The Rose Demon

wood smoke and something else, like fat boiling over the fire. He turned the corner and stared in horror down the high street. Fulcher had done his job well. The old bear-baiting post had been taken out and put on a small makeshift platform. The hermit had been lashed to this, dry brushwood piled high around: the flames had already caught hold. As Matthias pushed his way through the crowd, he could just make out the hermit’s face behind the wall of flame. Yet something was wrong. The fire roared but the prisoner bound to the stake did not squirm or cry out. The villagers, too, were silent.

    ‘Is he dead?’ someone asked.

    ‘Has he fainted?’

    Matthias sniffed, wrinkling his nose. He could not understand it: the fire must have caught the hermit’s body.

    ‘Has he swooned?’ someone shouted.

    As if in answer, the hermit started to sing, his voice loud and clear through the flames. A chill swept through the assembled villagers. Men who had served in the King’s wars and seen others die in different horrible ways, stared aghast. The flames roared higher, hiding the hermit’s face. Still the song was sung, the words clear and full on the air: at first in French, ‘ La Rose du Paradis ’, the second verse in English. The voice was strong and vibrant like a man sitting on a summer afternoon carolling his heart out. Some of the villagers ran away. Others crossed themselves. A few fell on their knees. The singing died away. The stench of burning flesh became unbearable. Matthias, whose shoulder had been gripped by Joscelyn the taverner, broke free and fled up an alleyway.

    Matthias ran blindly, not stopping till he found himself in the woods. He crouched at the foot of a tree, then made his way along the trackway to Tenebral. He went into the church. The sanctuary was full of sad reminders of his friend: a piece of leather, scraps of bone and meat from his cooking. Any meagre possessions had already been stolen by the villagers. Matthias gazed in awe at the beautiful rose painted on the wall: the runes, the strange marks beneath, had grown in number, as if the hermit had spent his last night etching out these signs. Matthias walked slowly out on to the porchway. The breeze caught his face. He heard the whisper: ‘ Oh Creatura, bona atque parva! ’

    He stared around, no one was there.

    Matthias left the church, vowing he would never return, and hastened along the trackway. He turned the corner and almost ran into the Preacher who, with his scrip on his back and a stout ash pole in one hand, was striding along.

    ‘Murderer!’ the boy screamed.

    The Preacher hawked and spat, narrowly missing Matthias’ face.

    ‘Your friend is dead. I am off to Tewkesbury where the good brothers will give me sustenance!’

    Matthias made an obscene gesture at the Preacher’s receding back. The boy didn’t know what it meant but he had seen the men at the Hungry Man make it when tax collectors or royal purveyors were about. Matthias hoped the Preacher would turn but the man strode round the bend of the trackway.

    By the time Matthias returned to the village, the fire was out. The platform against the bear-baiting post had crumbled under the searing heat. Simon the reeve was piling the ash into one great mound.

    ‘We’ll throw it into one of the cesspits,’ he declared, not lifting his face.

    Matthias went across to the grassy verge. He picked some of the wild flowers growing there and tossed them on the top of the burning ash. The flowers began to scorch. Matthias thought of throwing on some more: he glimpsed a bone, yellow and blackened amongst the cinders, so he walked away.

    The Hungry Man was full of customers, the villagers carousing, celebrating as if they had won a great victory, drinking deeply of the taverner’s newly brewed ale, eager to forget the memories of the day. Matthias spied his father amongst them, his face flushed, eyes glittering. Parson Osbert beckoned his son over. Matthias glared back, then hurried on.

    The following evening Thurston the tinker and his pretty wife, Mariotta, left the town of Tewkesbury. Their small barrow was full of scraps, pieces of armour and other items they had collected after the battle. Mariotta pulled the cart, the ropes biting into her shoulders, whilst her husband, full of ale, staggered beside her. Mariotta didn’t mind. The day had been a prosperous one. They could take the armour to a forge, have it beaten flat and make a good profit. Mariotta was