The False Virgin
“At first they thought he had drowned. The body lay face up on the foreshore of the river as if deposited by the tide, waiting to be revealed by the growing light of a summer’s dawn. But when Hugh and Alfred clambered down from the landing stage and squelched across the mud to the corpse they saw that the visible areas of clothing and hair were not waterlogged but dry. The face was composed.
From a distance the two men also assumed this must be a member of the household. The tunic the corpse... wore was of blue and white, the livery of the house of Lancaster. But when they drew closer they saw the cloth was of much finer quality than anything they wore, and the colours more subtle in their dye. They soon forget these distinctions anyway, for blotting out the centre of the chest was a circle of dried blood. Hugh and Alfred did not recognise the dead man even though his features were not disfigured.
‘He did not die natural,’ said Alfred, shielding his eyes against the early morning sun as he gazed at the red spill on the dead man’s tunic.MoreLess
From a distance the two men also assumed this must be a member of the household. The tunic the corpse... wore was of blue and white, the livery of the house of Lancaster. But when they drew closer they saw the cloth was of much finer quality than anything they wore, and the colours more subtle in their dye. They soon forget these distinctions anyway, for blotting out the centre of the chest was a circle of dried blood. Hugh and Alfred did not recognise the dead man even though his features were not disfigured.
‘He did not die natural,’ said Alfred, shielding his eyes against the early morning sun as he gazed at the red spill on the dead man’s tunic.MoreLess
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