The Rose Demon

return!’

    He lay stock-still waiting for the answer but the only image which filled his soul was of the beautiful woman, hair bright as the sun, her hands stretched out to take the thornless rose.

    Then another image followed: the small, dark face of the boy, proof that, at last, if he searched long enough for love, love would respond.

6

    The chronicler at Tewkesbury described the villagers’ attack on the hermit at Tenebral in the most colourful language. According to the old monk, who blew on his knuckles and scratched the parchment with his quill, the night before was riven with protests. A blazing comet was seen in the sky, the stars dripped blood and a screech owl was heard in the woods around the village. Strange beasts appeared, plodding through the night: men with the heads of dogs; ghostly hunters speeding through the trees. Black Vaughan and his demon riders pounded along moonlit trackways. An angel perched on the spire of the church and, in the graveyard, ghosts were seen, their grey empty shapes moving amongst the tombstones and lichen-covered crosses. Strange knockings were made on doors. The patter of invisible feet was heard in passageways. When the sun rose, Tenebral was bathed in a fiery reddish glow of Hell.

    Of course these were legends. The arrest of the hermit was a simple, even pathetic affair. Matthias, forbidden to leave the house, had spent the previous evening avoiding both his father and mother as well as the sinister, chilling presence of the Preacher. The men of the village, armed to the teeth, with arbalests, longbows, spears, hatchets, dirks and daggers, marched towards Tenebral like a phalanx across a battlefield. The hermit was waiting: standing under the ruined lych-gate, he did not struggle when they bound his hands. Some of the younger men beat him with sticks and drew blood from his nose and mouth yet he offered no objection. They tied the other end of the rope to Fulcher’s great horse and dragged him like a sack of dirt into the village.

    The Preacher was in charge. Parson Osbert bleated about compassion and the rights of the prisoner but the peasants’ blood was up: they were determined to try this hermit for his life.

    Christina did not come down that morning but stayed in bed. Matthias heard the uproar as the men dragged the hermit into the nave of the church. He slipped out of the house and joined the women and children of the village as they thronged the church, eagerly awaiting the trial. A jury was empanelled, twelve good men and true symbolising the apostles who followed Christ. There was, however, nothing Christlike about the Preacher. Parson Osbert could only stand flailing his hands, bemoaning the violence of his parishioners. The Preacher acted as both judge and prosecutor. The jury sat on the benches facing each other across the nave. The prisoner was bound to a pillar whilst the Preacher dominated the proceedings from the pulpit. Walter Mapp the scrivener had a small table brought from the sacristy as he would act as clerk. He pompously laid out the parchment, ink horns, quills, pumice stone and the keen little knife which would keep his pen sharp.

    The Preacher clapped his hands three times.

    ‘ Vox populi, vox Dei! ’ he intoned. ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God!’ He pointed to a vivid scene painted on the church wall: Christ in Judgment at the parousia, the last day, dividing the people into sheep and goats. ‘Christ is our witness,’ the Preacher began. ‘We are here in the nave of the church to try this man for the crimes of witchcraft, devilish practices and murder. What say ye?’

    A roar like the howl of some great beast filled the church. Men, women and children stamped their feet and held their hands out, a sign they always used in the manor court when petitioning for justice.

    ‘What is your name?’ the Preacher demanded.

    ‘What is yours?’ the hermit coolly replied, bringing back his head.

    The Preacher looked nonplussed. ‘My name is not your business!’

    ‘Then neither is mine yours!’ the hermit retorted.

    The Preacher, his face flushed with anger, looked down at the scrivener. ‘Take careful note of what the prisoner says.’

    ‘I am glad you will,’ the hermit replied, ‘for the record will condemn you, your own words and actions.’

    The Preacher drew himself up. He was disconcerted by the cool mockery in the hermit’s voice.

    ‘What do you mean?’ The Preacher could have bitten his