Chapter 74: The Cartulary of Thawed Ground (II)

The thaw had turned the road to Paderborn into a river of churned earth, and the Emperor’s camp rose from it like a city built on a dare. Tents sagged under the weight of spring rain. Horses stood fetlock-deep in muck, their breath steaming. And in the great pavilion at the center, where the counts and bishops gathered, the air was thick with the smell of wet wool and ambition.

Aldric stood at the edge of the circle, counting.

He counted the nods that followed the Emperor’s words, and the pauses before them. He counted the bishops who clasped their hands when Charlemagne spoke of Rome, and the counts whose eyes drifted toward the wine. He counted the smiles that arrived a heartbeat too late, and the ones that lingered a heartbeat too long. By the time the Emperor called the council to order, Aldric had a ledger in his mind, and the ledger told him everything he needed to know.

The Emperor sat on a stool that had been carried all the way from Aachen, a small vanity he permitted himself. His voice filled the tent without effort.

“Rome,” he said. “We go to Rome.”

The word hung there, and the assembly leaned in.

“The Pope has called for justice. The Lombard dukes who fled south after Pavia have found refuge in Benevento, and the Saxons who escaped our swords have found ships to carry them to the Greek emperor. Rome is the hinge on which the West turns. If I take the imperial title, I do not take it for pride. I take it to bind the Christian world to a single shepherd, and to bind the shepherd to a single sword.”

The bishops murmured approval. The counts nodded. Aldric watched a man near the back—a Bavarian count named Engilram, whose lands bordered the Avar marches—wipe his palms on his tunic.

“My lord Emperor,” Engilram said, “the road to Rome is long, and the Saxons—”

“The Saxons are beaten,” Charlemagne said. “The ones who are not beaten are dead. The ones who are neither are in hiding, and they will starve before they trouble us again.”

Aldric felt Gerold shift behind him, a movement as subtle as a stone settling. The Saxon did not speak, but Aldric could feel the weight of his silence.

“My lord,” Aldric said.

The tent went quiet. He had not spoken in a council since Regensburg, and the sound of his voice was like a stone dropped into still water.

Charlemagne turned. “Lord Aldric. You have been counting.”

“I have, my lord.”

“And what have you counted?”

Aldric stepped forward. He had spent the winter learning the shape of this room, and now he laid it out like a map.

“I have counted forty-three men who will follow you to Rome for the glory of God,” he said. “I have counted nineteen who will follow you for the glory of Charlemagne. I have counted seven who will follow you because they are afraid not to. And I have counted three who will not follow you at all, but will send their sons and their silver and their prayers, and will pray most fervently that you do not return.”

No one moved. The rain drummed on the canvas.

“You have counted well,” Charlemagne said. “Who are the three?”

“The Count of Toulouse, who dreams of Septimania. The Bishop of Lyon, who dreams of a Frankish church free of Frankish kings. And the Abbot of Saint Gall, who dreams of nothing at all, which is the most dangerous dream of all.”

Charlemagne’s eyes narrowed. “And which are you, Lord Aldric?”

“I am the man who counts, my lord. I am not the man who dreams.”

The Emperor laughed, a sound that filled the tent and left no room for doubt. “You are the most useful idle man in Christendom. Tell me what you have counted that matters.”

Aldric reached into his sleeve and drew out a parchment. He had spent three nights on it, working by candlelight while Gerold snored and the rain leaked through the tent seams.

“The road to Rome,” he said. “There are three routes. The first goes through the Alps at Mont Cenis, which is the shortest and the most dangerous. The second goes through the Brenner, which is longer but safer, and which passes through the lands of the Duke of Bavaria, who has not yet decided whether he loves you or fears you. The third goes by sea from Marseille, which is the fastest and the most expensive, and which requires ships you do not have.”

“And which do you recommend?”

“None of them, my lord. I recommend you send the bishops by the Brenner and the counts by Mont Cenis. Let them arrive separately, on different days, by different roads. Let Rome see that the Frankish host is not a single army but a tide that comes from every direction at once.”

Charlemagne was silent for a long moment. Then he took the parchment from Aldric’s hand and read it, his lips moving slightly.

“You have counted the cost,” he said. “Down to the last horse.”

“I have counted everything, my lord. That is what you asked of me.”

“No,” Charlemagne said. “I asked you to plan a coronation. You have planned a campaign.”

Aldric met his eyes. “A coronation is a campaign, my lord. The only difference is that the enemy is time.”

The Emperor folded the parchment and tucked it into his belt. He looked at Aldric for a long moment, and there was something in his gaze that Aldric had seen before—the look of a man who has found a tool he did not know he needed.

“You will ride with me,” Charlemagne said. “To Rome. You will count every step of the way.”

“I have already counted them, my lord.”

“Then you will count them again.”

The council dissolved into the usual murmurs and scatterings. Aldric slipped out of the tent into the rain, and Gerold followed, his hand on his sword.

“You told him the truth,” Gerold said.

“I told him a truth. There is a difference.”

“You told him there are three men who will not follow him. You named them.”

“I did.”

“That was either very brave or very stupid.”

Aldric pulled his cloak tighter. “It was neither. It was arithmetic. He needs to know who his enemies are. If I do not tell him, he will find out in Rome, at the worst possible moment. And then he will blame me.”

They walked in silence through the mud, past tents that glowed with candlelight, past horses that stamped and shivered. The spring rain had turned to a fine mist, and the world was gray and soft and full of the smell of wet earth.

“Gerold,” Aldric said.

“My lord?”

“When we reach Rome, I will need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, my lord.”

Aldric stopped and turned. The Saxon’s scarred face was unreadable in the half-light.

“I will need you to leave me,” he said. “When the moment comes, I will need you to walk away and not look back.”

Gerold stared at him. “I have followed you from Aachen to Paderborn. I have followed you through snow and mud and Saxon arrows. And now you ask me to leave you?”

“I ask you to trust me.”

“Trust is not something you have ever asked of me before.”

“No,” Aldric said. “It is not.”

He turned and walked on, toward his tent and the candle and the parchment that waited for him. Behind him, Gerold stood in the rain, his hand still on his sword, his face a mask of doubt.

Inside the tent, Aldric sat down and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. He dipped his pen and wrote a single word at the top of the page.

Rome.

Then he began to count again, and this time, he counted the ways he could lose.

He was still counting when the candle guttered and died, and the first light of dawn crept gray and cold across the thawed ground of Paderborn.