Chapter 3: The Morning After Rain

Dawn came grey and dripping over Aachen, the sky the colour of old pewter. Drogo stood at his window, watching the water bead and fall from the eaves, and thought of how easily a man could mistake this place for a monastery if he ignored the gold leaf on the chapel doors and the armed men warming their hands at every brazier.

Bernard of Septimania had kept his word. That was something.

The summons came before the bells had finished matins. A page in imperial livery, scrubbed and nervous, delivered it to Drogo’s chamber with a bow so low it threatened to unseat him. “The Empress Judith requests your presence, my lord. In her private solar. At your earliest convenience.”

Drogo stretched, deliberately slow, and let his robe slip from one shoulder. “The Empress Judith? How terrifying. Tell her I shall require time to dress. I am not fit for imperial eyes before the third glass of wine.”

The page’s face twitched. Uncertain whether to laugh or flee. Drogo smiled at him until he fled.

He took his time. A bath, a shave, a tunic of unassuming green wool stitched with silver thread at the cuffs—rich enough to be royal, dull enough to be forgettable. He studied himself in the polished bronze mirror and adjusted his expression until it looked properly vacant, the face of a man whose thoughts were occupied entirely with hunting dogs and the sweetness of honey cakes.

Judith’s solar was warm when he arrived. A fire crackled in the hearth, and the empress sat in a high-backed chair beside it, her hands folded in her lap like a woman at prayer. She was beautiful still, in the way a winter landscape is beautiful, all sharp angles and pale light. Her son Charles—a boy of four, with Judith’s eyes and Louis’s gentle mouth—played with wooden soldiers at her feet.

“Prince Drogo,” she said. “How gracious of you to come.”

“An empress summons, and I obey.” He bowed, shallow and languid. “I confess I am surprised. I had thought myself beneath your notice.”

Judith smiled, and it did not reach her eyes. “And yet you intrigue me. A prince who keeps such company as Bernard of Septimania. A prince who never raises his voice, never takes a side, never offers an opinion. In a court where every man shouts his loyalties from the rooftops, you whisper your way through the corridors. Tell me, Drogo. What is it you want?”

The question hung between them. Drogo felt the weight of it, the careful trap of a woman who had learned to ask questions sharper than daggers.

He let his gaze drift to the window, to the grey rain, to the distant shape of the chapel where his father would be at prayer. Then he looked back at her, and let a little of the mask slip. Not much. Just enough.

“I want to survive,” he said. “Is that so strange? My brothers tear the empire apart to prove which of them loves our father most. You fight to carve a kingdom for your son from the wreckage. And I—I want to live long enough to see the end of it. To find some quiet corner of the world where I can plant vines and watch them grow.”

Judith studied him. The firelight caught the lines at her eyes, the faint tension in her jaw. “And you think you will be allowed such peace? When Lothar takes the throne, and Louis the German sharpens his knives, and Pepin grows fat on Aquitaine—you think they will leave you alone, a brother with a royal name and no allegiance?”

“I think I am not worth their trouble.”

“You are worth more than you pretend,” she said softly. “And that is precisely why I asked you here. My son needs protectors. Not soldiers, not councillors—protectors who know how to move without being seen. You could be such a man, Drogo. For a price.”

The fire cracked. Charles looked up from his soldiers, frowning at his mother’s tone, then returned to his game.

Drogo considered her words. She was offering him something dangerous: a purpose. A stake in the game he had sworn to avoid. And yet, as he looked at the boy—small, bright-eyed, innocent of the storm gathering around him—he felt something twist in his chest. An echo of his own childhood, of being the youngest, the overlooked, the one who had to learn to smile while the world burned around him.

“And what price would that be?” he asked.

Judith leaned forward. “You will be my eyes in this palace. You will tell me what you see, what you hear, what you suspect. And when the time comes—when the factions clash and the throne trembles—you will stand with my son. You will help me ensure that Charles is not forgotten.”

Drogo let the silence stretch. He counted his heartbeats, felt the weight of the choice settling on him like a cloak too heavy for his shoulders. He could refuse. He could fade back into the shadows and watch the empire tear itself apart from a safe distance. But he had seen the way his father’s hands shook when he lifted the communion cup. He had seen the cracks spreading through the Carolingian dream.

And he had seen Bernard’s face in the rain, desperate and wary and alive.

“I will not swear to you,” Drogo said at last. “Oaths are cheap in this palace, and I have seen too many broken to trust the binding. But I will watch. I will listen. And if it comes to it, I will stand where I am needed. Not for the crown, not for the glory—for the boy. And for my father’s peace.”

Judith’s smile softened, just fractionally. “That is more than I expected. And more than I will forget.”

She rose, and the audience was over. Drogo bowed again, deeper this time, and turned to leave. But at the door, her voice stopped him.

“One more thing, Drogo. My husband has asked for you. He wishes to speak with you before the noon council. I do not know what he intends—but he spoke your name with a tenderness I have not heard in months. Whatever he says to you, remember this: the emperor is not the man he once was. He is breaking, Drogo. And broken men do desperate things.”

Drogo nodded and slipped out into the corridor, the cold stone beneath his feet like a warning. His father wanted to see him. His father, who had spent the last year weeping over betrayals and penances, who had crowned and uncrowned sons like pieces on a board.

He walked toward the chapel, and the rain began again, soft and relentless, as if the sky itself were grieving for what was to come.