To her surprise Bada, the man-at-arms who had helped carry Wigelm from the canal to the church, spoke up in dissent. “I don’t think he drowned,” he said.
Ragna had been afraid of something like this. She hid her anxiety and put on an expression of interest. “What makes you say that, Bada?”
“I’ve taken a drowned man out of the water before. When you lift him, a lot of fluid comes out of his mouth. It’s the water he breathed in, the water that killed him. But when we lifted Wigelm, nothing came out.”
“Now that’s curious, but I’m not sure it gets us anywhere.” Ragna turned to the baker. “Did you see that, Wilmund?”
“I didn’t notice it,” the baker said.
Bada said insistently: “I did, though.”
“What do you think it signifies, Bada?”
“It shows that he was dead before he went in the water.”
Ragna remembered holding Wigelm’s mouth and nose so that he could not breathe. The picture kept returning to her mind no matter how hard she tried. With an effort she thought of the next question. “So how did he die?”
“Maybe someone killed him, then threw the body in the water.”Bada looked defiantly around the church. “Someone who hated him, perhaps. Someone who felt wronged by him.”
Ragna was being accused by implication. Everyone knew she had hated Wigelm. If the charge were made openly, she was confident that the villagers would loyally take her side; but she did not want things to go that far.
She walked slowly and deliberately around the body. With difficulty, she made her voice calm and confident. “Come closer, Bada,” she said. “Look carefully.”
The room went quiet.
Bada did as she said.
“If he didn’t drown, how was he killed?”
Bada said nothing.
“Do you see a wound? Any blood? A bruise, even? Because I don’t.”
She was suddenly scared by a new thought. The strap she had used to pull the corpse along the canal might have left a red mark. Discreetly, she looked hard at the skin of his throat, but to her relief nothing was visible.
“Well, Bada?”
Bada just looked sulky.
“Anybody,” Ragna said to the crowd. “Come as near as you like. Inspect the body. Look for signs of violence.”
Several people stepped forward and peered closely at Wigelm. One by one they shook their heads and stepped back.
Ragna said: “Sometimes a man just drops dead, especially one who has been getting drunk every evening for years. It’s possible Wigelm suffered some kind of seizure while pissing in the canal. Perhaps he died and then fell into the water. We may never know. But there’s no sign that it was anything but an accident, is there?”
Once again the crowd murmured assent.
Bada looked mulish. “I’ve heard tell,” he said, “that if a murderer touches the corpse of his victim, the dead man will bleed afresh.”
A chill went through Ragna. She had heard that, too, though she had never seen it happen and did not really believe it. But she was going to have to test the truth of the superstition now.
She said to Bada: “Who would you would like to see touch the body?”
“You,” said Bada.
Ragna struggled to hide her fear. Pretending supreme confidence, she said: “Watch, everyone.” Unfortunately she could not quite stop the tremor in her voice. She lifted her right arm high, then brought it down slowly.
In the version she had heard, when she touched Wigelm, blood would pour from his nose, mouth, and ears.
