Chapter 31: The Weight of a Father’s Name

The rain had not stopped for three days. It fell in sheets against the stone of Aachen, turning the courtyards to mud and the gutters to rivers that carried the city’s filth toward the Rhine. Drogo stood at the window of his chamber, watching the grey sky press down upon the rooftops, and he thought of how fitting it was that God should weep now, when the world was about to be torn apart.

The seal was cold against his palm. He had not let it leave his person since the night he took it, and now it seemed to burn with a heat that had nothing to do with fire.

A knock came at the door. Three quick raps, then two slow ones—the signal Bernard had devised. Drogo slipped the seal back into the hidden pocket sewn into his tunic and turned.

Bernard entered, soaked to the bone, his cloak dripping onto the floor. He looked as though he had ridden through the storm itself, and perhaps he had.

“He is here,” Bernard said. “Pepin. He crossed the Loire at dawn and has pushed north with the speed of a man who smells victory. He will be at the gates within the hour.”

Drogo nodded slowly. The game was moving faster than he had anticipated. Pepin had believed the message—the one Drogo had sent through Bernard, the lie wrapped in truth, the promise of open gates and a crown already claimed by Lothar. Of course he had believed it. Men believed what they wanted to believe, and Pepin wanted to believe that his hour had come.

“And Lothar?” Drogo asked.

“Still two days’ march to the east. Judith’s messengers reached him, but he moves cautiously. He wants to see Pepin commit before he commits himself.”

“Of course he does.” Drogo turned from the window. “They are all so predictable. Pepin rushes in because he fears being left behind. Lothar waits because he fears being made a fool. And Louis the German sits in Bavaria, licking his wounds and waiting to see which brother bleeds first.”

Bernard’s eyes narrowed. “And your father?”

Drogo felt the weight of the question settle on him. Louis the Pious had not left his chambers in two days, not since Drogo had come to him with the desperate proposal. The emperor had wept then, wept like a child, and Drogo had held his father’s trembling hands and told him that the only way to save the empire was to let it break.

“He prays,” Drogo said. “He prays for a miracle that will not come. He prays for God to intervene, because he cannot bear to intervene himself.”

“And what will you do when Pepin arrives?”

Drogo walked to the table where a map of the empire lay spread, its edges weighted down by candles and a silver crucifix. He traced the line of the Loire with his finger, then the road to Aachen, then the walls of the city itself.

“I will greet my brother at the gates,” he said. “I will fall to my knees in the mud and beg his forgiveness for my father’s sins. I will offer him the seal, and I will tell him that Aachen is his—that the throne is his—if only he will spare the city and its people.”

Bernard’s breath caught. “You would give him everything?”

“I would give him the illusion of everything.” Drogo’s smile was thin and sharp. “Pepin has never been able to see past the prize in front of him. He will take the seal, he will march through the gates, and he will think himself the master of the world. He will not see that I have already sent word to Lothar that Pepin has seized the throne by force and means to have him killed. He will not see that every step he takes deeper into Aachen is a step deeper into a trap of his own making.”

Bernard was silent for a long moment. Then he spoke, his voice low and rough.

“And when the trap springs? When Lothar arrives and finds Pepin in the palace? They will tear each other apart. The war will not be prevented—it will be brought here, to your father’s doorstep.”

“Yes.” Drogo met his gaze. “It will. But it will be a war between brothers, not a war against the empire. Lothar will fight Pepin for the throne, and Louis the German will be forced to choose a side. And when they have exhausted themselves, when they have bled each other white, they will have no choice but to come to terms. The treaty will be signed. The empire will be divided. And the blood will be theirs, not their father’s.”

“You are playing with fire,” Bernard said. “You are playing with all of our lives.”

“I know.” Drogo’s voice was quiet now, almost gentle. “But it is the only game left to play. My father cannot hold the empire together—he has proven that a hundred times over. My brothers cannot rule it together—they have proven that too. So let them tear it apart. Let them divide it into pieces. And when they are done, I will gather up what remains and I will build something new from the ashes.”

Bernard shook his head slowly. “You speak as if you will survive this. As if any of us will.”

Drogo reached for his cloak, draped over the back of a chair. He pulled it on, feeling the weight of the seal against his chest like a second heart.

“I have no intention of dying, Bernard. I have too much left to do.”

He paused at the door, his hand on the latch.

“But if I am wrong—if the trap springs early, or if Lothar moves faster than I expect—then I want you to take my father and get him out of the city. Take him to the monastery at Saint-Maurice. He will be safe there.”

“And you?”

Drogo opened the door. The rain was still falling, and the sound of it filled the corridor like a thousand whispered prayers.

“I will do what I have always done,” he said. “I will play the fool.”

He stepped out into the storm, and the door closed behind him, and Bernard was left alone with the echo of his words and the weight of a name that had once meant something in the world.

The name of a prince who had never wanted a crown.

The name of a man who was about to burn the empire to save it.