Adventure of Frieda 1

The postern shuts behind Frieda with a wet thud. Mist crawls over the yard stones, and the keep above sits dark as a tomb. No guards answer her call. Only the Witness’s shaking breath breaks the silence.

A side door near the buttery hangs ajar, its bar lifted from inside. Fresh mud marks the threshold. From within, a low murmur rises, then stops.

Frieda crosses the yard at once, the sealed scroll tight in her hand. At the kitchen door, a Templar sigil lies face down in the straw, half-trodden and smeared with rain.

The main keep window above them brightens with torchlight. A shadow passes across the glass, and the narrow door to the hall swings wider, as if waiting for Frieda to come and name the traitor before the court.

Her voice snaps through the courtyard and climbs the stone walls. Torchlight flares in the keep windows, and the ajar hall door jerks wider as movement answers her cry.

The Witness lowers his shaking hands from his chest and points toward the hall, where muffled footsteps rush across the boards inside.

The silhouette in the lit doorway steps forward, half-seen and hard-faced, while somewhere deeper in the keep a latch bangs open.

Across the straw by the buttery, the fallen Templar sigil lies where anyone can seize it, while the hall doorway stands open and waiting for whatever comes next.

The servant freezes in the doorway, then lowers his chin in a quick, embarrassed bow. The courtyard hushes around them, with only torch crackle and the Witness’s uneven breathing for company.

He steps aside and gestures toward the open keep, then glances past Frieda to the Witness, taking in the trembling hands and the mud-smeared rush of their arrival.

The servant’s face softens at that, just a little. He points toward the chapel path without looking away from the hall, as if making room for Frieda while he waits for orders he can trust.

He straightens and turns from the threshold, already half in motion, while the Witness draws a shaky breath and clutches his hands tighter to his chest.

From the open hall, a hard murmur answers him, and more torchlight shifts behind the doorway. The discarded sigil lies in the mud between Frieda and the keep, a silent stain of warning.

The servant opens the way toward the inner court, and the chapel approach stands momentarily clear, but the sound from within the hall says the castle is waking under strain.

Frieda cries out across the courtyard, but the words snag in the stone and die under the keep’s hollow echo. The hall answers with a rustle, not a rally, and the torchlit windows stay crowded with watching shapes.

The servant is already retreating toward the chapel path, and no armored feet thunder from the hall. Instead, a side shutter bangs once above the doorway, and the sound tightens every shadow in the yard.

The Witness wrings his hands, then stiffens as if he hears the same thing Frieda does, a bolted bar scraping somewhere inside the keep. The open way narrows to a choice between chapel and hall, and both feel watched.

From the threshold, the servant looks back once, not with disobedience but warning, as if the courtyard has already been claimed by unseen hands. Inside the keep, movement gathers behind the ajar door and then stills.

Frieda breaks from the courtyard, crossing on the rush of her own stride. The fallen Templar sigil comes up from the straw under her boot, and she takes it with her as she heads for the chapel path.

The Witness stays behind a step, hands shaking at his chest, while the hall door remains half-closed and listening. The keep’s light spills across Frieda’s back as she reaches the chapel side.

At the chapel threshold, the servant has already turned the latch and begun to gather the sacred space under guard. Frieda slips in beside the doorway, sigil in hand, before anyone can stop her.

The chapel door stands open behind Frieda, the sigil secured as proof. Outside, the courtyard has gone tighter and colder, and the hall remains shut against her.