As one, father and daughter were to disregard and forget the subject of their conversation they raced thither into the night at the sound of their friend’s cry. They crossed the distance between the two houses in minutes where it might have ordinarily taken a full score of them. Corin arrived first, due in no small part to his greater vigour and his daughter still being dressed in her silken dress, which she had all but forgotten she still wore.

  They were however second upon the scene of the foul crime that had just been committed. First after Indulf were Cormac followed by the elderly Wiglaf who by the time the smith and his daughter reached the home of Freygil, was still red-faced from his own rushed pace to the home of the fisherman.

  “What has happened?” Shouted Daegan whereon her advent to the entrance of her friend’s home.

  They all surrounded the corpse of Inga, who stared up at the heavens with her honey-coloured eyes wide, never to again truly see the heavens that lay above all of them. Still dressed in her green dress sewn by Cormac’s own hand, with nary a mark on her flesh which disturbed all who gazed upon her. Wiglaf included. Kneeling, Indulf held her close to him as he swallowed, wept, wailed and cried out ‘murder!’ still, regardless of how they now stood before him. It was as though, he was no more capable of awareness of their presence than the unseeing Inga was.

  Grief untold was engraved into the very fabric of the man’s face. There was not a man or woman, who did not feel pity for him. Holding the fallen woman to him, with his head bent over her breast, shoulders quaking as a terrible wail of anguish tore through him. By his side, Corin searched about the area in pursuit of the murderer or the cause of it, Cormac knelt by the side of his friend to place a hand full of compassion on his shoulder.

  It was Wiglaf though who did the most good, where they were full of bewilderment and grief, sobbing in lesser or greater measure. His left-hand fingers were pressed to Inga’s throat to inspect for a pulse, wherefore he inspected the contents of her mouth with a keen eye.

  “What could have done this?” Asked the blacksmith, utterly confused by what had taken place. A well-traveled man, he had however never seen such a peculiar case that involved no visible wounds, nor any footprints or hoof-prints of a mount in the immediate area near the home of Freygil, where she had been very apparently awaiting Indulf’s arrival.

  “I do not know,” The sorcerer answered tartly, before he withdrew into himself with a shudder, the same hand that had touched Inga’s throat now stroked his beard.

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  The kinsmen of the deceased lass and of her intended arrived in due course, as someone had heard Indulf’s scream for aid, and brought it to the attention of the revellers. Shaken, the lad’s family were to either brood or take him into their arms, pawing and claiming to be concerned with him. The family of Inga at once attempted to seize her from he who had loved her most, as was the case of the lass’s mother, only to be pulled away herself by her husband, who wept bitter tears himself. The victim’s sisters were taken up and escorted home by Kenna, who acted with admirable poise despite being shaken herself, as she began to bark out orders for someone to alert Conn, to begin funerary proceedings and for the gathered crowd to disperse.

  When she departed whither with the sisters of the deceased, to put them to bed, the Salmon rounded upon Cormac with such fury that all not otherwise distracted by grief gaped at him. Jabbing a finger through the air as the ancient Romalian Centurions might have their ferocious gladiuses, he accused the lad with a bellow, “You! This was your doing! You were the only one not within sight of any of us, at the moment of her death!”

  “You cannot be serious!” Daegan objected at once, shocked by the accusation as much by the accusatory gazes that befell her equally startled friend, who gaped. Evidently stunned into silence, at the swiftness with which his neighbours and once-friends had turned upon him. Even loyal Indulf, who had just that morn’ considered the other youth his closest friend, turned a suspicious gaze upon him, so that their friend was uncertain if she were trying to mollify his or the old man’s suspicions. “Cormac could never commit such a crime!”

  “But he was the only person along with your father, who was absent!” Countered Raonull heatedly, the paternal-uncle of Inga.

  “Silence!” Interrupted Wiglaf in a loud voice, as he rose to his full-height from where he had previously been bent. Though not a particularly tall man, at that moment though he appeared to be of a far greater stature than all those present, from the Salmon, to Corin to even Cormac. Red-faced, beneath his thick beard and brows, his grey-eyes flashed with fury himself. “Cormac was with me, the whole of the time Inga had hurried home for.”

  “And where were you sorcerer?” Demanded the father of Inga, Simidh the Salmon’s good-son in a strained voice, the accusation in his eyes just as it was in his father’s.

  “By the seashore,” The sorcerer retorted evenly, though not without compassion only for him to command the seamstress’s son, “Now as to the children they must be getting home, as all must still work on the morrow. Now away with a great many of you, whilst Corin and I attempt to see if we can discern who committed this heinous crime.”

  Most appeared as though they might argue, not least of which was Dae herself, due to her desire to know what had become of her friend. However, a warning glare from her father put paid to that thought; therefore she departed though not without one last sob and glance towards her friend. She might have liked Cormac to guide her home, if only for him to offer comfort, yet shaken he did little more than grasp her hand briefly before he left for his own home.

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