The Rose Demon

done you any harm, boy?’

    ‘Of course not. He lets me go with him. We talk.’

    ‘About what?’

    ‘About God and Christ.’

    Matthias licked his lips, his mind now racing. What did the Preacher think they did? What did they talk about? Matthias suddenly realised the hermit was his friend, closer to him than any of the village children - he felt a pang of guilt - even closer than his mother or father. They had always been distant, more involved with each other than him. Oh, they loved him but it was as if he were a second thought.

    ‘And what does he say?’ the Preacher insisted.

    ‘That the Lord God,’ Matthias recalled his own lessons, ‘that the Lord God made Heaven and earth and that He sent His Son to redeem us.’

    ‘Does he ever practise magic, sorcery, the black arts?’

    ‘Pish!’ Parson Osbert spoke up. ‘The boy would know little about that.’

    ‘The Devil casts his net wide,’ the Preacher retorted.

    ‘He is only a child.’ Christina suddenly sat upright in her chair. ‘And a very tired one at that. Matthias, it’s time for bed.’ She stared defiantly across at the Preacher. ‘He is my son. He is only a child. He is very tired.’

    Matthias was only too pleased to escape. He kissed his mother and father, nodded quickly at the Preacher and almost ran from the parlour.

    Matthias was awoken the next morning just after dawn by the sound of the church bell tolling, and got up in alarm. Hastily wrapping a horsehair blanket round him, he hurried downstairs. The kitchen was clean and swept, his mother, rather pale-faced, was standing over a bowl of oatmeal bubbling above a weak fire.

    ‘What’s wrong?’ Matthias cried.

    ‘Your father has decided to call the villagers to a meeting in the nave of the church, before he celebrates the Requiem for Fulcher’s daughter.’

    ‘What about?’

    ‘Hurry up and get dressed, Matthias. You and I are both going.’

    Matthias obeyed. He washed, put on his Sunday robes and went down to the kitchen to break his fast. His father and the Preacher came in. Parson Osbert was now dressed in his dark brown gown, fastened round the middle by a white cord. He had washed and shaved but the Preacher appeared no different. His sallow, dirty features had a look of excitement as if he savoured what was about to happen. They ate in silence, interrupted now and again by knocks on the door, as villagers enquired what was happening. Parson Osbert quietly told them to meet in the church. He and the Preacher left. Christina doused the fire and, taking Matthias’ hand, walked across the cemetery and through a side door into the nave.

    Matthias slipped away, back into the cemetery - God’s acre, as his father always termed it. He went to stand under a yew tree and watched as the villagers came into the graveyard. Many of the peasants mumbled and protested at being called away from the fields but, after yesterday’s events, they were frightened of other occurrences. The law of the village was very clear: if the church bell was rung in alarm they all had a duty to assemble. They left their scythes, hoes and mattocks in a pile in a corner of the church wall. The women went straight in but the men stamped their feet and looked up at the brightening sky, bemoaning the waste of a good day. They fell silent as Fulcher, followed by his wife and family, came up the graveyard path. The blacksmith’s family were all dressed in their Sunday best with pieces of dyed black ribbon sewn on their tunics and gowns as a mark of mourning. The other villagers let them through, murmuring their condolences, before following the blacksmith into the church. Matthias stared round the cemetery: he glimpsed the fresh mounds of earth where his father had buried the unfortunates killed the day before. The boy chewed on his thumbnail. He did not know whether to stay or flee to Tenebral. The Preacher meant his friend the hermit no good and shouldn’t he be warned? Matthias stood up. Surely he wouldn’t be missed?

    ‘Matthias!’

    The boy turned. Christina was standing in the church porch.

    ‘Matthias, you are to come, your father is missing you.’ Matthias sighed and followed her into the church. Christina’s firm grip on his hand showed she would stand no nonsense and the way she kept looking down at him made him wonder. Did she know? Did she suspect what he had been planning? The nave was packed. All the families of Sutton Courteny, the old as well as the young, filled