Chapter 23: The Shrine of Saint Bernard

The pass was a white throat choked with snow, and Aldric’s horse hated every step of it. The beast, a sturdy gray gelding with a stubborn streak to match its rider’s, planted its hooves against the icy scree and refused to move until Gerold, swearing in his native Saxon, dragged it forward by the bridle.

“We could have gone around,” Gerold growled, his breath fogging the frozen air. “Through the valley, like sensible men.”

“The valley adds a week,” Aldric said, pulling his fur cloak tighter. “And I have a deadline. Of a sort.”

“A deadline to be told you are a fool. In a colder place.”

Aldric had no answer for that. It was true. Hildegard’s letter had been precise, maddeningly so: *Come to the hospice at the summit. I have something you need. Bring no retinue but the Saxon, and do not tell the Emperor where you go.* Charlemagne had been gracious enough to grant him a brief leave to visit the shrine and pray for the soul of his father. Aldric suspected the Emperor knew exactly what he was doing—or at least suspected enough to enjoy the spectacle.

The hospice emerged from the swirling white like a memory of a dream. A low stone building, its walls thick and ancient, pressed against the shoulder of the mountain. Smoke curled from a chimney, and the smell of woodsmoke and stewed barley drifted toward them. Gerold’s face, beneath its mask of scars, softened almost imperceptibly.

“Warm,” he said.

“That is the point,” Aldric replied.

Inside, the hospice was a long hall of rough-hewn beams and flickering candles. Pilgrims huddled in corners, their faces hollowed by the climb, and monks moved among them with bowls of broth and quiet words. Aldric scanned the room, and then he saw her.

Hildegard of Metz sat by the hearth, a codex open on her lap, her veil pushed back to reveal a face that had once been the center of his world. She had aged—they both had—but the sharpness in her eyes remained, a blade that never dulled. She looked up as he approached and smiled, and it was not a warm smile.

“You came,” she said. “I thought you might. You always did have a fatal curiosity.”

“You named me a fool in your letter,” Aldric said, settling onto the bench across from her. “I thought it best to see the woman who still knows me well enough to be right.”

Gerold hovered behind him, a broad shadow. Hildegard glanced at the Saxon and then back at Aldric.

“Still wary of shadows, I see.”

“Shadows have a habit of carrying axes,” Aldric said. “What do you have for me, Hildegard? I did not climb a mountain for your conversational wit.”

She closed the codex with a soft thump. “The Emperor is planning to move his court to Rome by the winter of next year. He intends to be crowned on Christmas Day. You know this.”

“I know what I was told. The Emperor tells many men many things.”

“This is not a secret told to a friend,” Hildegard said, her voice dropping. “This is a plan written in letters, sealed with the imperial bull, carried by couriers who think themselves invisible. I have seen one of those letters. And it names you, Aldric.”

He felt the cold seep through his boots. “Names me?”

“As the architect of the coronation. The master of ceremonies. The man who will ensure the Pope and the Emperor stand in the same chapel at the same moment without one of them trying to cut the other’s throat.” She paused. “You are not going home, Aldric. You are going to be the Emperor’s shadow for the rest of your life.”

Aldric stared at her. The fire crackled, and a pilgrim coughed, and somewhere a monk began to chant a psalm in a low, mournful drone.

“Then you were right,” he said at last. “The price is too high.”

“It was always too high,” Hildegard said. “But you refused to see it. You thought if you made yourself useful enough, he would let you go. You thought the Emperor would reward your service with freedom. He will reward you with more service. That is the only coin he knows.”

Gerold shifted behind him. “What do you want of him, abbess?” The Saxon’s voice was flat. “You did not bring him here to tell him what he already knows.”

Hildegard’s smile returned, and this time there was genuine amusement in it. “No. I brought him here to give him a choice.” She reached into her sleeve and withdrew a folded parchment, sealed with a familiar wax impression—the cross and ring of the Abbey of Metz. “This is a writ of transfer. It grants you title to your vineyards, your lands, and your liberty, signed by the bishop of Trier and witnessed by three abbots. It is valid only if you accept it before the first snow of next winter.”

Aldric reached for it, but she pulled it back.

“There is a condition,” she said.

“There always is.”

“You must renounce the Emperor’s service publicly. In Rome. Before the coronation. You must walk into the Lateran Palace, hand the Emperor your seal of office, and tell him, before all his court, that you will not serve him anymore.”

Aldric’s blood went cold. “You are asking me to humiliate him.”

“I am asking you to choose,” Hildegard said. “Your freedom, or your legacy. You cannot have both. The Emperor will not let you have both.”

He looked at the parchment in her hand. It was everything he had wanted for a decade—the key to his vineyards, his books, his quiet life. And the price was the one thing he had never paid.

“You know what he will do to me,” Aldric said.

“He will be angry. He will rage. And then he will let you go, because you will have made it impossible for him to keep you.” Hildegard’s eyes were steady. “I know him, Aldric. He prizes loyalty above all things, but he prizes a man who speaks the truth above a courtier who lies. If you tell him the truth—that you will not serve him, that you cannot serve him—he will call you a traitor to your face. And then he will let you walk away.”

“And if he does not?”

“Then you are no worse off than you are now. A prisoner in a gilded cage, watching the world from a window.” She pressed the parchment into his hand. “This is your only chance. Take it, or burn it. But do not come to me again, for I will not offer it twice.”

Aldric turned the parchment over. The wax was cold against his fingers. Gerold leaned in, his scarred face unreadable.

“What do I do, lord?” the Saxon asked.

Aldric looked at the fire, then at the woman who had once been his future. “You help me get down this mountain,” he said. “Before I do something stupid.”

Hildegard laughed, a low sound that was almost kind. “You already have, Aldric. You came.”

She rose and walked toward the door, pausing at the threshold. “The first snow comes early in the Alps. Do not wait too long to decide.”

Then she was gone, swallowed by the white world beyond, and Aldric was left with the parchment in his hand and the weight of a choice he had never wanted to make.

He turned to Gerold. “We ride for Rome,” he said. “I have a coronation to ruin.”