"Look at this." Beowulf crouched down in the mud.

"That's a nice medallion. Do you think it has political properties?"

"No. Not that. Here. In his corselet." Beowulf pulled aside a rent flap of crudded chainmail.

"Amazing," said Hrothgar in a low voice. "Is this that soul that I have been hearing so much about lately?"

"No. I believe that that is the fountain of his subject-formation. Now this," Beowulf reached into the chest cavity and put his hand beneath a lung. "This is the bladder of sweet wastes." He reached over for the other lung. "And this is the bladder of pungent wastes. And this," he slid a finger along the large intestine. "This is what gourmands call the pudding hose."

Brotwern the Lieutenant walked up behind the two men crouched down in the mud. Just as he was about to bury a couple battleaxes in their backs, he noticed that one of them was his king. And that the other one was the recently arrived foreign envoy to the king. "Ah," he said eyeing the carcass, "Hagsfroth the Bilious. I knew him well."

"You mean he was on our side?" asked Beowulf, surprised.

"Of course. Look at the tribal code tattooed on the right bicep."

Beowulf lifted the arm and sent forth a low whistle, "I'll be a witch's dug. I thought that was an internal contusion." Beowulf dropped the arm and took the head by the chin and turned it this way and that. "But look at that nose. Did he have some Pict blood in him?"

"I believe his father was an Unglet who bought his mother off a gypsy at a fair in the east heath of Bushelpork."

Beowulf, moving his hand further down the fallen warrior's body, paused at the crotch.

"Impressive man-tusk."

"Yes," volunteered Brotwern, who had always looked on Hagsfroth as something like a vassal. "It is said that his wives and sisters were very happy women." Beowulf lifted it and laid it to one side.

"Now I have always wondered about this," said Hrothgar. "What are those two sparrow's breasts at the base of the man-trunk?"

"You mean this sack here between the legs?" asked Beowulf, squeezing it. The mangled body convulsed but let out no cry.

"Yes."

"That," said Beowulf, releasing it respectfully, "is the treasure purse of Malfgar. It is believed to