The Rose Demon

by Paul Doherty

  ‘They are in the graveyard!’ he whispered. ‘People in shrouds! The dead are all about us!’

  The knocking and clamouring rose in a crescendo. The villagers in the church screamed and, as if of one mind, they came to huddle before their priest.

  ‘I can do nothing,’ Osbert declared. ‘But I bid you-’ he looked round the church: Matthias was now fast asleep -

  ‘I bid you say an act of contrition. I will give you absolution.’

  He ignored their cries and protests. He recited the words to shrive them from their sins. He had barely finished when he saw Fulcher staring in horror at something behind him. Osbert turned slowly as if in a dream. Rahere was standing in the mouth of the rood screen: his cloak was doffed, his hair tied in a knot behind him. In one hand he bore a sword, in the other an axe. Osbert drew his own knife and ran screaming towards him. .

  PART II

  1486–1487

  The Rose keeps its secret

  Old English saying

  Before they wither,

  Let us crown ourselves with roses.

  Book of Wisdom

  10

  Amasia, slattern of the Blue Boar tavern near Carfax in Oxford, rolled over on her narrow cot bed. She stared down at the man sleeping beside her. He lay on his back, head slightly tilted, breathing deeply. Now and again his lips moved, lost in some dream or nightmare. Amasia clutched the soiled bedsheet around her. She sat up and ran a finger gently down the man’s face. She would have to admit, Matthias Fitzosbert was a handsome student, a dark, lean face, clean shaven. When awake, his eyes were light green, sometimes sad, but when he laughed or smiled, the crinkles transformed his rather sombre face. His hair was jet-black and oiled, though Amasia noticed tufts of grey about his ears. She stared down at the silver cross Matthias always wore round his neck on its strong copper chain. He never took that off. Amasia touched it gently.

  She was only seventeen summers old, so she thought, and she was in the habit of entertaining many students: Matthias and his friend, the young Frenchman Santerre, were her favourites. She made a face and puckered her mouth. No, that wasn’t right! Santerre, with his devil-may-care smile, snow-white skin and shock of red hair? Well, she could take or leave him. He was too cutting and she felt he was always laughing at her. Amasia could not stand people who secretly laughed behind their hands but never shared the jest with her. However, one thing she had learnt from Matthias was that, though she was a slattern, she had a dignity she should defend. He had told her so on that night four months ago when he had hit the drover, drunk as a sot, who pushed his dirty hand down her smock and grabbed her breasts. Matthias, not the tavern keeper, had come to her aid. He’d given the man a beating he would never forget before throwing him on to the muddy cobbles outside.

  Amasia sat with her back against the cracked, plastered wall. It cooled her sweaty skin. She looked round the garret Matthias called a chamber. Not much dignity here, she thought, with its crumbling walls and rush-covered floor. On a table in the far corner stood a cracked bowl and jug, beneath it a large, dirty piss-pot. Amasia closed her eyes. She wondered if Matthias, when he became a Master, would take her out of here. He’d sometimes hinted at it. But where to? She knew so little about him. She often teased him about the mystery yet she’d learnt very little. He had been a scholar in the abbey schools at Tewkesbury and Gloucester before his patron, Baron Sanguis, had paid for him to come to the Halls of Oxford. More importantly, Matthias didn’t know what he was going to do. Sometimes he talked of being a clerk, even a priest. Then he became tight-lipped, narrow-eyed: his jaw would stick out as if he had made a decision but stubbornly refused to tell anyone about it. Amasia sighed and opened her eyes. If only he would talk more. .

  ‘Will they miss you in the taproom below?’

  Amasia jumped and looked down. Matthias was staring up at her.

  ‘How long have you been awake?’ she snapped and, leaning over, pinched his nose.

  The student laughed and pushed away her hand. He sat up beside her.

  ‘Do you want to go?’ she asked archly.

  ‘I have to,’ he replied. ‘There is still enough daylight left.’

  He pointed to the narrow window at the far end of the room.

  ‘Ah!’ Amasia threw the sheets back. She swung her long legs off the bed, stood up and stretched, looking coyly at Matthias. She knew men liked that: her body turning, her breasts thrust out. She smiled as Matthias moved and teasingly took a step backwards.

