The Rose Demon

paltry ceremony in the small graveyard. He watched his wife’s body being committed to the earth. He knelt by the grave but found he couldn’t pray and, when he looked up, Sir Humphrey was kneeling on the other side, glaring balefully at him.

    ‘You are cursed, Matthias Fitzosbert,’ he muttered. ‘I curse the day you came to Barnwick. You are devil’s spawn! If it were not for Rosamund, I’d execute you now and send you back to Hell!’

    The Constable staggered to his feet, his face sodden with drink. ‘You have one more day in Barnwick,’ he rasped. ‘Tomorrow I’ll drive you out of the castle. What the Scots do to you,’ he threw his head back and spat at Matthias, ‘I couldn’t give a fig!’

    Matthias stayed by the grave. He couldn’t believe this small stretch of ground contained his heart, his soul, his life. Dickon came over and offered him a cup of hot posset. Matthias drank it greedily and stumbled back to his chamber. Everyone he met avoided him. People drew apart. He heard a woman curse. An urchin picked up a piece of ice and flung it at his head.

    He reached his chamber and, for a while, he paced up and down talking to himself. Sometimes he’d punch the side of his head. He was asleep, he was sure of it. This was a nightmare and soon he’d wake up, Rosamund would come in and begin her inevitable teasing. The more he paced, the greater the pain. Rosamund’s hair brush, a wimple she had tossed on a chair, two rings from her fingers and, on the window seat, a small jerkin she had been making for their child. Matthias could stand it no more. He fell to his knees and howled like a dog. He took the cross from the wall and ground it beneath the heel of his boot. As he did so he mocked his childhood prayer.

    ‘Remember this, my soul, and remember this well. There is no God, neither in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath!’ He raged, shouting obscenities, and then lay curled on the floor, staring blindly around him.

    ‘Are you here?’ he whispered. ‘Are you, the Rose Demon, here? If you are, I call upon you. I do call upon you!’

    He heard a knock on the door. A soldier pushed it open, Matthias told him to piss off. The soldier left hurriedly. Matthias scrambled to his feet. He felt clear-headed, strong and certain. He took his war belt and wrapped it around his waist. He went out of the chamber, telling the guard that he wished to take the air. For a while he walked up and down the bailey. A bell rang for the evening meal but Matthias ignored it. He looked for Deveraux and Bogodis, but those who would meet his eye simply shook their heads. He went into the kitchens. The cooks and slatterns avoided his gaze. They worked lacklustrely, chopping pieces of meat, cutting bread and cheese and laying them out on trenchers. Matthias, feeling the effects of the wine, sat down on a stool.

    ‘Has anyone seen Bogodis and Deveraux?’ he yelled.

    All he could see were blank glances. Matthias drew his knife. He went up to the chief cook and pressed the tip of his dagger into the man’s soft, quivering jowls.

    ‘I asked a question. The two messengers who came here, Deveraux and Bogodis, where are they?’

    ‘I don’t know, sir,’ the man bleated. ‘Sir Humphrey . . .’

    Matthias let the dagger fall away. He closed his eyes and tried to think. No one would help him. He opened his eyes and smiled, the dagger came back under the cook’s chin.

    ‘Vattier will help. Where is he?’

    ‘He’s gone a-courting,’ one of the maids behind him murmured. ‘You know he’s sweet on Caterina, the maid who cleans the chambers.’

    ‘Oh yes.’ Matthias grinned. ‘And where does he do his courting?’

    ‘I saw them in the keep.’

    Matthias pushed by the cook. He ran out of the kitchens, across the ice-covered bailey and down the steps to the dungeons beneath the keep. Someone was there: the door was open and sconce torches had been lit along the draughty passageways.

    Matthias tiptoed along. He heard a sound from a storeroom and paused. He drew both sword and dagger. The door was open. A candle burnt on the ledge. Peering through the gloom, he glimpsed a pair of legs, Caterina’s long, red hair. The rest was hidden by the man leaning over her as if he were kissing her neck. Matthias moved softly towards him. The man’s head came up like a guard dog sensing danger.

    ‘ Ah, Creatura bona atque parva! ’

    Vattier got slowly to his feet and turned to face him.

    The