Blod lowered the bucket.
Dreng groaned and fell to his knees, saying: “Jesus, it hurts!”
Ragna froze, staring at him. Why was he in pain? He had been giving a beating, not suffering one. Was this an act of a vengeful God?
Dreng toppled forward and fell with his face on the stone surround of the hearth. Ragna leaped to him, grabbed his ankles, and pulled him away from the flames. His body was limp. She rolled him over. His long nose had been smashed in the fall and there was blood all over his mouth and chin.
He was not moving.
She put her hand on his chest. He seemed not to be breathing. She could not feel a heartbeat.
She turned to Mairead. “How badly are you hurt?” she said.
“My head is agony,” she answered. She rolled over and sat upright with one hand on her belly. “But I don’t think he injured the baby.”
Ragna heard Cwenburg’s voice from the doorway. “Father! Father!”
Cwenburg ran in, dropped her basket of fish and fell to her knees beside Dreng. “Speak to me, Father!”
Dreng did not move.
Cwenburg looked over her shoulder at Blod. “You’ve killed him!” She leaped to her feet. “You murdering slave, I’m going to kill you!”
She flew at Blod, but Ragna intervened. She grabbed Cwenburg from behind, grasping both her arms, restraining her. “Stand still!” she commanded.
Cwenburg ceased to struggle but yelled: “She killed him! She hit him with that bucket!”
Blod still had the oak bucket in her hand. “I didn’t hit anyone,” she said. She put the bucket back on its peg. “Your father was the only person doing that.”
“Liar!”
“He used that shovel on Mairead.”
Ragna said: “She’s telling the truth, Cwenburg. Your father was beating Mairead and he suffered some kind of seizure. He fell facedown onto the hearth, and I pulled him out of the fire. But he was already dead.”
Cwenburg went limp. Ragna released her and she sat down abruptly on the floor, weeping. She was probably the only person who would weep for Dreng, Ragna thought.
Several villagers crowded into the alehouse, staring at the corpse in the center of the room. Then Aldred came in. Seeing the body on the floor he crossed himself and murmured a short prayer.
Ragna was the most high-ranking person there, but Aldred was the landlord, and normally took responsibility for justice. However, he had no interest in squabbles over precedence, and he came straight to Ragna and said: “What happened?”
She told him.
Ethel stood up and spoke for the first time. “What am I going to do?” she said.
Aldred said: “Well, you own the alehouse, now.”
Ragna had not thought of that.
Cwenburg made a sudden recovery. “No, she doesn’t.” She got to her feet. “My father wanted me to inherit the alehouse.”
Aldred frowned. “Did he make a will?”
“No, but he told me.”
“That doesn’t count. The widow inherits.”
“She can’t run an alehouse!” Cwenburg said scornfully. “She’s always sick. I can, especially with Erman and Eadbald to help me.”
