The Rose Demon

held the knife up before Rokesby’s startled eyes then dropped it. Rokesby, clutching his stomach, staggered forward. He went to say something but coughed blood and slumped to one knee. Santerre kicked his leg. Rokesby keeled over on to the dirty rushes, body twitching. Matthias stared horrified.

    ‘God save us, Santerre!’ he muttered. ‘We’ll both hang for this!’

    ‘No we won’t.’ Santerre smiled down at the corpse. ‘He was a pig and he died like one. It will be days before they find his corpse and we’ll be gone.’

    He pulled Matthias out of the room, slamming the door, and, holding Matthias by the arm, hustled him down the stairs.

    They hurried back through the late afternoon crowds to Exeter Hall. Matthias found himself numb, unable to speak. All he could remember was Rokesby’s sneering face, the quick, deft way Santerre had killed him.

    Once back in their chamber Matthias climbed up to his bed in the loft and sat, head in hands. Rokesby had been correct. Sanguis had supported the usurper Richard III and any influence the Baron had at court had died at the Battle of Bosworth the previous August. The good Baron still sent Matthias monies but he was old, grieving over his son and wary of the new Tudor King calling him to account. Matthias cursed his own selfishness but he knew that, apart from Sanguis, no one else could help him.

    He glanced down. Santerre had taken his flute from a coffer and, as if nothing had happened, piped some music. The Frenchman paused then played notes Matthias had never heard before. The tune abruptly changed; Matthias stiffened. The playing was sweet, fluid, the same song he had heard the hermit sing on that dreadful day when the peasants of Sutton Courteny had burnt him to death.

12

    ‘Why?’ Matthias sat opposite Santerre. The Frenchman kept his face turned away. ‘Who are you?’ Matthias’ mouth and throat felt dry. He fought hard to control his panic, the cold sweat which broke out on his body. ‘Who are you?’ he repeated.

    ‘ Oh, Creatura bona atque parva! ’

    Matthias couldn’t stop the tears. The voice was the same, an accurate echo from his childhood, of sun-filled glades, of his father’s house and church. The lonely Tenebral, a dove flying against the blue sky.

    Santerre turned his head. Matthias knew he was not dreaming: the same face, but the eyes were different. He’d glimpsed that look in the hermit and Rahere the clerk; brooding, gentle as if the soul behind it wished to say something but couldn’t find the words.

    ‘Don’t call me that!’ Matthias blurted out. ‘Just answer me, why?’

    ‘Because I love you.’

    ‘In the body of a man?’

    ‘“The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the spirit which quickens,”’ Santerre replied, quoting from the Scriptures. ‘Do you really think love is a matter of the flesh? There’s more to it than what hangs between the thighs.’ He touched his head. ‘It’s in the brain, it’s in the soul!’

    ‘Why me?’

    ‘In time I’ll tell you.’

    Matthias calmed himself. Santerre was holding his gaze, not just to tell him something but, like the hermit, to soothe, to lull any anxieties.

    ‘I saw you take the Eucharist.’

    ‘How long ago is that, Matthias?’ Santerre smiled. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’

    Matthias glanced away.

    ‘You are a murderer, an assassin.’

    Santerre remained unperturbed.

    ‘Life breeds on life. The hawk kills the dove, the fox the rabbit, the lords of the soil whomever and whatever they wish. You saw that at Tewkesbury, Matthias. Men taken out and killed just because they fought for another prince. Or Baron Sanguis - you’d take his money but where does that come from, Matthias? From the blood and sweat of others.’

    ‘Those villagers,’ Matthias retorted, ‘my father and the rest.’

    ‘I could do nothing against them. They brought it on themselves. ’ Santerre’s face became hard. ‘I came to their village and, though they did not know it, my presence brought prosperity. They turned on me. I, who had done them no harm.’

    ‘You killed Fulcher’s daughter.’

    ‘True.’ Santerre’s face relaxed. ‘What is it you say, Matthias? How does that prayer go? Remember this, my soul, and remember it well. The Lord thy God is One and He is holy . . .’

    ‘What has that to do with it?’ Matthias objected to the prayer being quoted back at him.

    Santerre raised both hands, fingers splayed. ‘The Ten Commandments,