  ‘I have to go,’ she simpered. ‘I really must. Agatha isn’t-’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Matthias interrupted, ‘Agatha Merryfeet.’

  ‘That’s not her real name,’ Amasia snapped.

  ‘Oh, I think it is,’ Matthias replied, keeping his face straight as he caught the note of jealousy in her voice. ‘Whatever she is, Agatha can dance.’

  ‘Aye!’ she snapped. ‘On the tables, flaunting herself.’ Angrily Amasia picked her shift up and pulled it over her head. ‘Well, she’ll dance no more. She’s dead! Dead as a worm,’ she continued. ‘Her corpse has been taken to the death house at the Crutched Friars. Found in Christ Church Meadow she was,’ Amasia trilled on. ‘Pinch marks on her neck. Like two holes, the bailiff told us, as if someone had taken a nail-’

  She was spun round. Matthias clutched her shoulders, his fingers biting deeply into her flesh. Amasia struggled but she forgot the pain: it was Matthias’ face which frightened her. No longer the soft, calm student. His face was pallid, skin drawn tight, eyes fixed and staring. He opened his mouth but then swallowed hard.

  ‘Matthias!’ She slapped at his wrist.

  The student’s grip still held firm.

  ‘Matthias, you are hurting me!’

  He let go of her and slumped down on the bed. Amasia stepped away and watched him carefully. She had heard stories about men like that. Quiet ones but, when they were in a chamber alone with a woman, they became violent, taking their pleasure out of pain. But was Matthias one of these? She noticed a trickle of sweat running down the side of his face, his chest heaving as if he had been running. He was staring at the floor. Now and again his mouth would twist into a grimace or he would shake his head as if he were carrying on a conversation with someone she could not see. She picked up a bowl of wine he had brought and, sitting beside him, raised it to his lips. He drank like a babe, then he coughed, retched and, with his hand covering his mouth, ran across the room to the piss bowl where he vomited. He crouched there like a dog, cleaning his mouth with his fingers.

  ‘Matthias, are you sickening?’

  Amasia became frightened. Last summer the sweating sickness had swept through Oxford. They said it had been brought by Henry Tudor’s soldiers when they had marched through the city after their victory over Richard III at Market Bosworth. Amasia knew all about that battle: two of the pot boys had fought on the Yorkist side and had never returned. Amasia got to her feet. Perhaps she should go downstairs to Goodman the taverner.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Matthias muttered. ‘Don’t be afeared.’

  He got to his feet, poured some water over his fingers and cleaned his mouth. He came back to the bed.

  ‘You look pale, Matthias!’

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head and, taking her by the arm, forced her to sit next to him. ‘Tell me again,’ he said. ‘Tell me what happened to Agatha.’

  Amasia did so.

  ‘You are always lost in your books, Matthias,’ she concluded. ‘Haven’t you heard about the other deaths? People like Agatha and myself, slatterns, maids. No one misses us. No one makes a fuss. No one except you,’ she added. ‘Why, did Agatha dance for you?’

  Matthias got to his feet and began to dress.

  ‘And where did you say the body had been taken? Ah, yes, the Crutched Friars.’

  Amasia, with the sheet up about her, watched as the student put on his hose, linen shirt, his tabard, which bore the arms of his college, Exeter in Turl Street. He pulled the hood over his head, tied the leather
belt around him, his fingers going to the hilt of the dagger in its embroidered scabbard.

  ‘Don’t forget your boots!’ she teased.

  Matthias was not listening. He picked these up, pulled them on, then walked out of the room without a by-your-leave or a backward glance.

  ‘Time for your studies?’ Goodman the taverner, filling a tankard from a tun near the door, hailed the student as Matthias crossed the taproom. Goodman would have loved to have drawn this young man into conversation. One day, when the time was ripe, Goodman hoped to have his own tryst with Amasia. He wished to savour the pleasures yet to come.

  ‘How long was Agatha missing?’ Matthias asked harshly.

  ‘Three days.’ The taverner got to his feet. ‘We’ll all miss her dancing. I mean in. .’ The filthy remark he was going to make died on his lips. The student’s pale face and hard, watchful eyes frightened him. ‘I’m busy.’ The taverner turned away. ‘And I’m glad the slut Amasia can return to her other duties!’

