you’re worried, why don’t you contact one of the deliverance team?’

  The deliverance ministry consisted of a group of men and women who responded to reports of ghostly occurrences in the diocese from local parish clergy or people who came to them through their website. They were a dedicated and experienced group of people and Bea had met and liked most of them, but she shook her head vehemently.

  ‘No! No, Heather. Absolutely not! Mark would have a fit! I did suggest them to Simon at the very beginning, but he didn’t go for that idea. Please, you must promise me you won’t tell a soul. Mark knows about it but I let him think it was sorted. He went up there and prayed and the ghost went away.’ Bea pulled her hand away and stood up. ‘I haven’t told you the half of it. I did something so stupid,’ she went on, pacing up and down the kitchen. She didn’t dare look at Heather. ‘When Simon told me it was dealt with, I deliberately tried to follow it up anyway, to go back into the past. The story was intriguing, somehow it got under my skin and I was curious. I didn’t want to leave it as some kind of unfinished episode. And,’ she turned back to face Heather, ‘I brought it home with me.’

  Heather frowned. ‘You always told me you knew how to handle this sort of thing. You said there was no danger.’

  ‘There isn’t any danger! At least …’ Bea looked away again, unable to meet her friend’s shrewd gaze. ‘If there is, it’s of my own making. It was so exciting, Heather! I’ve never had an experience like this before. I was actually there in the past, in the court of King Offa! I know what I should have done. I should have shut it down, surrounded the whole scene with love and light, explained to the people there that they needn’t be earthbound, that they should let go of their story and move on to another world and the next stage of their journey, but …’ she fell silent.

  ‘But you didn’t,’ Heather put in softly.

  ‘No. I didn’t. Just now, upstairs at home, I was in the women’s chamber, watching one of Offa’s daughters miscarry her baby. That’s why I was upset. Oh, Heather, it was awful.’ She flung herself back down on her chair. ‘It was deliberate. An abortion. She had taken some kind of herbal drug to make it happen. I could see it all, hear it, smell it!’ She only realised there were tears pouring down her face when Heather stood up and went to tear a piece off the kitchen roll standing beside the sink, then handed it to her before putting her arms round Bea’s shoulders and giving her a gentle hug.

  ‘Poor Eadburh. She was barely more than a child and her own mother made her get rid of it. I know it happens. It’s happened throughout history. But I was there with her. I felt all her pain.’ Bea was rubbing her face with the palms of her hands, too exhausted to go on.

  ‘You mustn’t do this again, Bea. You know that, don’t you,’ Heather put in at last.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Can you keep it under control?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was a whisper. ‘Oh, Heather, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pour all this out to you. You showed up when I was feeling so upset by the whole thing. You were on your way somewhere, weren’t you, and I’ve delayed you.’

  Heather stood up. ‘Will you be OK if I leave you for a few moments? I’m so sorry, but I was on my way to the cathedral shop. They’ll be waiting for me to take my turn behind the counter, but I can tell them I’ll be a bit late starting and then I’ll come straight back.’

  Bea sniffed. She blew her nose on the tissue. ‘No, no. Don’t be silly. You don’t have to come back. I’ll be all right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lumbered you with my antics. I needed someone to talk to, that’s all. I’m not going to go back there. Not now. And I’m sorry I’ve made you late. You go. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Bea nodded.

  ‘I’ll ring you later. And don’t worry, I won’t say anything to anyone.’ Heather smiled reassuringly as she headed for the door. ‘Be strong, darling.’

  Chris’s phone call came as Heather left. ‘I’m popping up to the cottage to drop off some stuff for Simon. Do you want to go with me? I’m heading into Hereford to go to Waitrose first, so I can collect you.’

  Bea hesitated. She should say no. Cut off all contact with the cottage and Simon and whatever it was that was happening in her head. She was stressed and exhausted, and her mind was still whirling. She would be mad to go. She had promised Heather. She had promised herself.

  Chris picked her up on the corner of the car park. ‘The cottage isn’t really equipped for a long let and his children are coming up for part of the Easter holidays, so there are a few things I told him I’d drop off. He’s out today and it suits him quite well, I think, for me to go when he’s not there. It will give you a chance to suss the place out and make sure the ghost hasn’t returned.’ She glanced across at her friend. ‘Have you spoken to him again?’

  ‘We had a coffee, as it happens, when he came into Hereford for a meeting.’ Bea took a deep breath. ‘He seemed happy about the cottage. He didn’t seem to have had any more strange voices calling.’ She was not going to tell Chris about Mark’s part in what had happened or about what had happened earlier, or about her conversation with Heather.

  ‘But you’d like to check, yes?’ Chris negotiated the tricky turn onto Eign Street.

  Bea gave a grim smile. ‘You know I would.’

  The cottage was less tidy than last time Bea had been there. There were books and papers scattered all over the living space, unwashed mugs and a cereal bowl in the sink in the kitchen and a couple of shirts hanging on the line in the garden at the back.

  ‘It looks as though he’s making himself at home,’ Chris said as she unloaded her shopping bags. She had brought cleaning materials and spare linen and a couple of extra saucepans. ‘I didn’t suppose he was going to have any massive parties, though he did mention that his wife and kids might come for the odd weekend,’ she said as she stuffed a packet of dusters and some surface cleaner into the cupboard under the sink. ‘Somehow I got the impression he hoped they wouldn’t. At least he’s got everything he might need now.’

  ‘He mentioned he had a couple of teenagers,’ Bea put in. She was standing gazing out of the window into the garden.

  ‘He wasn’t sure they would even want to come.’ Chris straightened, her face red from bending down to
the cupboard. ‘Frankly, I’m amazed he would want them here. That’ll be the end of his peace and quiet.’

  ‘Perhaps they are students of Zen.’ Bea smiled.

  ‘I don’t think so. That’s why he looks for isolated places to do his writing. Good,’ Chris looked round. ‘That should sort him out if they come. There are two beds in the second bedroom anyway and a couple of blow-up mattresses in the cupboard under the stairs. They can’t expect the Ritz. So, are you going to go all crystal-ball on me and check if your ghost has really gone? I’ll sit out on the terrace and contemplate the view while you do your thing.’

  Her thing. It was the last thing Bea wanted to do. She was exhausted and stressed, but at the same time it would be interesting to have a feel of the atmosphere. Leaving Chris seated at the small table outside the front door, she wandered round to the back garden, trying to spot anything that reminded her of the sheepfold in her vision. This was the place, she was almost certain. The outline of the hills was the same, the angle of the ground, the lie of the land on the far side of the wall. The garden was uneven, hidden now beneath shrubs and drifts of daffodils. She walked over to the wall, the stones sprouting ferns and clumps of moss, liberally dotted with patches of yellow lichen. Had this wall witnessed Eadburh and her prince making love? She checked her watch. She probably had no more than ten minutes before Chris began to wonder where she had got to. She rested her hands lightly on the topmost stones and emptied her mind, waiting.

  But there was no trace of any echoes outside or inside the cottage, of the nun or the fear she had felt, nor of the passion that had so briefly flared and died within the walls of that sheepfold so very long ago. The drama, the intense moments of love or lust, then the loss and sorrow were gone. Bea had sensed rather than seen the prince ride into the sunset, quite literally a silhouette against the glowing sky as the sun slid behind the mountains. She gave a wistful smile. The passion between the two had been so strong, but she guessed he had had a lucky escape. She doubted if Offa would have been a comfortable father-in-law.