The Road Order
The answer from Ammerau lay open on Wierach’s table. Its copy had arrived with the wax intact and the cathedral chapter’s seal beneath it. Hartwig’s clerks had written plainly: the privy seal was genuine; no witness to Ludolf’s personal command had been named. Ammerau would retain Adelais, Lambert, and the crown until such confirmation or an audience with the Emperor.
Wierach read it once more while Master Fleck waited beside the hearth. The physician’s injured wrist rested in a sling. He kept his eyes on the table and the papers spread across it.
“Did the Emperor give you an order concerning the Empress?” Wierach asked.
“I have never heard him address that matter.”
“Did he speak of the crown?”
“No.”
“Did he speak of Ammerau?”
“No, my lord.”
Fleck’s answers were quiet and exact. Wierach had expected no different. He had asked because the question had to be put once, with the door shut and no clerk present to record it.
“You have written that his strength improves.”
“Some mornings he can take broth without help. His pulse has been steadier.” Fleck swallowed. “Those things are true.”
“They do not bring him to the chapter.”
“No.”
Wierach folded Hartwig’s answer along its old crease. A seal could carry the Emperor’s authority where the Emperor could not travel. That had been the understanding for years. Now Hartwig had placed the distinction in a register and sent copies to every elector. The law had always depended on men allowing the seal to speak. It would depend on that more than ever now.
“Your wrist needs rest,” Wierach said.
Fleck looked up, uncertain whether he was being dismissed or warned. “It is improving.”
“Then continue your work.”
When Fleck had gone, Wierach asked for Friedel.
The young count arrived before the second bell, dressed for court and carrying the careful expression he wore when he expected to be judged. Wierach showed him Hartwig’s answer and let him read it to the end.
“What does the chapter require?” Friedel asked.
“A witness who heard the Emperor command the return. Or an audience.”
“Can you arrange either?”
Wierach watched him. “The Emperor’s health is poor.”
“That was not my question.”
Next
Hartwig still protects Adelais, Lambert, and the crown inside Ammerau, but Wierach’s road order now tests whether that protection can survive a direct attempt to move them.