by Paul Doherty
‘So, you are awake, Matthias!’
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ The woman came and sat on the edge of the bed. She took his hand. Matthias realised that she was not only soothing him but checking to see if there was any fever or hotness. ‘You were brought here at the end of November. Another year has come since then.’
Matthias gaped.
‘It’s the twelfth of January 1490,’ she laughed. ‘And you, Matthias, have been very sick.’ She leant over and tapped him on the forehead. ‘In body as well as mind.’
‘Morgana?’
‘Oh, she’s gone.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Why, the Master’s handmaid. As I am.’
‘And who is the Master?’
‘Matthias, Matthias!’ She smiled slyly at him. ‘The Seigneur is the One we worship.’
‘You are a witch?’
‘Yes. If you were a church official, you would call me a witch. I am also a physician and, as you will see, a very good cook.’
‘But I’ve been asleep for two months!’ Matthias exclaimed.
‘What did you expect?’ she snapped. ‘The deadly nightshade is a most potent poison. Did you dream?’
Matthias shook his head. ‘If I did,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘Good,’ she replied and grasped his hand more firmly.
‘Matthias, nightshade is a deadly plant and the body must purge that. However, you were sick of another fever. Something snapped in your mind. If you hadn’t slept and taken the potions I gave you, your wits would have wandered. I made you sleep and now,’ she got to her feet, ‘I will make you strong.’
‘What is your name?’ Matthias asked.
She came over and kissed him gently on the brow.
‘I go by many names,’ she murmured. ‘But you can call me Eleanor. There is only me and my maid, Godwina. You are on a small farm not far from the Tewkesbury-to-London road.’ She drew back. ‘My orders are quite simple. You are not to leave here until you are well and strong. Once you are, you may go where you wish.’
‘Have you met the Master?’
She shrugged. ‘Like you, Matthias, he comes and goes where he wishes. What form he takes is up to him.’
Matthias spent three months at the farm, getting stronger every day. Eventually he was able to walk downstairs and enjoy the spring sunshine. His horse was well stabled and looked after. His saddlebags contained everything, including the etchings he had made at the church in Tenebral. Matthias realised the madness had passed. During his stay with Eleanor he came to accept the tragedy of his parents’ death and also accepted that he had not caused it, drawing strength from Parson Osbert’s attempt at reconciliation on that dreadful night.
For the rest, he was left alone, no dreams, no phantasms, no visions. Eleanor tried to seduce him, even sending up young, buxom Godwina, but Matthias rejected both. He thought of Rosamund constantly and found he could not lose himself in the love of another woman.
At the same time Matthias had secret fears which he himself would hold. If he was the son of the Rose Demon, his conception the fruit of love between his mother and an incubus, then what about his own seed? He idly wondered if Eleanor knew his secret. Was this the reason she pressed her warm, strong body against his, her arms going round his neck, her lips searching his? She was not insulted by his rejection but a coldness grew between them. When Matthias decided to leave, just after Easter, she made no attempt to stop him. Matthias was determined to return to London. He refused to tell Eleanor but his mind was set on meeting, once again, with the Commander of the Hospitallers.
PART IV
1490–1492
Remember a rose at full bloom is a rose about to die.
Old Spanish saying
27
For the year 1490, the Chronicler of St Paul’s in London could only shake his head at the way God had visited the sins of the people upon their heads. The sweating sickness swept into the city, sparing neither rich nor poor, the strong as well as the weak, the young as well as the old. The hospitals at St Mary Bethlehem, and elsewhere in the city, were overflowing. Death carts constantly trundled the streets, trading stopped, those who could, fled the city, those who couldn’t, barred themselves indoors. Great communal graves were dug out at Charterhouse and to the north-west of the city. Streets were chained off, soldiers, masked and muffled, guarded the entrances. Huge bonfires burnt in every open space for the doctors believed that fire and smoke would fumigate the city.
Matthias heard about this as he came through Epping, on the London road: he stopped for a few days in the small village of Leighton before riding on. He took a chamber in a small hostelry in Clerkenwell and, the following day, presented himself at the Priory of St John of Jerusalem. Sir Edmund Hammond was a little more cordial than when they had first met. When he took Matthias up to his chamber, he rummaged in a chest and brought out a burnished piece of steel which served as a mirror.
