Chapter 68: The Debt of the Unlatched Gate
The rain had not stopped for three days. Drogo stood at the window of his chamber, watching the water streak the glass like tears down a mourner’s cheek. Compiègne. His father was at Compiègne, and Lothar was marching there with an army born of pride and patent lies.
Bernard stood behind him, his voice low and rough from the dungeons’ damp. “We can still reach him first. If we ride hard, through the night, we can be at Compiègne before Lothar’s vanguard crosses the Oise.”
Drogo did not turn. “And what would I say to him, Bernard? That I stole his seal? That I have spent the winter feeding lies to his sons like bread to starving dogs? He would see me hanged as a traitor before I could speak a single word of truth.”
“Then tell him the truth before the lies.”
“The truth is a blade without a handle,” Drogo said quietly. “It cuts whoever grasps it.” He turned from the window at last, and Bernard saw that his face was pale beneath its mask of ease. “Lothar knows about the seal. That means someone in my confidence has spoken. Or someone in yours.”
Bernard stiffened. “I have bled for you. I have carried your lies into the mouths of wolves.”
“And yet Judith knew the moment I took it.” Drogo’s voice was soft, almost gentle. “She knew before I had left my father’s chamber. Tell me, Bernard—how does a woman who sleeps across the palace learn of a theft within the hour?”
The silence stretched between them like a rope drawn taut.
“I did not speak,” Bernard said at last. “But there are others who watch. The eunuch who tends the emperor’s chambers. The priest who hears his confessions. Judith has coins in every pocket and eyes in every shadow.”
Drogo nodded slowly. “Then she has outmaneuvered me. And I have spent too long believing myself the only player at the board.” He moved to the table where the stolen seal lay wrapped in cloth, its wax impression of Saint Peter’s keys gleaming dully in the candlelight. “Lothar will reach Compiègne in four days. My father will receive him as a son, and Lothar will take him as a prisoner—gentle, perhaps, but a prisoner nonetheless. He will force Louis to abdicate, or he will force him to crown Lothar co-emperor. Either way, the old man’s reign ends in chains.”
“Unless we stop him.”
“We cannot stop him. Not with swords, not with lies, not with prayers.” Drogo picked up the seal and turned it over in his hands. “But we can make certain that when Lothar arrives at Compiègne, he finds not a frightened old man but an emperor who has already made his peace with God.”
Bernard frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Pepin is still marching north. He believes the gates of Aachen will open for him. He believes Lothar has already claimed the throne. If I send word now—by the fastest rider, with my father’s seal pressed into the wax—I can turn Pepin’s army toward Compiègne instead.”
“You would have brother fight brother at their father’s doorstep?”
“I would have them fight each other instead of him.” Drogo’s voice was flat, empty of triumph. “Pepin will not march on Compiègne if he believes Lothar is there with an army. He will wait, or he will turn back. And Louis the German—he watches from the east, waiting to see which way the wind blows. If I can convince him that both his brothers are moving against each other, he will stay his hand.”
“And your father?”
Drogo looked at the seal for a long moment. “My father will be alone. That is the cruelest mercy I can offer him—to face his sons’ betrayal without a single soul between him and their knives. He has spent his life trusting God. Let him trust God now.”
Bernard stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “And if Lothar takes him anyway? If the plan fails and your father dies in chains?”
The rain hammered against the glass. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked—sharp, insistent, like a herald of doom.
“Then I will have made certain that Lothar’s crown is bought with a father’s blood,” Drogo said. “And the world will know what kind of king he is.” He pressed the seal into Bernard’s hand. “Take this. Ride to Pepin yourself. Tell him that Lothar has betrayed him—that the gates of Aachen were a trap, and that the only way to save the empire is to march on Compiègne and free their father from Lothar’s grip.”
“And if Pepin does not believe me?”
“Then tell him that I have the seal. Tell him that I will crown him emperor myself if he moves against Lothar.” Drogo’s smile returned, thin and brittle as old parchment. “Every man believes what he wants to hear. Pepin wants to believe he is the chosen son. Give him that belief, and he will march through hell to prove it.”
Bernard stared at the seal in his palm. “And you? What will you do while I am gone?”
Drogo turned back to the window. The rain was letting up now, the clouds thinning to a pale grey light.
“I will go to Compiègne,” he said. “I will walk into my father’s hall and kneel before him. I will confess everything—the seal, the lies, the whispers I have sown among his sons. And I will ask him to forgive me.”
“He will not.”
“No.” Drogo’s voice was barely a breath. “But he will listen. And that is all I have left to give him.” He watched the rain begin to slow, the first pale shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds. “Go, Bernard. Ride fast. And when you see Pepin, tell him that the gates of Aachen were never the prize. Tell him that the prize is waiting at Compiègne—and that it wears a crown.”
Bernard hesitated at the door. “And if we never meet again?”
Drogo turned, and for the first time in years, his eyes held no mask at all.
“Then you will know that I finally stopped playing the fool.”
The door closed behind Bernard with a soft click. Drogo stood alone in the chamber, the rain fading to a whisper, and he felt the weight of the seal’s absence like a missing limb.
He had set the pieces in motion. Now he could only wait for the board to burn.