The Rose Demon

26

By midnight the voices had stopped. Matthias was left in peace. He slept fitfully and, when he awoke, a thick mist had swirled up the nave of the ruined church. Matthias built up the fire, broke his fast on the sparse rations left, then finished copying the runes from the wall. After he had finished, he saddled his horse and rode back to the manor to buy fresh supplies. The servant he had met the day before was generous in the portions he allocated, wrapping them up in linen cloths.

‘We have few visitors here.’ His watery eyes smiled. ‘Baron Sanguis still does not know who you are.’

‘What will happen?’ Matthias asked, gazing round the dusty, cluttered kitchen.

‘I doubt if the old lord will survive the winter. And the royal lawyers are waiting. He’ll hardly be cold in his grave when the Exchequer officials arrive to claim all this for the Crown.’

Matthias thanked him and left. He took the pathway to Sutton Courteny. The mist still hung thick, deadening all sound. Matthias soon found himself in the woods. Memories flooded back: how he used to run and play here before the hermit ever arrived. The night the soldiers attacked him: the hermit’s intervention and how, as a boy, he’d run, lungs fit to burst, to warn the hermit of what the villagers were planning.

Matthias was in Sutton Courteny before he knew it, the hanging stone looming up before him. The gibbet, which soared above it, still stood firm. A piece of rope, the strands decaying, danced in the morning breeze. Matthias rode on. He stopped outside the Hungry Man tavern. He dismounted and looked through where the sturdy front door had once hung. He couldn’t stop the tears flowing. The last time he had been here was on that dreadful night when the storm had broken. Matthias walked on. He felt as if he were a ghost walking through the Valley of Death. He could remember everything as it was and yet, despite the mist, see so precisely what it had become. The blacksmith’s house, the crumbling forge; the prosperous tenement of John the bailiff, its roof long disappeared, the gardens around it overgrown. No sound broke the silence except the slither of his boots and the creak of harness. Now and again the horse would slip on the mud-soaked cobbles, the sound echoing along the high street. Matthias half-expected to see someone come out of the house and greet him, yet everywhere he looked was ruin and decay. Weeds sprouted in the high street and Matthias wondered where the survivors had gone.

As he approached the church, Matthias’ sense of nostalgia was replaced by one of quiet dread. The silence had grown oppressive, with not even the creak of a door or the call of a bird. He stopped outside the lych-gate. The headstones and crosses were flattened as on the night of the massacre. The church, however, looked untouched, even the tiles on the roof had not been pillaged. The wooden door in the main porch hung slightly askew. This was powerful testimony to how the local villagers must regard Sutton Courteny as a place of dread, not even worth entering to plunder what remained.

Matthias, the reins gathered round his hand, walked on up to the house. Everything was as it should be. Oh, the horn in the windows had long gone, tiles had slipped from the roof, the garden was overgrown, but if he half-closed his eyes the mist would lift, the sun would come out and he’d find Christina in the buttery or his father dozing in his chair before the fire.

However, when he entered his childhood home, he found it bleak and desolate. The furniture had long gone, probably taken by the survivors, the rooms were gaunt and empty. He crouched by the parlour hearth and ran his fingers through the cold, soggy dust. This was probably the remains of the last fire his father had ever made. Matthias stared towards the niche where the skull had been. All he glimpsed were shards of bone as if someone had taken a club and smashed it to pieces. He went carefully upstairs: the chambers were barred and equally desolate. Someone had lit a fire in his room, the walls were black and scorched. In his parents’ chamber, all was gone except for a cross daubed in faded red paint, beside it, the words ‘Jesus miserere’. Matthias sensed the intensity with which the unknown painter had done this. Was it his father, or had one of the survivors come and taken what they wanted, then left a memento of how God had abandoned the place?

Matthias tried hard not to scream in protest at the way his life had been shattered. He went downstairs and sat in the parlour, his back to the wall. If he could only turn back the years. He recalled the words of the Hospitaller and tried to concentrate on where his father might have hidden his Book of Hours, his breviary or, perhaps, a letter, a memorandum which might explain the tragedy of those last few hours of his childhood. Matthias closed his eyes. Where would his father hide such documents? On that last All-Hallows Eve he’d gone to the church to comfort the parishioners who had fled there. Matthias racked his brains. He could not remember his father carrying anything. All he could recall was Parson Osbert’s face, his kindly eyes, the attempts at reconciliation.

