The Rose Demon

table.

    ‘You would make a good swordsman, Matthias.’

    Matthias held his unblinking gaze. ‘So you keep saying, Master Vattier.’

    ‘Tomorrow morning,’ the sergeant-at-arms replied, ‘you must prove me right.’

    Matthias glanced along the table. Rosamund stared back, round-eyed, an impish glee in her eyes. He swallowed hard and returned to his food. That young woman was making him distinctly uncomfortable. Whenever they met, Matthias would catch her studying him intently. Sometimes he thought she was making fun of him but, now and again, he glimpsed a sad glance. Rosamund was kind enough. She brought some flowers for his chamber or arranged for pots of herbs to be placed in the small chancery. Sometimes she would come there, sit on the window seat, ask him a few questions then abruptly get up and leave. Matthias wondered if she was strange, slightly fey. Sir Humphrey openly adored her. Father Hubert called her strong-willed, ruthlessly determined but a very pious girl, a dutiful daughter.

    ‘She is strange, mind you,’ the priest commented one morning after Mass.

    ‘What do you mean?’ Matthias asked.

    ‘Well, she’s a charitable, kind-hearted girl. If anyone falls sick, she always offers help and sympathy but, Matthias . . .’ the priest shook his head, ‘as for you, I don’t know.’

    Matthias pushed away his trencher. He had now been three weeks in the castle. Sir Humphrey trusted him; Father Hubert did; Vattier seemed intent on making him a swordsman but had Rosamund glimpsed his true nature? For a moment Matthias felt a wild surge of rage at the forces which had brought him to this: a stranger amongst strangers, with little choice or control over his life.

    The next morning, when the other soldiers came to exercise in the outer bailey, shooting at the butts or riding with lance at the quintain, Matthias strolled out to join them. Vattier’s ugly face cracked into a grin.

    ‘At last! At last!’

    He threw Matthias a leather corselet and told him to pick up a rounded shield and blunted sword. The clerk did so. Immediately Vattier attacked, abrupt and sudden. For a while Matthias just held up his shield and lunged wildly back with his own sword. He felt like dropping both and running away but others were coming across to watch.

    ‘Calm down,’ Vattier whispered, grinning over his shield rim.

    Matthias stepped back. Vattier lunged again. Matthias parried. Gradually, as if the clash of weapons were some eerie music and the fight a dance which he did not know but liked, Matthias settled down. He watched Vattier’s eyes, memorising his feints, thrusts and parries. He felt cold but, at the same time, enjoyed the violence. Vattier began to represent all the hate and enmity from his past. The sergeant-at-arms was now the gaoler from the Bocardo; Symonds smirking at him; Fitzgerald laughing and clapping him on the shoulder. He took great pleasure in the clash of sword, of steel clashing against steel. The laughter and raillery of the soldiers died away. Matthias fought clumsily but there were occasions when Vattier was wary. At last the sergeant-at-arms stood away, throwing his own sword on to the ground.

    ‘Enough for today,’ he said, then grinned at the soldiers. ‘I have won my wager, he is a swordsman!’

    The men-at-arms and archers shuffled forward to hand over their well-earned pennies. They went away glowering. Vattier came up.

    ‘Matthias, you may not be a good horseman, a good singer, a good clerk or even a good man. You do, however, have the makings of a superb swordsman. Don’t ask me why, it’s just like dancing. Some can, some can’t, you can. Train every morning!’

    Matthias did so. The savagery of the exercise yard made him relax and purged the evil humours in his blood. He enjoyed the competition, the rivalry. Vattier taught him all he could so Matthias could move quickly, either to disarm or strike a wounding or killing blow. By the beginning of September, when the weather was set to change and the gorse and grassland round the castle began to die, Matthias had won a name for himself.

    ‘You have a fury in you,’ Sir Humphrey declared as they sat at supper one night. ‘I can see that, Matthias.’ The Constable leant across and filled his wine cup. ‘But I wonder what it is?’

    A few days later Matthias was in the castle chapel on the second storey of the great keep. He sat on the floor, his back to a pillar. Father Hubert had asked him to look at