Chapter 2: The Smell of Rain

The bells faded, and Drogo remained in the gallery long after the last echo dissolved into the stone. Below, the faithful streamed into the Palatine Chapel, dark shapes against the glow of candles, their voices rising in a plainsong that seemed to belong to another world entirely—a world of certainty, where God’s will and the emperor’s word were one and the same.

Drogo knew better. He had known better since the winter of 817, when he had watched his father, pale and trembling with fever, place the imperial crown upon Lothar’s head and proclaim him co-emperor. Drogo had been nine years old, crouched behind a tapestry in the great hall, and he had seen the way Judith’s eyes had narrowed—not with grief for her ailing husband, but with calculation. She had seen the future that day, and she had not liked it.

He pulled his cloak tighter against the evening chill and made his way down the spiral stair, his steps deliberately unhurried. A servant passed him in the corridor, and Drogo offered the boy a lazy smile, the kind that invited dismissal. The servant bowed and hurried on, already forgetting him.

That was the trick of it. To be forgotten was to be free.

He found Bernard of Septimania in the armory, as he always did at this hour, running a whetstone along the edge of a blade that needed no sharpening. The warrior looked up as Drogo entered, and his jaw tightened.

“You should not be here, my prince.”

“And yet here I am.” Drogo settled onto a bench, stretching his legs before him with a theatrical sigh. “The chapel is too cold, the wine too sour, and my father’s courtiers are too tedious. I thought I might find better company among the steel.”

Bernard set down the whetstone. “I am not company. I am a sword for hire, and my contract is with the empress.”

“Ah.” Drogo examined his fingernails. “And how is the good Judith this evening? Still weaving her tapestry of empire, I trust? Still spinning her son’s golden future?”

The warrior’s hand drifted to the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw. “You speak of your stepmother with little respect.”

“I speak of her with great respect. That is why I fear her.” Drogo’s voice dropped, losing its languid edge. “She sees through me, Bernard. She is the only one who does. And I need to know—has she spoken of me? Of my intentions?”

Bernard was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “She has spoken of your hunting parties. Your long afternoons with the falconers. Your fondness for dice and drink.”

“Ah, so the mask holds.”

“For now.” Bernard stepped closer, and Drogo could smell the oil on his leathers, the faint tang of iron. “But she is not a fool, my prince. She knows that a man who appears to be nothing is often planning to become everything.”

Drogo laughed, a bright, careless sound that echoed off the stone walls. “Then let her watch. Let her watch me do nothing, say nothing, want nothing. Let her grow bored of her vigilance. That is when I will strike.”

“And strike at what?” Bernard’s voice was low, almost a growl. “You have no army. No treasury. No support among the bishops. You are the son of an emperor and the brother of an emperor, and you have nothing.”

“I have knowledge.” Drogo rose, and for a moment the mask slipped, and Bernard saw the hunger beneath. “I know where every oath was sworn, and where every oath was broken. I know who paid for the rebellion in Barcelona, and who profited from the truce that followed. I know that my brother Pepin is gathering his forces in Aquitaine, and that he believes his father will forgive him, because he has always been forgiven. I know that Lothar believes the crown is his by divine right, and that he will destroy his own brothers before he allows them to share his throne.”

He paused, and his voice softened. “And I know that my father is dying, one piece at a time, and that he dreams of a unity that no longer exists outside of his prayer book. I know that the empire is a corpse, Bernard, and that it has been rotting since the day Charlemagne drew his last breath. The only question is who will be left standing when the vultures finish their feast.”

The warrior studied him for a long moment. Then he said, “And you believe you will be one of them?”

Drogo smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. “I believe I will be the one who writes the history.”

Outside, the sky had turned the color of bruised plums, and the first drops of rain began to fall, tapping against the windows like the fingers of an impatient god. Bernard moved to close the shutters, but Drogo held up a hand.

“Leave them. I like the smell of rain. It reminds me that the world is still alive, that it can still wash away the blood.” He walked to the window and looked out over the city, where the lights of a thousand hearths flickered in the gathering dark. “Do you know what my father said to me once? When I was a child, before the fever took his mind. He said that a king must be like a father to his people, and that a father must love all his children equally.”

“A noble sentiment.”

“A fatal one.” Drogo turned, and his eyes were bright with something that might have been tears, or might have been rain. “He tried to love us all, and so he taught us that we did not have to earn his love. He taught us that we could betray him and still be forgiven. And now his sons are sharpening their knives, and his wife is weaving her plots, and his empire is bleeding out from a thousand wounds. And all because he could not choose.”

He stepped away from the window, and the mask slipped back into place, the lazy smile, the languid grace. “But I am not my father, Bernard. I do not love my brothers. I do not love my stepmother. I do not even love this empire, with its broken oaths and its rotting cathedrals. I love only the game.”

“And what is the game?”

Drogo’s smile widened. “Survival.”

He moved toward the door, then paused, his hand on the latch. “Tell Judith what you heard tonight. Tell her that Drogo spent the hour complaining about the cold and the wine and the tediousness of court. Tell her that I am harmless, and lazy, and beneath her notice.”

“And if I do not?”

Drogo looked back over his shoulder, and for a moment Bernard saw something ancient in those young eyes, something that had no business in the face of a boy of twenty. “Then you will have made an enemy of the only man in this palace who has ever been honest with you. And I think you know, Bernard of Septimania, how rare honesty is in this place.”

He opened the door, and the rain rushed in, cold and sharp and smelling of earth and iron. “Goodnight, warrior. Sleep well. Tomorrow, the game begins again.”