"My miners are as dumb as rocks are grey."
He thought he was in another gods-damned nightmare when he found her. That or he was drunk again. Possibly both.
He tripped over her cold arm, and he'd have hardly noticed were it not for the blood, and the smell of the blood. He'd been drinking, but the very strong, very fresh smell sobered him up instantly. Staggering and righting himself, he looked down.
There wasn't much light left in the day. But there was enough to see.
"Oh, gods! Beitild!" His voice rang out in the desolate silence of the winter night, and across town, he heard the guards come running, torches flickering like stars in the dark. He knelt down next to her.
Beitild was curled up on her side, one hand resting on her arm. In the shoulder of that arm was a ghastly, gaping wound, from which such an extreme quantity of blood had poured that the very snow around her was coated liberally in it, and she herself was covered in it, from her torso to her thighs. One could tell at a glance that it was the blood loss and not the wound itself that killed her.
He staggered back from her, the initial shock turning into the alarm people felt at finding a dead body. Nervously, he put his hand on his dagger and looked around. The guards, seeing her now, also drew their swords as they raced over. They stared down at her for some seconds in silence when they reached her, and one knelt down, turning her over on her side, examining her.
Another addressed him. "Karl, did you see anything? Anyone heading away from here at all?"
Karl shook his head. "No. I just found her in this state. I…" He knew it was a clichéd statement, and what every witness said, but it was no more or less than the truth. Swallowing nervously, he looked back down at Beitild's body.
He felt, and would feel, no grief for her. Very few would. Beitild had never been the most pleasant of women, and she was little liked by any of her workers or the general citizenry, to say nothing of Leigelf and his workers. She'd been a slave-driver, and utterly absurd in her feud with Leigelf. She was hardly bound for Sovngarde.
Wait. Leigelf… Oh, gods. Leigelf.
Could it be possible? Leigelf and Beitild had hated each other, and gods knew why they had got married in the first place, but did their hatred run so deep that Leigelf was willing to kill her, or have someone kill her? It was quite a leap.
Except, maybe not. They'd both been so fanatical about the 'war'…
Evidently, the guards thought the same. One looked at another and said, "Go get Leigelf and bring him to the barracks for questioning." The second headed off without a word of protest, and the first turned to him and added, "Karl, get out of here."
Karl didn't need twice. Trembling with shock, he took off towards the inn, knowing one thing.
He was not going to sleep tonight.