‘Master Fitzosbert, it’s not my business to pry, but you seem like a man who has seen his own calvary.’ He thrust the mirror into Matthias’ hand.
Matthias held it up and stared at his own reflection. His face was still olive-skinned but he noticed the furrows around the corner of his mouth, lines under his eyes and, even though he was only twenty-six, his hair had pronounced streaks of grey. Matthias smiled and handed the mirror back.
‘My journey, sir, was not just to a place but to the past.’
‘A harrowing experience.’ Sir Edmund lifted his hand for silence as a servant came in to serve them bread and wine.
Once he had gone, Matthias described his visit to Baron Sanguis, the attack by Emloe’s men, their mysterious and brutal deaths.
‘I thought as much,’ Hammond interrupted. ‘The lay brothers noticed the Priory was being watched shortly after you left, and questions were asked.’ Hammond spread his hands. ‘Before I could stop it, some gave answers to seemingly innocent questions.’ Hammond jabbed a thumb to the window behind him. ‘It’s my view the Priory is still being watched — beggars, tinkers, traders, journeymen, all Emloe’s creatures, so you should be careful.’
Matthias described how he was staying at Clerkenwell, that he intended to leave the city as soon as possible. He took out of his saddlebags his father’s Book of Hours and handed it over, opening it at the page where Parson Osbert had written that last dramatic Confiteor. Hammond read it, his lips moving soundlessly and, although he tried to disguise it, Matthias sensed his agitation.
‘You did say,’ Matthias declared, ‘that someone here could help? You promised. .’
Hammond handed the Book of Hours back.
‘I cannot help you.’ His eyes were very sad. ‘I can pray for you, Master Fitzosbert, but I cannot help you carry your cross. I cannot take it away. Yes, there is a woman, an anchorite. Her name is Emma de St Clair, a woman of great piety.’ He smiled thinly. ‘As well as great age. She has, for the last fifty years, lived in a cell here within the hospital. She spends her days in prayer, meditation and reparation for her sins and those of others. She is the person I mentioned.’
‘Does she know about the Rose Demon?’ Matthias asked.
Hammond got to his feet. Although it was a sunny day, he pulled the shutters of the windows over, making the room dark, even more stuffy.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered.
He left, locking the door behind him. He was gone for well over an hour. Matthias sat dozing in a chair, half-listening to the sounds of the Priory and wondering how an old anchorite could help him. His eyes grew heavy.
His head was nodding when he felt a kiss on the side of his head. For a second Matthias thought it was Christina. He glanced up, the woman’s face was old but her eyes were young and vivacious. Dame Emma had slipped into the room, Hammond closing and locking the door behind her. Now she stood calm and serene, her hands clasped together, smiling down at him. She was dressed in white, a veil and wimple around her face, a l
ong gown, which stretched from just beneath her chin to her sandalled feet. A green cord was tied round her waist. In her hands were a large string of Ave Maria beads which she constantly moved, slipping them between her fingers. Matthias sat, gaping up at her.
‘Are you so tired, Matthias? Or just overcome by how old I am?’
‘Madam.’ Matthias scrambled to his feet.
He knelt down as a sign of respect and kissed her on the back of each hand. She stroked his hair, her fingers smoothed the side of his face; they were cool and light.
‘It’s a long time since a man knelt before me, Matthias Fitzosbert.’ She laughed, a bubbling, merry sound like a young lady flirting with a courtier. She cupped her hand beneath Matthias’ chin and stared down at him. ‘I know what you are thinking, Matthias Fitzosbert. Sir Edmund has spoken of you many a time since your arrival here. He has told me briefly about your journey to Sutton Courteny and what you found.’ Her face became grave. ‘You are a good man, Matthias. I believe God’s grace is strong in you. I can see that in your eyes. You, Matthias, are a man of sorrow but your heart is good and your face is turned towards God. You struggle, you fall but you always get up.’ She grinned impishly. ‘Like you should now.’