Matthias went out into the old cemetery. He checked on his horse and went across to where the death house stood. It was covered in creeping lichen and the shutters over the small window had long disappeared. Matthias peered through this. He almost screamed: standing in the gloom was the Preacher glaring malevolently at him. He was dressed in the same rags as when they had hanged him on the gibbet. Matthias recoiled. He looked again, there was nothing. He walked across the cemetery towards the church.

‘Matthias! Matthias!’ The voice was like a hiss.

He stopped. The Preacher was now standing beneath the overhanging branches of a yew tree. He was dressed in black from head to toe, his face a liverish white, his eyes pools of glaring malevolence. The phantasm bared his teeth, like a dog ready to attack, in a hiss of air, a long-drawn-out breath of hatred. Matthias stood rooted to the spot. His hand went to his dagger. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. At the same time he was aware of other shapes, shrouded in grey, appearing around the cemetery. Although used to such phenomena, Matthias couldn’t control his sense of dread. He closed his eyes. When he looked again, there was only the mist curling its tendrils above the cemetery. Somewhere in a tree a bird began to chatter. Matthias ran to the door of the church. The porch was dank, dark and musty. He pushed with all his might and slammed the old door shut behind him.

Matthias, trying to control his breathing, walked down the nave, gloomy as a grave, except for the faint rays of light pouring through the arrow slit windows. He paused and leant against a pillar. The church was greatly changed. Someone had burnt down the rood screen. The altar, too, had gone. The pulpit had been overthrown. Wood lay piled in one of the transepts as if someone had taken an axe and smashed the benches. All the statues were gone. No crucifix hung on the walls. It was like a long-disused barn from which both God and man had fled.

Matthias collected bits of wood, took them into the sanctuary and built a small fire. He sat for a while warming himself then, taking an ember from the fire, walked back down the nave. He carefully studied the floor and pillars. There were cuts and marks, dark splashes on the pillars and walls. Matthias surmised these must be blood stains from the massacre. He stamped his feet and blew into his hands. The church was much colder than he had realised. He returned to the fire and remembered he had left his saddlebags in the house so he went back for these, crossing the cemetery at a run. He found them just within the doorway of the priest’s house, and hurried back.

He could see nothing untoward except, when he returned to the church, some of the dark stains he had glimpsed before were now glistening. Matthias stared at the pools of blood trickling along the paved stone of the nave. He returned to the sanctuary, accepting he would not be allowed to escape unscathed from this ghost-ridden place. Nevertheless, he was determined he would not leave empty-handed. He ate some food and drank a little wine. He went back to his childhood days, to his father celebrating Mass here.

‘Yes,’ Matthias spoke into the darkness, ‘there was a place where he hid things. The little silver pyx he used to take the viaticum to the sick. The oils and chrism he needed for baptisms and marriages.’ Matthias drank more from the wineskin. ‘That’s it. Father always complained about how thieves would enter village churches and steal such valuable items.’

Christina had laughed at this and asked why he didn’t keep it in the house. Parson Osbert had shaken his head. He claimed such sacred objects should always be kept in a holy place. Matthias got to his feet and walked slowly round the sanctuary. He examined the small lavarium built in the wall where his father used to wash his fingers during Mass before he touched the sacred species. There was nothing. Matthias scrutinised the bricks in the wall, searching vainly for one that might be loose. He knelt down and closed his eyes.

‘Please,’ he prayed. ‘Some sign!’

Daylight was fading. The church was growing darker and he grew more desperate in his searches. On hands and knees, Matthias crawled across the paving stones but these held firm and secure. He recalled his father saying there was no crypt beneath the church. Matthias’ hands and knees became sore from crawling, his eyes hurt. He returned to the fire and bit into the cheese he had bought from the old manor steward, yet he’d lost his appetite and he wondered if his search were a wasteful, dangerous task. He stared down the church, trying to ignore the pools still glistening on the floor. Where else would his father hide anything? Taking a firebrand to light his way, he went down the nave, through a narrow door into the small bell tower. The steps were wet and mildewed; somewhere above there must be a crack in the walls or tiles through which the rain and snow had poured in over the years.

Matthias climbed, moving carefully until he reached the small gallery where his father had stood to summon the parishioners to Mass. The bell rope had long rotted away. Matthias lifted the firebrand and stared at the wooden pegs around which the rope had once been wrapped. These were driven into a wedge of wood fixed into the wall. Matthias pulled and tugged at these; they held firm.

