Paul Doherty - The Rose Demon

‘And Christina, the boy’s mother?’ Rahere asked.

‘She’s upstairs. God save us! I’ve dressed her for burial. But this?’ She shook her head, mumbling under her breath.

‘We’ll see her,’ Rahere declared. ‘I’ll take the boy up. He should see his mother, at least once.’

He led Matthias up the stairs. Christina was laid out on her bed. She had been dressed in her best gown, her hair was combed, falling down to her shoulders, her face was serene, hands placed across her chest. Matthias felt that if he stretched out, he could shake her awake yet he did not want to. He felt guilty. She looked younger, at peace with herself. Matthias caught a glimpse of the mother he wanted to remember. He stood, the tears streaming down his face.

‘Say your prayers,’ Rahere whispered.

Matthias tried to think of one but he couldn’t. All he could remember were the words his father had taught him to say every morning.

‘Remember this, my soul, and remember it well. The Lord thy God is One and He is holy. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, with all thy heart and with all thy strength.’ He looked up at Rahere. ‘That’s all I can say.’

‘Kiss your mother,’ Rahere said.

Matthias climbed on the bed. He kissed Christina on her cheeks and brow. He clambered off and watched in surprise as Rahere also bent over the dead woman and kissed her gently on the lips. He ran his fingers gently down her face.

‘It’s finished, Matthias.’ He stared down at the boy. ‘Only the shell remains. The spirit has long gone.’ Rahere whispered something, staring up at the ceiling. ‘She has gone,’ he continued to the boy. ‘She suffered much, yet, despite her sins, she was good. No objection has been made: she has been allowed to pass into the light.’

Matthias stared, puzzled: Rahere shrugged and took him downstairs. Widow Blanche was still clucking like a hen over the sleeping parson.

‘You can leave the boy with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll get him something to eat.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rahere retorted. His eyes held those of Blanche. ‘I am sure you’ll agree it’s best the boy stay with me for a while.’ He held his hand out and pressed silver coins into Blanche’s.

‘I would agree, sir,’ she replied. ‘Parson Osbert’s mind is turned with grief.’

Matthias did not object: he did not want to stay here.

‘Will he get better?’ he asked as they left.

‘I don’t know,’ Rahere replied. He looked up at the sky. ‘I don’t think so. Some sicknesses cannot be cured.’

The clerk’s words proved to be prophetic. Parson Osbert was so incapacitated that Baron Sanguis had to bring a priest from Tredington for Christina’s funeral Mass. Matthias attended with the other villagers. He felt a pang of compassion for his father, who sat on a bench supported by old Blanche and Simon the reeve.

The day of Christina’s burial was a dismal one. The sky was overclouded. Once the sheeted corpse had been lowered and the dirt piled in, the mourners ran for shelter from the fat drops of rain which began to fall. Matthias went back with Rahere to the Hungry Man. He felt comfortable there, either assisting the clerk or doing jobs round the tavern for Joscelyn.

The villagers grew accustomed to the clerk’s presence and, as the days passed, they accepted him as their leader and counsellor. Parson Osbert, constantly in his cups, was dismissed as a madcap who, before long, would be relieved of his living. In his turn, the clerk seemed unwilling to leave and, when questioned by Sanguis and others, dismissed any notion of returning to Westminster just yet.

‘I need to be sure,’ he explained, ‘that there are no more deaths in the locality. The Preacher’s corpse might be rotting on the gallows but there may be more than one killer. He might have been a member of a coven.’

He told the villagers this when they all crowded into the tavern late at night after the harvest had been stored. The villagers gathered round him.

‘It’s true what you say, sir,’ Fulcher declared. ‘So many corpses, yet no one has given the reason why.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Rahere sat back in his seat, putting his arm round Matthias.

‘Well, my Edith,’ the blacksmith hastily explained. ‘Why was she killed? Why were these corpses drained of blood?’

‘Perhaps you should ask the Preacher?’ Rahere joked.

The assembled men and women laughed self-consciously.

‘And what about the boy?’ Scrivener Mapp pointed at Matthias. ‘I mean, when you go, sir?’

‘Oh, he’ll come with me.’

Matthias hid his surprise but he found it easy to do so. Over the last few weeks he’d grown more secretive: he had already decided that, if the clerk left, he would not stay, though where he would go was, until now, unresolved.

‘Will you stay long?’ Piers the ploughman asked.

His voice was anxious though he forced a smile. He and the other men were becoming increasingly concerned by this handsome, elegant clerk’s attraction for their women. Rahere leant his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers over the lower half of his face.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he declared. ‘I’ll stay until Samhain evening. Yes, to the Eve of the Feast of All Saints.’ He chuckled deep in his throat. ‘I promise you, it will be a Samhain that will be remembered for years!’

In the scriptorium of Tewkesbury Abbey, the Chronicler did not know how to describe the horrifying events which occurred at Sutton Courteny in the autumn of 1471. The old monk scratched the quill against his face. He had talked to his brothers. Baron Sanguis had arranged for the survivors to be brought into the abbey where he’d met them in the refectory. They were all white-faced, haggard-eyed. Some were uncertain, others too shocked. A few had lost their reason, wandering in their own black pit of madness. Those who could speak mentioned the meeting in the taproom on 14 September, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Rahere the clerk was there, laughing and courteous. He generously bought stoups of ale and goblets of wine for the villagers when they met to prepare for All-Hallows and the Feast of Samhain Eve.

Samhain was the night when the door between this world and the other was thrown open and the spirits of the dead were allowed to wander the world. The villagers agreed to a great feast being held at the Hungry Man tavern. Work on the land would pause. Cattle would be sheltered in preparation for winter. They would deck their houses with the branches of rowan and elder. Of course, they would also light bonfires around the village, as was ancient custom, to keep the evil spirits away. The villagers were relaxed and happy. The evils which had oppressed them since the death of the hermit seemed to have been lifted. True, Parson Osbert wandered his churchyard like a madcap, keening over poor Christina’s grave, but his boy seemed in good spirits, now looked after by Rahere the clerk. The villagers had grown accustomed to seeing him around the Hungry Man.

Matthias, however, kept his own counsel. His mind was confused. He still could not understand or accept his mother’s death, whilst his father had become a dishevelled, wild-eyed stranger, neglecting his duties, lost in mourning for his dead wife. Rahere, however, kept the boy busy. They’d go out into the woods where Matthias would show off his forest lore whilst Rahere introduced him to the secrets of the Chancery and filled his mind with vivid stories about the King’s gorgeous court. He even hinted that Matthias might become a clerk, attend the abbey school and, if he showed wit and sharp intelligence, enter the schools of Oxford and become a master of learning. Matthias nodded when he heard this. He felt oppressed by Sutton Courteny. The villagers were strangers and he did secretly worry what would happen to him if Rahere abruptly left.