Paul Doherty - The Rose Demon

‘Tush, Thomas, keep your voice down,’ Mairead whispered. She smiled at Matthias. ‘Symonds is a snake in the grass,’ she declared, ‘but young Edward is a fair boy.’

‘What’s happening?’ Matthias asked.

‘Ireland’s always been for the House of York.’ Fitzgerald walked round the bed and sat on the other side. ‘Symonds was right to bring his prince here.’

Matthias noticed how Fitzgerald stumbled on the word ‘prince’.

‘Now the great lords of Ireland have pledged their swords. Kildare, Ormond and the rest. The Church, too, has promised its aid. But it’s too late to go campaigning now. The sea is rough. There’ll be nothing in England to feed our horses or men.’

‘So?’ Matthias asked.

‘So, my boy, they’ll wait for a while,’ Fitzgerald continued. ‘Not only for the weather but a fleet.’

‘A fleet?’

Fitzgerald smiled lazily. ‘What’s the use of fighting for the English Crown if the English don’t help? The Yorkist lords are gathering but they are in the Low Countries. Francis Lovell, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, the son of the Earl of Suffolk.’ Fitzgerald tapped his chest. ‘That’s where I and the beautiful Mairead come in. I am a mercenary,’ he whispered with mock fierceness. ‘A cutter of throats and a ravisher of women-’

‘He’s also a liar,’ Mairead interrupted, leaning over to smooth the woollen coverlet. ‘I have known this boy, Master Matthias, since he was a babe. He sells his sword to the highest bidder. We are from the retinue of John de la Pole, envoy to the prince here in Dublin. There will be a fleet here soon from the Low Countries. The English lords, their retinues-’

‘And, more importantly,’ Fitzgerald interjected, ‘a thousand landsknechts.’

‘What?’ Matthias asked.

‘Mercenaries,’ Fitzgerald explained. ‘Born killers, like myself, under their leader, Martin Schwartz. They are a gift from Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister to the once great Edward IV, beloved aunt of our noble prince who now resides here in such opulent splendour.’

‘For God’s sake, keep your voice low!’ Mairead whispered.

Matthias struggled up to rest against the bolsters. Fitzgerald and Mairead hastened to help him, and Matthias caught her perfume, soft and cloying.

‘I’ve always wanted a child,’ Mairead said.

Fitzgerald grinned down at Matthias and patted his hand. ‘You are her child, you know. A good physician is Mairead. She knows the herbs and potions. She should be a physician.’ His face grew solemn. ‘Instead they call her a witch.’

‘Prince Edward told us to look after you,’ Mairead declared. ‘Gave us twenty pounds sterling, he did and offered us another thirty if you survived. A lovely boy, but you don’t believe he’s Warwick, do you?’

Mairead looked at Fitzgerald. The mercenary got up and walked to the door. He opened it, looked out, then closed and locked it.

‘There’s no one there,’ he said, ‘and the walls are thick.’ He sat on his stool next to Mairead. ‘Matthias — I can call you that, can’t I? — I am going to tell you the truth because, you know, never once in your rantings or ravings did you ever mention the House of York. So, I think the Cause means as much to you as it does to me.’ He winked at Matthias. ‘One day you’ll have to tell us why you are here. Now I am a ruffian born and bred. I lost my eye in a fray outside Arras but my ears and wits are as sound as any. Edward of Warwick is still in the Tower of London.’ He smiled at the surprise on Matthias’ face. ‘I have listened to the gossip in de la Pole’s circle. Edward of Warwick is a cat’s-paw: the son of an Oxford tradesman, his real name is Lambert Simnel. He’s a figurehead for the Yorkists. If they depose Henry Tudor, I am sure some nasty accident will occur so de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, can claim the throne.’

‘How many people know this?’ Matthias asked.

‘A few, but suspicion is spreading. The Tudors have taken the real Warwick out of the Tower and paraded him through the streets of London.’ Fitzgerald shrugged. ‘But we’ll see …’

‘Why are you here?’ Mairead asked Matthias, stretching over to straighten the bolsters behind him.

‘It’s a long story. Symonds regards me as a talisman. As for the rest, I have no choice. If I am ever caught in England, I’ll be hanged as a traitor, a murderer or a heretic.’

‘By Queen Mab’s paps!’ Fitzgerald grinned. ‘What on earth did you do?’

Matthias shrugged.

‘You told us some,’ Mairead declared, ‘when you were in a fever. You mentioned names: Christina.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Your father, Osbert, Santerre and two nameless ones, the hermit and the Preacher.’

Matthias studied both these people. Despite the warmth of the bed his stomach pitched in fear. Why were they really helping him? What proof did he have that the Dark Lord, the Rosifer, the being who refused to leave him alone, might not now possess one of these.

Mairead must have caught his suspicion.

‘One day,’ she said, rising to her feet, ‘you can tell us. For the moment you’d best rest.’

Over the next few weeks Matthias regained his strength. Fitzgerald and Mairead were the perfect companions but Matthias did not relax his suspicions. Edward of Warwick came to visit him. Despite what Fitzgerald had told him, Matthias still regarded him as a prince.

Symonds, however, had changed. He no longer wore the dark fustian robes of a priest but those of an elegant courtier. He was dressed in a quilted jacket with rounded neck and cuffs, the hem edged with fur, a chapron on his head, velvet hose and piped patterned shoes studded with precious stones. He would swagger in, thumbs pushed into the brocade belt, and talk grandly about what help they would receive and which Irish chieftains were with them.

As the year drew to a close and Matthias recovered full health, he began to wander the Archbishop’s palace, a grand spacious affair with its polished high ceilings, long wooden galleries, comfortable parlours and chambers. At Edward of Warwick’s childish insistence, Matthias also attended council meetings and discovered that Symonds was not as foolish as he thought. English exiles, former Yorkists, were now flooding into Dublin. They brought their horses and armour, sometimes two or three men-at-arms. However, the real source of strength were the Irish chieftains who fascinated Matthias: tall, raw-boned men, skin cut and scored by the biting wind, their faces half-covered by luxuriant moustaches and beards. Proud warriors who dressed in a mixture of native fashion but sometimes imitated the worst excesses of court fops. Loud-mouthed and quarrelsome, generous and open-handed, their tempers could change at a drop of a coin. If they thought their honour had been besmirched, their hands would fall to their daggers and they’d scream at each other in Gaelic. Fitzgerald played a vital part in keeping all parties happy. Matthias could understand why John de la Pole had sent him to Dublin. Fitzgerald was a mercenary but he understood the Irish customs and keen Gaelic sense of honour. Time and again, at council meetings or banquets in the Archbishop’s chamber, Fitzgerald would intervene to placate some chieftain or turn a potential knife fight and blood feud into laughter and ribaldry. Outside, in the archbishop’s grounds, Matthias would glimpse the wild kerns or tribesmen who made up the retinues of these great chieftains.

‘They fight like the very devils,’ Fitzgerald said, as he and Matthias watched them out on the frost-covered lawn, feasting on the mutton and beef the aged and venerable Archbishop had provided from his kitchens. ‘But that’s the trouble,’ Fitzgerald continued with a sigh. ‘Look at them, Matthias! Naked as the day they were born. They carry shield and stabbing dirk. They cover their bodies with blue and red paint but that’s no protection against men-at-arms, mounted knights or the deadly arrows of massed bowmen.’