He gave up in disgust and was about to go down the steps when he noticed a small grille built into the base of the wall. Matthias crouched down. He used his dagger and hacked away. The grille came loose. Moving the dying firebrand to give him light, Matthias pushed his hand into the aperture and dug around. From the outside it looked like a simple drain hole but the cavity within was much larger. Matthias sighed as his fingers touched something hard. He drew out the silver pyx, now covered in dirt, then two small phials where the chrism and oil had been kept. He searched again. His hand brushed something hard. He pulled this out. In the poor light he could see the leather bag was engrained with dirt, the cord round the neck frayed. When he cut them loose, his father’s Book of Hours slipped into his hand. Leaving everything except his dagger, Matthias grasped the book and ran down the steps, back into the nave. He built the fire up and, in its warm glow, started to turn over the pages.

The book was made up of stiff pages of parchment stitched together and held between two pieces of very thin wood covered with leather. The book contained psalms and readings from the scriptures. On some pages the carefully curved letters had faded, the small jewel-like miniature paintings grown indistinct. In many of the margins Parson Osbert had written his own commentary in a tidy cursive hand; at the back, the blank folio pages had been covered with jottings and notes. Matthias read through these, trying to ignore the memories they evoked, the homilies his father had planned on the special saints’ days of the parish. He found what he was searching for at the very back. It carried the date, the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 1471. At first Matthias thought his father had simply copied out the ‘Confiteor’, the ‘I Confess’ which every priest recited before Mass. The writing was hasty, the letters ill-formed. Matthias kept moving the book, trying to make out each word.

I, Parson Fitzosbert, confess to Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to all the angels and saints and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned exceedingly, in thought, word and deed. I have sinned against my God and my Church by becoming handfast to a woman. I have broken my vow of celibacy and chastity. God, in turn, has punished me most grievously. Christina, my wife, is dead. The boy she bore is no flesh of mine. Christina has sinned and confessed as much. She lay with the man in whose death I had a hand: the hermit of Tenebral. Yet, he deserved to die, not only for his terrible sins and what he was, but what he did in making her betray me.

The writing then faltered. Matthias closed the book. He gripped it firmly between his hands. He couldn’t think about anything except his father yelling at him, cursing him, rejecting him. Christina’s strange behaviour, the way she fell ill the day the hermit was tried and executed. Matthias couldn’t stop shivering. He heard sounds outside, horsemen were approaching. All he could do was sit by the fire, his arms wrapped across his chest.

‘Fitzosbert! Matthias Fitzosbert!’

He didn’t move.

Again, ‘Matthias! Matthias Fitzosbert!’ The voice was harsh.

Matthias glanced up at a window. Darkness had fallen. The riders outside were approaching the church. A horse neighed, followed by screams and the sound of swords being drawn. Someone was hammering at the main door but Matthias ignored it. Again, screams, horses rearing and neighing in terror, then silence. Matthias didn’t move. He didn’t care. When those grey shapes he had glimpsed in the cemetery thronged at the back of the church and moved like clouds towards him, he glared back in defiance. The fire began to die. The church was intensely cold. He could not make out the shapes, corpses in their shrouds. The lost, earthbound souls of the dead villagers, faces grey as the shrouds they wore, eyes dead, came and went like puffs of smoke. Matthias felt no fear. Why should he? His father had hinted at the reason for Christina’s collapse and his own soul-breaking rage. Christina had been seduced by the hermit: both she and Osbert believed Matthias was the child of this adulterous liaison.

‘What am I?’ Matthias called into the darkness. ‘Man or demon?’

Was that why he had the second sight? Why he brought chaos and terror to everyone in his life? His parents had died because of him. This village had been devastated because of him. Santerre, Amasia, that long line of dead. Outside a chanting had begun as ghostly choristers assembled in the darkness. Matthias heard the words of the Dies Irae: ‘Day of wrath, oh day of mourning, see fulfilled the heavens’ warning. Heaven and earth in ashes burning.’ Knocking then began on the walls and doors: ghostly voices calling his name. Matthias kept drinking the wine. Verses from Psalm 91 kept running through his tired brain:

You will not fear the terror of the night.

Nor the arrow that flies by day.

Nor the Plague that prowls in the darkness.

Nor the scourge that lays waste at noon.

Matthias staggered drunkenly to his feet.

‘I don’t fear them!’ he shouted. ‘Because I am them! I am the terror of the night! I am the arrow that flies by day! The Plague which prowls in the darkness and the noonday scourge!’

His words echoed round the church. Outside silence fell. The chanting stopped. The knocking on the doors and the pattering along the walls ceased. In the dying light of the fire, Matthias noticed the pools of blood drying up.

‘I can do no more,’ he muttered.

And, lying down on the floor, he curled up like a child and fell into a drunken sleep.

