Chapter 10: The Bishop’s Bread

The winter of 817 bled into a spring of false promises. Drogo counted the days by the drip of melting ice from the eaves of the palace at Aachen, each drop a small death of something his father still believed in. The Ordinatio Imperii had been proclaimed, Lothar crowned co-emperor, and the court had rearranged itself around the new geometry of power like iron filings drawn to a magnet. Pepin had Aquitaine, Louis the Bavarian had his German lands, and Drogo—Drogo had nothing but his reputation, which he polished daily like a dull coin.

He sat now in the kitchens, a place no prince should be, watching the bakers slide loaves into the great stone oven. The head cook, a woman named Radegund with forearms like a smith’s, eyed him with the suspicion she reserved for rats and courtiers.

“Your Grace will soil his tunic.”

“A tunic can be washed, Radegund. A man’s soul cannot.” He smiled, slow and lazy, and broke off a crust from a cooling loaf. The bread was coarse, rye and barley mixed, the kind meant for servants. He chewed with exaggerated pleasure. “Tell me, do you bake this for the guards on the north wall?”

“I bake what I’m told.”

“And who tells you?”

She wiped her hands on her apron, leaving flour-streaks like ghost rivers. “The steward. Who answers to the chamberlain. Who answers to the emperor.” She paused. “Or the co-emperor, these days.”

Drogo nodded, as if this were profound wisdom. He had learned, in the months since the Ordinatio, that information flowed through the palace like water through limestone—invisible, but carving channels. The kitchen knew who was starving, who was feasting, who had sent gifts to whom. The stable knew who rode out at night. The chapel knew who confessed too often. And Drogo, the idle prince, knew all of them.

He was still chewing when Bernard of Septimania found him.

Bernard moved like a man who had learned that stillness was a weapon. He stood in the doorway, his tunic plain but his boots tooled with silver thread—a subtle boast, the mark of a man who wanted to be noticed but not remembered. He waited until the cooks turned away, then stepped close.

“You should not be here.”

“I should be in the library, memorizing the genealogies of the Frankish kings,” Drogo said. “I should be in the chapel, praying for my father’s health. I should be in the yard, learning to fight with a sword I will never use.” He shrugged. “I am here instead.”

Bernard’s jaw tightened. “Your brother Lothar has summoned the nobles of the middle kingdom to a council at Nijmegen. He means to confirm his authority before the summer campaigns.”

“Summoned,” Drogo repeated, tasting the word. “Not invited. Not requested. Summoned. That is the language of an emperor who fears he is not one.”

“He will be crowned again at the assembly. A second ceremony, more elaborate than the first. He wants the bishops to bless him, the counts to swear anew.”

Drogo set down the bread. The crust left crumbs on his fingers, and he brushed them away with a fastidiousness that was entirely manufactured. “And my father?”

“He has agreed to attend. He will place the crown on Lothar’s head with his own hands.”

“Will he?”

Bernard looked at him sharply. “You doubt it?”

“I doubt everything that is spoken aloud in this palace,” Drogo said. “The walls have ears, and the ears have masters, and the masters have appetites. But my father—” He paused, thinking of the chapel, the candlelight, the tremor in Louis’s voice when he had threatened his youngest son. “My father is a man who believes that love can be measured in sacrifice. He will give Lothar the crown because he believes it will buy peace. He will be wrong.”

“Then what do you propose?”

Drogo smiled, and there was nothing lazy in it. “I propose bread.”

He led Bernard to a small table in the corner, away from the ovens, where the noise of the kitchen would cover their words. He broke the loaf in two and pushed half across the boards.

“Eat,” he said. “And listen.”

Bernard took the bread, chewing without enthusiasm, his eyes never leaving Drogo’s face.

“There is a bishop in Mainz,” Drogo said, “named Theodulf. He is old, and he is bitter, and he remembers when Charlemagne’s court was a place of scholars, not sycophants. He has written letters to every bishop in the realm, warning them that the Ordinatio Imperii is a violation of canon law, that the empire cannot be divided like a pie. He has been ignored. But his letters have been read.”

