Vol.3, Extra 1, P.3
“Frieda,” called the guild clerk, who seemed rather chipper from behind the counter. “You’ve got a visitor. Upstairs—you’ll know his face.”
“Oh?” Frieda blinked. “Well, all right, then.”
The mercenaries’ guildhall was lively as ever that afternoon, but as Frieda duly went up the steps and further down a dusty corridor, the raucousness receded to a gentle rumble. Soon enough, she stood before a door. Beside it hung a plate. “For Our Honoured Guests,” it read.
“Pardon,” Frieda announced herself before entering the nobles’ parlour. And there, amidst dust-speckled sunbeams washing through the windows, shone a smile that had been long-expecting her.
“Well-met, Frieda!” greeted a warm voice. Rising up from a settee was, indeed, a visitor whose face was quite familiar to our freelance.
“Why, Lord Edvard,” Frieda greeted in turn, bowing. “Full-mended, I hope?”
“That I am, thank you,” the lordling nodded. Gesturing to our freelance to have a seat, he then said on, “Many matters have been sorted and set; I thought to come ‘round and get you up to speed.”
The failed attempt on his life—half a moon had passed since the very incident. As though in anticipation of the tidings to come, a quietness fell upon the room once the door came to a close. Tea was poured as the two settled down.
“I must say, you did well to keep alive one of the scoundrels like you did,” Edvard continued. “He has laid for us all the cards on the table, as one might say. But, most glaring amongst the spread was… was my brother. Just as I have feared…”
Frieda could but look on consolingly as the lordling’s voice gloamed with every word. “…That I’m sorry to hear,” she said.
Edvard nodded slightly in answer. His eyes fell, faintly forlorn, for his elder brother’s involvement in the assassination scheme was, to him, a truth yet haunting his heart. Never had the lordling harboured any hate for his sibling, nor objected in any way when the latter was bequeathed heirship to their estate. But to the heir himself, it seemed the much more affable Edvard had become naught but a nuisance over the years.
From soirées to social functions, ever was “Eddie” to be found fast encircled by friends and fawning guests. “House Hafgren’s future shines fair, were he their next lord,” some amongst them had opined, and rather openly, at that. In truth, it was not that Edvard was especially lord-like or that he himself nurtured ambitions of any loftiness. Rather, it was that he was a fascinating soul, simply put: sociable and gentlemanly, aglow with a charm that easily drew the eyes.
Yet such charm sooner seemed a challenge—or even a catastrophe under cloak—to the heir-brother who had hitherto so jealously wagered every fortune upon his succession.
“Then ’eirship o’ House Hafgren passes to you now, innit?” Frieda quietly asked.
“Very much so,” answered Edvard, just as softly. “Though whether I fit the mantle or no is another matter. After all, what lord misheeds a mutiny so plain?” A wry and ruesome smile then visited his face, as though he stood asudden in the shadow of his own towering shame. But shaking his head, Edvard said, “There was, however, another thread to this skein.”
Frieda blinked. Her teacup halted halfway to her lips. “Another?”
“One you ought have scried yourself, no?” the lordling pointed out. “A fool I might have been, but a watchful one, I should like to think.” Then, after a pause, “It was Ronja. I have looked into her much.”
The stem of the incident arose out of Ronja’s very disappearance. On the surface, it might have seemed that the elder Hafgren brother had merely made an opportunity out of her misadventure. Yet the possibility that Ronja herself had played a part in this plot could not have been overlooked.
Such suspicion seemed plausible given that the handmaiden was found not only alive, but wholly unwounded—amidst, as she was, a wood bristling with behemót. Perhaps a shelter or some shaded perch amongst the boughs had been furnished for her. Whichever the way of it, all signs pointed to much planning and preparation for Edvard’s untimely end.
“Alone,” the lordling began explaining. “Ronja acted alone. None of the other servants were party to the plot. Accompany them on their errand, steal away from under their noses, and lie hid in the wood—such were her orders.”
And swift would come Edvard, wielding the hero’s sword to save the day. This his brother had long-scried.
Frieda laid down her cup and saucer. “…Pardon me, but—though that moment colour’d me doubtful, sure ‘nough—Ronja had ‘pon her nary a whiff o’ wickedness, thinking on it now,” she debated. “Her embrace, her tears, her gratitude for your rescue—all seem’d true, I feel.”
“Then you feel aright,” Edvard nodded. “Indeed, to her I have decided to turn a blind eye.”
“A what?” Frieda nearly gasped. Pleading him to spare Ronja’s life was the extent of her mind, but that the lordling had, in fact, decided to overlook his handmaiden’s involvement came as a true surprise to our freelance.
“Ronja… she was coerced, you see,” Edvard revealed. “An ill-lotted lass she is, sold from a meagre home to serve a higher house. What recourse had she, then, afore the awe of my bloodthirsty brother?” Edvard sighed. “None. None at all…”
Nevertheless, Ronja was involved, a pawn playing the wrong side of the board, willing or no. What lord ought let her free, stained with the sin of assassination as she was, if even faintly? Only the new heir of House Hafgren, it would seem, a decision that might very well beckon contempt from the aristocratic circles. Such did Frieda reckon as she remained sat and quiet. Edvard, discerning the wisp of worry upon her fair face, smiled thinly.
