Sara Douglass - The Crippled Angel

But now St Paul’s and Richard’s remains were thrown open to the inspection of the curious, and the Londoners had flocked to the occasion in their thousands.

Richard lay in an open, solid oaken coffin, its joints well sealed with wax and other substances, set on its bier before the altar. Candles and incense surrounded the bier save for a space directly before the coffin where a single person could step close for a quick viewing.

To one side stood an ever-changing guard of several priests and friars, there to ensure that the individual’s viewing was only quick, and that he or she did not attempt to snatch a lock of the dead king’s hair, or a scraping from under his fingernails to sell at a local relic market.

Dick Whittington stood in line with everyone else, and was as curious as everyone else. Whittington was no fool, and had understood very well that Bolingbroke could not have allowed the former king to survive as a lodestone for every disaffected person in the kingdom. Nevertheless, he thought, it was a shame that Bolingbroke couldn’t have arranged for Richard to fall off a horse in front of a score of impartial witnesses, or arrange his drowning in a swollen river as Richard and his party were attempting to cross. The rumours sweeping London ever since news of Richard’s death had ranged from the bizarre to the almost certainly correct: Lancaster’s ghost had so terrified Richard one dark night he had fallen down dead (or Lancaster’s ghost had set fire to Richard, or flayed him, or torn off his genitals and eaten them, leaving Richard to bleed to death); a band of Scottish soldiers had infiltrated Pontefract Castle in an attempt to kidnap Richard and make him their king, but had mistaken Richard for a guard, killed him, and then kidnapped the guard and installed him on the Scottish throne; Richard had choked to death on a frog which had taken up residence in the damp castle; Richard had pined to death over his lover, Robert de Vere; Bolingbroke had sent a band of assassins to Pontefract to murder Richard by means most foul.

Worse were the rumours that Richard was not dead at all, and that news of his death was only an official attempt to disguise the truth—that Richard had escaped Pontefract and was even now riding on London with an avenging army of tens of thousands behind him.

God had anointed Richard, therefore would God allow Richard to be so destroyed? And if Richard were truly murdered, would God allow his murder to go unpunished?

The truth, Whittington thought, as he slowly shuffled forward a few places in the queue, was that the Londoners, as many other among the English, were starting to feel a trifle guilty about their role in Richard’s downfall. They had abandoned Richard with an indecent haste, supporting “fair Prince Hal’s” counterclaim to the throne. While Richard had been festering in Pontefract, awaiting his murder, they’d been crowding about Westminster Abbey, shouting Bolingbroke’s name as if it were a charm against evil.

Now they were here in their droves, impelled not only by curiosity but by guilt.

Starting to get impatient, and finding that his joints ached greatly in the chill damp of the cathedral’s nave, Whittington craned his head, trying to see how much longer he might have to wait. The queue appeared to stretch for some thirty or forty persons before him, but the priests standing about the coffin were making sure that people were moving briskly, and not loitering too long over Richard’s open casket.

No one showed any signs of wanting to loiter, however. Perhaps, Whittington surmised, the stench was putting off even the most guilty or ardent of viewers.

Loiter they might not, but Whittington noticed that every man and woman who turned aside from the coffin had pale faces as they crossed themselves, halting briefly for the blessings of the priest. And they were quiet as they walked away, not pausing to whisper or gossip.

Some drew their wraps tighter about themselves, and looked nervously over their shoulders with darting eyes.

All left the cathedral as quickly as they could.

Whittington’s curiosity grew, and he fidgeted impatiently.

The queue ahead of him was moving very quickly now. Perhaps only some four or five stood between Whittington and his turn at a viewing, and Whittington’s head craned all the more. He could see a little into the open coffin over the shoulders before him—there was a heavy drape of a richly embroidered material over most of Richard’s body. Whittington could see a pale blur of a face, and it appeared that Richard’s skeletal arms and hands were crossed over his chest, clutching a gold crucifix.

He shivered suddenly, feeling as if a winter frost had dug deep into his bones.

The people ahead of him visibly shivered, too, and hurried the faster, bending only briefly over the coffin.

Then, finally, it was Dick Whittington’s turn, and he stepped forward. A priest murmured in his ear, “Hurry! Hurry!”, and the stench of hot incense and cold decaying flesh assaulted his nostrils, making his stomach roil.

He stepped up to the coffin, and peered in.

Richard’s remains were horrible to behold. His flesh had shrunk close to his bones, his skull was sparsely dotted with a few clumps of dry hair, his eyelids had gummed closed over sunken eyeballs. His nose was a thin ridge only barely covered with the remnants of flesh—in one spot cartilage had poked its way free.

His desiccated lips were frozen into a horrible rictus, showing yellowed, slimy teeth. Behind them loomed something huge and horrid—his swollen, blackened tongue.

Whittington tore his eyes away from Richard’s face and looked to where his skeletal hands clutched a crucifix. The fingers were clasped so tightly about the cross that in places the flesh of Richard’s hands had rotted into the chain, and then reformed about it; the crucifix had become part of Richard’s flesh.

“Move on!” came the whisper from a close attendant priest, and Whittington looked one last time at Richard’s face…

… and screeched in terror. Richard’s eyes had opened, revealing black, glistening orbs. They rolled in Whittington’s direction, and, as the Lord Mayor stared, horrified, the dead king’s lips moved: Murderer! Murderer!

Whittington tried to move, but couldn’t. Richard’s eyes held him locked in place.

Murderer! Murderer!

There was a clink, and Whittington realised that Richard’s finger bones had clicked as his hands moved about the crucifix.

Whittington, Whittington, what do you think? Shall I rise from my grave to my throne again?

Whittington’s face contorted, and he physically wrenched himself away from Richard’s rolling eyes. He stumbled back, almost falling, then turned about, his breath coming in great, gasping gulps.

He realised no one was looking at him— Why? Why? Had no one seen what he had? Had no one wondered at his strange reaction? —then realised that everyone was staring at a richly cloaked and garbed man walking slowly up the clear space of the centre of the nave.

Gold glinted about his brow.

Bolingbroke.

Whittington stumbled further away from the coffin, staring at Bolingbroke.

Bolingbroke had no eyes for anything but the coffin. He strode forth slowly but purposefully, his eyes fixed on the bier and what lay on it.

Don’t go near it! Whittington’s mind screamed. Don’t go near —

“Sire!” he gasped as Bolingbroke approached. “Sire!”

Bolingbroke ignored him. His steps quickened, the heels of his boots ringing across the flagstones, the hem of his cloak fluttering out behind him.

Every eye in the cathedral followed Bolingbroke up to the coffin, to this meeting of kings.

Bolingbroke stepped up to the bier, put his hands firmly on the edge of the coffin, and peered inside.