Maxence suspected this did not bode well for him.
She asked, “So, did youreallynot want it?”
He burrowed down into his mind, deeply examining what he wanted and what hethoughthe wanted, until he said, “Ididn’twant it, even if Pierre had abdicated his position instead of dying. Lots of royals have abdicated. He might have. He had several personal situations where he might have done it or have been forced to, and I’d already made plans to abdicate and leave if that had happened. Ever since I could remember, though, I wantedout.The priesthood was a wayoutthat no one could question, and thus I wanted to join the priesthood.”
Dree said, “There are other ways out. You could have just renounced it a long time ago.”
“My uncle Rainier told me, flat out, that he would not accept my renunciation unless or until Pierre had produced twolegitimatesons from a Catholic, dynastic marriage. There’s that whole problem with the treaties of France. If there isn’t a sovereign prince, Monaco will cease to exist.”
“Yeah, I remember that about Monagasquay.”
“What the hell is Monagasquay?” Quentin Sault demanded.
They ignored him.
Dree said, “You could have just signed up with the Catholic Church and found someone to give you Holy Orders. Not a lot of men want to be priests these days. They pass out Holy Orders like candy if you ask nicely.”
Maxence shook his head. “Pope Celestine the Sixth told me he would never allow me to be ordained, even if my uncle or my brother consented. And if I were, he would declare it invalid.”
She squinted at the ceiling, thinking. “Isn’t he the Pope Emeritus now, and that’s how we got Pope Vincent de Paul?”
Max smiled. “Yes.”
“But you’re a deacon now. You already took the first level of Holy Orders.”
He nodded. “His Eminence Pope Vincent de Paul allowed me to take those.”
“If you’ve had the sacrament of Holy Orders, you can’t get married. If you can’t get married, you can’t have legitimate kids. That’s a problem for those treaties with France you were talking about, right?”
Maxence sighed and dropped his head forward into his hands. “My vows were made to be broken. There are liturgical methods for laicization for deacons and priests who want to quit, even for cardinals, but everyone knew I was a special case. Pope Vincent de Paul wrote the vows in such a way so that he can call me on the phone and laicize me in five minutes. That’s why Father Booker was poking at me that my sacrament probably wasn’t valid, and he’s probably right.”
Dree nodded slowly, obviously thinking hard. “So, you can just walk away from being a deacon. That’s why you’ve been holding onto it so tightly.”
His skin chilled like all his clothes had been ripped off in the Himalayas in December, leaving him exposed. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“But you haven’t been allowed to walk away from Monaco and the royal family.”
“It’s not like that. I’m not just rebelling for the sake of it.”
She shook her head, still thinking. “No, I don’t think you would rebel just for the sake of it. It’s not mere oppositional defiance. You’re not like that. There’s more.” She looked at him more intently, even leaning toward his face and scrutinizing him. “So, why don’t you want to go?”
He blinked. “Why don’t I go where?”
“Why not go to Monaco and lobby that council and be the prince? What’s stopping you?”
Wan winter sunlight barely glowed from the front windows of the inn’s lobby, and the air was saturated with gloom.
Three photocopied pictures of the Hindu gods Ganesh and Shiva were tacked to the wall behind the desk, and rustic hand-embroidered tapestries depicted scenes of gods and shepherdesses from the Vedas in violet and red.
The cold wind whistled outside the front door, a clock on the opposite wall ticked loudly, and one of the commandos scraped his boot on the floor.
Herbal incense smoke, grilled chicken and lamb from last night’s supper, and the cucumber and rose scent of Dree’s soap like an English castle’s kitchen garden filled his nose.
The ceramic tile on the floor chilled his butt and the backs of his legs. The thin December air needled his forehead and the inside of his nose when he breathed.
Dree’s fingers were warm.
She was still scrutinizing him, waiting for an answer while he calmed his mind.
