The King's Evil

The body was floating in mid-stream. It had lain beneath the water for some time before bobbing back to the surface in so bloated a condition that it was hideous to behold. The passengers in the boat turned away in disgust but the watermen were used to such sights. One of them shipped his oars and uncoiled the rope which lay at his feet. When he and the others resumed their journey across the Thames, the boat was towing the dead man by his ankle.

An hour later, the corpse was lifted on to a slab at the morgue to be examined by a surgeon. It was a gruesome task. Even though the chamber was sweetened by herbs, the stink was nauseating. The man's face was swollen to twice its original size and so distorted that his closest friends would never recognise him. Birds had started to peck at his face, rendering it even more repulsive. The trunk and limbs were also grotesquely inflated, splitting open his apparel in several places. Spewed up by the River Thames, he was one huge ball of putrefaction.

The surgeon turned to his assistant with a sigh.

'Cut off his clothes and we will make a start.'