Читать книгу The Dream Weavers онлайн | страница 34
‘So that much at least is decided?’ Eadburh felt oddly deflated. Was she not valuable enough to have had her destiny chosen yet?
‘Nothing is decided,’ her mother gave a tolerant smile, ‘but it won’t be long, child. Your turn will come. And in the meantime, I will teach you all I can of my herbal arts. Neither of your sisters has the application to learn or the interest and my plants have their uses in ways you cannot even dream of.’
Behind them the door opened and Nesta came back in, a woven willow basket over her arm. She paused as she saw the queen and her daughter standing by the table, her expression inscrutable.
‘Come in, woman.’ Cynefryth beckoned her towards them. ‘The sisters of Wyrd must have sent you back at this moment. You can start my daughter’s lessons in the craft this very day.’
Bea stared at the Saxon worktable, spotlit by a ray of sunlight that streamed in through the doorway onto the wilting herbs and the pile of baskets. In the distance, behind the glare of the sun, she could see the outline of a long low hill rising out of the trees, and in front of it the soaring roof of a vast barnlike building, the mead hall of the king. The stillroom itself appeared to be a simple structure, but built of sturdy beams, the walls of wattle and daub, with tables and shelves stocked with bottles and dishes and jars. Bunches of drying herbs hung from the rafters. There was a fire at one end of the room, over which hung a bronze cauldron. She could smell the exotic scent of the herbs, mixed with the familiar warm aroma of sawn wood and thatch, and she could hear voices shouting in the background, cows bellowing, horses neighing and the sound of hooves, the rattle and bang of hammers, people shouting, dogs baying.
As she grew more aware of the surroundings and the smells and the warmth of the sunlight, she realised the noises, the voices of women had grown distant, fading as she strained to hear them. Soon there was nothing to hear except the song of a robin from the fruit trees in the orchard. She blinked several times. The bird wasn’t there in the past, it was here, in their own garden, its evening song echoing in through her window. The scene of the royal palace and its inhabitants had gone.