The Rose Demon

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,