Chapter 42: The Cartulary of Frozen Roads

The dawn came gray and bitter over the camp, the kind of cold that seeped through wool and leather and settled into the marrow like a slow poison. Aldric woke to find frost had crept across the inside of his tent, tracing delicate white ferns along the canvas, and for a moment he allowed himself the simple pleasure of not moving.

Then Gerold’s voice came from outside, gruff and impatient. “The Emperor rides within the hour. He asks for you.”

Aldric closed his eyes. “Tell him I am dead.”

“I told him you were awake.”

“You are a terrible servant.”

“I am a truthful one,” Gerold said, and Aldric could hear the grim satisfaction in his voice. “There is a difference.”

He rose, pulling his cloak tight against the cold, and emerged into a world of white and gray. The army had made camp in a shallow valley south of the last Frankish outpost, a temporary gathering of men and horses and wagons that stretched further than the eye could see. Smoke rose from a thousand cookfires, carrying the smell of bread and salt pork and woodsmoke, and somewhere in the distance a smith was already hammering iron.

Charlemagne stood at the edge of the camp, his massive form silhouetted against the pale sky, watching the road south. He did not turn when Aldric approached, but he spoke as if he had been expecting him for some time.

“The passes are clear,” the Emperor said. “The scouts returned at dawn. We can reach the Alps in twelve days, if the weather holds.”

“And if it does not?”

“Then we wait.” Charlemagne turned, and his eyes were sharp beneath the heavy brows. “But I do not like waiting, Aldric. Waiting gives men time to think. And thinking gives men time to doubt.”

Aldric inclined his head. “A wise man once told me that doubt is the beginning of wisdom.”

“Then I am fortunate that I have never been wise.” The Emperor’s mouth curved into something that was almost a smile. “Come. Walk with me.”

They moved along the edge of the camp, past rows of tents and tethered horses, past soldiers who straightened and bowed as the Emperor passed. Aldric noted the way Charlemagne acknowledged each man with a nod or a word, the way his presence seemed to steady the air around him. It was not charm, precisely. It was something older, more primal—the weight of a man who had conquered nations and would not hesitate to do so again.

“You have been quiet since Paderborn,” Charlemagne said. “I had expected more schemes, more elaborate excuses. Instead you ride with us, eat with us, plan with us. Why?”

Aldric considered the question. The truth was complicated, tangled up in Hildegard’s arithmetic and Rotrude’s warnings and the strange, creeping realization that he no longer knew what he wanted. But the Emperor did not want the truth. He wanted reassurance.

“Because the road to my vineyards runs through Rome,” Aldric said. “And I have learned that I cannot reach it by standing still.”

Charlemagne laughed, a deep sound that startled a flock of birds from a nearby tree. “You are a terrible liar, Aldric. But you are a useful one, and I have learned to value usefulness over honesty.”

They walked in silence for a time, past the picket lines and the baggage trains, until they reached a small rise that overlooked the valley. The road south wound through the hills like a gray ribbon, vanishing into the mist that clung to the distant peaks.

“I dreamed of my father last night,” Charlemagne said, his voice quieter now. “He stood in the great hall at Aachen, and he asked me why I had not yet taken what was mine.”

Aldric said nothing. He had learned that these moments, when the Emperor spoke of his father or his brother or the ghosts that haunted him, were not invitations to conversation.

“I told him I was waiting,” Charlemagne continued. “And he laughed at me. He said that waiting was for priests and women and men who were afraid to die.” He turned to face Aldric, and there was something raw in his eyes, something that looked almost like fear. “Am I afraid, Aldric?”

“Everyone is afraid,” Aldric said. “The difference is what they do with it.”

“And what do you do with it?”

Aldric met his gaze. “I plan. I scheme. I find ways to avoid the moment of decision.” He paused. “And then, when I am no longer able to avoid it, I act. Sometimes wisely. Sometimes not.”

Charlemagne studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded. “You are a strange man, Aldric of the Vosges. You have the mind of a strategist and the soul of a shepherd. You could have been one of my greatest lords.”

“I would rather be a happy vintner.”

“And yet here you are.” The Emperor’s smile returned, but it was gentler now, almost wistful. “Perhaps happiness is not what you truly want, Aldric. Perhaps you simply do not know what you want yet.”

Aldric opened his mouth to protest, but the words died in his throat. Because the Emperor was right, and he hated him for it.

Later that morning, as the army began its slow march south, Rotrude fell into step beside Aldric’s horse. She wore a riding cloak of deep blue, and her breath misted in the cold air as she looked up at him with that familiar, knowing expression.

“My father spoke with you this morning,” she said. It was not a question.

“He did.”

“And what did you tell him?”

Aldric shrugged. “I told him the truth. That I am afraid.”

Rotrude’s eyebrows rose. “And what are you afraid of, Lord Aldric?”

He looked at her, and for a moment he considered lying. But she would see through it, as she always did, and he was tired of pretending.

“I am afraid that I will succeed,” he said quietly. “That I will finally find a way to escape this life, this service, this dance with destiny—and that I will discover I do not want to.”

Rotrude was silent for a long moment. Then she smiled, and this time it was not cruel or mocking. It was almost kind.

“That is the most honest thing you have ever said to me,” she said. “And it is the most dangerous.”

She urged her horse forward, leaving Aldric alone with his thoughts and the gray road stretching south toward Rome.

Behind him, Gerold cleared his throat. “What was that about?”

“I do not know,” Aldric said honestly. “But I suspect I will find out soon enough.”

The road wound on, frozen and unyielding, and Aldric rode toward a future he had once been certain he wanted to avoid. Now, for the first time, he was not certain of anything at all—except that the path of least resistance had led him here, to this moment, to this choice.

And he was beginning to think that perhaps, just perhaps, he had been walking toward it all along.