Chapter 60: THE CARTULARY OF FROZEN THORNS

The Alpine pass surrendered to the foothills of Lombardy, and with each league the air grew softer, the frost retreating from the grass like a defeated army. Aldric’s breath no longer clouded before his face, and for that small mercy he was grateful, though gratitude had never been his natural disposition.

Gerold rode beside him, his scarred face turned toward the distant spires of a Lombard village. “The snows are behind us,” the Saxon said. “Rome is a fortnight’s ride, if the roads hold.”

“The roads will hold,” Aldric said. “They always do. It is the intentions of men that crumble.”

He had not spoken of Hildegard’s letter since leaving the shrine. It rested now in his tunic, pressed against his heart like a second pulse, its words burned into memory. She had written of patterns—the patterns of emperors and popes, of crowns and consecrations, of the delicate dance between the see of Saint Peter and the throne of the Franks.

*You have been lying to yourself, Aldric. You think you wish to be free. But you have never once chosen the door that leads to obscurity. You choose the door that leads to the storm, and then you wonder why the lightning finds you.*

He had wanted to argue. He had wanted to deny it. But the words had settled into him like stones in a riverbed, changing the current of his thoughts whether he willed it or not.

They made camp that evening in a grove of olive trees, their silver leaves catching the last light of a copper sun. Aldric sat apart from the fire, the letter spread across his knee, reading it again by the failing glow.

*The Pope is dying,* Hildegard had written. *Not of the body, but of the spirit. Leo fears the Romans, fears the faction of Hadrian’s nephews, fears the mob that tore at him in the streets. He will beg Charlemagne for protection, and Charlemagne will come. But the Emperor does not march to Rome merely to save a pope. He marches to claim what the pope can give him.*

Aldric traced the words with his finger. He had known this, of course. Every scholar in the palace at Aachen had whispered of the imperial crown, of the ancient dignity that had lain vacant since the fall of the Western Empire. But Hildegard had seen something the scholars had missed.

*The crown is a trap, Aldric. Not for Charlemagne—for you. If he is crowned Emperor, he will need administrators, councillors, men who understand the machinery of power. He will look to you, and he will never let you go. Your writ of immunity will be worth less than the parchment it is written on.*

He folded the letter and stared into the darkness beyond the firelight. The path of least resistance had led him here, to a grove in Lombardy, with a choice that grew heavier with each passing mile.

“My lord.”

Gerold’s voice was quiet, careful. The Saxon had learned to read his master’s moods, a talent that Aldric found both useful and irritating.

“Speak.”

“There is a rider approaching. Alone. No banner.”

Aldric rose, his hand moving instinctively to the hilt of his sword—a weapon he carried more for appearances than for use. In the gathering dusk, he saw the silhouette of a horse picking its way through the olive grove, and upon it a figure wrapped in a dark cloak.

The rider reined in before the firelight and lowered the hood.

It was Rotrude.

Aldric felt the ground shift beneath him, though he stood perfectly still. “Princess. You should be with the Emperor’s court.”

“The Emperor’s court is where I should be,” Rotrude agreed, sliding from her saddle with the ease of one born to the saddle. “But I am not there. I am here, instead. Are you not pleased to see me?”

“I am never pleased to see you,” Aldric said. “You bring complications the way other women bring embroidery.”

Rotrude smiled, and it was the same smile she had worn at Paderborn—sharp, knowing, dangerous. “Complications are my trade, Lord Aldric. And I have brought you a very interesting complication indeed.”

She produced a scroll from her cloak, sealed with the imperial bull. Aldric did not reach for it.

“What is that?”

“A summons,” Rotrude said. “From my father. He has received word that Pope Leo has fled Rome, pursued by his enemies. The Holy Father is seeking refuge at the court of the Franks.”

Aldric’s blood went cold. “When?”

“Three days ago. The message reached my father at Paderborn. He is already marching south, and he has commanded you to meet him at Ravenna.”

“Ravenna,” Aldric repeated. The city of the exarchs, the old capital of Byzantine Italy. The place where emperors had once made their will law.

“Ravenna,” Rotrude confirmed. “He means to settle the Pope’s quarrel before he enters Rome. And he means for you to be at his side when he does.”

Aldric stared at the scroll, then at Rotrude. “Why did you bring this yourself? Why not a courier?”

Rotrude’s smile faded, replaced by something Aldric had rarely seen on her face—a flicker of genuine unease. “Because I needed to warn you before you reached Rome. There is more at stake than a crown, Aldric. My father has begun to speak of something he has never spoken of before.”

“What?”

“Legacy,” she said. “He has conquered kingdoms, subdued nations, brought the Saxons to the font. But he has no heir who can hold what he has built. Charles is strong but simple. Pepin is clever but cruel. Louis is pious but weak. My father knows this. He looks at his sons and sees the empire crumbling the moment he dies.”

Aldric understood, with a sudden and terrible clarity, what she was not saying. “He wants more than a crown.”

Rotrude met his eyes. “He wants a successor. Not a son—a mind. A mind that can do what his sons cannot. A mind that can hold the empire together when he is gone.”

The words hung in the air like a blade suspended above his neck.

“He means to make me that mind,” Aldric said. It was not a question.

“He means to try,” Rotrude said. “And he will not be dissuaded easily. You have been too useful, Lord Aldric. You have solved every problem he has placed before you. You have made yourself indispensable. And now he will not let you go.”

Aldric laughed, a hollow sound that startled the horses. “I have spent my entire life trying to be useless. And I have failed so spectacularly that the Emperor of the Franks wishes to chain me to his throne.”

“You have one advantage,” Rotrude said quietly. “He does not know that I have told you this. He believes you will be surprised when he makes his offer.”

Aldric looked at her, truly looked at her, for the first time since she had ridden into the grove. “Why? Why warn me?”

Rotrude’s expression softened, just for a moment. “Because I have watched you fight against your own nature for years. You are the laziest man I have ever known, and yet you have done more for this empire than any dozen of my father’s councillors. I do not know whether you are a genius pretending to be a fool, or a fool pretending to be a genius. But I know you deserve the freedom to choose your own chains.”

She turned and mounted her horse before he could respond.

“Ride for Ravenna,” she said. “Meet my father. Hear his offer. And then decide, Aldric, whether the path of least resistance is truly the path you wish to walk.”

She vanished into the darkness, and Aldric stood beneath the olive trees, the scroll unopened in his hand, feeling the weight of a future he had never wanted pressing down upon him like the stones of a tomb.

Gerold stepped forward. “What do we do?”

Aldric looked at the scroll, then at the road that led south.

“We ride to Ravenna,” he said. “And I pray that the Pope’s troubles are more pressing than my own.”