Paul Doherty - The Rose Demon

The Constable turned. His lower lip quivered: in the light from the torch he had taken from an iron bracket, his face looked aged and lined.

‘It’s Anna,’ he murmured, naming a kitchen slattern with a reputation for teasing the soldiers.

‘For God’s sake, man, what about her?’

‘She went missing early this afternoon.’

‘And?’

Sir Humphrey just pulled his arm away. He walked on so fast Matthias had to run to catch up with him. The Constable entered the keep. He went down some narrow steps leading into a maze of dungeons and storerooms. Two guards, each carrying a torch, stood within the doorway at the bottom of the steps. One of them had been sick: he was wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Sir Humphrey led Matthias along the icy-cold, musty passageway and into a room where barrels and casks were stored. Even before he pulled a barrel aside, Matthias glimpsed the pair of bare feet sticking out from behind it. Sir Humphrey gestured with his hand and turned away.

Matthias knelt down. He recognised Anna. The young woman lay, her smock pulled above her knees, her legs twisted strangely. Her head was turned sideways, long, lustrous hair covered her face and neck. Matthias moved the hair and turned the head towards him. Anna stared sightlessly up. Matthias looked at her throat. He closed his eyes and groaned. The girl’s bare shoulders were bruised, and on either side of her windpipe were two great jagged holes.

Matthias was too frightened, too tongue-tied to offer any explanation. He just advised Sir Humphrey that the corpse be removed and stumbled back to his own chamber. He did not sleep that night but slouched in a chair. The Rose Demon was back, incarnated in some person in the garrison: the macabre killings had begun again. The night seemed to stretch like an eternity. He just sat and waited for Rosamund to wake and, when she did just after daybreak, he told her in clipped sentences what he had seen the previous evening. Rosamund sat up, her back against the bolsters, her long hair flowing down over her shoulders. She was so calm, so unperturbed, Matthias was surprised.

‘Of course I expected it,’ she snapped crossly. ‘Matthias, do you think I am a numbskull? When you told me, that day we went to the wall, I knew then this being would not leave us alone. The question is who? And why now?’

‘Deveraux or Bogodis?’ Matthias asked. ‘They are strangers here. Until now everything has been quiet.’

‘They are sinister,’ Rosamund replied. ‘I know you don’t like them. They are shifty, secretive and certainly deserve watching, but we’ll have to see.’

The news of Anna’s death soon spread amongst the garrison. Matthias felt a slight shift in feelings towards him, dark looks whilst muttered conversations abruptly stopped whenever he appeared. Even Sir Humphrey seemed a little cold. Rosamund was blunt.

‘Matthias, Matthias,’ she put her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek, ‘people have memories. The hauntings in the north tower, the death of Father Hubert, the appearance of the Scots and now this. They put it down to you, but it will pass as all black moods do. You wait and see!’

In the end she was wrong, terribly so. Matthias was accustomed to take guard duty in the late afternoon. He went up into the gatehouse. By now he was bored with the Scots so he and the two guards sat down, their backs to the wall. The soldiers, wrapped in their cloaks, dozed, protected against the cold biting wind. Matthias simply crossed his arms and thought about Anna’s death. He tried to piece together what had happened, wondering if he should advise Sir Humphrey to send Deveraux and Bogodis out of Barnwick.

He heard someone climbing the steps and thought a servant, or perhaps one of the soldier’s women, was bringing food and drink. He heard his name called and looked up. Rosamund was coming towards him. She had a small bowl wrapped in a towel, he could see the steam curling up from it. She was wearing a bright red shawl across her shoulders, pulled up to protect her neck and the back of her head. It was like a dream. She was smiling at him: so happy to see her husband, she had forgotten about the Scots. She was walking directly in line to a gap between the crenellations. Matthias moved, he knew the bright red cloth would present a target but, even as he scrambled to his feet, he heard the death-bearing whirr in the air. A yard-long shaft with its plume of black feathers struck Rosamund full in the chest. She stopped, eyes closing, head down. The bowl dropped from her hands. The other two soldiers sprang to their feet, crossbows at the ready. They loosed back but the damage was done. Matthias could only squat and stare down at Rosamund, horror-struck, as the blood snaked out of the corner of her mouth.

‘Rosamund! Rosamund!’

Her face was white as alabaster. She coughed and opened her eyes. One of the soldiers was already running downstairs, shouting for Sir Humphrey. Matthias lay down beside her; putting his arm beneath her shoulder, he lifted her up as if they were in their bed. He couldn’t believe, he couldn’t accept what was happening.

‘Rosamund, my sweet.’ He pulled her towards him. Her mouth opened. He kissed her on the lips. Already they were cold. ‘Rosamund!’ he screamed.

She opened her eyes, the lashes fluttering like a butterfly’s wings.

‘I love you, Matthias Fitzosbert. I have always loved you. I always will. Don’t you believe that?’ She paused, coughing on her own blood. ‘I’ll always. .’ she gasped. He hugged her close. ‘. . I’ll always be with you.’

Her body shuddered. When he looked down, her eyes were half-closed, lips slightly parted. He felt for the blood pulse in her neck but it was gone. There was clattering on the steps. Sir Humphrey was beside him on all fours like a dog. He crouched like a child, hands to his mouth and began to sob.

Matthias couldn’t accept it. He tugged at the arrow, felt his wife’s wrists, then a blackness came over him. He was up, screaming at the sky and ran to the battlements shouting obscenities, filling the air with his curses. He tried to take a crossbow from one of the soldiers. Men were struggling with him. He was pushed down to the ground. A soldier he knew to be called Dickon was pressing him down. The fellow only had one eye, the other was just a white piece of flesh. Matthias called him a devil. He struggled, trying to get to his feet until a blow to his head knocked him unconsciousness.

Matthias spent the rest of the day a captive in his own chamber. The guard outside kept filling his wine cup, refusing to let him leave. Sir Humphrey came up, Matthias saw his mouth move but couldn’t understand what he was saying.

The next morning he bathed and shaved to attend the paltry ceremony in the small graveyard. He watched his wife’s body being committed to the earth. He knelt by the grave but found he couldn’t pray and, when he looked up, Sir Humphrey was kneeling on the other side, glaring balefully at him.

‘You are cursed, Matthias Fitzosbert,’ he muttered. ‘I curse the day you came to Barnwick. You are devil’s spawn! If it were not for Rosamund, I’d execute you now and send you back to Hell!’

The Constable staggered to his feet, his face sodden with drink. ‘You have one more day in Barnwick,’ he rasped. ‘Tomorrow I’ll drive you out of the castle. What the Scots do to you,’ he threw his head back and spat at Matthias, ‘I couldn’t give a fig!’

Matthias stayed by the grave. He couldn’t believe this small stretch of ground contained his heart, his soul, his life. Dickon came over and offered him a cup of hot posset. Matthias drank it greedily and stumbled back to his chamber. Everyone he met avoided him. People drew apart. He heard a woman curse. An urchin picked up a piece of ice and flung it at his head.