  Matthias went out into the alleyway, along Northgate and Oxford High Street. He walked purposefully, hood pulled over his head. He did not acknowledge the cries and shouts of those who knew him. Matthias was blind to anything but the direction he was taking. A sow, flanks quivering, careered across his path. Chickens pecking at the dust scattered before him. A dog, which came yapping out of a runnel, hoping to draw the student’s attention to his master, a one-footed beggar, slunk away. Nor did the stall-holders, journeymen or tinkers catch his glance. Matthias shouldered his way through, not caring whom he elbowed out of his way: the well-dressed burgesses, lean-faced scholars in their shabby tabards, even the Masters and lecturers, the lords of the schools, whom every scholar had to treat with reverence, at least to their faces.

  Matthias kept staring ahead. He felt like screaming, running, hiding in some dark hole, trying to make sense of what Amasia had told him. Images floated through his mind; Edith, daughter of Fulcher the blacksmith, in her coffin before the high altar of his father’s church; those ghosts shifting along the path of Sutton Courteny; the hermit singing as he died; Christina screaming at him; Rahere, ever present, ever watchful; his father’s last sad words; that dreadful sleep in the parish church. Matthias paused, closing his eyes. He breathed in deeply. Maybe he should go back to his hall? Seek out Santerre? Matthias rubbed the side of his head. He felt as if his mind were about to explode. That trap door he had closed so firmly on the nightmares of the past was forcing itself open.

  ‘You are blocking the way!’

  Matthias opened his eyes. A market beadle, an official of the Pie Powder court which governed the prices of the city market, was staring at him: his white wand of office held erect like a spear.

  ‘You are blocking the way!’

  Matthias’ hand went to the dagger in his belt.

  ‘Get out of my path,’ he snarled, ‘and I’ll continue!’

  The beadle hurriedly stepped sideways. Matthias continued up the High Street, past St Mary’s church and the stone and timber dwellings of All Souls. The street became broader. Matthias walked on to Magdalen Bridge and stared down at the stream which swirled amongst the rushes. The weather being fine, scholars sat on the grass sleeping, talking, drinking and eating. On any other day Matthias would have joined them. He could only hope Amasia was wrong.

  He walked on and stopped before the narrow greystone church of the Crutched Friars. He went through the open door, down the nave and out through the side door of one of the transepts. A friar, poring over a manuscript in the cloisters, pointed across the garth.

  ‘The death house is over there,’ he declared. ‘But you must get permission from the infirmarian.’

  Matthias continued, impervious to the curious looks of the good brothers who bustled about. He left the cloisters and walked through a small garden towards a large half-timbered building at the far end. Oxford was a shifting city, visited by strangers from Italy, France, Germany and even further east. Unnamed corpses were often found and the friars saw it as their pious duty to afford church burial to these strangers. Agatha would be one of these, a mere slattern with no family. Her corpse would lie in the death house for three or four days awaiting recognition. The coroner would sit and deliver his verdict. Agatha’s corpse would then be buried in the old Jewish cemetery which stood in Paris Mead, a broad, derelict expanse of land which stretched down to the River Cherwell.

  Matthias walked down the path and tapped on the door. A small grille slid open.

  ‘Your business? Your business?’ the voice asked.

  ‘There’s a corpse,’ Matthias replied. ‘A girl called Agatha.’

  ‘She’s to be buried tonight,’ the voice replied.

  ‘I knew her,’ Matthias said haltingly. ‘I wish to pay my respects.’

  The grille was closed. Bolts were drawn and the doors swung open. Matthias stepped over the threshold into a long, cavernous chamber: its white-washed walls and broad beams reminded him of a barn. Despite the herbs scattered along the freshly scrubbed paving stones, Matthias caught the stench of putrefaction and corruption from the corpses which lay in rows either side of this barnlike chamber. He stared down at the lay brother.

  ‘Agatha?’ Matthias repeated.

  ‘Poor girl.’ The friar scratched his unkempt beard. ‘So young, so beautiful. Cut down like the flower of the field.’

