The Rose Demon

his arm. On one occasion he dropped his sword. It fell with a clash and he scrabbled in the darkness to pick it up. Suddenly a face, grey like a puff of smoke, with grinning gargoyle mouth from which bare fangs protruded, came up before him. Sir Raymond wiped his face on the sleeve of his jerkin. Eutyches was now praying aloud, his words booming like the knell of a bell, urging them both to continue, to ignore what was happening.

    At last they reached the bottom of the steps. In the torchlight the old priest looked more ancient and wizened: he, too, was soaked in sweat whilst Otto stood as if he had been running for his life, chest heaving, mouth open gasping for air, sweat dripping down his unshaven cheeks as if he had doused his head in water.

    ‘How much further?’ Sir Raymond asked.

    The priest pointed along the passageway, which seemed to stretch into eternity.

    ‘Continue!’ he urged. ‘Whatever happens, don’t stop!’

    This time both knights followed him. They were too frightened to speak. Now and again they clasped hands, fighting the urge to leave this venerable priest and flee for their lives.

    ‘When your task is done--’ Eutyches spoke up, ‘and it will be done quickly - leave the chamber. Don’t come back this way but flee further along the gallery. It will bring you out beyond the city walls.’

    ‘We thought to die at Constantinople,’ Otto replied.

    ‘Why are the young so interested in dying?’ the priest said wryly. ‘In the end, die you will and die you must!’

    His grim jest seemed to lighten the tension. Just as the shadowy fears were closing in again, they reached a bend in the passageway where it turned abruptly to the left. Eutyches, however, ignored the gloomy, dark-filled gallery. He stood before a doorway, one of the most extraordinary the brothers had ever seen - not made of wood or steel but of sheer marble with a mother-of-pearl cross in the centre.

    ‘Unlock the door!’ Eutyches called.

    For a while Raymond fumbled with the keys. There were five locks along the side of the door. It took some time to find the key for each lock but, as he turned them, Sir Raymond could hear some intricate mechanism click. At last he finished and pushed the door hard. It swung open smoothly and both brothers gasped: if the door was a work of wonder, the octagonal chamber it guarded was even more so. It was lighted by shafts which came down from the roof and filled the chamber with sharp rays of sunlight. The walls were covered in gold-fringed, velvet drapes, the marble ceiling was concave, whilst each slab of the marble floor had a small glass case embedded in the middle.

    ‘Reliquaries,’ the priest explained.

    ‘Why?’ Otto whispered.

    Eutyches pointed to the centre of the chamber which, because of the angle of the light, was shrouded in a veil of darkness.

    Raymond narrowed his eyes. He could see the casket about a yard high and three yards long. He lifted his head and sniffed the air.

    ‘Roses!’ he whispered. ‘I can smell roses!’

    The air was growing sweeter by the second; a subtle fragrance, which provoked bittersweet memories of luxuriant gardens at the height of summer around the Priory of St John of Jerusalem in London.

    ‘Where are the roses?’ Otto asked. ‘Why does the chamber smell so fragrantly?’

    ‘Ignore it,’ Eutyches almost snarled. ‘We have a task to do!’

    They followed Eutyches across to the sarcophagus. Made out of costly wood, the casket was sealed with two locks, one at either end. Again, at Eutyches’ urgings, Raymond opened each lock and lifted back the lid. The smell of roses grew even richer, more cloying. He and Otto stared down in amazement. Beneath the gauze cloths lay the body of a beautiful young woman.

    ‘Do not tarry!’ Eutyches urged. ‘Lift the cloths!’

    They did so. Both men stared open-mouthed, the woman was so extraordinarily beautiful. Her dark hair was framed by a cloth-of-gold veil; her body hidden beneath the silver damask dress of a Byzantine princess; her velvet-gloved hands lay by her side. Raymond felt her cheek, soft as down-feather, slightly warm.

    ‘She’s sleeping!’ he exclaimed.

    ‘You are to open her mouth,’ the priest ordered. ‘I will press in the host, then you must seal the casket.’ Eutyches pointed across to where huge earthenware jars stood. ‘They are filled with oil. Once the casket is resealed, you are to tip them over. Take a torch from the wall outside and let the