law. Its principal departments consisted of the Secretariat of State, nine congregations, three tribunals, five councils, and eleven offices and commissions. Together they were the administrative apparatus of the Holy See, its civil service, acting in the pope’s name, with his authority, providing a central, governing organization. Without it, the church could not function. Popes loved to both complain about, and tinker with, the curia.
But rarely had it changed.
It was presently controlled by the Apostolic Constitution Pastor bonus, issued by John Paul II in 1988, later revised by Francis I.
The waiter arrived with his rabbit stew in a thick-sided crockery bowl, leaving it, along with a basket of warm bread and another glass of wine. He took a moment and enjoyed the stew’s aroma, remembering the way his mother would make the same dish. She’d spend Friday evenings searching for the best rabbit, killing it herself, then dressing and chopping the carcass, marinating the meat with red wine. He and his brother would watch the preparations with fascination, standing on their tiptoes, peering over the counter.
And the sounds.
They’d stayed in his psyche.
The basso tick of a clock hanging on the kitchen wall. The deep bongs of distant church bells. The water boiling. The snap of bone.
Saturday morning the house would wake to the smell of garlic as the stew simmered. He knew all of her ingredients by heart. Tomato passata, olive oil, sugar, bay leaves, carrots, potatoes, peas.
A wondrous mix.
He enjoyed a spoonful of what sat before him.
Not bad.
The restaurant prepared an admirable stew, but it was nothing like what his mother had created.
He missed those weekends.
Before the orphanage. Where there’d been no stew.
No mother.
Spagna was right. He had become a thief and a liar. Why didn’t the mother superior do something? Why had she allowed it to happen? He didn’t for a moment believe God had intervened, sending him off to the seminary and a new life. Faith was not something he’d ever totally embraced. Odd for a cardinal. But he could not help it. Fate was more his style. His life had been a series of fateful events, each one sending him along a seemingly predetermined path to this moment. Had he messed up with the last pope? Absolutely. But what did he have to feel bad about? According to what he’d just read, the Holy See seemed riddled with thieves and liars, too.
He kept eating.
The Roman Catholic Church carried the distinction of being the oldest continuous human institution in the world. It could deal with just about anything except the unexpected—and a pope dying in an instant certainly fit into that category.
Popes came in cycles of young and old.
A young Pius XII, then an old John XXIII. A vibrant Paul VI, followed by the frail John Paul I. The lion John Paul II, succeeded by the elder placeholder Benedict XVI. The pattern stretched back centuries, rarely varying. The last Vicar of Christ, now lying in the crypt beneath St. Peter’s, had been older. His reign had been intended to be short, about a decade, giving other challengers the time to amass support. The longest-serving pope remained the first. Peter. Some said thirty-four, others thirty-seven years. Nobody really knew. So if history were to be trusted, the next pope would be younger, lingering longer, potentially having a greater impact.
He liked that he would not have to disrupt the natural cycle.
He finished the stew and the waiter returned to carry away the dishes. He asked for more wine, which was poured. The young man had no idea who he was serving. He liked how he could move about the world with anonymity. Few outside of the Vatican knew or cared that he existed. And who was he anyway? Just a priest from a rock in the Mediterranean who’d risen to great stature, only to have it all stripped away. Thankfully, they could not take his red hat. Nor the friends he’d made. Men who remained in positions of power and influence and who would shortly be looking for a leader.
There’d been Greek, Syrian, African, Spanish, French, German, and Dutch popes. One Englishman, a single Pole, two laymen, and a ton of Italians. All were either nobles, former slaves, peasants, or aristocracy. Never, though, had there been a Portuguese, Irish, Scandinavian, Slovak, Slovenian, Bohemian, Hungarian, or American pope.
Nor a Maltese.
Thankfully, that blood vessel suddenly rupturing would limit the cardinals’ time for scheming. And make no mistake, cardinals schemed. The whole idea of sealing them away had been to limit the