Matthias did so. He was taken by this old woman, with her girlish eyes and soft voice. He could feel the sheer strength of her soul and knew that he had found a friend. Someone who might not be able to help but, at least, would make sense of this terrible world. She sat in Hammond’s chair and stared across at him, her fingers playing with a small parchment knife.
‘Sir Edmund, as I have said,’ she remarked, ‘has told me that you have just returned from Sutton Courteny.’
Matthias handed his father’s breviary over. She read the entry, carefully holding the page close up to her eyes. She closed the book, shrugged and handed it back.
‘I am not going to ask you to confess to me, Matthias. God knows you must have told your tale a number of times and, though the telling helps,’ she pulled a face, ‘it does not explain what is happening. So, for once, let me tell you a story. When I have finished, you’ll know why I am an anchorite here at the Priory and why there is a bond between us.’ She leant back in her chair, staring at a point above Matthias’ head. ‘I have a woman’s vanity,’ she began. ‘I always have had. Despite my years I like to be complimented.’ She closed her eyes and smiled. ‘I am ninety years of age, Matthias.’ She opened her eyes. ‘I was fifteen when the great Henry defeated the French at Agincourt. Well past my thirtieth year when they burnt the Maid at Rouen. However, the only part of my life which interests you is the summer and winter of 1426.’
She breathed in deeply. ‘My birth name is Emma de St Clair. My father owned lands along the Welsh march. I had two brothers, William and Martin. They were twins. They became Hospitallers with a vision of fighting God’s enemy here on earth. My mother died when I was young. I was spoilt, adored, loved; my every whim satisfied. I would only marry for love and my father hastened to agree. When my brothers, who had not yet entered the Hospitaller Order, decided to make a great pilgrimage through Russia to the city of Constantinople, I begged, I screamed, I wheedled and I flattered until my poor, exhausted father agreed that he and I should accompany them.’ She paused, fingering her rosary beads. ‘A glorious time, Matthias,’ she murmured. ‘France had been turned into a battlefield so we journeyed through the Low Countries and across the Rhine. We forded rivers deep and turbulent as the sea, through forests dark as night and across wheatlands which stretched like a golden carpet as far as the eye could see. We visited Cologne, Trier, the great cities along the Danube. We joined other pilgrims; knights, adventurers, scholars, all making their way to the Golden Horn, to the great city of Constantinople.
‘One day we were joined by a German knight, Ernst von Herschel. He was as handsome as an angel: tall, face like a hawk, golden-haired, a superb horseman. He flattered me and I flirted with him. I was in seventh heaven. We made our way slowly, stopping at taverns, hostelries, priories and monasteries — a golden summer until we heard about the deaths. In every town and village we stayed someone always died. A young man, or a woman, their corpses found out in the fields or some other lonely place. Always the same marks, their throats bitten deeply, their bodies drained of blood as if it had been sucked out of them like one would claret from a wineskin.’ She paused at Matthias’ sharp intake of breath. ‘We didn’t know this until our party began to be stopped and questioned by officials. It was clearly established that the assassin must be one of us, but who?’ She closed her eyes, rocking herself gently backwards and forwards.
‘We reached Constantinople,’ she continued. ‘The Emperor received us well. We were given a villa with beautiful gardens in the suburb of the city. The other pilgrims likewise. To cut a long story short, the imperial spies arrested Ernst von Herschel as the assassin responsible for those horrific murders.’ She shook her head. ‘I know very few details. He was defiant to the end, loudly proclaiming that he could not die. Nevertheless, they struck off his head and placed it on a pole on one of the approaches to the city.
‘For the rest of that year all was quiet. My father and brothers became very friendly with a noble family, the Alexiads, cousins to the Emperor. They had a daughter, Anastasia: one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. Yet, despite her looks, her exquisite manners, Anastasia was a merry soul, full of mischief and laughter, ever ready to mock herself. We became firm friends, close sisters. She had a vibrancy I’ve never met in another human being.’ Dame Emma wiped the tears away from her eyes. ‘The killings began again: horrid murders, this time young men. The spies came back: the city was watched.’
‘Anastasia now housed the Rose Demon?’ Matthias asked.
