Chapter 70: The Debt of the Unopened Eye

The rain had not stopped for three days. It fell in sheets across Aachen, turning the palace courtyards into mirrors of grey sky, and Drogo had taken to watching the water gather in the gutters of the Palatine Chapel, counting the drops as if they were days remaining to him.

Bernard found him there, in the narrow gallery above the nave, where the candlelight below could not reach. The warrior’s boots were wet, his cloak heavy with moisture, and he carried the scent of the stables like a badge of urgency.

“She has called a council,” Bernard said, without greeting. “The Empress. For the hour of nones.”

Drogo did not turn from the window. “A council of whom?”

“The bishops who remain loyal to her. The counts of the Rhine. And Lothar’s man, the one who arrived yesterday with the dust of the march still on his cloak.”

“Guntram,” Drogo said softly. “He rides fast for a man with so much weight to carry.”

“He carries Lothar’s seal, not his belly,” Bernard said. “The message was brief. Lothar will be at the gates within the week. He expects the city to open for him.”

Drogo finally turned. His face was pale in the dim light, the shadows beneath his eyes like bruises from a sleepless month. “And what does Judith expect?”

“She expects you to be there. Kneeling. Confessing that you stole the seal and that you will surrender it to Lothar’s authority when he arrives.”

“Does she now.”

Bernard stepped closer, lowering his voice though they were alone. “Drogo, she has already sent word to Pepin. The message you dictated—the one offering the gates—she has altered it. She has told Pepin that you are a traitor to the house, that you have already sworn to Lothar, and that if he wishes to see you dead, he need only march faster.”

Drogo’s smile did not reach his eyes. “I would expect nothing less from her. She has learned the art of the poisoned pen better than any bishop in Francia.”

“This is not a game,” Bernard said, his voice tight. “She is moving to isolate you. If Pepin believes you have betrayed him, he will not stop at the gates of Aachen—he will tear them down to reach your throat. And Lothar will stand aside and let him do it, so long as Judith delivers the crown.”

Drogo was quiet for a long moment. Below them, the chapel filled with the murmur of monks at prayer, their voices rising and falling like the tide. The rain drummed against the leaded glass, and somewhere beyond the walls, a horn sounded—distant, mournful, as if the world itself were grieving.

“She has made one mistake,” Drogo said at last.

“Only one?”

“She has assumed that I would run.” Drogo turned from the window, and his smile sharpened into something colder. “She believes that when the council gathers, I will either kneel to her or flee into the night. She has prepared for both. She has guards at the eastern gate, and she has placed her own confessor in the chapel, ready to hear my admission of guilt.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I will do what she does not expect.” Drogo moved past Bernard, toward the stair that led down into the nave. “I will attend the council. I will sit in my father’s place, since he is too ill to rise from his bed. And I will speak the truth.”

Bernard caught his arm. “The truth? You, of all men?”

“Not the whole truth,” Drogo said, gently freeing himself. “Only the part that serves me. The rest, I will let her believe she has discovered on her own.”

The council chamber was cold despite the braziers that burned at its corners. Judith sat at the head of the long table, her hands folded before her, her face a mask of pious concern. Beside her stood Guntram, Lothar’s envoy, a man with the flat eyes of a soldier who had learned to stop seeing the faces of those he delivered to death. The bishops sat in their stiff vestments, and the counts of the Rhine shifted uneasily on their benches, as if the floor beneath them might open at any moment.

Drogo entered last, dressed in the simple grey tunic of a penitent, his hair uncombed, his eyes downcast. He moved slowly, as if each step cost him something, and when he reached his place at the table, he did not sit. He stood, waiting, until Judith acknowledged him with a tilt of her chin.

“Prince Drogo,” she said, her voice sweet as honeyed wine. “We are grateful that you have chosen to join us. We had feared you might be… otherwise occupied.”

“I am never too occupied for my family, Empress.” His voice was soft, almost shy. “I have heard that my brother Lothar approaches. I wished to offer my assistance in preparing his reception.”

Judith’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. “Your assistance? How touching. And what form would that assistance take?”

Drogo reached into his sleeve and withdrew the seal—his father’s seal, the great iron stamp that had marked the decrees of Charlemagne himself. He placed it on the table before him, and the room went silent.

“I confess,” he said, his voice carrying to every corner of the chamber, “that I took this seal without my father’s knowledge. I did so because I believed I could use it to protect the peace of this realm. I was wrong.”

The bishops exchanged glances. Guntram’s hand moved to his sword hilt, and Judith’s mask cracked, just for an instant, into something like triumph.

“You admit your theft?” she asked.

“I do.” Drogo bowed his head. “And I surrender it to you, Empress, to do with as you see fit. I ask only that you remember, when you judge me, that I acted out of love for my father and my brothers.”

Judith rose, and the triumph in her eyes was unmistakable. She crossed to the table, picked up the seal, and weighed it in her hand as if it were a relic of the true cross.

“You have done well to confess,” she said. “It will not save you from punishment, but it may save your soul.”

Drogo raised his eyes, and for a moment, their gazes locked. He saw her certainty, her belief that she had finally cornered him, and he let her see, in his own eyes, exactly what she expected: defeat.

“I am ready to accept whatever judgment you deem just,” he said. “But I ask one thing—that you allow me to speak with my father before I am confined. I would not have him hear of my shame from another’s lips.”

Judith considered this, and Drogo watched her calculate the risk. His father was dying, barely conscious, and could do nothing to intervene. Allowing the visit would cost her nothing and would demonstrate her mercy to the court.

“Very well,” she said. “You may have one hour with the emperor. Guntram will escort you.”

Drogo bowed, and as he turned to leave, he caught Bernard’s eye. The warrior’s face was unreadable, but Drogo saw the question there: *What have you done?*

He could not answer, not yet. But as he followed Guntram down the corridor toward his father’s chambers, Drogo felt the weight of the second seal—the one he had pressed into a lump of wax before surrendering the original—against his thigh. Judith held the emperor’s authority in her hand.

But Drogo held the emperor’s soul. And he had one hour to use it.