What she had not expected was the shock she felt when she looked at the corpse of the man she had killed.
Wigelm was carried into the village by Wilmund and one of Wigelm’s entourage, Bada. As soon as Ragna saw it she began to feel the horror of what she had done.
Last night she had been full of fear until Wigelm died, and then suffused with relief that he was gone. Now she remembered that she had suffocated Wigelm, and had watched his face while, moment by moment, the life left his body. At the time she had felt nothing but terror, but now, when she remembered the scene, she was sick with guilt.
She had seen dead people plenty of times, but this was different. She felt she was going to faint, or cry, or scream.
She struggled to remain calm. She had to conduct an inquest, and she needed to manage it carefully. She must not seem too eager to reach the obvious verdict. And she must show no fear.
She ordered the men to lay the corpse on a trestle table in the church, and she sent messengers to recall the other two search parties.
Everyone crowded into the little church, whispering out of respect, staring at the dead white face of Wigelm, and watching his clothes drip canal water onto the floor.
Ragna began by speaking to Garulf, the highest-ranking man among Wigelm’s entourage. “Last night,” she said to him, “you were among the last drinkers in the alehouse.” Her voice seemed to her tosound unnaturally calm, but no one noticed. “Did you see Wigelm fall asleep?”
Garulf looked shocked and scared, and had trouble answering the simple question. “Um, I don’t know, wait, no, I think I closed my eyes before he did.”
Ragna led him along. “Did you see him again after that?”
He scratched his stubbled chin. “After I fell asleep? No, I was asleep. But hold on. Yes. He must have got up, because he stumbled over me and that woke me.”
“You saw his face.”
“In the firelight, yes, and heard his voice.”
“What did he say?”
“He said: ‘I’m going to piss in Edgar’s canal.’”
Some of the men laughed, then stopped abruptly when they realized it was inappropriate.
“And then he went out?”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
Garulf was regaining his composure, and making more sense. “Some time later, someone woke me by saying: ‘Wigelm seems to be having a very long piss.’”
“What did you do?”
“I went back to sleep.”
“Did you see him again?”
“Not alive, no.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I think he fell into the canal and drowned.”
There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd. Ragna waspleased. She had led them to the result she wanted while letting them think it had been their own decision.
She looked around the church. “Did anyone see Wigelm after he left the tavern in the middle of the night?”
No one answered.
“To the best of our knowledge, then, the cause of death was accidental drowning.”
