King's Blood by Judith Tarr Page B

“He is right. I remember at the time, we asked if he should investigate, and at least give the family a charter, but he said—”
    Henry turned on his heel. The man who spoke was elderly, and wore the habit and tonsure of a monk. Although his eyes were clouded, there were still stains of ink on his fingers, and the calluses of long hours in the scriptorium.
    â€œI did see the original charter,” the clerk went on, innocently relentless, “and this man’s father, whose name was Arthur, did own the land. And the king said to pay him no mind. God wanted it for Himself. The family should consider itself well paid by the honor of it.”
    Voices rose in outrage. “This is a mockery! To demand recompense here, now—how dare he—”
    Henry’s sentiments were much the same, but he had had a bit of time to think. The townsman was an innocent, but what lay behind his eyes was anything but that. It was laughing—mocking indeed. It would feed royally on contention.
    Not if Henry had anything to do with it. It vexed his pride to say the words, but he knew he must say them. “You, Brother, since you seem so well versed in the matter—take whomever you need. Settle it. Pay him fair value for the land, from the abbey’s treasury.”
    The abbot sucked in a breath to protest, but Henry stared him down. There were advantages now and then in having inherited his father’s cold grey eyes. The man blanched and kept silent.
    Henry did not look to see whether he was obeyed. He turned back to the bearers, who were wheezing with the weight of the bier. “Finish it,” he said.
    Their gratitude was palpable. The tomb lay open, waiting. Darkness coiled within.
    It was only the slant of a shadow. The choir began the antiphon, blessing the body and the tomb.
    The king had had it built not so long ago, made to his measure. It was a good fathom long, and nigh as wide: William had gone greatly to fat as he aged. It was more than broad enough to hold him.
    The bearers lowered the bier as slowly as they could, with its great weight. Henry saw the tomb’s walls draw in, closing like a mouth.
    The bearers stopped perforce. The swollen mass beneath the pall bulged, overflowing the confines of the stone. Somewhere in the congregation, someone tittered.
    One of the bearers must have acted without thinking. He set his foot on the body and thrust.
    Henry held his breath. Others were not so fortunate. Fire from heaven had scattered the funeral procession. This stench from below sent the whole of the assembly, gagging and retching, toward the doors.
    Henry drew his mantle up over his face and breathed as shallowly as he could. The run on the doors had had the inevitable consequence: people crushed and trampled, and eruptions of fists and curses.
    The fool who had tried to wedge the body into its tomb like an overfull sack of meal had fainted. The body lay abandoned yet again, with a stain spreading beneath the pall, seeping from the burst belly.
    There was a horrible humor in it, but Henry had no laughter to give it. This foulness made a mockery of a hard man and a strong king; nothing in his life became him less than this last vestige of it.
    He could hear the sermons already, the priests preaching of pride fallen and pretension destroyed: the Conqueror conquered by the inevitability of decay. It was a gift of the old powers that had hated the king for so long, to the mortals who had hated him while he lived, but never dared speak until he was dead.
    Let them enjoy their revenge, Henry thought. It would not last long. William’s children were not all ingrates or fools. They would remember—and take revenge in turn.

CHAPTER 8
    The coast of England was suspiciously quiet. The sun was shining, the wind blowing soft, favoring the ship as it sailed for the harbor.
    One or two idiots on board reckoned that an omen, declaring that William’s errand was blessed by heaven. William was