He woke stiff and cold the following morning. His limbs ached, he had a terrible pain in his head and his mouth was dry. He staggered to the window and peered out. The mist had lifted. The grass sparkled under a weak November sun. Matthias went down and opened the door. A corpse sprawled there: the side of the man’s head had been dashed against the iron studs of the door. Matthias felt his neck, there was no blood pulse. He turned the body over: sightless eyes, a horrible wound in the side of the head, the blood congealing on the door and steps.

‘One of Emloe’s men,’ Matthias muttered.

He laughed wildly. Emloe’s men must have followed him here. Of course, the warlock must have surmised that Matthias would return to Sutton Courteny. Matthias stumbled across the cemetery. Another corpse lay like a broken toy over a graveyard slab. The head was twisted like that of a hanged man, as if someone had come behind him and snapped his neck. At the lych-gate the third corpse was a mass of bruises, his face disfigured into a bloody mass. Matthias didn’t know how the other two had died but his third would-be assassin must have been holding the horses. Something had sent them mad with terror and, rearing up, lashing out with their hooves, they had pounded this man into the ground. Now all was quiet. The graveyard grass was covered in a thick white hoar frost. No sound broke the silence. Of the horses, Matthias could find no trace.

He returned to the priest’s house. His own mount was safe and secure where he had put it in the ruined stables behind. Matthias stroked its muzzle. He released the cord and took it on to the high street.

‘Go on,’ he urged, striking its rump. ‘Go on, I won’t need you any more!’

The horse, puzzled, made to stay. Matthias drew his dagger and pricked it gently on the rump.

‘Go on!’ he yelled. ‘Go on! No one will come here!’

The horse, now frightened, galloped further down the street then stopped. Matthias, who had already decided what to do, went into the small herb garden. He stopped for a while to clear his head and stared around. This was where Christina grew her herbs: camomile, briony, bogbean, hound’s tongue, comfrey, sorrel, basil and thyme. The garden was a tangle of weeds but, in the far corner, Matthias found what he was looking for. His mother had always warned him to keep well away from this tall, green, perennial herb with its much branched stems and bell-like leaves, deadly nightshade. Christina and the other villagers had used this in very small doses for stomach upsets but, in any quantity, it brought death. Matthias cut a few of the stems. He took these to the church and ground both stem and leaf. Matthias took what was left of his wine, poured it into the small metal cup he carried and put the nightshade in, stirring it constantly with his finger. Matthias had no other thoughts in his head. He felt unreal as if watching himself in a dream. He did not want to go on. How could he? How could he accept that he was a bastard child, the cause of so much death and terror? He glanced down the church and recalled the deaths of the villagers.

‘If they could come back,’ he whispered, ‘they’d all vote for my execution.’

In his mind’s eye he saw Father Hubert and Father Anthony’s kindly faces, then Rosamund as on the day she had come to the top of the tower, bringing food, only seconds before the arrow had struck her.

‘And you,’ he whispered. He lifted the wine cup in a silent toast and took a sip. His mouth caught the acrid taste. ‘Not here!’ he whispered. ‘I’ll go where all felons die!’

He staggered out of the church and, holding the wine cup steady, made his way down towards the hanging stone. Now and again he would stop outside some desolate house.

‘Don’t worry!’ he shouted. ‘Justice has been done and will be seen to be done! I’ll be with you soon!’

He reached the gibbet and sat on the stone. He stared back up the street. His horse still stood there gazing forlornly at him. He looked the other way, along the track into the woods to Tenebral. He caught a flash of colour.

‘If it’s Emloe’s men,’ he whispered, ‘they are welcome to my corpse.’

He lifted the cup and drank. Closing his eyes he heard the sound of hoof beats and his name being called. He drank again, shaking the last dregs into his mouth. The first pains caught him in the belly but then he felt himself seized. Gazing up, he stared into Morgana’s beautiful face, her red hair hidden in a fur-edged cowl.

‘Open your mouth!’ Her eyes were hard as glass. ‘Open your mouth, you stupid man!’

Someone else came behind, an arm tight around his throat. Matthias gasped. Morgana was pushing something into his mouth, like the quill of a pen, scratching the back of his throat. Matthias’ belly and chest felt like a sea of fire. Yet he still vomited. He broke free, crouching on the ground like a dog as the spasms shook him, emptying his stomach. Again he was seized, the feather pushed down, scouring his throat. The pain in his stomach and chest was intense. A cup, forced between his lips, poured in a sweet, sticky substance: his head was held back forcing him to swallow. Again he retched. Once more he was forced to drink and, just when he thought he could bear it no longer, Matthias slipped into unconsciousness.

