Rosamund of Kent :

Known aliases : Fair Rosamund

Date of birth : 1133; Clifford, Herefordshire, England

First death : 1176, Poisoned by jealous Queen Eleanor

First teacher : Leofric, Bishop of Lincoln

Weapon : Medieval broadsword

Recorded beheadings : 1190 AD Brother Hammond; 1217 Unknown immortal; 1243 Kathryn of Tewkesbury; 1329 Ramsden of Trimaris; 1365 Halgrim Blacktus

Most recent base of operations : Godstow Abbey, England

Occupation : Herbalist

Known students : 1259 AD John Garrick

Watcher : Brother Gregory

Roster of Immortals Status : Deceased

Date : 12 November 1410

Place :Godstow Abbey

Victor : Thomas of Manchester

Watcher Research, Western Europe Bureau

Report on Rosamund of Kent

>From : Deborah Abramowitz (Research)

3 May 2002 :

Fair Rosamund was the beloved mistress of King Henry II who hid her in a secret bower in Woodstock, where she was watched over by the King's knight, Sir Thomas. Around the bower was a maze of intricate paths making it impenetrable except by a silver thread.

When King Henry was called away to go to war against his son in France, Rosamund begged to be allowed to go with him. But he rejected her pleas as he wished her to have a life befitting a lady. She knew she was never to see her beloved Henry again and it was indeed to be so...

Queen Eleanor came to the secret bower, killed Sir Thomas and stole the silver thread from him. With this she gained entry to the bower and forced the Fair Rosamund to drink a poisoned draught, ending her pre-immortal life.

When Henry returned and learned what had happened, he had a magnificent tomb erected over her coffin in the convent nearby at Godstow. A week later, a scandalized Bishop visiting from Lincoln had her remains placed outside the church, which shocked the nuns of Godstow as they had known Rosamund to be a sweet and pious creature. So they laid the remains in a perfumed bag in a coffin in the Chapter House. However the Bishop, who really was Leofric, former Bishop of Exeter and a powerful, God-fearing immortal, had by then spirited the very shocked Rosamund away.

Leofric mentored Rosamund, teaching her the rules of the Game and how to use a sword, so that she would never be afraid of menacing swordsmen coming for her head. Besides her training, he taught her to respect man and to live in the fear of God.

One century later, Rosamund settled in Venice where she met and married Saint-Germain, a very old immortal who at this time was known as Prosper Philomenus. His neighbors whispered wild rumors about him: that he knew all the secrets, could converse with angels or devils alike, and was still hale and hearty at the age of one-hundred-and-one.

If Saint-Germain was healthy and very wealthy he had one major flaw : he was insanely jealous of his wife. Eventually, Magister Philomenus shut Rosamund entirely in their house with only her maids for company. Then came Carter Wellan, a two-hundred-year-old immortal from Kingston, England, who was travelling in Italy with his lover Haresh Clay, a noble and brooding Moor.

Carter, although not interested in women, was every woman's dream . . . and also the subject of Haresh's undivided love, passion and jealousy (the last not too often, fortunately).

At this time Carter called himself Giovanni Cortesan and he was looking for an amorous woman, playing the game of making his lover jealous so he could divert him from the Game (indeed, Haresh had lately been looking for Graham Ashe in an obsessional kind of way).

Eventually, Carter got a glimpse of Rosamund and, simply put, fell instantly in love with her, while at the same time sensing Rosamund's song of immortality emanating from her gracious body.

So began a game of flirting while at the same trying to avoid the presence of Haresh and Saint-Germain who eventually found each other. A challenge was offered and accepted.

A battle was won : but at the very instant when Saint-Germain nearly took Haresh's head, Carter begged him not to do so : he and his lover would leave Venice forever if Saint-Germain would lay down his sword.

Saint-Germain accepted the offer and Carter departed, leaving a heart-broken Rosamund behind.

Eventually, the young woman grew more and more tired of her husband's jealousy and pronounced a divorce immortal style by giving Saint-Gertmain a most public mortal death.

Rosamund returned to England where she lived as a nun near Westminster; in 1259 a worker on the contruction of the Abbey of Westminster accidentally fell to his death, and woke up on a mortuary slab, immortal. So was re-born John Garrick, a man cursed with dreadful visions of the future. Rosamund taught him the rules of immortality and a few tricks of the sword before sending him to a mortal swordmaster.

After three hundred years of immortality and taking heads, Rosamund was tired and decided to retire near the abbey of Godstow where she was challenged for the last time by Thomas of Manchester, an imortal headhunter, who quickly took her life. A legend says Rosamund's ghost has been haunting Godstow Abbey ever since.

All standard disclaimers apply. Some of the story is adapted from the medieval Provencal romance Flamenca.

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