Paul Doherty - The Rose Demon

In the evening a great banquet was held. Matthias and Rosamund sat at the high table, served by Sir Humphrey and Vattier. The rest of the garrison, men, women and children, thronged the tables below the dais and drowned out the poor musicians Sir Humphrey had hired specially from Carlisle. The evening wore on. Matthias made sure his wine was generously watered. He felt so happy he dare not turn and glance at Rosamund. Sometimes, as he watched the people laugh, joke and dance, or smelt the sweet odours from the kitchen and buttery, he thought he was having one of his dreams. Surely he would be punched, nipped or kicked awake and find himself lying in some squalid room or filthy cell.

Outside the sun began to set. Matthias wondered if it was time he and his bride left their guests to their pleasures, when the door to the hall was thrust open. Two soldiers came running in, faces white, eyes staring. They searched out Sir Humphrey, drawing him aside, whispering to him, gesturing towards the door. The laughter and talk died, the music subsided. Sir Humphrey, his face grave, came over to the high table.

‘Matthias, Vattier, Father Hubert, you’d best come with me! No, Rosamund, you stay. Look after the guests, tell them all is well.’

The Constable led his party out into the keep. Even as he followed, Matthias’ head cleared of the wine fumes. His happiness was tinged by dread. As soon as he entered the keep, he heard the cries and groans echoing along the gallery of the north tower. One of the soldiers took a pitch torch out of its iron holder, but he was trembling so much that Matthias grabbed it from him and led the rest of them on. Sir Humphrey swore under his breath. Father Hubert began chanting a prayer. The stone passageway was icy cold, filled with the rottenness of decay yet it was the shrieks and cries behind the locked door to the north tower which chilled their blood.

‘It began about an hour ago,’ one of the soldiers whispered. ‘At first I thought it was some joke. Listen now!’

They all did. The groans and screams stopped.

‘Oh Lord save us!’

Father Hubert grasped Matthias’ arm and pointed to the bottom of the door. A ghostly blue light glowed there.

Matthias went to grasp the latch but Sir Humphrey knocked him away. As he did so a woman’s voice could be heard.

‘Oh please, oh in God’s name, no! Oh please stop!’

This was followed by the sound of scraping and hammering, as if someone were building something behind the door. Again the woman’s voice, her heart-wrenching pleas for mercy, echoed out. This turned into deep-bellied laughter of someone who had grown witless, or like a mad dog howling at the moon. This devilish chorus — the woman’s pleas, the mocking laughter — grew, interspersed with periods of silence. By straining his ears Matthias could hear the man talking, muttering to himself, filthy curses, vows of vengeance. The gallery was now so cold, Father Hubert was rubbing his arms trying to keep warm. One of the soldiers, unable to bear the tension, simply fled the keep.

‘Let me go in,’ Matthias said.

Sir Humphrey held him back.

‘You are my son-in-law,’ he smiled bleakly. ‘Not now, Matthias, not on this, your wedding night-’

‘This has happened before,’ Father Hubert broke in. He glanced at Matthias. ‘It will happen again. It can wait!’

Matthias agreed. The light under the door vanished. There was silence from the stairwell beyond so they turned and left the keep.

When they returned to the hall, Matthias refused to tell Rosamund what had happened. Instead he went round his guests, filling their wine cups, trying to forget what he had witnessed. He drank a little himself, and the wine settled his stomach and soothed his mind.

A trumpeter amongst the musicians blew long melodious blasts on his horn, then Matthias and Rosamund were led from the hall up to their nuptial bed in Rosamund’s chamber beside the solar. The sheets on the new four-poster bed had been turned back, the bolsters piled high. The guests drank one last toast to the bride and groom and left.

Matthias and Rosamund sat on the edge of the bed. Matthias put his hand gently round her waist and pulled her closer. He whispered softly in her ear, tickling her face with the tip of his tongue. She laughed and turned away, pulling at the laces on her white satin dress. Matthias grasped her fiercely and they fell back on the bed.

For the next few days the wedding revelry continued. Matthias and Rosamund lived in their own dreamlike world. They had married on a Monday and Sir Humphrey declared the rest of the week a holiday. The newly wedded couple were left alone, allowed to wander the castle by themselves or, better still, take horses from the stable and ride recklessly over the heathland. Sometimes they filled the saddlebag with bread, cheese and other food wrapped in linen cloths, took a wineskin and rode out to some lonely copse where they could sit and talk or lie quietly in the grass, arms around each other.

On the Sunday, Matthias took Rosamund down to the wall, the ruins where he and Vane had sheltered the night before they had arrived at Barnwick. There was no sign of the old hermit Pender. Matthias, remembering what he had been told, searched the ruins carefully. At last, he found what he was looking for, a carving above a hearth: a man dressed in a cloak standing on a rose in full bloom. Beneath the rose were the strange marks or runes such as he had seen in the deserted church at Tenebral.

‘What is it, love?’ Rosamund came shyly beside him, slipping her hand through his. She saw how pale her husband’s face had become. ‘Matthias, what is it?’

Matthias ran his fingers over the carving. Rosamund tugged at his arm.

‘Matthias Fitzosbert!’

‘Yes, Rosamund Fitzosbert!’

‘What is it?’ Her sweet eyes held his. ‘Matthias, I am no fool, I know you have a secret. Father Hubert knows. I am confident it’s nothing evil, nothing wicked.’ She grasped his face between her hands. ‘The haunting in the north tower? Father Hubert told me about it. I know that it has increased since you arrived. When you came, you were Matthias the Miserable.’ She grinned. ‘Fitzosbert the Grim. Now you leap for happiness like a child into its mother’s arms. What is it, Matthias? Why did you bring me down to the wall? Yes, it’s beautiful. The autumn sun is still strong, the ground is firm but, for the last hour, you have searched like a miser who has hidden a bag of gold but can’t remember where he has put it. Yet, now you’ve found it, your face is pallid.’ She moved her hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘What is it, Matthias Fitzosbert? What passion drives you?’ Her hand fell away. ‘You sleep deeply but you talk and you mutter about men called Rahere, Santerre.’ She blinked furiously. ‘And a woman called Mairead. Was I wrong, Matthias Fitzosbert?’

‘Wrong in what?’ he asked.

‘I’ll never stop loving you,’ she continued. ‘The fires of Hell can freeze and the world will crack before Rosamund stops loving Matthias.’ She squeezed his fingers. ‘But do you love me, Matthias? Love me enough to tell me your great secret?’

Matthias kissed her on the brow. ‘We have some bread and some wine,’ he murmured. He took his cloak and placed it on the ground. ‘Sit and listen, Rosamund.’

He ensured the horses were hobbled, took off the saddlebag and returned. She was kneeling, sitting back on her heels. Matthias laid out the cloth, filled the two pewter cups, then sat beside her, his back to the wall. He stared up at a white cloud the size of a man’s hand.

‘I have told you something about my life,’ he began, ‘but there is something else. So, listen carefully.’ He paused. ‘And then you’ll realise why I am Fitzosbert the Grim.’