  Matthias dug into his purse and took out a penny. The friar snatched this and, snapping his fingers, led Matthias halfway down, stopping before a makeshift stretcher. He pulled back the dark woollen rug. Matthias fought hard against the dizziness and nausea. In life, Agatha had been a happy, winsome girl. Matthias had seen her dance, bracelets on her arm, blonde hair flying. She could whirl around lighted candles, her bare feet never touching the flames whilst customers clapped their hands and shouted encouragement. Now she lay, a pathetic bundle of flesh. She still wore her dark-blue smock but her face had lost all its beauty. A greenish pallor tinged her sagging cheeks, head slightly twisted, eyes half-closed, her lips tinged with blood. It was the mark in her throat which repelled Matthias — two large gaps on either side of the windpipe.

  ‘That’s how she was found,’ the friar explained, kneeling at the other side of the makeshift bed. ‘Those who found her,’ he continued, ‘said she had been pierced like a plum and drained of her blood.’

  Matthias flinched and fought to keep his own nightmares under control.

  ‘Something else,’ the friar got to his feet, ‘there were rose petals all about her, as if she had been playing “He loves me, He loves me not” with the flowers. It would appear,’ he continued cautiously, ‘he loved her not, or perhaps too much.’

  Matthias could take no more. He sprang to his feet, threw a penny at the surprised lay brother and fled the death house. He was across the bridge, back in the city, before he recovered his wits.

  The sun had disappeared. The sky had turned a leaden grey, the clouds pressing down, threatening rain. The stall-holders were already pulling sheets over their goods. Matthias loosened the clasp on his shirt. Pulling down his jerkin, he allowed the cool breeze to bathe the sweat on his neck. For a while he wandered amongst the stalls, past the clothiers, the baturs, who smoothed the coarse cloth: the cuissiers with their cushions heaped high on the stalls. An apprentice came running out, trying to clasp a spur on Matthias’ boot, but he caught Matthias’ glance and fled back into his shop.

  Matthias wanted such commonplace things to soothe the turmoil in his soul but a young man with a falcon on his wrist reminded him of the hermit. A priest leading a funeral cortege recalled Parson Osbert. Matthias was sure that the young woman in front of him with a child holding a pig’s bladder was Christina. And was that not Fulcher the blacksmith sitting at a table staring through a tavern window?

  Matthias turned into Ivy Lane, a broad alleyway which led down to one of his favourite ale houses, the Pestle and Mortar. Yet, even here, Matthias felt he was in a nightmare. A makeshift gallows had been erected halfway down: t
he corpse of a felon swung there, neck awry, face turned a purplish hue. The placard round his neck proclaimed he was a thrice-caught housebreaker. Some drunken students stood around, carolling the corpse with a favourite goliard song ‘Jove cum laude’. They tried to entice Matthias to join in but he shouldered by them. The students, led by a golden-haired, baby-faced young man, screamed obscenities back. Matthias hurried on into the taproom of the Pestle and Mortar. He drank two cups of wine before he felt the panic recede.

  Across the tavern a physician, a quack, his vein-streaked face coarsened by alcohol, his silvery-grey hair shrouding his face like that of a woman, was trying to sell his potions to the saggy-faced, bleary-eyed customers. To one old woman, her skin a blotchy, purplish grey, the quack offered a potion to cure toothache: a copper needle steeped in the juice of a woodlouse. To another a piece of Spanish jade, a sure remedy for pains in the side. When he failed to sell these, the quack brought his tray across and offered Matthias a whole range of herbs: nasturtium, sour thistle, wood sorrel, wood sage, liverwort, fennel.

  ‘And,’ the fellow screeched, thin fingers snaking out, ‘milk of roses: a love potion. .’ He stopped gabbling and stared down at the tip of the dagger only an inch from his nose. The fellow’s mouth cracked into a smile. ‘The young sir does not want to buy?’

  ‘Piss off!’ Matthias retorted. ‘Take your rubbish and piss off!’

  The quack seized his goods and scurried like a squirrel through the doorway. The rest of the customers, who had grown tired of the charlatan, applauded Matthias, but the student resheathed his dagger, already lost in his own thoughts.

  The nightmare had returned! He thought he had locked it into the darkness of the past, ever since that morning when he had woken in a chamber in Baron Sanguis’ manor house and those young women, maids of the household, clustered round his bed. He could tell by their eyes that something horrible had happened. Matthias felt inside his pouch and pulled out a piece of parchment. It was not the same one his father had given him that last, dreadful night in the parish church but it was a fair copy. Time and again he had studied the citations Parson Osbert had scrawled on that greasy piece of parchment.