He stared into her eyes, in a half-conscious panic, for a long moment of high tension. He was in fear of his life but he could not move, like a man in a nightmare. “This is how it feels, Wigelm,” she said, her voice taut with loathing. “This is what it’s like to be helpless at the mercy of a killer.”

Suddenly his feeble efforts ceased and his eyes rolled up into his head.

Still Ragna held her grip. Was he really dead? She could hardly believe that the man who had tormented her for so long might have left this world for good.

At last she summoned the courage to release her pressure on his nose and mouth. His face showed no change. She put her hand on his chest and felt no heartbeat.

She had killed him.

“God forgive me,” she prayed.

She found herself shaking uncontrollably. Her hands trembled, her shoulders shuddered, and her thighs felt so weak she wanted to lie down.

She struggled to control her body. What she needed to worry about right now was how men would react. No one would believe her innocent. The ealdorman, her great enemy, had died in the middle of the night with no one present but her. The evidence was incriminating.

She was a murderess.

At last she became steady and stood up.

It was not over yet. What would tell against her most was that the body was here with her. She had to move it. But where could she put it? The answer was obvious.

In the canal.

Wigelm’s drunken companions would have assumed he had gone to take a piss. In his state he could easily have passed out, fallen in the canal, and drowned before he could come around. That was exactly the kind of thing drunken fools did.

But no one must see her disposing of the body. She needed to move quickly, before Osgyth and Ceolwulf tired of canoodling and came back, before one of Wigelm’s half-conscious men began to wonder what was taking him so long and decided to go in search.

She grabbed one leg and heaved. It took more effort than she had expected. She moved him a yard then stopped. It was too much. He was a heavy man and, literally, a dead weight.

She could not be defeated by such a simple problem. Her horse, Astrid, was in a nearby pasture. If necessary Ragna would fetch the horse to drag the body—though that would take time and increase the risk of discovery. It would be quicker if she could put Wigelm on something, like a board. She remembered the blankets.

She took one and spread it on the floor next to Wigelm. With considerable effort she rolled him onto the blanket. Then she seized the head end and pulled. It was not easy, but it was possible, and she dragged him across the floor and out through the door.

She looked around in the moonlight and saw no one. Gab’s house was dark and quiet. Osgyth and Ceolwulf must still be in the woods, and there was no sign of a search party looking for Wigelm. Only the inhabitants of the night surrounded her: an owl hooting in the trees, a small rodent scurrying past so quickly that she saw it only out of the corner of her eye, the distinct swooping movement of a silent bat.