The Rose Demon

strange dreams, Matthias. The things you talked about . . .’

    Matthias smiled and shrugged.

    ‘Are you a soldier?’ the Franciscan asked.

    Matthias told him about Barnwick.

    ‘And Rosamund?’

    Matthias fell silent and, though he tried, he could not stop the tears brimming.

    ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

    ‘Yes, Father, she died.’

    Matthias leant his head back against the wall and, eyes on the crucifix, told this Franciscan everything. Father Anthony listened intently. Now and again, he’d scratch his small white moustache and beard or run his fingers slowly up and down the side of his nose.

    ‘You’re hearing my confession, Father.’

    ‘Yes, I know I am.’

    Matthias then continued. Occasionally the Franciscan would ask Matthias the same question: in that situation, whatever it was, be it Emloe or his bloody confrontation with the outlaws in the ruins of Barnwick, what did Matthias want? What did he wish? Matthias sometimes had to pause as he sifted amongst his memories.

    ‘You remind me of the hermit,’ he declared, half-jokingly. ‘He always said it was the will that matters. What you really wanted, rather than your actual acts.’

    ‘And that is true,’ Father Anthony replied. ‘Do you believe in God? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus?’

    ‘I don’t know,’ Matthias replied. ‘As I live, Father, I don’t really know and, sometimes, I don’t really care. I, Matthias Fitzosbert, am a parson’s son. I trained to be a clerk and I have served as a soldier. As a man I love books and libraries. I like green fields, good food and a goblet of wine. I would love to go fishing or for a walk in the meadow. I wish I had friends, a place I could call my own. I am ordinary and I wish to be ordinary but life, the Rose Demon or whatever, will not leave me alone. I want to be free. I want to be free of all these shadows: the likes of Emloe, Fitzgerald, Douglas.’ Matthias put his face in his hands. ‘I try to break free but, whenever I do, I am always dragged back. So, Father,’ he looked at the friar, ‘that is my confession. What is my penance?’

    Father Anthony lifted his hand and recited the words of absolution, making the sign of the cross over Matthias’ head.

    ‘Your penance is your life,’ he murmured. ‘This crisis, Matthias, is your life. You cannot escape it!’

25

    Father Anthony gazed beseechingly at Matthias.

    ‘One day,’ he said, ‘you must make a choice. You can either accept this Rose Demon, and whatever his love means to you, or you can continue this struggle, this savage battle against bitterness, heartbreak and sorrow.’ He smiled wanly. ‘So far you seem to have made the right choice but, at a certain time, in a certain place, you must make the final choice.’

    ‘Is that all my life means?’ Matthias spat the words out.

    ‘Yes. There will be no Matthias Fitzosbert the clerk, the family man, the husband, the father. No Matthias the bibliophile, the scholar, the man who likes fishing or collecting apples on the dew-soft grass of an orchard. Oh, you will eat and you will drink, you will sleep, you may love, you may fight but the constant theme in your life will be this terrible struggle.

    ‘Why?’ Matthias pulled himself up on the bed. He flailed his hands. ‘Why me?’

    ‘Why not?’ Father Anthony replied. ‘Do you think you are alone? Don’t you ever think that someone like myself would like to be a father, a lover, a poet, a troubadour? Do you know what it’s like to wake in the early hours and be alone? To do good and be attacked in an alleyway? To pray into the darkness and get no reply?’

    Matthias leant over and gently stroked the friar’s cheek.

    ‘I am sorry,’ he apologised.

    ‘Such self-pity is no sin,’ the friar replied. ‘Even Christ protested that he hadn’t got a home to call his own or a pillow to lay his head on! It only becomes a sin when you wallow in it and make it a way of life.’

    ‘So, what should I do?’ Matthias asked.

    ‘Accept each day as it comes but try and plan for the future. Your association with the Rose Demon seems to begin with Hospitallers. The hermit claimed to have been one and, you say, he met another Hospitaller in Tewkesbury who fought for the House of Lancaster.’

    ‘Yes, that’s true.’

    ‘Now, across Smithfield,’ Father Anthony continued, ‘lies the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, the Mother House of the Hospitaller Order in England. I will write you a letter of