Paul Doherty - The Rose Demon

Matthias gently stroked her cheek. ‘Did the outlaws harm you or your daughter?’

‘No, they found the wine. They were evil!’ She spat the words out. ‘Demons from hell!’

Matthias nodded and walked away. He knew about demons.

Two days passed. The man introduced himself as Gilbert Sempringham, a prosperous clothier.

‘I did a stupid thing,’ he confessed. ‘I thought it was safe.’

‘It is,’ Matthias reassured him. ‘You were just unlucky. Never ever do it again. Never leave the roads, never go on to the moors.’

At last the Sempringhams recovered from their shock. The children first, so absorbed in the present, they viewed the outlaws’ attack as a horrid nightmare to be quickly forgotten. Sempringham’s wife, Margaret, was a calm, common sense woman. Elizabeth, the daughter, comely, rather shy, spent most of the time gazing adoringly at Matthias as if he were some gallant knight errant clothed in silver armour rather than a wild-haired hermit. Matthias enjoyed their company. Then Master Gilbert said it was time they should leave, and would Matthias accompany them back to the nearest village? He quickly agreed. The fear and terror in young Elizabeth’s eyes at the prospect of the family being alone again and the beseeching look Mistress Margaret gave him could not be resisted.

‘What do we do with the outlaws’ corpses?’ the merchant asked. The corpses still lay where they had fallen.

‘They lived Godless. They died Godless,’ Matthias retorted. ‘Let them lie Godless!’

He led the Sempringhams out of Barnwick and on to the road to the nearest village. Again Master Gilbert importuned Matthias to stay with them and he agreed. The following morning he arranged for the family to join another party of merchants making their way south to York. When he said he’d go no further, the Sempringhams, their eyes filled with tears, gathered round him in the small cobbled yard of the tavern where they had stayed the night.

‘I’d best leave you now,’ he said.

Mistress Margaret caught at his hand. ‘I have talked to the landlord. He says there’s a hermit out at Barnwick. It’s you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

Master Sempringham pushed a bag of silver into his hands.

‘No,’ he warned as Matthias made to refuse. ‘After what you have done, sir, it would be a grave insult. Please.’

‘What is your name?’ Elizabeth asked.

Matthias stared across at the tavern sign: the Two Brothers.

‘My name is Cain,’ he replied. He stared at these people, so homely, leading ordinary lives, deeply attached to each other. ‘I am cursed by God,’ he continued. ‘I bear His mark.’

‘Surely not?’ Mistress Margaret put her arms round his neck and, standing on tiptoe, kissed him on each cheek. ‘God will reward you,’ she whispered. ‘And we will never forget.’

Matthias made his farewells, collected his horse and rode out across the moorland. A slight mist was creeping in. He dismounted and stood stroking the muzzle of his horse, half-listening to the shriek of a curlew. He did not want to go back to Barnwick. Rosamund’s small tomb was built and the outlaw attack had shattered his peace. Others from the gang might come and they would certainly seek vengeance. Moreover, Matthias had enjoyed the company of the Sempringhams. He should rejoin the world of men, but go where? What should he do? He stared at the leather bag hanging on his saddle horn. He had weapons and a few pathetic possessions. He’d ride south, perhaps visit London.

Matthias travelled south. He kept well away from the main trackways and paths. The journey was an uneventful one. He reached Colchester ten days later, where he stayed at the Golden Fleece tavern and hired a barber to shave his face and cut his hair, closely cropped like that of a soldier. He bought new clothes in the marketplace — sober, dull attire — and then continued his journey. Two days later he arrived at St Giles, Cripplegate, and entered London.

At first Matthias found it difficult. So many people of different sorts: madcaps, beggars, white-eyed Abraham men dancing their mad jigs along the streets. Merchants and lawyers in their wool and samite robes. The gaudily decked whores, the courtiers in their taffeta; the city toughs and bravos with their tight hose and protuberant codpieces. These walked narrow-eyed, fingers constantly tapping the hilt of their swords or daggers. The streets were dirty and packed. People moved in shoals round the stalls, which sold everything from Spanish herbs to cloths from Bruges. Fights broke out. Apprentices touted for custom, bailiffs and beadles stood in the doorways of churches and shouted their messages. Iron-wheeled carts crashed and lumbered across the cobbles. Funeral processions wound their way to the city cemeteries.

Matthias grew so dizzy he had to dismount. He stood for a while in a tavern yard, sipping at a tankard of ale to calm his stomach and soothe his wits. A party of sheriff’s men ran by the gateway crying, ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ in pursuit of a felon against whom the hue and cry had been raised. On the corner of St Martin’s Lane, just near the Shambles, an execution was being carried out: a rogue who had killed a shopkeeper was now being hanged from the sign of his victim’s shop. The crowds gathered round to watch him kick in his death throes. Matthias pushed his way through. He wondered if anyone would be interested in him. In law he’d received a pardon after East Stoke but, there again, he had not served his three years at Barnwick.

Matthias made his way up, past the grim, stinking prison of Newgate. He turned right after Cock Lane into the great expanse of Smithfield. The open area in front of St Bartholomew’s was fairly desolate. A group of beggars chattered beneath the huge gallows in the centre. A woman knelt before the great blackened stake where people were burnt, hands clasped, sobbing quietly to herself. Two rogues, caught selling bogus relics, had their hose removed, were tied back to back and forced to wander until darkness fell and their crime was purged. A madman ran up, a dribble of white foam coming out of the corner of his mouth. He was dressed in a dirty linen robe with a cord round his waist.

‘Have you heard?’ he screamed. ‘The Great Whore has returned to Babylon! Her dragon has been seen in the skies! The moon will turn to blood! The stars will fall from Heaven! The Antichrist is now on his way. Have you seen him?’

A long, sharp dagger appeared from the sleeve of his gown.

‘Have you seen him?’ he threatened.

‘Yes,’ Matthias replied soothingly, ‘I have. He’s been taken to Newgate.’

‘Thank you, thank you, brother.’ The madman ran off, brandishing the knife in his hand.

A whore slipped silently up beside him, her hand going out to stroke his genitals.

‘A fine cock there,’ she murmured. ‘And all fit for the crowing!’

‘I have a loathsome disease,’ Matthias replied, ‘which will rot your stomach and turn you blind.’

The whore screamed an obscenity and ran off. Matthias paused and glanced around. A long line of gong carts trundled out of Little Britain, the area behind St Bartholomew’s. They had just emptied the public jakes: the breeze wafted the stench, Matthias covered his mouth and nose. He glimpsed a tavern sign, the Bishop’s Mitre, and made his way across. He was tired, rather disturbed by his abrupt arrival in London so he bargained with the landlord for a stable for his horse and a narrow, dank garret for himself.

Matthias spent his first two days in London eating, drinking and sleeping. Then he asked the taverner for his advice and went to St Paul’s to stand by the ‘ Si Quis ’ door where merchants, traders, noblemen and lawyers came to hire servants and maids. The place was thronged: the great central aisle full of people waiting to be hired. Matthias paid a scrivener to write a short description of his name and his skill as a clerk. Matthias pinned this to his tunic and walked around the great tomb of Duke Humphrey but, though some expressed an interest, no one would hire him. He carried no letters of accreditation and was reluctant to discuss his recent service at Barnwick.