‘Oh yes. I couldn’t believe it. Even when she was arrested and brought into the imperial presence, she challenged, she questioned, she mocked. Sentence of death was passed against her. She was closely imprisoned. The Alexiads begged for her life. I joined with them. There was an important official, John Nicephorus. He had the Emperor’s ear, the power of life and death. I went to him and begged. Nicephorus was a lewd man, dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh.’ Dame Emma’s voice trembled. ‘He said he’d never slept with a Frankish woman.’ Dame Emma paused and picked at the beads wrapped round her fingers. ‘God forgive me,’ she whispered, ‘I slept with him to save Anastasia’s life. There would be no public execution, no degradation. An imperial physician was summoned. Anastasia was put into a deep sleep, her body sealed in a casket. The Alexiads paid a fortune to have a chamber beneath the Blachernae Palace especially laid out.’
‘Why?’ Matthias interrupted.
‘The Alexiads argued that Anastasia would slip from a deep sleep into death. No pain, no hurt, no blood. She was their beloved daughter. No expense was spared. A holy priest, Eutyches, argued differently. He said Anastasia should die. If not, her burial chamber should be protected, not only by thick walls and special doors but by holy relics. At the time we didn’t know what he meant.’ She sighed. ‘I thought that would be the end of the matter.’
‘But she didn’t die?’ Matthias asked.
‘No, she didn’t. In a short while, I’ll explain more fully. However, one thing I have learnt is this. The Rose Demon is a powerful spirit. Once it becomes incarnated in someone, it must stay there until that individual dies.’ She spread out her fingers. ‘You know that. The hermit, Amasia, Fitzgerald, all would have died. The Rose Demon moves on to a new dwelling place.’
Dame Emma rose and went to the side table. She filled two goblets with wine and brought one back for Matthias. She sat and sipped at hers.
‘Anastasia never died. When I returned to England I began to do my own studies. I lost all joy in life. Slowly I realised what a terrible thing I had done. My brothers became Hospitallers. Because of my sin in begging for Anastasia’s life, I realised reparation would have to be made. One year after my return to England, I took my vows as an anchorite before the Bishop of London and came
here.’ She put the cup down. ‘I became obsessed with what I had done. In 1453 my nightmares became reality. I used to dream of that chamber, of Anastasia in her sarcophagus. When I heard the Turks were besieging Constantinople I went to the Grand Master and confessed everything. My brothers, still alive at the time, took solemn oaths that I was not lying. The Grand Master believed me. A squadron of Knights Hospitallers led by two brothers, Otto and Raymond Grandison, were despatched to Constantinople, ostensibly to help the Emperor. Their real task was to destroy that casket and whatever was in it. The Emperor also knew the terrible secret. Just before the city fell the Grandison brothers, together with the old priest Eutyches, were given orders to destroy the sarcophagus and all that was in it. They did not and Anastasia escaped. Once again the Rose Demon had entered the world of men.’ She stared at Matthias. ‘The rest you know. It becomes your story not mine.’
‘But what does it mean?’ Matthias asked. ‘Where will it end?’
‘I have been privileged,’ she replied, ‘to study all that is written about angels and demons. What I am going to tell you is not an article of faith but legends handed down from the Jewish into the Christian tradition. I believe your father, on the night he died, gave you certain texts?’ She held her hand out. ‘Do you have these now?’
Matthias felt deep into his jerkin. He drew out two pieces of parchment. One the scrap he had found at Barnwick with Rosamund’s handwriting all over it. He kissed this and put it back into his pocket. The other he handed to Dame Emma. She opened it and read it, nodding understandingly.
‘Your father was a learned man,’ she declared. ‘Now let me put these texts into context. Imagine, Matthias, a creation before the world existed. God and his angels — the latter are beings of pure light and intelligence.’ She tapped herself playfully on the wrist. ‘I must not forget, Matthias, that you studied in the halls at Oxford but what I am going to tell you has no evidence in scripture.’ She picked up the parchment knife. ‘Imagine a world of spirits. The angels are beings with intelligence, power and will. God reveals a plan to them. He will create a visible world. He will make man in his own image. More importantly, God will become incarnate. He will take flesh and become one of these beings. You’ve heard of that theory before?’