Now and again he would wake. He was on his horse, Morgana riding in front of him. Somebody else was riding close alongside. Matthias’ limbs felt heavy. He had no strength, his throat was so dry, parched by a raging thirst. He slipped into unconsciousness again.

The next time he awoke he was in a chamber, white sheets pulled up to his chin. Matthias could feel warming stones against his feet and, when he moved his hands, he found they were gloved, his body was coated with sweat.

‘Drink a little of this.’ Morgana was holding his head up, allowing him to sip at the delicious water.

He fell asleep again. Every so often he would wake fitfully. A tall, serene-faced woman with a creamy complexion, large soulful eyes, full red lips and hair as black as a raven, sat next to him. She would feed him thin gruel, soups, watered wine, or ground meat as if he were a baby.

At last Matthias woke fully, it was dark. He stared round. The room was comfortable and clean. He was in a large four-poster bed. There were tables on each side, and coffers and chests stood around the room. A thick woollen drape covered the windows and, on one wall, a woven tapestry showed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Matthias pulled himself up. He felt very weak, clammy. A dog barked and there were footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and the tall, raven-haired woman came into the room. She was dressed in a dark red gown, a sky-blue cloak pulled over her shoulders. Her face was slightly pinched with the cold but she smiled and clapped her hands.

‘So, you are awake, Matthias!’

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Don’t you remember?’ The woman came and sat on the edge of the bed. She took his hand. Matthias realised that she was not only soothing him but checking to see if there was any fever or hotness. ‘You were brought here at the end of November. Another year has come since then.’

Matthias gaped.

‘It’s the twelfth of January 1490,’ she laughed. ‘And you, Matthias, have been very sick.’ She leant over and tapped him on the forehead. ‘In body as well as mind.’

‘Morgana?’

‘Oh, she’s gone.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Why, the Master’s handmaid. As I am.’

‘And who is the Master?’

‘Matthias, Matthias!’ She smiled slyly at him. ‘The Seigneur is the One we worship.’

‘You are a witch?’

‘Yes. If you were a church official, you would call me a witch. I am also a physician and, as you will see, a very good cook.’

‘But I’ve been asleep for two months!’ Matthias exclaimed.

‘What did you expect?’ she snapped. ‘The deadly nightshade is a most potent poison. Did you dream?’

Matthias shook his head. ‘If I did,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Good,’ she replied and grasped his hand more firmly.

‘Matthias, nightshade is a deadly plant and the body must purge that. However, you were sick of another fever. Something snapped in your mind. If you hadn’t slept and taken the potions I gave you, your wits would have wandered. I made you sleep and now,’ she got to her feet, ‘I will make you strong.’

‘What is your name?’ Matthias asked.

She came over and kissed him gently on the brow.

‘I go by many names,’ she murmured. ‘But you can call me Eleanor. There is only me and my maid, Godwina. You are on a small farm not far from the Tewkesbury-to-London road.’ She drew back. ‘My orders are quite simple. You are not to leave here until you are well and strong. Once you are, you may go where you wish.’

‘Have you met the Master?’

She shrugged. ‘Like you, Matthias, he comes and goes where he wishes. What form he takes is up to him.’

Matthias spent three months at the farm, getting stronger every day. Eventually he was able to walk downstairs and enjoy the spring sunshine. His horse was well stabled and looked after. His saddlebags contained everything, including the etchings he had made at the church in Tenebral. Matthias realised the madness had passed. During his stay with Eleanor he came to accept the tragedy of his parents’ death and also accepted that he had not caused it, drawing strength from Parson Osbert’s attempt at reconciliation on that dreadful night.

For the rest, he was left alone, no dreams, no phantasms, no visions. Eleanor tried to seduce him, even sending up young, buxom Godwina, but Matthias rejected both. He thought of Rosamund constantly and found he could not lose himself in the love of another woman.

At the same time Matthias had secret fears which he himself would hold. If he was the son of the Rose Demon, his conception the fruit of love between his mother and an incubus, then what about his own seed? He idly wondered if Eleanor knew his secret. Was this the reason she pressed her warm, strong body against his, her arms going round his neck, her lips searching his? She was not insulted by his rejection but a coldness grew between them. When Matthias decided to leave, just after Easter, she made no attempt to stop him. Matthias was determined to return to London. He refused to tell Eleanor but his mind was set on meeting, once again, with the Commander of the Hospitallers.