Chapter 11: The Road to Regensburg

The snow began as a whisper, then a murmur, then a shout that swallowed the world. By the time the sun had sunk behind the black teeth of the Franconian forest, Aldric and Gerold were riding through a white blindness, their horses blowing steam that froze instantly to their bridles. The courier had galloped ahead an hour past, eager to reach the next waystation, leaving them to the mercy of the winter.

“There,” Gerold said, his voice muffled by the wool wrapped around his face. He pointed to a smudge of amber light through the trees—a farmstead, or perhaps a hunting lodge. “We’ll freeze otherwise.”

Aldric nodded, too cold to argue. They turned their mounts toward the light, and soon the shape resolved into a timber hall, its roof burdened with snow, smoke curling from a hole in the thatch. A dog barked as they approached. A man appeared in the doorway, axe in hand, but Gerold’s greeting in the Frankish tongue and the sight of Aldric’s worn but noble cloak eased his suspicion.

Inside, the hall was close and warm, thick with the smell of woodsmoke, stew, and unwashed bodies. A dozen travelers huddled by the fire—a merchant and his sons, a priest with a frozen beard, a woman nursing a child. Aldric found a corner, shed his wet cloak, and accepted a bowl of thin barley broth. It was humble fare, but it was hot, and for a moment he allowed himself the luxury of feeling nothing but the heat on his fingers.

“You should sleep,” Gerold said, settling beside him. “We ride at dawn.”

Aldric stared into the broth. “I have been thinking about Paderborn.”

“That is dangerous.”

“Widukind has taken Eresburg. The Emperor will want to crush him before winter sets in. But winter is already here. There will be no siege, no battle—only a frozen army marching to a fortress that will not fall until spring.” He took a sip of broth. “Why would Charlemagne summon me to a war that cannot be fought?”

Gerold shrugged. “Perhaps he wants your counsel.”

“He wants my schemes,” Aldric muttered. “Schemes to do what? To pacify the Saxons? To build a bridge of ice across the Weser? To negotiate with a man who burns churches and calls it prayer?” He set the bowl down. “No. There is something else. Something he does not wish to speak of in Aachen, where the bishops listen.”

Gerold was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “You think he wants the crown.”

Aldric looked at him sharply. The Saxon’s scarred face was unreadable in the firelight. “What do you know of crowns, Gerold?”

“I know that men who want them rarely say so aloud.” Gerold’s eyes met his. “I have seen it in chieftains. They speak of honor, of the gods, of the people’s will. But what they want is the gold on their brow and the fear in their enemies’ eyes.”

Aldric almost smiled. “You are wiser than you look, Saxon.”

“I have had reason to be.”

The fire crackled. Somewhere in the hall, the child began to cry, and the mother hushed it with a low, mournful song. Aldric leaned back against the timber wall, feeling the ache in his bones. He had spent his life avoiding responsibility, and yet here he was, riding into a frozen war at the summons of a king who refused to let him be.

“Why does he need me?” he said, half to himself. “I am a lord of vineyards. I have no army, no lands worth taking, no name that echoes beyond the Vosges. I am—by design—of no consequence.”

“And yet,” Gerold said, “the Emperor’s courier rode through snow to find you.”

Aldric closed his eyes. “Yes. There is that.”

He slept poorly, dreaming of vines buried under ice, their roots reaching down through frozen earth toward something that burned. He woke before dawn to the sound of wind rattling the shutters, and by the time the first grey light crept through the smoke-hole, he and Gerold were on the road again.

The snow had stopped, but the cold had sharpened to a blade. They rode in silence, their breath pluming, the world reduced to white and black and the occasional skeletal arm of a birch tree. By midday, they reached the banks of the Danube, its waters grey and swollen, half-frozen at the edges. A ferryman emerged from a hut, squinting at them, and for a fee of silver deniers—Aldric counted each coin as it left his purse—he ferried them across.

Regensburg appeared by late afternoon, a sprawl of timber and stone on the river’s southern shore. The city was crowded with soldiers, their tents pitched in the muddy fields outside the walls, smoke rising from a thousand cookfires. The Emperor’s army was here, or most of it. Banners snapped in the wind—the boar of the Franks, the eagle of the Lombards, the lesser sigils of a dozen counts and dukes.

Aldric found a hostel near the cathedral, paid for a room, and sent Gerold to the palace to announce his arrival. He sat by the window, watching the soldiers drill in the fading light, and tried to understand what he was seeing. This was not an army preparing to march. This was an army preparing to wait.

A knock came at the door. Gerold entered, followed by a young clerk in the Emperor’s livery, who bowed and handed Aldric a sealed parchment.

“From His Majesty,” the clerk said. “He asks that you attend him at the palace tonight, after vespers.”

Aldric broke the seal. The script was Charlemagne’s own hand, bold and uneven, the letters pressed hard into the wax. It was short, almost curt: *Come. There is a matter I would discuss, and it cannot wait for spring.*

Aldric folded the parchment and tucked it into his belt.

“What matter?” he asked.

The clerk shook his head. “His Majesty does not confide in clerks, my lord.”

“No,” Aldric said, looking out at the darkening city, at the fires of ten thousand soldiers waiting for a war that would not come. “I suppose he does not.”

He turned from the window and reached for his cloak. The path of least resistance, he knew, led straight into the heart of the storm. And yet, for the first time, he found himself wondering what shape that storm might take—and whether he could weather it without being swept away entirely.

The palace doors opened before him, and the winter wind rushed in, carrying the smell of snow and smoke and the distant promise of something he dared not name.