The Rose Demon

‘You don’t think you’ll get a pardon, do you? I doubt it.’

    Matthias leant against the wall. ‘I agree, I don’t think I’ll get a pardon.’ He smiled at his gaolers. ‘But we’ll see.’

    He later regretted his remarks. The chief gaoler was now deeply suspicious. Matthias was manacled and the gaoler kept the cell door open whilst sitting down at the end of the torch-lit passageway watching his prisoner intently. The chains fastened to his gyves were long and loose. Matthias was able to move round the cell and drive off the snouting, sleek-coated rats when they became too bold. Nevertheless, as one day passed into another, Matthias began to despair. He did his best to counter this by going back to his childhood and sweet memories of Christina and Osbert. However, it was the hermit who intruded into his thoughts: showing him the foxes; freeing the dove in the ruined church; riding back with him from Tewkesbury.

    On the third evening after Matthias was sentenced the gaoler, perhaps to keep the prisoner subdued, was generous with the wine. Matthias slept, though his mind was plagued by nightmares. He was back in Tenebral, standing in the nave of the ruined church. The sky above was red, as if scored by the flames from a great fire. A group of men were riding up the path, their destriers black as night, heads and faces covered by chain-mail coifs. All around him came a loud chanting, as if an army were intoning the Dies Irae, the sequence from the Mass of the dead. The riders moved slowly, the banners they carried fluttering in the wind. Their leader, his face hidden behind a helmet on which a falcon stood, wings outstretched, stopped. He put his steel gauntlet on Matthias’ shoulder, squeezing it tightly; his other hand went to lift the visor. Matthias struggled to turn his face away. At the same time he wanted to cover his ears from the sombre chanting which was growing louder. He opened his eyes: the gaoler was shaking him vigorously, the torch he carried crackling, sending out acrid fumes.

    ‘Master Fitzosbert, oh Lord be thanked! I thought you were dead. You have a visitor. A priest has come to shrive you.’

    Matthias struggled back against the wall and stared down the passageway. In the poor light he made out the man he had seen in St Mary’s church just before he had been sentenced.

    ‘Do you want a priest?’ the gaoler asked. He crouched down. ‘It can help. When it comes to being taken out, you’ll not be so fearful.’

    The gaoler withdrew as the priest came into the cell. As he did so, he dropped a coin into the gaoler’s hand.

    ‘Lock the door,’ he muttered. ‘A man’s confession is between him and God.’

    The door slammed shut, the key turned. The priest, despite his fine, woollen robes, sat down on the rushes next to Matthias.

    ‘It’s good of you to come,’ Matthias declared.

    The priest stared coolly back. Matthias studied his visitor. A youngish man, his auburn hair was neatly tonsured. Close up, his face was not pleasant: the square jaw was offset by narrow, close-set eyes and a rather spiteful cast to the thin lips, as if the man disapproved of everything he saw and heard.

    ‘Father, are you really here to shrive me?’ Matthias asked. ‘And, if you are, how do I know you are a priest?’

    ‘My name is Richard Symonds. I am a priest of Oxford.’

    The man undid his cloak, revealing his long, black cassock as well as a small silver cross on a copper chain round his neck. He opened the large pouch on his belt and drew out a letter. The turnkey had lit the cresset torch in the cell. Matthias, with a rattle of chains, studied the document carefully. It was a licence, signed and sealed by the Bishop of London, giving one Richard Symonds the faculty to preach, celebrate Mass and hear confessions in London and in the counties of Oxford and Berkshire.

    ‘You have a parish, Father?’

    ‘No, I am a tutor in Lord Audley’s household.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And you are right, I am not here to shrive you. I come to ask for your help.’

    Matthias lifted his hands in a jangle of chains.

    ‘Father, I’m dirty, unshaven and, in about four days, I’m going to be burnt to death. How can I help you?’

    ‘I was at your trial. They said you were a Yorkist.’

    ‘They also said I was an assassin and a sorcerer.’

    ‘But you do have powers, don’t you?’

    Symonds’ head came forward, his eyes gleaming, lips parted. Matthias wondered if the