Adventure of Frieda 1

Mist swallows the skiff as the Rhine pulls hard beneath it. Ahead, a hidden landing opens from the bank, and a silent knot of men waits there in the torchglow.

The boatman leans into the oars, fighting the current. On the landing, one man raises a lantern hood, giving the river a brief, searching sweep.

Frieda braces with the evidence bundle while the skiff shudders sideways in the chop. Sir Eleutherius shifts his stance, putting his body between her and the shore.

The torchline on the bank brightens again, and the waiting group starts down toward the water. The river has become the last thin road to the Inquisitor.

The boatman jerks the oars into a hard turn, obeying at once. The skiff slews away from the hidden steps as Sir Eleutherius lowers his shoulder against the lane of water between shore and hull.

Mist closes over the landing behind them. The lantern hood dips, and the waiting men lose their clear line of reach as the current drags the skiff downstream.

But the order lands too late. The boatman spots a darker bend ahead, where a second landing cuts into the bank beneath low branches, and he heads for it without waiting for another command.

The skiff grinds onto mud at the new landing. Frieda’s bundle stays tight in her grip, dry and intact, while Sir Eleutherius steps first to the shore, making room for her to follow.

Sir Eleutherius takes the lead from the mud with a hard nod, turning his body between Frieda and the riverbank as if to shield the packet from the torchline.

But when Frieda starts for the dark fringe of reeds, a thin scrape of boot leather answers her step. The mud at the landing sucks at her hem, and the bank gives up a pale glimmer of damp footprints.

Sir Eleutherius moves at once, not toward the river, but to block the sightline from the torchmen behind the mist. The skiff rocks empty-handed beside the shore, and the boatman stares toward Frieda, waiting for the next order.

Frieda reaches the reeds, but the wet dark offers no clean cover now, only a narrow track into the bank and the sound of pursuit tightening behind her.

Frieda slips into the reeds, and the wet stalks swallow her outline at last. The packet stays tight under her arm as she forces herself low and fast over the sucking mud.

He squares himself beside the skiff, drawing the eye toward the landing instead of the bank. Behind him, the cloaked rider strains to see past the mist, but the shoreline has already lost Frieda.

A branch snaps under Frieda's boot, loud enough to bite at the dark, and she catches herself before she falls. The packet stays dry, but a smear of black mud stains her sleeve as she pushes through toward the farther bank path.

Frieda eases one step farther through the reeds, but the mud sucks at her boot and answers with a faint, ugly sound.

The packet shifts against her ribs. Wet stalks brush aside too sharply, and a few heads of reed quiver in a line behind her.

On the landing, Sir Eleutherius still holds the men at the skiff, but the cloaked rider jerks his lantern toward the moving stalks.

Frieda freezes for a breath, then lowers herself even further. The silence she tries to keep is broken now, and every careful step must be chosen anew.

Frieda lowers herself into the reeds and inches on, but her boot slips free with a soft suck of mud. The stalks sway around her ribs, and the packet bumps once against her side.

She pauses, breath held, then tries again, slower this time. Yet the bent reeds she leaves behind make a pale lane through the wet growth.

On the landing, the lantern beam skates across the break in the stalks, then wavers past it. Sir Eleutherius shifts harder between the men and the bank, giving her one narrow strip of shadow to work with.

Frieda sees it then, a black drainage run under the reeds where the mud drops away toward deeper water. It is no shelter, but it is cover, and it runs away from the lantern's reach.

A reed snaps near her hand. The cloaked rider does not see her face, only the moving line in the marsh, but he starts edging his men toward the bank.

Frieda slides into the drainage run, shoulders scraping wet roots as she takes the dark line under the reeds. The mud gives way at once, and her weight sinks lower than she expects.

She pushes on anyway, packet clamped tight, but the slick bank steals her footing and turns her sideways. Reeds whip and part, making a thin, obvious shiver through the marsh.

On the landing, the lantern swings toward the ditch at once. Sir Eleutherius steps wider into the open, forcing the men to look at him instead of the reeds, and the beam skips past Frieda by a heartbeat.

Frieda finds the runoff empties into a half-collapsed culvert under the bank, black water sliding through broken stones. It is narrow, but it leads inland and out of the lantern's straight line.

Frieda folds into the culvert, shoulders and knees taking the scrape of stone as she lowers the packet over the black water.

She keeps the seal above the runoff and slides deeper inside, letting the muddy channel swallow her outline while the lantern light stays outside.

On the landing, the beam sweeps the reeds and finds only the torn mouth of the drainage run. Sir Eleutherius shifts again into the open, forcing the searchers to hesitate at him instead of the culvert.

Frieda reaches the culvert bend and straightens just enough to see a damp crawlspace leading away beneath the bank, while the voices behind her lose their clean line of sight.

Frieda lowers her head and pushes on, elbows scraping wet stone as the drain narrows around her.

The culvert bends and opens into a darker throat inland. She keeps the packet high, and the runoff thins beneath her boots.

Behind her, the lantern beam dies against the bank wall, cut off by the turn. The voices outside lose their shape.

Frieda reaches the far lip of the drain and pulls herself into a cramped outlet under tangled roots.

Mud tears at her sleeve, and one boot slips free in the squeeze, left behind in the drain.

Ahead, the outlet gives onto a hidden ditch beyond the bank. The searchers no longer have a clean line into the passage, but the way out is not yet in sight.

Frieda stays low and moves along the ditch, shoulders tucked tight under the wet hedge. Her free hand skims the slick bank for balance while the sealed packet stays lifted clear of the mud.

The ditch carries her a short way inland, then kinks behind a tuft of reeds and a rotting root. She disappears from the culvert mouth, hidden by the bend and the dripping overgrowth.

At the river edge, the Cloaked Man leans into the gap and loses her completely, his lantern beam catching only empty reeds. Sir Eleutherius keeps his stance wide at the landing, still drawing the searchers' eyes away from the bank.

The Boatman shifts in the skiff and braces an oar against the current, watching the hidden ditch with tense relief. The lost boot remains behind in the drain, a small dark mark in the wet stone.

Ahead of Frieda, the ditch opens toward a shadowed path inland. Behind her, the riverbank is now blind to her exact place, and the men in the mist must choose whether to press the bank or lose her trail.

Frieda slips farther up the ditch, each step placed flat and careful, but a loose stone skates under her bootless foot and taps the root ahead.

The sound is small, yet in the wet hush it carries. The Cloaked Man’s head turns at once, and his lantern lifts toward the bend Frieda has just crossed.

Sir Eleutherius shifts at the landing and squares himself wider, forcing the searchers to look his way instead of inland.

The Boatman catches the lantern’s flare on a narrow cut in the bank ahead, half-hidden by alder roots, where the ditch seems to meet a sheep track.

The men hesitate, and for a breath the mist and rain swallow the ditch again. Frieda has not shaken pursuit, but she sees a side path inland, and the search now splits between two choices.

Frieda slips into the root-shadowed cut and takes the inland path. The mud here swallows her footfalls, and the ditch wall hides her from the riverbank.

Behind her, the lantern light wavers and stays low. Ahead, the hidden track bends uphill beneath alder roots, narrow but passable.

Sir Eleutherius keeps the men fixed on the landing a moment longer, forcing their attention away from Frieda's line of retreat.

Frieda reaches the top of the little rise and the river falls behind the trees. The path opens toward the road inland, and the search on the bank is cut off by the bend.