The note was pushed beneath their door at the Schneeberg inn during the small hours.
Unsigned, written in an unfamiliar hand, it contained eleven words:
Anselm's men wait at the eastern bridge. Take the mill road instead.
Isfrid turned the scrap over, looking for a stamp or a seam.
"Someone's helping us. Who?"
"I don't know." Faust examined the paper against the candle flame. He had looked for every mark of a forged seal, a false trail, or a trap. He made a mental remark to make a divination at lunchtime(which would prove to show nothing later). There was nothing—only cheap, mass-market Saxony paper and a faint trace of something that might have been daisies and ash or simply his own exhaustion.
"It could be a rival tribunal wanting Anselm embarrassed," Faust said. "A sympathizer in his ranks. Or Anselm testing whether we're worth his time."
None of it fit.
A stranger shouldn't know Anselm's route before they did.
They took the mill road.
It cost them two hours through half-frozen mud.
At dawn, they caught sight of Anselm's cavalry spread across the eastern bridge, waiting for a carriage that never appeared.
"That would have been the end of us," Isfrid whispered from the tree line, watching the frustrated riders turn back toward town.
"Yes." Faust folded the note, sliding it into his pocket with Weyer's journal and the ledger. "Which leaves an uncomfortable question: who knows Anselm's movements better than his own officers, and why are they giving them away?"
Isfrid had no answer.
Faust didn't either.
They rode on, the empty road behind them drawing more of his attention than the one ahead.