The Rose Demon

Lucifer’s henchman, was brought unwittingly by Westerners into Constantinople and possessed a Byzantine princess. The Emperor of the time would have burnt her as a witch but her father and others pleaded for her life. Somehow, I can’t explain, she was put in a drugged sleep and placed in the vault. The Emperor decreed that she would be safe there as long as the Empire was safe. His successors took a great and secret oath that if the city were ever to fall, what should have been done at the beginning would be done then.’

    ‘And we failed?’

    ‘Yes,’ the Grand Master snarled as he turned round. ‘You failed!’

    ‘Father, what can we do?’

    The Grand Master refused to answer then. However, a week later, he called them into the Priory church. He was calmer as he walked in silence between them, up and down the transept. At last he stopped and stared up at a picture of Christ in Judgment. On the Saviour’s right the saints, on the left, the damned being driven off to Hell.

    ‘Every so often--’ the Grand Master began, ‘and I am a man of sixty years, a priest and a soldier of Christ - every so often our humdrum lives are broken by something extraordinary such as this. I have reported as much to His Holiness in Rome as well as our Vicar General but there is little they can do.’ He held a hand up. ‘I have already told you all I know. A great evil has been unleashed on the world and only the Good Lord knows where it will end. You two are responsible. So this is my judgment and there is no appeal. You must leave the Order.’ He silenced their gasps. ‘One of you must spend a life of atonement, prayer and fasting, the life of a solitary hermit well away from the affairs of men. The other, well, the other must spend his life hunting for this demon.’ He paused. ‘It’s now Sunday. Your answer must be with me within fourteen days, the Feast of St Peter and St Paul.’

    The two brothers had conferred, their decisions made. Raymond had left for Europe. Otto had come to Palestine on a pilgrimage and founded his own hermitage here on the rocky slopes of Masada. Now and again he had travelled to one of the ports - Sidon, Tyre and even into Acre - but never had he heard anything about his brother. Only once, when he made enquiries from a merchant who traded between Cyprus and Constantinople, had he learnt about a Byzantine princess being given to one of Mohammed’s commanders in his harem. Otto could never discover whether this was the same woman he and his brother had taken from the vaults beneath Constantinople.

    ‘But she has not forgotten me,’ he murmured. ‘Who else would climb a rocky path to leave roses outside my cave?’

    He closed his eyes and cleared his mind. Every time he dreamt, he was back in that vault, the air rich with the smell of roses and, recently, even here, he had caught their fragrance. But no one was ever seen round here apart from an Arab boy tending some goats. Otto had considered returning to Rhodes, to seek the help and assistance of the Grand Master but, the last time he had been at Acre, a pilgrim had told him that the Grand Master had died in rather mysterious circumstances.

    Otto sighed and got to his feet. He left the cave and stared down into the valley. The goat boy was moving his herd towards the nearby oasis. Faintly, on the breeze, Otto heard the chime of bells and boyish shouts. He returned to his cave, opened the Scriptures and, once again, turned to the Apocalypse. He read the lines about the Great Beast, the Devil from Hell who wandered the face of the earth determined to destroy God’s creation. Otto closed his eyes.

    ‘I find it so hard to believe,’ he whispered. ‘So difficult, Lord. She was so young, so beautiful, so serene. Her skin was soft as shot silk. And those eyes, so blue, so innocent.’

    He recalled how, when they had hurried along the underground passage, the princess did not lose her dignity but kept up with the knights. When they paused so Raymond could scout ahead, she had simply leant against the wall and begun a song softly in French about a rose, a beautiful rose, which bloomed before Creation ever began.

    Otto opened his eyes and stared at the crucifix. Recently, at night, he had begun to hear that song again and he did not know whether it was the wind or his stupid mind playing tricks on himself. Yet he had gone out and stood at the mouth of his cave and seen shapes and forms moving amongst the stones. He had called out,