Paul Doherty - The Rose Demon

When he awoke, a sweet, soft fragrance, the same perfume Rosamund had worn, filled the room. The fragrance was so heavy, it was as if she were sitting close to him. Matthias recalled their wedding night, her passionate embraces, the air sweet with the rich cream she had rubbed on her arms, neck and body. Matthias put his hands out as if, in some way, he could touch, grasp, hold her. The sunlight grew stronger and the air filled with the smell of incense, as if Mass were being celebrated and the thurible were throwing out sweet smoke.

Matthias got to his feet and went to the door. This time it opened easily. He went out on to the stairwell and caught a flurry of colour, bottle-green, as if Rosamund were running ahead of him. He charged down the steps and out into the bailey but there was nothing, only a group of Scottish soldiers lounging against the wall. These stared curiously. Matthias walked into the outer bailey and up the steps to the battlements. He had no real desire or firm conviction to throw himself over but he was curious. He wanted to see what would happen.

He reached the top, the biting wind caught at his face and hair. Matthias leant over the battlements and stared down. Far below him, the moat was still frozen hard. Matthias raised his foot; there was a ledge there. It would be so easy to climb on, to stand for a few seconds before falling like a stone.

‘Matthias! Matthias!’

He whirled round, mouth gaping. Rosamund was calling him as she often did but, in the yard below, only Scots moved about.

‘Matthias, come down! You are to come down now!’

Matthias rubbed his eyes. He could see no one even looking at him. The figures below were intent on carting out any valuables, curtains, drapes, chests and coffers. Matthias looked over the battlements. The drop was dizzying. He felt sick. He gingerly went down the steps and back across into the cemetery. Despite the weak sunlight he was freezing cold. He knelt beside Rosamund’s grave, digging his fingers in the dirt as hot, scalding tears ran down his cheeks.

‘Are you with me, Rosamund? Are you truly with me?’

He heard a sound behind him and looked round. Nothing. Only a piece of parchment, blown away from some plundered coffer, skittered across the earth. Matthias caught it: the writing was cramped, small and faded. He recognised Rosamund’s hand. It must have been written months ago, before she declared her love for him.

‘Matthias,’ he read, ‘amo te, amo te, Matthias. Matthias, I love you. Matthias, I love you.’ The same words were written time and again.

On the bottom of the page Rosamund had drawn a face with a miserable expression. Matthias smiled. He kissed the scrap of parchment, folded it carefully and put it inside his jerkin. He then got to his feet and left the graveyard.

Early next day Lord George Douglas and his party were seen approaching. His commander in the castle breathed a sigh of relief and danced a jig.

‘Thank God! Thank the Guid Lord!’ he shouted. ‘If the English had known what happened,’ he clapped Matthias on the shoulder, ‘the hunter would have become the hunted and I couldn’t face being besieged in Barnwick until Easter. It was all a gamble before the refugees from here could raise a warning. My Lord of Douglas is a bonny lad!’

The portcullis was raised and the drawbridge lowered. Douglas and his party entered. They had now brought with them a string of carts. Some were empty, others full of armaments, crossbows, arbalests, lances, buckets full of arrows, swords, halberds, even a pile of chain-mail jerkins and leather sallets. One cart was full of gunpowder: barrels and tuns stacked on top of each other and covered with a canvas cloth.

Lord George Douglas came to a stop. He threw Matthias his reins. Matthias let them drop. The Scotsman made a face and dismounted.

‘I am your prisoner, not your servant,’ Matthias declared.

‘That’s obvious,’ Douglas replied.

‘Then why am I here? Why wasn’t I released with the rest?’

Douglas narrowed his eyes and, grasping Matthias by the shoulders, walked him away from the others.

‘I have a task for you, Fitzosbert,’ he murmured. ‘Deveraux told me what had happened here: the young girl who was mysteriously killed and, above all, the hauntings in the north tower. Are you fey? Do you have the second sight?’

‘I am a clerk, I am cold, I am hungry and I want to leave!’

Douglas’ hand fell to his dagger hilt. ‘I asked you a question, Englishman. I did give your father-in-law honourable burial.’

‘I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what I have,’ Matthias replied. ‘But the north tower is haunted.’ He pointed to a cart full of gunpowder. ‘You are going to use some of that here, aren’t you?’

‘Of course! We are leaving this afternoon. We dare not stay here any longer. I would like to destroy Barnwick completely, leave not one stone upon another. However, that would take too long and I haven’t got the powder, so I am choosing what I should destroy. The gatehouse will go. Some of the outer and inner walls and, as a favour to you, Englishman, I’ll store powder in the base of the north tower.’

Orders were rapped out, the plunder was hoisted into the carts, the Scots sweeping the castle again to make sure they had missed nothing. Five of Douglas’ soldiers were engineers, one a master of ordnance. The gunpowder was placed at certain strategic points: the gatehouse, the north tower, two postern gates as well as the hall and solar. Matthias didn’t care. In a way he was glad that rooms where he had experienced such happiness would never again be used by anyone else.

Late in the afternoon Douglas’ party left. Scouts were sent out before them because the Scots now feared the English might have learnt what was happening and organised another force. As they left, the engineers fired the long fuses.

When they were some distance away, the troops stopped beneath bare-branched trees. Matthias stared back at Barnwick. He glimpsed the north tower, the empty gatehouse and his eyes filled with tears. He kept whispering, ‘Rosamund! Rosamund!’

Suddenly there was a fierce explosion. Parts of the castle seemed to lift, then collapse in thick clouds of dust. The horses whinnied and pranced about, tossing their heads at the thunder which rolled towards them. The Scots cheered as tongues of flame flared up from the castle. Matthias crossed himself. He heard a cawing from the trees and stared up. Two figures, all in black, sat in the branches glaring down at him: the Preacher and Rahere, pallid-faced, red-eyed. Matthias blinked and stared again. They were only ravens. They cawed fiercely at the tumult and, spreading their great dark wings, soared off up into the sky.

Five days later Douglas and his party reached Edinburgh. They had travelled across the wild heathland, past small villages and hamlets. The children and dogs came running out to watch them whilst their parents stood in the doorways and glanced dourly at these fighting men. Eventually they struck east towards the coast, before moving inland to where Edinburgh crouched on its great crag. It looked a princely town but, once within its gates, Matthias found it not very different from London, which he had visited on a number of occasions. The great high street stretched in a herringbone with dark alleys and lanes running off it. Some of the houses had three or four storeys with glazed or painted windows. Others were poor cottages made of wattle and daub, and covered in thatch. They passed the kirk, the Tolbooth and courthouse, across the main market place where the dismembered limbs of traitors were displayed. The crowds swirled about. Rich merchants and their wives in velvets and damask rubbed shoulders with the poor, garbed in coarse linen, wooden clogs on their feet. It was a busy, tumultuous place with different markets in various parts of the city: the fishers, the clothiers, the blood-covered stalls of the fleshers and butchers. Douglas and his party had to force their way through, using whips and the flats of their swords. As in London, the commoners were not so easily cowed, and Douglas and his men, even though they’d loudly proclaimed a successful foray into England, were cursed and spat at.