The Rose Demon

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