A straight punch like that can often knock someone out, especially considering he's a guard/soldier, and she's a small girl. Though she is rather tough.
Thinking about being executed for what she's doing, and she immediately starts to consider if she can change the execution method to poisoning.
I always thought this was too flimsy of a setup and too heavy of a beam for the purpose.
yep, definitely dead. Normal dead. Nothing to see here. Body will not vanish or be replaced.
Yeah, why would you even suspect anything other than a completely normal death by completely normal circumstances? Perfectly normal.