“Read by whom?”

“By the men who will attend the council at Nijmegen. By the counts who fear Lothar’s ambition. By the bishops who wonder whether their oaths to the emperor still bind them, or whether a co-emperor has superseded them.” Drogo leaned forward. “My brother believes he is securing his power. In truth, he is providing a stage for every doubt to speak.”

Bernard set down the bread. “You want to use this Theodulf.”

“I want to ensure his letters reach the right hands. A bishop’s words, passed quietly from one abbot to another, from one count to his neighbor, will do more than any army. They will make Lothar’s crown feel like lead.”

“And your father?”

Drogo’s face flickered, a shadow passing behind his eyes. “My father will do what he always does. He will pray, and he will hope, and he will believe that his sons love him as he loves them. I cannot change that. I can only build a wall between him and the worst of it.”

Bernard studied him for a long moment. “You speak of saving him. But you cannot save a man who refuses to see the fire.”

“Then I will burn with him,” Drogo said. “Or I will learn to put out fires without being seen.”

The kitchen door banged open, and a young page stumbled in, breathless. He spotted Drogo and hurried over, bowing so low his tunic brushed the floor.

“Your Grace—the Emperor demands your presence. In the great hall. Immediately.”

Drogo rose, brushing crumbs from his tunic. He gave Bernard a final, unreadable look, then followed the page through the corridors, past the guards who snapped to attention, past the courtiers who whispered behind their hands, past the tapestries that showed Charlemagne’s victories in faded thread.

The great hall was crowded. Candles blazed on iron stands, and the air was thick with the smell of wax and wool and fear. Louis the Pious sat on his throne, his face grey, his hands gripping the armrests as if he might be swept away. Beside him stood Judith, her eyes sharp, her mouth a thin line of calculation. And before them, in the center of the hall, stood Lothar.

He was taller than Drogo remembered, or perhaps he simply stood straighter. His tunic was crimson, his belt heavy with gold, and his voice carried to every corner of the room.

“Father,” Lothar said, and the word was a claim, not a greeting. “I have come to ask for your blessing. The council at Nijmegen will bind the realm together—but only if you stand beside me. Only if the world sees that you have given me your authority willingly.”

Louis’s eyes found Drogo, and for a moment, the old emperor looked almost grateful. As if the sight of his useless son was a comfort. As if Drogo’s laziness were proof that not everything in the world was ambition.

“You have my blessing,” Louis said. “You have always had it.”

Lothar smiled, and the smile did not reach his eyes. “Then it is done.”

Drogo stepped forward, and every head turned.

“Brother,” he said, his voice mild, his face open and foolish. “I have heard that the bishops of the Rhine are troubled. They fear the division of the empire will weaken the Church. Perhaps at Nijmegen, you might offer them a gift—a promise, a relic, a word of comfort. It would cost you little, and it would buy much.”

Lothar’s smile hardened. “You concern yourself with bishops now, Drogo? I thought you concerned yourself with pies and pretty maids.”

“A man can enjoy both,” Drogo said, “and still love his brother.”

The silence stretched. Judith’s eyes narrowed, and Drogo felt her gaze like a knife sliding between his ribs.

Then Lothar laughed, a short, sharp sound. “The fool speaks wisdom by accident. I will consider it.”

He turned away, dismissing Drogo as one dismisses a fly. But Drogo saw the flicker in his brother’s eyes—the first seed of doubt, planted in the dark.

And as the hall dissolved into murmurs and movement, Drogo caught Judith’s gaze. She did not look away. She smiled, and the smile was colder than winter.

“Well played, little prince,” she said, too low for any but him to hear. “But I am watching.”

Drogo bowed, the fool to the last. “I would expect nothing less, stepmother.”

And he walked out into the cold, knowing that the game had only just begun.