The Dream Weavers Page 27

  ‘Oh?’ Bea turned round to scan her face.

  ‘I dreamt that Dad was dead.’

  ‘But you knew he wasn’t.’

  Emma nodded. ‘I got out of bed and went to stand on the landing to listen outside his door to make sure he was still breathing.’

  ‘You didn’t need to do that to know your dream was not about your father. Not your real father,’ Bea said gently.

  ‘I know. But I had to be sure.’

  ‘Of course. Dreams can be so frighteningly real. So, do you know what the dream was actually about?’

  ‘Everyone was running about and shouting and crying and I was there, listening.’

  ‘Who was shouting?’

  ‘People. Men. Rough big men with leather jackets and beards and,’ she paused, replaying the memory, ‘swords.’

  ‘Anglo-Saxon men?’

  ‘So it was to do with Dad’s book?’

  ‘Probably.’ Bea made herself smile. Had Emma been there in Winchester? Could she have dreamed the same dream as she had? Heard the same messenger? Seen the same men, felt the same panic as news of the death of Offa, their king’s greatest ally, spread around the court? She reined in her thoughts sternly. If Emma had been there, she would have seen Eadburh. ‘Were there any women in your dream?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘Only me.’

  ‘Were you part of the scene or watching it like a film?’

  ‘I was there. I was part of it. The messenger had come to me. I was wearing a lovely long red dress. I was the queen.’

  After dropping Emma off at the cottage, Bea drove home in a thoughtful mood. She had studied for years on and off with different teachers to harness her own natural abilities and she was trying to teach Emma in a few hours. And Emma was all over the place. Would the girl remember what to do if she saw St Ethelbert again, or if the voice came back? And would she be able to resist the spirit of Eadburh invading her dreams? Somehow she and Emma had dreamt the same dream, watched the same scene, but she had been a witness, Emma, a participant. She hadn’t had the chance to talk to Simon privately when she dropped Emma back at the cottage, but she had to do it. She had to tell him too what to do if there was another crisis. And in the meantime she had a crisis of her own to deal with. Sandra Bedford.

  As she stopped at the gates into the cathedral grounds, waiting for the bollards to lower and allow her in so she could head for her parking space, she found she was repeatedly looking in her driving mirror to make sure there was no sign of Sandra behind her. What on earth was she going to do about the woman?

  Heading towards her front door she fished her front door key out of her pocket and let herself in. ‘Mark?’ she could already tell he wasn’t at home. When he was out there was always an undefinable sense of emptiness in the place, as though a part of her own soul was missing. However much she longed to be alone, she missed him when he wasn’t there. She peered into his study and then the kitchen, to be sure, before heading up towards their bedroom. Pulling off her jacket and throwing it on the bed, she sat down next to it, strangely reluctant to go upstairs to her attic study.

  Don’t go, my child. Don’t go. There is danger.

  Danger up on Offa’s Ridge. Danger not only for her, but for Emma as well.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Listen to the old man. Whether the priest in the chantry was nothing but a memory in her head or yet another imprinted echo in the ether or an audible voicing of her own instincts, listen to his advice. But how could she? Now she had to worry about Emma as well as herself.

  And it was with herself she should start.

  Her own protection was patently less than satisfactory. Eadburh and her witch-woman Nesta could see her and were reacting to her and Eadburh was threatening her. She should not put herself in danger deliberately any more than she had already until she had found out why her tried-and-tested methods were not working. That problem needed to be sorted at once. But her curiosity about Eadburh and her world was so strong. It was more than just part of her current undertaking to sort out Simon’s cottage ghost and Emma’s wildly uncontrolled talent, it was a personal quest.

  She sat still, torn in two. She was obsessed and obsession was dangerous. The next instalment waited for her upstairs, the house was empty, there was nothing to stop her giving in to temptation, going up to her study, sitting down, closing her eyes and waiting for the curtain to rise. Nothing except the urgent advice of an ancient chantry priest.

  Don’t go, my child. Don’t go. There is danger.

  27

  ‘This is very cloak and dagger!’

  Simon agreed to meet Bea in the Co-op car park in Kington. He had left Felix and Emma at the cottage, supposedly revising, with the excuse he was coming down to pick up a takeaway.

  ‘It has to be, I’m afraid. I am being followed by a woman from the cathedral who has made it her mission to uncover my satanic practices,’ she explained as he climbed into the car beside her. ‘You met her at the café there with me.’

  ‘Oh Bea, I’m sorry. Emma mentioned you thought she had followed you both to the church. Is this our fault? Felix was such an idiot, sounding off like that.’

  She gave a grim smile. ‘Don’t worry. She’s been warned off. I’m not here to talk about her. I wanted a word without Emma overhearing us. How is she doing?’

  ‘OK, I think. She is a bit hyper, but she’s exhausted as well, so it’s hard to judge. She’s told us you’ve taught her how to protect herself against ghosts and being possessed, and how to see auras,’ he said, keeping his expression and tone neutral.

  So much for keeping things secret. ‘Whatever you do, don’t mock her, Simon. It’s a real thing. Physicists need powerful machines to view human energy fields; some humans possess that ability naturally. End of. Trust your daughter. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to do and it should be exciting and magical, that’s the only word I have for it. But I need her to be careful. Not get carried away by the excitement because with it comes danger. She must not deliberately open herself to marauding spirits.’

  Simon took a deep breath. ‘Like the voice.’

  ‘Like the voice.’

  ‘Felix knows to watch her when I’m not there. She was asleep when I left.’

