"Not at the moment, but stay handy."

"Aye, constable." Mane turned proudly to Enid and mistook her smile for approval. Or perhaps he wasn't mistaken, thought Ogden. And maybe Portnoy isn't the dullest lad in town.

The little crowd parted for Ogden as he walked to the window. Peering in, he spied the wizard's body sprawled upon the floor beside a fine padded chair and a cluttered table. Ogden saw no blood, but he watched long enough to see that Cole was not breathing.

Ogden turned back to the expectant villagers. "Let's have a look inside."

"You won't want to blunder through a wizard's door," cautioned Old Angus. The ancient farmer was likely the first on the scene after Enid. Since his sons took over his land for him, he spent his days walking the perimeter of the village, visiting anyone who would spend an hour's conversation with him.

"Aye," added Mane with a tone of great authority. "You'll likely be hexed or transformed or reduced to-"

"Likely so," interrupted Ogden. He gave Mane a solemn look. Cole had never demonstrated any such spectacular powers, but none doubted he was in fact a wizard. Cole always seemed to know secrets, usually petty stories about his neighbors. Fortunately, he wasn't himself a gossip. But his knowing smile or nod or shake of the head whenever he overheard such tales was enough to convince the village that he observed all indiscretions through his magical mirror, or crystal, or pool, or something.

Ogden smiled at Mane then. "That's why I'll need you to slip through the window, here, and open the door for me."

Mane's eyes grew wide and pale as fried eggs. "But what if-"

Mane didn't have a chance to finish before Enid interrupted, "Oh, I'll do it." She had set the empty milk pail on its end and clambered up to the windowsill before anyone could say a word.

"Enid!" sputtered Mane. When the girl turned to arch a single golden eyebrow at him, he said only, "You be careful, now."

With an exasperated sigh, Enid wriggled through the open window, graceful as a selkie. A few moments later, the front door opened, and the girl stepped back outside.

Ogden nodded his appreciation to the young woman, then entered the cottage. The other villagers pressed forward, and he waved them back. "I'll need the light, now. Stand away until I've had my look around." They mostly obeyed.

Sunlight streamed through the door, illuminating Cole's body and the table where he had died.

On the table rested a book, a tumble of parchment, and three fresh tapers in a candelabra. The rest of the room was comfortably furnished with several chairs, another low table, and a few shelves, one devoted entirely to books and scrolls. Ogden was one of the few people in Myrloch cantrev who had his letters, but even he owned no books. Lord Donnell had a few-chronicles of the first kings, and histories of the Ffolk-which Ogden had read and re-read. The innkeeper was canny enough to suspect where history ended and legend began, but of the realm of magic, Ogden knew blessedly little. He was not eager to open the wizard's librams.

Ogden knelt beside the dead wizard. Placing a hand on Cole's chest, Ogden felt the dying warmth there. The man could not have died last night. He must have been alive not long before Enid's visit this morning.

There were no violent marks on the body, though black ink stained the mage's once fine blue tunic. It pooled on the floor beside the corpse, and a gleaming black trail ran under the table. Ogden followed the trail to find the tumbled ink pot resting against the foot of the table. He left it where it lay and finished examining the body.

Cole's face had frozen in a faint grimace. His black mustache looked crooked against his final expression, and his eyes were closed. His arms and legs were bent as from a fall, but none seemed broken. Ogden noticed a dark smudge on Cole's right hand. He rose to look at the desktop once more.

Cole had been writing letters before he died. At first glance they appeared innocuous, friendly missives to friends or relatives. Ogden noticed that all of them were finished; none ended suddenly, as he had expected. One must be missing.

Someone cleared his throat at the door. Ogden looked up

to see the villagers looking back impatiently.

"Find anything?" asked Old Angus.

"Hmm," replied Ogden. It was a sound to make when he didn't have an answer. He turned his attention back to the body. He would have one more look at it before summoning Megan to wash and prepare the corpse for burial.

Ogden's eyes scanned the room for any clues. He spied a wide blue bowl half-filled with milk near the window. Enid must have tipped it with her landing as she slipped into the cottage, for her small white footprint puddled the wooden floor. The mage's cat would be needing a new home, he thought.

Nothing else was amiss, so Ogden turned back to the body. Gently, he rolled the dead wizard onto his back. There was the missing letter. The lone page had been pinned under the wizard's arm when he fell. It was also written in the wizard's hand, but this one ended in large, crude letters, smeared but still legible. Ogden stared at the message, not believing his good luck.

The last clumsy line read: "Niall Ericson kille…"

Ogden didn't have to summon Megan after all. Word of Cole's death had reached her soon after Portnoy brought the news to Ogden, and she knew when she was needed. Crafty and wise, Megan was something betwixt the ordinary Ffolk and the druids. She knew the tricks of herb and root, and she had a cunning for sewing wounds. When all cures failed, she was the one to wash and bind the corpse before stitching shut the last wound of all: the funeral shroud.

She was also Niall Ericson's wife.

Ericson was Cole's nearest neighbor, living alone since Megan had left him some six years earlier. She had walked out of their cottage the day after their daughter married a herder from a northern cantrev and left Myrloch village behind. Megan's sons struck out on their own soon after, seeking their fortunes in Callidyr and leaving Niall alone on the farm, bitter and angry. No one asked Megan why she left the man, but everyone had a speculation. He beat her, some said. He was cruel to the animals she sometimes kept as pets. He thought her a witch for her healing lore, for the Northmen were a superstitious lot. The jovial suggested that Niall's colossal snoring was the answer to their separation. There was darker gossip concerning the daughter. No matter what one believed, none knew Niall's side of it, for he seldom walked among the Ffolk himself, and they feared him somewhat.

Megan lived nearer town these days, in a small cottage left vacant by its owners' deaths some years ago. Lord Donnell granted her ownership without delay, for he knew the value of a healer. From her own home, now, she exchanged her craft for enough food to subsist and a little more for trade. The other Ffolk brought her something of each harvest whether they had need of her help or not. It was the nature of the Ffolk to put up a little extra yield against the winter.

Megan's hands were brown and freckled against the dead wizard's wan face. Ogden had helped her lift the body to the wizard's kitchen table, where now she finished her examination of the body. She lifted each eyelid and peered at the dead orbs. She pried open his stiff jaw to peek inside his mouth.

"No mark of poison," she said at last. "None of my kenning, at least." Megan brushed a strand of auburn hair away from her eyes. Time had been gentle with her. While she was nearly Ogden's age, the snow had yet to dust her hair.

Ogden grunted in disappointment. He had hoped that Megan would tell him she knew of a poison that would leave no sign, one that she had long ago taught Niall Eric-son. From the moment he saw the wizard's last note, he was all but certain of Ericson's guilt. The problem remained the proof, which he hoped to find before Lord Donnell’s return.