Chapter 72: The Cartulary of Thaw

The thaw came to Paderborn like a debtor who had promised to pay in autumn and arrived in spring, apologetic and smelling of wet earth.

Aldric stood in the courtyard of the royal compound and watched the ice surrender. It happened all at once, it seemed—one morning the world was white and silent, the next it was brown and roaring with meltwater. The Lippe swelled against its banks. Men who had spent the winter hunched over braziers emerged blinking into a sun that had no warmth but plenty of opinion. The stables reeked of mud and dung and the particular sourness of horses who had been kept too long indoors.

He had spent the winter writing.

Not the kind of writing that won battles or earned writs of immunity—no, that would have been too useful. He had spent the winter writing a cartulary of the lands he had been granted in the Saxon marches, the lands he had never visited, the lands he did not want. He had catalogued every field and wood and mill and meadow with the meticulousness of a man who had nothing better to do, which was true, and the obsessive care of a man who was avoiding something larger, which was also true.

The cartulary had become, in its way, a map of his cage.

"Still at it, my lord?"

Gerold appeared at his elbow, scarred face reddened by the wind. The Saxon had spent the winter training with the Emperor's household troops, which was to say he had spent the winter being beaten into the ground by men half his age and twice his enthusiasm, and had enjoyed every moment of it. Aldric suspected Gerold was happier in Paderborn than he had ever been in the Vosges.

"I have finished," Aldric said. "This morning. The last meadow. The last mill."

"And what will you do now?"

"Sleep."

"The Emperor wishes to see you."

Aldric closed his eyes. "Of course he does."

---

The great hall of Paderborn was less crowded than it had been in the autumn, when Saxon chieftains had filled it with their demands and their suspicions and their smell of woodsmoke and old grudges. Most had gone home for the winter, their oaths sworn, their hostages given, their sons learning Frankish ways in Frankish monasteries. A few remained, the ones who trusted Charlemagne least and therefore needed to watch him most.

The Emperor sat near the fire, which had been built up to a size that suggested he was either cold or making a point about his ability to command warmth itself. He was reading a letter. He did not look up when Aldric entered, which was its own kind of statement.

"Lord Aldric," he said, still reading. "I am told you have been writing."

"A cartulary, sire. Of my Saxon lands."

"Your Saxon lands. The ones you have never seen."

"The same."

Charlemagne set the letter down. His eyes, when they found Aldric, were the color of winter sky and just as difficult to read. "You have been granted lands in the Saxon marches for your service to the realm. You have never visited them. You have never collected a single measure of grain from them. You have never even written to the stewards I appointed to manage them on your behalf. And now you have spent an entire winter cataloguing them in a book you will never use."

"It seemed a productive use of time, sire."

"It seems," Charlemagne said, "like the behavior of a man who is either mad or planning something."

Aldric considered this. "Can it not be both?"

The Emperor laughed—a short, sharp sound that was not entirely amused. "You are the only man at my court who makes me laugh and makes me want to throw him in the Lippe in the same breath. Sit down. I have a question for you."

Aldric sat. The chair was hard and cold and had clearly been chosen for its ability to make sitting uncomfortable.

"Tell me," Charlemagne said, "what you think of my coronation."

The word hung in the air between them like a drawn blade.

Aldric chose his words with the care of a man who had spent a lifetime learning that the wrong word could bind him tighter than any chain. "I think, sire, that you have conquered the Saxons, humbled the Avars, and made the Lombards your vassals. I think you have built an empire in everything but name. I think the name is the only thing left."

"And?"

"And I think names are dangerous things. They attract attention. They invite comparison. They make enemies who were previously content to be neighbors."

Charlemagne nodded slowly. "You have been talking to my daughter."

"I have been avoiding your daughter, sire. She is more persistent than the winter."

"She is more persistent than the Saxons," the Emperor said. "Which is why I have decided to send her to Rome with the advance party. She will represent the royal household at the negotiations with the Pope's legates. She has a gift for making men believe they have won an argument when they have only agreed with her."

Aldric felt the floor shift beneath him. Rotrude in Rome. Rotrude, who saw through him. Rotrude, who had warned him that the price he was paying grew higher by the day.

"That is a great honor for her," he said carefully.

"It is a great burden for her, which is why she will excel at it." Charlemagne leaned forward. "And you, my lord of the Vosges, will ride with her."

"Sire—"

"You will ride with her because you understand the arithmetic of power better than any man I have ever known. You will ride with her because you have spent the winter writing a cartulary of lands you do not want, which means your mind has been idle, and an idle mind such as yours is a danger to itself and to others. You will ride with her because I command it."

Aldric sat very still. The fire crackled. Somewhere outside, meltwater dripped from the eaves in a rhythm that sounded almost like counting.

"And the writ of immunity?" he asked.

Charlemagne's expression did not change. "The writ of immunity," he said, "will be waiting for you in Rome. When the crown is on my head and the Pope has blessed what God has already ordained, you will have your freedom. You will return to your vineyards. You will tend your grapes. You will sleep."

He paused.

"But not before."

---

Aldric rode out of Paderborn three days later, at the head of a small party bound for the Alps and then the plains of Italy beyond. The snow was melting on the passes. The roads were turning to rivers of mud. Spring was coming, which meant the campaign season was coming, which meant men were coming—men with swords and banners and the particular hunger of those who had spent a winter waiting.

Gerold rode beside him, silent and watchful.

Rotrude rode ahead, surrounded by her own attendants, her own guards, her own plans.

And behind them, somewhere in the great hall of Paderborn, Charlemagne was already planning his own journey south. He would follow in the summer, when the roads were dry and the Saxons were quiet and the world had been made ready for what he intended to become.

Aldric reached into his saddlebag and touched the edge of the unfinished writ. Still there. Still unwritten. Still a promise that grew more distant with every mile.

He thought of Hildegard, waiting in her shrine among the white peaks. He thought of the letter she had sent him in the depths of winter, which he had read three times and burned twice and finally kept, tucked in the pages of his cartulary like a pressed flower.

*The arithmetic has changed*, she had written. *The sum is no longer what we thought. Come to Rome. We will count again.*

He did not know what she meant. He was not sure he wanted to know.

But the road south was open, and the thaw had come, and somewhere beyond the mountains a crown was waiting to be placed on a head that did not need it, and a man who wanted nothing more than to sleep was riding toward the center of the world.

Behind him, the last of the winter gave way. Ahead, the first of the spring began.

And in between, in the muddy ruts of the road to Rome, Lord Aldric of the Vosges did what he had always done when the path of least resistance failed him.

He kept walking.