Now he could not breathe.

She had not killed him, not yet; there was still time to change her mind, to release her grip. She could roll him over and clear the fluid from his mouth and enable him to breathe. He would probably survive.

Survive to attack her again.

She maintained her hold on his mouth and nose. She waited, watching his face. How long did a man live without air? She had no idea.

He twitched, but he seemed barely conscious, and could not struggle. Ragna remained with her knees in his belly, closing his mouth with one hand and his nose with the other. All his motion ceased.

Was he dead now?

The house was silent. The embers in the fire made no sound, and there was no rustle of small creatures in the rushes on the floor. She listened for footsteps outside but heard none.

Suddenly Wigelm opened his eyes. The shock made her shriek with fear.

He looked with terror at Ragna. He tried to shake his head but she leaned forward, pressing down harder with her two hands, holding him still.

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.

She decided she could manage without Astrid, just about. She hauled Wigelm slowly across the quarry. The body made a scraping noise as it moved, but not loud enough to be heard in Gab’s house.

From the quarry the ground sloped up gently, and her work became harder. She was already panting from the effort. She rested for a minute, then forced herself to resume the task. It was not much farther.

At last she reached the canal. She lugged him to the edge and rolled him in. There was a splash that sounded loud to her, and a smell of waste and rot from the disturbed water. Then the surface calmed, and Wigelm steadied, facedown. She saw a dead squirrel floating next to his face.

She rested, breathing hard, exhausted, but after a minute she realized this was not good enough. The corpse was still close enough to the house to arouse suspicion. She had to move it farther away.

If she had had a rope she could have tied it to him then walked along the bank, pulling Wigelm through the water. But she did not have a rope.

She thought of riding equipment. Astrid was in a field but her saddle and other tack were in the house. She returned there. She folded the blanket and put it at the bottom of the pile, hoping its dirty state would not be noticed for many days. Then she detached the reins from the bridle.

She returned to the canal. Still there was no one in sight. She reached across the water and grabbed the corpse by the hair. She pulled it to her, then fastened the strap around the neck. She stood up, tugged on the strap, and walked along the canal bank toward the village.

A part of her exulted to think that Wigelm was now so powerless that she could lead him along like a dumb animal.

She scanned all around her, peering into the shadows under the trees, scared that at any second she might run in to some nighttime wanderer. In the moonlight she saw a pair of yellow eyes, which gave her a momentary fright, until she realized she was looking at a cat.

As she neared the village, she heard raised voices. She cursed. It sounded as though Wigelm’s absence had been noticed.

She was not yet far enough from the quarry to divert suspicion. To rest her arm she changed hands and walked backward, but she could not see where she was going and, after stumbling twice, she put the tired arm back to work again. Her legs began to ache, too.

She saw lights moving among the houses. Wigelm’s men were looking for him, almost certainly. They were too drunk to search systematically, and their calls to one another were incoherent. But all the same one of them might spot her by chance. And if she were caught dragging Wigelm’s corpse along the canal there would be no doubt about her guilt.

She kept moving. One of the searchers came toward the canal with a lamp. Ragna stopped, got down on the ground, and lay still, watching the jerky movement of the light. What would she do if it came nearer? What story could she possibly tell to explain Wigelm’s corpse and her strap?

But the light seemed to go in the opposite direction and fade. When it disappeared she got to her feet and carried on.

She passed the back of one village house, then another, and decided that was far enough. Wigelm had been incapable of walking in a straight line so it would be assumed he had not taken the most direct route to the canal, but had staggered around at random on his way.

She knelt down, put her hands in the water, and unfastened the strap from Wigelm’s neck. Then she pushed his body out into the middle of the canal. “That way to hell,” she murmured.

She turned and hurried back to the quarry.

There was no movement around Gab’s house or Edgar’s. She hoped the lovebirds had not returned in her absence: she was not sure how she would explain what she had been doing.

She crossed the quarry with quiet steps and entered the house. No one was there.

She took her place in the straw and closed her eyes.

I believe I got away with it, she thought.

She knew she should have been full of guilt, but all she could do was rejoice.

She did not sleep. She relived the night in her head, from the moment she had heard Wigelm’s slurred voice to her final rush back along the bank of the canal. She asked herself whether she had done enough to make the death look like a drunken accident. Was there anything about the corpse that might cause suspicion? Had she perhaps been seen by someone who did not reveal himself? Had her absence from the house somehow been noticed?

She heard the door creak and guessed that Osgyth and Ceolwulf had returned. She pretended to be fast asleep. There was a soft thud as the bar was replaced—too late, she thought resentfully. She heard their tiptoe footsteps, a smothered giggle, and soft rustling as they lay down. She guessed that Ceolwulf had resumed his guard position, lying across the doorway, so that no one could get in without waking him.