Chapter 61: The Debt of the Unlit Candle
The bishop’s palace at Saint-Denis rose from the night like a clenched fist wrapped in stone. Drogo had chosen this man with care—Archbishop Hilduin, a servant of the crown who had grown fat on royal favor and thin on royal attention. He was a man who believed in relics the way merchants believed in ledgers: as something to be counted, weighed, and traded.
The rain had followed them from Aachen, a persistent gray drizzle that soaked through cloaks and seeped into bones. Bernard had not spoken since they crossed the Seine. His hand rested on his sword hilt, and his eyes moved constantly, cataloging shadows and listening for hoofbeats on the road behind them.
“You look like a man waiting for the ax,” Drogo observed as they dismounted in the bishop’s courtyard.
“I am waiting for the rope,” Bernard replied. “There is a difference.”
“Is there?”
Bernard turned, his face half-lost in the darkness beneath his hood. “You told me to trust you. I have trusted you through dungeons and lies and a stolen seal that could hang us both. But you have not told me what we are doing here. And I am tired of trusting a man who will not look me in the eye when he speaks.”
Drogo paused. The rain beaded on his lashes, and for a long moment he said nothing. Then he reached up and drew back his hood, letting the water soak his hair and run down his face.
“I am going to confess,” he said.
Bernard stared. “To a bishop? You have committed sins enough to fill a cathedral.”
“Not that kind of confession.” Drogo’s smile flickered, brief and cold. “I am going to tell Hilduin a secret so terrible that he will have no choice but to repeat it. And when he does, it will travel from this palace to every court in Francia within a week, carried by men who believe they are bearing news of the empire’s salvation.”
“What secret?”
Drogo stepped closer, lowering his voice until it was barely a breath. “That Louis the Pious is dying. That he has already received last rites from his confessor. And that on his deathbed, he has named Lothar his sole heir—disinheriting Pepin and Louis the German entirely.”
Bernard’s jaw tightened. “That is a lie.”
“Of course it is a lie. But it is a useful lie.” Drogo’s eyes were dark and steady. “Pepin will hear it and believe Lothar has already won. He will march faster, harder, more recklessly. Lothar will hear it and believe his father has finally broken in his favor. He will grow overconfident, careless. And Louis the German will hear it and realize that if he does not act soon, he will be left with nothing at all.”
“You are lighting a fire between three armies.”
“I am lighting three fires,” Drogo corrected. “And I intend to stand in the middle where no one will look for me, because everyone will be too busy watching the flames.”
Bernard was silent for a long moment. The rain drummed against the cobblestones, and somewhere in the palace a bell tolled the hour of compline.
“And if the bishop does not believe you?”
“He will believe me.” Drogo’s voice was soft. “Because I am going to show him the emperor’s seal.”
Bernard sucked in a breath. “You would give away our only proof of authority? The one thing that makes kings listen when you speak?”
“No.” Drogo shook his head slowly. “I would show it to him. And then I would ask him to keep the secret close, for the good of the realm. Hilduin has spent his life collecting secrets the way other men collect relics—to display them, to trade them, to prove his own importance. He will not be able to resist sharing this one. And when the news spreads, it will carry the weight of the seal behind it, even though the seal never leaves my sleeve.”
Bernard exhaled, a long, ragged breath. “You are playing a game with more pieces than I can count.”
“That is because you are still counting the pieces you can see.” Drogo turned toward the palace doors. “The real game is played with the pieces no one knows exist.”
The bishop received them in a chamber thick with candle smoke and the smell of old incense. Hilduin was a round man with a round face and round eyes that glittered with curiosity when Drogo was announced. He had heard of the emperor’s younger son—the lazy one, the pleasure-seeker, the boy who had never lifted a sword in his life.
“Prince Drogo,” Hilduin said, rising from his chair. “To what do I owe the honor of a visit at such an hour? And with such a grim companion?”
“The hour is grim, Your Grace,” Drogo said, stepping forward with a humility that sat oddly on his shoulders. “And I come bearing news that I dare not carry alone.”
Hilduin’s eyes sharpened. “News?”
Drogo glanced at Bernard, then back at the bishop. He let the silence stretch, let the weight of it press against the room like the rain against the windows.
“My father is dying,” he said at last. “The physicians have given him until the next moon. And before he lost the power of speech, he called for his seal and his scribe.”
Hilduin’s face went pale. “He named an heir?”
“He named Lothar.” Drogo’s voice cracked, just slightly—a masterful performance. “He disinherited Pepin and Louis the German. He said the empire could not bear to be divided further, that it must pass whole to the eldest son, as Charlemagne intended.”
The bishop crossed himself. “God have mercy on us all.”
“God has left this realm, Your Grace,” Drogo said quietly. “He has left it to the wolves. And I am afraid—I am afraid of what my brothers will do when they learn the truth.”
Hilduin’s eyes flickered to Drogo’s sleeve, where the outline of the seal pressed against the fabric. “You carry it. The emperor’s seal.”
Drogo hesitated, then nodded. “My father entrusted it to me. He said I was the only son he could trust not to use it for ambition.”
“And you came to me.”
“I came to the Church,” Drogo corrected. “Because when the storm breaks, the Church will be the only institution left standing. I want you to be ready to guide it through the chaos.”
Hilduin stepped forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “You must keep this close, Prince. If Lothar learns that his father has named him heir, he will act rashly. If Pepin learns he has been disinherited, he will burn half of Francia in his rage.”
“I know.” Drogo lowered his eyes. “That is why I have told only you.”
The bishop’s hand closed over Drogo’s arm, a gesture of false comfort that Drogo recognized from a hundred courts. “You have done well, my son. The Lord will reward your faithfulness.”
Drogo bowed his head, and when he raised it again, his eyes were wet with tears that Bernard knew were as false as the confession they had just made.
They left the palace an hour later, mounted their horses, and rode north into the rain. When they were well clear of the city walls, Bernard finally spoke.
“He will tell everyone. By dawn, half of Francia will know.”
“By dawn,” Drogo agreed, “half of Francia will know a lie so beautiful that they will fight to believe it. And the other half will fight to disprove it. Either way, they will be too busy to notice what I am doing while they argue.”
“And what are you doing?”
Drogo looked east, toward the dark horizon where the first gray light of false dawn was beginning to creep across the plains.
“I am buying time,” he said. “Time for Pepin to march, time for Lothar to hesitate, time for Louis the German to wonder if he has been forgotten. And time for my father to discover that the son he called a fool is the only one who ever tried to save him.”
The rain began to fall harder, and Drogo pulled his hood forward, hiding his face in shadow.
“Now we ride for Compiègne. There is a monk there who owes me a favor, and he keeps a ledger of every letter that passes through the imperial chancery. I need to know who has been writing to Judith—and what they have promised her in return.”
Bernard kicked his horse forward. “And if the monk refuses?”
Drogo’s smile returned, thin and sharp as a blade, visible even in the darkness.
“Then I will remind him that I have spent the last three years listening to his confessions. And I know exactly which sins he is most afraid of having revealed.”