  ‘Good. She needs rest as long as she doesn’t have too many nightmares that make her scared to close her eyes.’ She hesitated, wondering how to proceed. ‘Simon, I’m intrigued by the story that’s developing here,’ she said cautiously, ‘and I wanted to ask you about it. It’s your focus on King Offa that’s set these events in motion, that much seems to be obvious. We joked about you writing your own ghost when we first met, and we were being flippant, or we thought we were, but true words are often spoken in jest. Everything going on here involves Offa and his daughters and his sons-in-law. St Ethelbert—’

  ‘Who was never his son-in-law. He was murdered before he actually got near his wife-to-be, poor lad. I don’t think we’ll ever know why. Legend has the field of possibilities pretty much covered.’

  ‘And the King of Northumbria?’

  ‘The husband of Ethelfled, the eldest daughter? They were violent times and his murder was probably locally plotted. Dynastic or to do with local politics rather than Offa. Offa wanted allies.’

  ‘What happened to Ethelfled?’

  ‘As far as I remember, she is 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 fi
ngers 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 of car she drives but there was a Micra parked up at the end of the lane so it wouldn’t be spotted.’

  Mark threw himself down into a kitchen chair. ‘Do you want me to get her dismissed? Although, I’m not sure one can dismiss a volunteer. Perhaps on the grounds of age. But that doesn’t really apply. Perhaps we could get her promoted to somewhere else.’

  ‘Where is the furthest outpost of the Church?’ Bea smiled. ‘I don’t think that would do it, in any case. She’s obsessed.’

  ‘She’s jealous of you, Bea.’

  ‘Jealous?’

  ‘My spies tell me so. You are clever, talented, you have an interesting job, albeit no one quite knows what it is,’ he grinned, ‘and you are married to the most gifted and charismatic churchman ever. Oh, and it has been pointed out that you are also very beautiful.’

  Bea let out a snort of laughter. ‘Who says? But seriously, Mark, no one is supposed to know what my job is!’

  ‘Don’t forget, she showed the newspaper cuttings to the dean. That took some explaining, I can tell you. Luckily for you, he was deeply sympathetic. I have told him you used to teach full-time, which is perfectly true, and that since we moved to Hereford you’ve been doing some supply work, which is also true, and that now you’re doing some mentoring, ditto. If the woman goes near the dean again, he will tell her in confidence that you’re working with a disturbed child, which I think we can honestly say Emma is, and that if she is intrusive that will be seriously detrimental to the girl’s stability. Also true.’

  ‘Thank you, Mark.’ It made her feel very guilty to think that he was lying for her. But then as he said it wasn’t a lie. A sin of omission, perhaps, but not a lie.

  ‘Hopefully, she will back off now.’ Mark stood up and set about making hot chocolate for them both. He pushed a mug towards her. ‘You saw Simon this evening?’

  ‘He left Emma with Felix. He told me she is calm and very tired. I will see her again only if she wants to.’

  ‘Do you think the ghosts are laid?’

  ‘I think poor old St Ethelbert is a place memory. Emma is sensitive but she is also very imaginative. It’s a pretty gory story when you think about it.’

  ‘So she is not actually being haunted or possessed.’

  Bea hesitated. ‘Not by him anyway.’

  ‘By Offa’s daughter?’

  She felt his thoughtful gaze on her and looked away. ‘I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. Let’s wait and see if anything else happens. I’ve given her some tools to work with which should keep her safe. A few days after Easter she and Felix will be going home anyway. Term will start with all the terror of exams to keep her distracted.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Mark headed for the door, carrying his mug. ‘Are you coming up?’

  ‘Too much to think about; I’ll never sleep. I’ll follow you in a bit.’ She knew he would be waiting, li
stening to see if she went up to her study, worrying. Making her way back into the snug, she flicked on the electric fire and curled up on the sofa. She was not going to allow herself to think about Eadburh, even though Simon’s cryptic remark had intrigued her. Simon knew all about Eadburh, knew enough to make an off-the-cuff remark about her being a demon and knew enough to be quite shocked at the idea of her being married to a Welshman, an idea he had dismissed out of hand. Well, she had seen what Eadburh was capable of, if her interpretation of the killing of St Ethelbert’s murderer was true. She was cold-blooded and calculating, a true daughter of her parents.

  She took a sip from her chocolate. Perhaps it was time to think about the mysterious, attractive Elisedd instead. The man who so obesssed her; the man who had captured her heart and then turned it to stone. If he was real, and she truly believed he was, somewhere there must be a record of his life. And his death.

  She cudgelled her memory, trying to think of the names in Simon’s manuscript, names so complicated she had skipped over them as she read, the King of Powys, Cadell ap Brochfael, son of Brochfael ap Elisedd. Elisedd, pronounced Eleezeth, a family name.

  Where was her iPad?

  His name, if not common, appeared several times with different spellings given to various different princes and kings of a Wales that in the post-Roman era seemed to have been a confused, indistinct tangle of small kingdoms, some, according to one article, as small as fifteen miles across, remnants of the original tribal states. But Powys was one of the big ones. Powys had an ancient and well-established royal family with the advantage and disadvantage of a long border with Mercia and thus of being the near neighbour of Offa.

  Cadell the king was there; the only son of his mentioned by name was Cyngen, but then she knew Elise was a younger son. Maybe he had not merited a record in history. Maybe he had died too soon. She stared down at the screen in her hands. There seemed to be precious little known about the family. A sister. A famous grandson. But the name fitted, the name that someone, Eadburh herself, perhaps, was calling so frantically into the dark of a lonely mountain ridge on the borders of Wales and England.