Chapter 40: The Debt of Ghosts (III)

Bernard stood in the shadow of the colonnade, watching the rain carve silver rivers between the stones. The chapel doors had been closed for an hour, and still Drogo had not emerged. He had seen the emperor enter before him, seen the old man’s shoulders bent beneath the weight of his crown and his sins, and Bernard had wondered, not for the first time, whether Drogo’s plan would save them all or bury them beneath the rubble of a dynasty that had already begun to crumble.

The horn sounded again from the northern gate—Lothar’s horn, insistent and proud, demanding entry to a city that had once been his birthright. Bernard’s hand drifted to the hilt of his sword, though he knew he would not draw it. Not yet. Drogo had been clear: the blade was a last resort, and Bernard was no longer certain he would be the one to wield it.

The chapel doors creaked open.

Drogo emerged, his face pale in the grey light, the seal hidden somewhere beneath his tunic. He did not look at Bernard at first, but stood at the top of the steps, letting the rain wet his hair and run down his cheeks like tears he refused to shed.

“He knows,” Drogo said quietly.

Bernard felt his stomach drop. “The emperor? He knows you took the seal?”

“He knows I have it. I told him myself.” Drogo’s voice was flat, emptied of its usual music. “I knelt before him and confessed. I showed him the seal, and I told him what I meant to do with it.”

Bernard stepped closer, lowering his voice despite the empty courtyard. “And what did he say?”

Drogo turned, and for a moment Bernard saw something he had never seen before in the prince’s eyes: fear. Not the fear of death or battle, but the fear of a son who had looked into his father’s face and found nothing there but sorrow.

“He said, ‘Then God’s will be done.’ And he blessed me. And he asked me to leave him to his prayers.”

Bernard was silent for a long moment. “He is letting you go through with it.”

“He is letting me go through with it.” Drogo’s smile was thin and bitter. “Perhaps he has finally understood that the only way to save his sons is to let them destroy each other. Or perhaps he has simply lost the will to stop it.”

The horn sounded again, closer now, and Drogo’s expression hardened.

“Lothar will be at the gates by dusk. Judith has seen to that. She has sent him word that I am ready to surrender, that I will hand him the seal and the city and the father who betrayed him.” He paused. “And she believes she has won.”

“Has she?”

Drogo’s eyes met Bernard’s, and there was something cold and sharp in them now, a blade finally drawn.

“She has won the first move, Bernard. But the game is not over. It has only just begun.”

He descended the steps, his boots splashing through the puddles, and Bernard fell into step beside him.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Find Pepin’s messenger. The one who brought word of the crossing. Tell him that the gates will open at midnight, and that Lothar will be waiting inside the hall when Pepin arrives. Tell him that if Pepin wants to claim what is his, he must come before Lothar can be crowned.”

Bernard frowned. “You are drawing them both here. To the same place. At the same time.”

“I am.”

“That is not a plan. That is a massacre.”

Drogo stopped, turning to face Bernard fully. The rain was falling harder now, plastering his dark hair to his forehead, but he did not seem to notice.

“It is not a massacre if no one fights,” he said. “Pepin will not fight if he believes Lothar has already won. Lothar will not fight if he believes Pepin has already fled. They are both proud, Bernard. Too proud to risk a battle they do not need. And I will give them both what they want—or what they believe they want—before they have a chance to draw their swords.”

“And Judith?”

Drogo’s smile returned, and this time it reached his eyes.

“Judith will be too busy watching her son’s inheritance to notice that she is standing in the path of the storm. And when it breaks, she will have to choose: save her legacy, or destroy the man who could have saved it for her.”

Bernard studied him for a long moment. “You are playing a dangerous game, Drogo. The kind of game that leaves no survivors.”

“I know.” Drogo’s voice was quiet, almost gentle. “But I have been playing it my whole life. The only difference is that now, for the first time, the other players know they are playing.”

He turned and walked toward the great hall, where the fires had been lit and the tables laid for a feast that would never be eaten. Bernard watched him go, and he thought of the seal hidden in the prince’s tunic, and of the father who had blessed him as he left, and of the brothers who would soon be standing in the same room, each believing they had already won.

The horn sounded again, and Bernard felt the weight of the coming night settle over him like a shroud.

He did not know if Drogo’s plan would work. He did not know if any of them would survive the dawn.

But as he watched the prince disappear into the shadow of the hall, Bernard of Septimania made his choice.

He would follow Drogo into the storm.

And he would pray that the ghosts they were about to raise would not be their own.