Chapter 40: The Cartulary of Frozen Reckoning (II)

The dawn came gray and bitter, the kind of cold that seeped through wool and leather and into the marrow of a man’s bones. Aldric stood at the edge of the camp, watching the column of smoke rise from the cookfires, and he thought of the writ of immunity still tucked in his saddlebag, a promise that had grown thin as old parchment.

Gerold appeared at his side, breath pluming in the frost. “The scouts say the pass is clear. Snow’s not deep enough to block the mules.”

“Good,” Aldric said. “Then we can be miserable a little faster.”

Gerold grunted. “The Emperor sent word. He wants you at the head of the column when we cross the Lombard plain.”

“Of course he does.” Aldric rubbed his hands together, feeling the cold bite at his fingers. “He wants me where he can see me. In case I decide to vanish into a snowdrift.”

“Would you?”

Aldric considered the question with more seriousness than it deserved. The Alps rose around them, white and indifferent, their peaks lost in the low-hanging clouds. Somewhere beyond them lay Rome, and the crown that Charlemagne had decided to claim—and the plan that Aldric had promised Hildegard he would ruin.

“No,” he said at last. “The snow is too cold for idleness. I would die of discomfort before I found a comfortable spot to die in.”

Gerold’s laugh was a short, harsh bark. “That is the most honest thing you have said in a month.”

They broke camp in silence, the mules loaded with provisions and the precious letters that Aldric had spent the winter composing—letters to bishops, to counts, to the Pope’s own chamberlain, each one a careful thread in a web he was weaving toward an end he did not fully understand. Hildegard’s arithmetic had been clear enough: make the crown too costly, and the Emperor would let him go. But the cost, Aldric had begun to suspect, was not measured in gold or blood.

It was measured in choices.

The column descended through the pass, the snow giving way to bare rock and then to the first faint green of the Lombard foothills. By midday the air had warmed, and Aldric found himself riding beside Rotrude, who had somehow managed to look as fresh as if she had slept in a feather bed.

“You have been quiet,” she said. “That is unlike you. Usually you are quiet with a purpose.”

“I am always quiet with a purpose,” Aldric said. “It is the purposes that change.”

Rotrude tilted her head, studying him with those sharp, knowing eyes. “My father believes you are planning something. He does not know what, but he knows it is there.”

“Your father believes everyone is planning something. It is the price of being Emperor.”

“He is not Emperor yet.”

The words hung between them, and Aldric felt the weight of them. The coronation was still months away, but the shape of it was already forming—a gathering of kings and bishops, a ceremony in the old basilica, a crown placed upon a head that had never bowed to any man.

“He will be,” Aldric said. “Unless I stop him.”

Rotrude’s smile was slow and dangerous. “And will you?”

Aldric looked at her, at the daughter of the man who had dragged him from his vineyards and into the heart of an empire. He thought of Hildegard’s knife, waiting to cut the knot. He thought of the writ of immunity, unearned and unfulfilled.

“I do not know,” he said. “That is the honest truth.”

Rotrude nodded, as if she had expected nothing less. “Then I will tell you a secret, Lord Aldric. My father is afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of the crown.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “He has conquered kingdoms, crushed rebels, bent the Church to his will. But a crown from the Pope’s hands—that is a different kind of power. It cannot be taken by force. It must be given. And he is not certain he deserves it.”

Aldric stared at her. “You are telling me the Emperor of the Franks doubts himself?”

“He is a man, Aldric. He has doubts like any other. But he hides them behind laughter and thunder, and he expects the rest of us to do the same.” Rotrude sat back, her expression unreadable. “If you mean to ruin his coronation, you must understand that you are not fighting his ambition. You are fighting his fear.”

The column wound down into the valley, the sun breaking through the clouds for the first time in days. Aldric rode in silence, the princess’s words turning over in his mind. He had thought of Charlemagne as a force of nature, an unstoppable tide of will and conquest. But a man who feared the crown he sought was a man who could be turned.

And that, Aldric realized, was a dangerous thing to know.

That evening, they made camp in a meadow beside a shallow river, the water running clear and cold over stones worn smooth by centuries. Aldric sat apart from the others, a parchment spread across his knees, and he wrote.

The letters were careful, precise, each one a thread in the web. He wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz, reminding him of a debt owed. He wrote to the Count of Spoleto, hinting at favors yet to come. He wrote to the Pope’s chamberlain, praising his wisdom and asking for guidance on a matter of canon law.

And then he wrote a letter he had not planned.

*To the Lady Hildegard, Abbess of Metz, greetings.*

*You told me once that the price of a crown could be made too high. I am beginning to think you were wrong. The price is not measured in gold or blood. It is measured in fear—and the Emperor is afraid.*

*I do not know what that means. But I think you do.*

He sealed the letter with wax, pressed with his signet ring—a vine leaf, the only symbol he had ever wanted. Then he sat back, watching the stars wheel overhead, and he thought of the road ahead.

Rome was waiting. The crown was waiting. And somewhere in the darkness, the man who would be Emperor was wrestling with his own doubts.

Aldric had come to ruin the coronation. But now, for the first time, he wondered if he had come to save it instead.

He did not know which was worse.