“But it is just as well,” he said. “Though it may rouse a ruckus from the rumour mills, I have done what I have deemed rightwise. My part in this story… was played to the best of my ability. In that, I feel no shame.”
“Your part…” Frieda echoed thoughtfully.
“Indeed. I realised it then, in the deeps of that wood: I am but an ordinary man, Frieda. A tiny star against the dawn that is your brilliance,” Edvard admitted. “And withal, I cannot usurp the man who sits enthroned in your heart.”
“…What?” our freelance murmured, newly flustered.
Though Edvard had certainly confessed to his banality, he was yet a magnetic man, famed for his fair mien and manners. And yet, here was Frieda, in whose clear, almond regard was never reflected any fancy for a man such as he. Indeed, it all seemed rather unnatural that she would nurture not a tithe of interest in him, neverminding that hers was a sword and spirit superior to his.
But that did not mean that Frieda was frigid or callous. No, just her soft sincerity alone was the object of much admiration in these parts. The answer to the riddle, then, was at last clear to the lordling: in Frieda’s heart was another man whose measure was summits above even that of his own, son of House Hafgren and graceful fellow of many charms though he may be.
That same son chuckled. “Though whether you are aware of him, I cannot guess.”
“I…” Frieda said under her breath, but just before she could muster a proper answer, she found her guest now standing up to his feet. And with a smile like a bright and cloudless morning, he offered to her his right hand.
“In any case, I owe you my life,” Edvard said. “Many thanks to you, Frieda.”
Our freelance followed suit, rising and duly shaking the lordling’s hand. In it was a wealth of warmth.
“I ought admit, Lord Edvard,” Frieda broached.
“Hm?”
“The way you fought back there,” she said with a smirk, “‘twasn’t ’alf-bad.”
A battle of brawn and heated breath, of headbutts and blows to the family jewels—indeed, no amount of flattery can soften the savagery of that day. Edvard smile became strained as he recalled it all, though he knew very well that no ill nor irony were in Frieda’s words.
Comforted by her famed sincerity, Edvard said again, “Thank you, Frieda.”
♰
Twilight twinkled through the windows. The guildhall was quieting down at last. Edvard had taken his leave, and so have many of the mercenaries therein. Frieda herself was about to make for home, till coming ‘round to stop her at the door was the clerk.
“Frieda, it’s come in,” he said, before presenting to her a neatly bound document. “Here: the report from the Rolanders.”
“Ah, right,” said Frieda, “my thanks.”
She accepted the papers and looked at once upon it. “Roland Concern, Office of the Inspectors – An Emergency Report On Recent Nafílim Hostilities”—such was writ upon the cover. Our freelance then thumbed through the contents, but the shuffling of papers soon halted as her eyes fell upon a particular section.
“…‘Rolf’?” she whispered. “Buckmann… Rolf Buckmann…?”
A Mennish name, listed amongst a roster of prominent Nafílim belligerents. In other words: a traitor.
“Ah, that bloke. Some son of a baron-house he is,” the clerk remarked from anear. “Could’ve lived a peaceful, princely life, had ’e fancied it. But no; went with the wildlings, instead. Whatsoever simmered in that silver-spoon pate of ’is, I wonder?”
Such he said, but all of the clerk’s words were as distant winds to Frieda, who seemed rather absorbed all of a sudden.
Well… she thought, ‘Rolf’ ain’t so seldom a name, innit? This has got ‘coincidence’ writ all over it, I’d say…
Yet as she turned to the next page, such self-assurance thinned to a hollow ring, for writ therein was a physical description of this “Rolf Buckmann”.
“Black hair… black eyes…” Frieda murmured, “…an’ burly in build…”
“Frieda?” the clerk called to her, pondering the cryptic look upon the freelance afore him.
A “heretic and high treacher”—the very words writ beside this “Rolf Buckmann”. But before any doubt or disgust could dare haunt her heart, Frieda remembered first the flash of a sword most fair… and her bare-naked scurrying through a manor of madness.
Strange… she thought on. ‘Tisn’t the first time today I’ve thought o’ him, I feel…
Through the air rolled a warm sigh, of a sort to most seldomly leave her lips. A premonition then pierced the clouds that had collected in her conscience since she had started perusing the papers.
A premonition of a reunion.
That such was, indeed, scribed in the fates’ script was something soon to be known to our freelance. Only, that she would once more be made to bare herself in full was something she failed here to foresee.
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“Fortune & Finery”
Volume 3
End
♰
Thanks for the chapter.
It is nice to see more Frieda in action, even if it is only a side story. Showing a noble who is not cartoonishly evil and also is not Estelle is also nicely done, especially since the background for the main plot line has been on the uneven side. I look forward to seeing what happens in the next volume.