The Rose Demon

the hour, Matthias was in the open countryside. Behind him his two guardian angels, coarse-featured, rough-voiced men, trotted slowly, fighting hard to control Matthias’ horse.

    Matthias walked purposefully. He was glad to be free of the church. The day was a fine one. Birds swooped and warbled above him; on either side fields of golden wheat stretched to the far horizon. By mid-morning Matthias was tired and hungry. He and his guards paused to drink from a small brook and eat some of the bread and cheese Father Aidan had supplied. The two men were very taciturn, uneasy at what they were doing but their mood and faces brightened when Matthias promised them a shilling as soon as they reached Rye. They continued on their journey. One of the guards was hopeful that they could be in Rye that same day and Matthias agreed. The sky was blue, the sun strong, the trackway underfoot made easy going. Matthias thanked God it was summer, for heavy rains turned such trackways into mud-clogging morasses.

    Matthias kept up a vigorous walk. As he did so, he tried not to concentrate on the aches in his legs and the dryness in his throat. He thought of Rosamund and the day they went out to the Roman wall: so short a time ago, yet, to Matthias, it seemed an eternity away. He felt a flurry of excitement at leaving England and being free of people who wanted to use him. Once again he recalled his mood before the battle of East Stoke, not frightened or fearful, but waiting. He was not frightened of death. Life was so bitter, what further horrors could it hold for him? He wondered if a time would come when the Rose Demon might leave him alone? Would he be allowed to live a normal life and, if he did, what should he be? Clerk or soldier? Merchant or scholar? Would he ever meet another woman? No one would ever replace Rosamund but life could be lonely and Matthias was tired of being by himself.

    They forded a small river, Matthias stopping to bathe his hands and face in the clear water. The countryside then changed, the fields giving way to dark woods on either side. The sunlight was blocked out, the birdsong not so clear, yet Matthias was glad for the coolness. He wondered if they really would be in Rye by nightfall. He walked deeper into the forest, admiring how the sunlight showed up the different shades of green. He stopped to pluck a wild rose growing on the edge of the path. He heard a whirr like the flight of some bird, followed by a cry. He turned round to see both his guards fall from their horses, clutching at the arrows in their chests. Dark shapes slipped from the trees. Before Matthias could even move, these figures drew knives, quickly slitting his guards’ throats. Matthias whirled round. Other men, hooded and masked, crept on to the path, forming a ring around him. Matthias held his cross up though he knew the gesture was futile: it was struck from his hand. He was bundled on to his horse and led under the spreading branches of an oak tree. He struggled but his hands were bound behind him. A horseman rode up, his eyes glittering behind his mask.

    ‘Guilty of Emloe’s death!’ he rasped. ‘You’ll die the way you should!’

    A piece of sacking was put over Matthias’ head. A noose tightened round his neck. He dug his feet more firmly into the stirrups. His horse, nervous, shied and reared. Matthias hung on grimly, digging in his knees even as Emloe’s gang tried to pull the horse clear and leave him to die of excruciating strangulation. Matthias panicked. He struggled with all his might. Men were shouting. He heard the rasp of steel. His horse reared in agony, then collapsed beneath him. Matthias hung suspended, the noose biting deep into his throat. He heard, as if above the roaring of waves, the sound of horses, and the rope was cut. He fell and hit something lying on the road. The sacking was pulled off, the cord round his neck swiftly cut. For a while he just lay gasping and retching. The cords binding his hands were also sliced. He realised he was lying on the corpse of his horse.

    ‘Bastards!’ he muttered. ‘He was a brave animal!’

    ‘Aye,’ a voice said. ‘If he hadn’t fought back, we wouldn’t have been in time.’

    Matthias rolled over and stared into the smiling face of Sir Edgar Ratcliffe. He struggled to his knees. The corpses of Emloe’s men littered the trackway and, by the sounds from the trees, others were being hunted and killed deep in the woods.

    ‘Nothing like a bit of