The Rose Demon

crossed himself and, putting his trust in Christ, returned to sleep.

    Otto returned to his study of the Scriptures. For a while he dozed and then, as customary, walked round the ruins. Once the sun began to dip, he took his precious tinder and, gathering the kindling he had collected together and some of the camel dung he had taken from the road below, he lit a weak fire.

    For a while Otto just sat and warmed himself, and then he stiffened. The voice was so pure, clear, lilting.

    ‘In Heaven’s meadows before the world began
The mystic Rose grew there.
But I plucked it as a gift
For the daughter of God.’

    Otto whirled round. In the firelight he could see a young boy dressed in a simple white tunic with a stick in his hand.

    ‘Who are you?’ he stammered.

    The boy moved forward. Otto caught the smell of goat but then stood up in horror as the heady fragrance of a rose garden seemed to envelop him. The boy was now walking slowly towards him, tapping his stick on the ground, his dark face broken by a grin. His teeth were pearl white, his eyes full of laughter. He dropped his stick and held out his hands towards Otto.

    The hermit could only stare and, as he did so, in that Arab boy’s eyes he recognised the look, the same glance, the same soul he had glimpsed so long ago in the eyes of the Byzantine princess.

3

    St Paul’s Graveyard, London, May 1471

    Rosa Mundi, rapta excoelo non munda:
The Rose of the World,
Stolen from Heaven,
Is not pure.

    The crowd thronged about the gaudily garbed herald who stood on the step of the towering cross of St Paul’s. He lifted his hand and a shrill bray of trumpets silenced the clamour, bringing to the foot of the cross traders, journeymen, tinkers, priests, monks, friars as well as the rifflers, the bawdy girls, the strumpets of the city. All were eager to hear the latest news. The herald raised his hand and again the trumpets brayed.

    ‘Come on!’ a burly tinker bawled from the back of the crowd before shaking his fist at a pickpocket coming too close to his wallet. ‘Come on! What news?’

    The herald ignored the tinker. He lifted one gloved hand, drawing in his breath. He knew his trade: here, at St Paul’s, news of the kingdom was always proclaimed and people would wait for his message. He would proclaim it here, and again at the cross in Cheapside before taking a barge downriver to make the same announcement before the cross at Westminster. A hush descended over the crowd. Even the whores took off their scarlet wigs, stretching their necks to catch the cool breeze and allowing their shaven pates some relief from the constant itching of their flea-infested hairpieces.

    ‘Know you this!’ the herald began. ‘That Edward IV, by the grace of God, King of England, Ireland, Scotland and France . . .’

    ‘Aye, and of every woman in this city!’ someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

    ‘Know ye!’ the herald continued relentlessly. ‘That the King and his two brothers, Richard, Duke of Gloucester and George, Duke of Clarence, having destroyed the traitor’s army on the field at Barnet, have now moved west to seek out and destroy the rebel Margaret of Anjou. Yes, she who calls herself Queen, together with her coven of foreign mercenaries, outlaws, wolf’s-heads and other traitorous subjects who have withdrawn their rightful allegiance from the said noble Edward. Know ye this! That any man, giving sustenance to the said rebels, or who refuses to give sustenance to the King’s rightful subjects, will himself be declared a rebel and suffer the full rigours of the law!’

    The herald raised his hand again and the trumpets brayed. Then the royal messenger and the trumpeters mounted their horses and rode across the graveyard into Paternoster Row.

    The crowd, however, did not disperse and the water-tipplers, their leather buckets slung round their shoulders, did a roaring trade as they moved amongst the crowd, slaking dusty throats and wetting dry, cracked lips.

    ‘I hope the bloody war ends soon!’ A journeyman pushed his way to the foot of the steps. He placed his sack of goods on the ground, his eyes fiercely sweeping the crowd. ‘It’s no good,’ he continued, ‘to walk the lanes and trackways of England when armies are on the march with soldiers who steal from any honest man. Not that Edward of England’s men would do that . . . !’

    The crowd nodded. The war between the Houses of Lancaster and York did not really affect them but