Chapter 3: The Uses of Idleness
The wind carried the smell of woodsmoke and the distant clamor of the palace forges, but here, in the lee of the chapel’s northern wall, the world had gone quiet. Aldric stared at the princess as one might stare at a wolf that had wandered into a sheepfold—with deep suspicion and a profound desire to be elsewhere.
“Your Highness,” he said, bowing with a languor that bordered on insolence. “I was under the impression that princesses of the Franks did not travel alone, in the dark, to accost minor lords with no lands worth stealing.”
Rotrude smiled. It was a smile that had, Aldric suspected, convinced many a courtier to confess sins they had not committed. “I brought Gerold. He is very loyal to you, which I find tedious, but useful. He is currently pretending he does not see us behind this pillar.”
Aldric glanced past her shoulder. Indeed, Gerold stood fifty paces away, arms crossed, face a mask of stone, pointedly staring at the moon. The Saxon’s version of discretion was about as subtle as a war horn.
“Why are you here?” Aldric asked, dropping the courtly pretense. “The last I heard, you were betrothed to the Byzantine prince. Shouldn’t you be learning Greek insults to hurl at your future mother-in-law?”
Rotrude laughed, a low, rich sound that echoed off the stone. “That betrothal died with the last embassy. Constantine’s father has more interest in the Bulgars than in Frankish brides. I am, once again, a free agent at my father’s court. Which means I have time for diversions.” She stepped closer, and Aldric caught the scent of lavender and ink. “And you, my lord, are the most diverting thing I have seen in months.”
“I am a vintner who wants to be left alone.”
“You are a vintner who saved the palace from a siege with a drainage plan,” she said, counting on her fingers. “Who negotiated a peace with the Avars while supposedly dying of a fever. Who has, in the space of three months, become the Emperor’s favorite problem.” She tilted her head. “My father does not keep problems he does not intend to use.”
Aldric felt the weight of her words settle on him like a wet cloak. “Then I shall become a very dull problem indeed. I will write bad poetry. I will drink too much. I will grow fat and boring.”
“You will try,” Rotrude said, and there was something almost fond in her voice. “And you will fail, because you cannot help yourself. That is the tragedy of clever men, Aldric. You think idleness is a choice. But it is not. It is a rebellion—and rebellions require energy.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but a bell tolled from the palace, deep and insistent. The night watch changing. Rotrude pulled her hood back up, her face disappearing into shadow.
“There is a council tomorrow,” she said. “My father has summoned the bishops and the counts of the eastern marches. He will announce something—I do not know what, but the messengers have been riding for days, and the stables are full of lathered horses.” She paused at the edge of the light. “You will be there, of course. He has already sent for you.”
“I have a fever,” Aldric said weakly.
“You have a destiny,” she replied, and then she was gone, her footsteps fading into the dark.
Aldric stood alone in the cold. Gerold approached, his boots crunching on frost.
“The princess talks too much,” Gerold said.
“She talks exactly the right amount,” Aldric muttered. “That is the problem.”
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The council chamber at dawn was a study in controlled chaos. Aldric had arrived early, hoping to find a corner shadowed enough to be overlooked, but the room was already crowded with men in furs and gold, their breath steaming in the chill air. The great hearth at the far end crackled with logs the size of small trees, and at the center of it all, on a throne of oak and iron, sat Charlemagne.
The Emperor was not a subtle man. He did not need to be. He was vast in every dimension—broad of shoulder, thick of neck, with a beard that had gone silver at the edges and eyes that missed nothing. He watched Aldric enter, and a slow smile spread beneath that formidable mustache.
“Ah,” Charlemagne boomed, his voice carrying over the murmuring crowd. “The Idle Lord of Aachen graces us with his presence. I was beginning to think you had fled to your vineyards and left us to manage the world without you.”
The room laughed. Aldric forced a smile and bowed. “Your Majesty, I would never dream of leaving while you still have need of my—modest talents.”
“Modest,” Charlemagne repeated, savoring the word. “Yes. Modest. Like a wolf is modest about its appetite.” He gestured, and the room fell silent. “Come forward, Aldric. I have something to show you.”
Aldric’s stomach twisted, but he obeyed, threading through the press of nobles until he stood before the throne. Charlemagne held out a parchment, creased and sealed with the imperial bull.
“Read it,” the Emperor said.
Aldric took it. The script was careful, the hand of a trained scribe, and the words were in Latin. He read once, then again, and felt the floor tilt beneath him.
“A summons to Rome,” he said slowly. “From Pope Leo.”
“Not just a summons,” Charlemagne said. “An invitation. The Holy Father has been... troubled. There are factions in Rome who do not love him. He asks for my protection. My presence.” The Emperor leaned forward. “And he asks, specifically, that I bring my most cunning counselor.”
Aldric looked up. “Your Majesty, I am not a counselor. I am a lord of a few hills and a great many grapevines.”
“You are a man who solved a siege with a ditch,” Charlemagne said. “Who made the Avars believe you were dying and then took their gold. Who has, in every task I have set you, found the path of least resistance—and in doing so, found the path that works.” He stood, and even at his full height, Aldric felt small. “I do not need men who fight harder. I have enough warriors to drown Rome in their own blood. I need a man who can see the way around. And that, Aldric of the Vosges, is you.”
The chamber was silent. Aldric could feel the weight of a hundred gazes, some envious, some curious, some hostile. He thought of his vineyards, of the quiet mornings and the slow turning of the seasons. He thought of Hildegard’s knowing smile, and Rotrude’s warning, and the storm gathering on the horizon.
“Your Majesty,” he said, and his voice came out steadier than he felt. “If I go to Rome, I will be of no use to you. I am a man of the north. The heat will dull my mind. The politics will bore me. I will be a liability.”
Charlemagne laughed—a great, booming sound that filled the hall. “Liability. He calls himself a liability.” He clapped a hand on Aldric’s shoulder, and the force of it nearly drove him to his knees. “That is precisely why I need you. Every man I send to Rome is a liability in his own way. The difference is that you know it.” He released him and turned back to the assembled nobles. “We ride for Rome in the spring. Lord Aldric will accompany me. It is settled.”
Aldric opened his mouth—to protest, to negotiate, to do anything—but Charlemagne had already moved on, summoning his generals, his bishops, his architects. The moment was over. The trap had closed.
He retreated to the edge of the hall, where Gerold stood waiting, arms crossed.
“You look like a man who has been condemned,” Gerold observed.
“I have been,” Aldric said. “To glory.”
Gerold grunted. “Glory is just work that other people praise you for.”
Aldric stared at him. “That is the wisest thing you have ever said.”
“I have my moments,” the Saxon said. “What will you do now?”
Aldric looked out the window, at the grey winter sky, at the distant smoke of the forges. Somewhere beyond that horizon lay Rome, and a pope in peril, and an empire teetering on the edge of something vast and unnameable. And somewhere, in a corner of his mind, a voice that sounded disturbingly like his own whispered: *But what if you did go? What if you could shape it?*
He crushed the thought before it could bloom.
“I will do what I always do,” he said. “Find the path of least resistance.”
But even as he said it, he knew that path led straight into the heart of the storm—and that Charlemagne had already built the road.