‘Sometimes,’ the fellow replied dourly. ‘Yet he speaks the truth. It’s common legend how Satan swept into Sutton Courteny and everything changed. The old lord’s right. I heard him shouting. You should not go there.’
Matthias collected his horse and left the manor. For a while he became lost but he remembered the forest trackways and found the path leading to the woods. He reached Tenebral late in the afternoon. Sharp memories flooded back. Nature was busy reclaiming its own. The houses were more ruined, some had disappeared altogether. Bushes and brambles now choked doorways and windows, and crept over walls to cover gardens.
Matthias dismounted and hobbled his horse. He searched out the place where the hermit had taken him to see the young foxes but this was all hidden by gorse and bramble so Matthias returned to what had been the old high street and made his way up to the ruined church. Part of the wall had now crumbled, the lych-gate had disappeared, but the church, with its ruined doorway and nave open to the sky, had changed little. Matthias made his way carefully down the path. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. He remembered his father standing there that terrible morning when they had reached Tenebral and Matthias believed Parson Osbert was going to kill him.
‘I am sorry,’ Matthias murmured. ‘I am truly sorry.’
He entered the church and made his way up into the sanctuary. He expected to see the rose on the wall much faded but the colours were as fresh and as vigorous as if they had been painted the day before. Matthias exclaimed in surprise at how beautiful and exquisite, how precise had been the hermit’s work. The rose was large and red; the golden centre still glowed like a sun whilst the silver stem had all the freshness of a dewy spring morning. Matthias crouched down and studied the runes written in column after column beneath the rose. He touched the lettering and wondered what they meant. Why had the hermit taken so much time, so much care with these?
He went out and brought back his horse. As he led the animal into the overgrown cemetery and through the doorway of the church, it abruptly became restive, shaking its head, rearing and Matthias had to stroke it and speak softly to it. He cut some of the wild grass from the cemetery and created a makeshift stall. He then unsaddled his horse and took the harness and his saddlebag up into the sanctuary.
He reckoned he had a few hours of daylight. Matthias started copying the runes as faithfully and as quickly as he could. He did not want to reflect on what this place meant to him, how it had changed and shattered his life. He had reflected and thought enough. Since leaving Oxford, apart from his time with Rosamund, he had wasted his life over too much brooding. He required answers and assistance. If he brought this information back to the Hospitallers, perhaps some solace, some comfort, or at least some explanation, would be given.
He crouched, using the saddlebag as a rest, his pieces of parchment spread out over it. Matthias quickly drew the rose and faithfully copied the symbols inscribed beneath it. He had to rest, his neck and arms becoming cramped and tired.
He stared up at the darkening sky and wondered about what had happened just before he had left London. The Rose Demon had come to his assistance once again. If it had not been for that vision, Emloe’s men would either have taken him prisoner or killed him. Matthias got up and walked vigorously the length and breadth of the church, stretching his arms, easing the cramp. He went out and stood in the doorway. Daylight was fading. The breeze had turned sharp and cold. He looked further down the ruined village and glimpsed the first faint tendrils of a mist creeping in.
Matthias decided to stay the night. He collected some brushwood, made a fire and took out the food he had bought on his journey to Sutton Courteny. He lit a second fire beneath the markings on the wall. He worked as faithfully as he could until, fearful he might make some mistake, he decided he would finish the task in the morning. He went down and checked his horse. The animal seemed to have lost its early fears.
Matthias heard a sound. He spun round. Two figures stood in the sanctuary, grey shapes, cloaked and hooded. Matthias could not make out their faces or who they were.
Matthias felt no fear but walked back. He drew his sword, not knowing whether these were phantasms or real. The figures turned and he realised they’d had their backs to him. They started to move towards him — not a run or charge but gliding swiftly across the ruined church floor. Matthias held his sword up. As they came towards him they parted. He glimpsed features hidden deep in a hood, pasty white with black-rimmed eyes. Matthias recognised one of the assassins he had killed in the Bishop’s Mitre. Swerving abruptly, he glanced at the other and recognised the corpse-like face of Roberto. A rush of cold wind wafted a smell of rottenness with them. By the time he had recovered his wits, the phantasms had disappeared.
Matthias stood in the centre of the church, chest heaving. He wiped the sweat from his brow and stared around but he could neither see nor hear anything untoward. He crouched down, gasping for breath, forcing himself to relax and soothe his mind. The occurrence reminded him of that journey back to Sutton Courteny, when he had sat on the saddle of the hermit’s horse and seen that line of ghosts coming towards him. Of course it was dusk, the same time of day as then. The visions were not threatening, apart from a malevolent glance, and did no injury. He went and sat on the cracked steps of the sanctuary. He recalled a lecture he had attended at Oxford, the words of a Master, ‘The dead, for a while, always stay with us.’ But why did he see such phantasms? And would he see any more?
Matthias returned and built up a fire. He decided after all to continue his copying but this time more slowly, more carefully. He gasped when he reached one line. By now he recognised that these signs made up words, with gaps between them. He already suspected he had copied his own name but now he was certain that he had copied that of Rosamund. There were nine symbols in all. The hermit had carved a small flower and, in the poor light, Matthias believed this was the shape of a rose. He put the parchment and quill down, carefully screwing on the top of the small ink pot. He sat chewing on the bread and meat he had laid out. Now and again taking mouthfuls from the wineskin.
‘How could that be?’ he asked. ‘How could the hermit have known about Rosamund?’ He stared up. The sky was overcast, no stars, no moon. ‘How could that be?’ he murmured again. ‘When these symbols were written I was only a child!’ He threw more wood on to the fire, watching it snap and break: the hungry flames danced high.
‘Matthias, is that you?’
He scrambled to his feet. The voice came from the far end of the church as if someone were standing in the doorway. Matthias took a burning brand from the fire and walked down.
‘Matthias, is that you? Why do you trouble me?’
He stopped, holding the burning ember out in front of him as far as he could.
‘Matthias!’
The voice became more insistent. A woman’s voice. Matthias’ mouth went dry. At first he couldn’t place it, but that slight stumble with the letter M.
‘Amasia!’ he called.
‘Just ignore her!’ A voice spoke from behind.
Matthias spun round. He held the torch up and, for a few seconds, glimpsed the grinning face of Santerre. Matthias returned to the fire. He threw more wood on and sat for a while, hands over his ears. He must have crouched for an hour whilst voices from his distant past, those who had been caught up in this deadly game, shouted his name through the darkness.
26
By midnight the voices had stopped. Matthias was left in peace. He slept fitfully and, when he awoke, a thick mist had swirled up the nave of the ruined church. Matthias built up the fire, broke his fast on the sparse rations left, then finished copying the runes from the wall. After he had finished, he saddled his horse and rode back to the manor to buy fresh supplies. The servant he had met the day before was generous in the portions he allocated, wrapping them up in linen cloths.
‘We have few visitors here.’ His watery eyes smiled. ‘Baron Sanguis still does not know who you are.’
‘What will happen?’ Matthias asked, gazing round the dusty, cluttered kitchen.
‘I doubt if the old lord will survive the winter. And the royal lawyers are waiting. He’ll hardly be cold in his grave when the Exchequer officials arrive to claim all this for the Crown.’
