Yes. She had no other choice.
“You lied to me! You said…” She walked forward, willing him to trust her, no matter what she did. “You said we would marry. I believed you.” Another step. She reached to the sleeve where the vial lay hidden. “You will pay.”
The three words were the signal they had agreed on.
Behind her, she heard Torsten and Caedmon try to burst into the cell to catch the guards’ attention. Oslac came forward, blocking the view further. It was crucial the men did not see her throw the contents of the vial at Ulf’s chest, or even the blow she supposedly dealt him. It would be enough if they saw everything from the corner of one eye while they were busy restraining the outraged brother and father trying to enter the cell.
“Get back, ’tis too cramped in here!” one man shouted.
Ylva seized her chance. The vial was emptied at the same time as she made the stabbing motion. For good measure, she let out a cry that seemed wrenched from the depths of her soul. Her anguish was not feigned. She had not thought she would find it so hard to pretend to kill Ulf.
He fell to the floor, immobile.
Ylva stared at him, panting hard, feeling as if she would collapse herself. The deed was done.
Ulf was dead.
Or at least, that was what he was pretending to be. When Ylva had punched his chest, her hand sheathing the dagger’s blade, he had done his best to stagger, fall to his knees first, so as to be able to choose his final position—flat on his stomach with his head turned away from the door. He suspected it was not as easy as it seemed to pose as a corpse, so he preferred not to betray himself by a flutter of the eyelids or an involuntary wince.
From his place on the floor, he heard everything.
“You killed him.” Oslac sounded suitably satisfied by this outcome.
“I hope so. Just make sure he’s dead!” Ylva’s supposedly triumphant tone was tainted with what he thought might be real panic.
He guessed that she would be afraid to have really hurt him. She had not. The punch to the chest had been surprisingly hard, but then again, it had to look convincing. Before falling he had seen blood blooming on his tunic. A clever trick, that. Which animal had contributed to the daring deed, chicken or pig? His fierce she-wolf had come prepared, leaving nothing to chance.
He felt someone, Oslac probably, prod at his chest.
“Aye, the bastard’s well and truly dead. You killed him, sister.”
“Let us see.”
One of the guards, this time.
Ulf braced himself. This would be the hard part. If the man touched his neck, and felt a pulse, or examined the supposed wound too closely and saw no puncture, he would know what had happened.
He held his breath when Oslac turned him onto his back and made sure to prevent the man from getting too close. The light in the cell was mercifully very dim, another detail in their favor.
“Here. As you see. A strike straight to the heart. My sister never misses.”
“Has she killed many men then?” the other guard called. He sounded half-amused, half-suspicious.
“No. But she always gets what she wants is what I mean. Since she clearly wanted the man dead, she was not going to miss.”
In any other circumstances Ulf would have smiled. Ylva had once stabbed him, and missed, precisely because she hadn’t truly wanted him dead.
Still, she had hit at his heart in some other way.
“Well, in any case, he got what he deserved!” Oslac sneered. “A much more satisfying result than seeing him hang for some crime we don’t care about, if you ask me. We’ll always have the pleasure of knowing we ended the bastard’s life.”
With those words, he half lifted Ulf off the floor before throwing him away in disgust. It hurt like hell, but he knew what the Saxon was doing. He had ensured that he was once again face down, his wound and his face hidden from view, to help him play the role of the still corpse. Good. Now all he had to do was wait.
What was the next part of the plan?
He was dead, but he was still in the custody of the reeve’s men. How would Ylva and Oslac get him out of the cell?
“We should take him home, prove to everyone that he really is dead. You know the old man, he will only believe what he sees,” someone else said—his uncle, Torsten.
