Chapter 57: A Secret Meeting
The carriages outside the Mirror Palace gradually increased in number. Pious believers, cunning speculators, and fence-sitters eager for news… all sorts of people filled the palace secretariat with their requests for an audience. Several secretaries who had followed the Pope from Florence had to sort through the voluminous correspondence daily, categorizing it before presenting it to His Holiness before his morning prayers. The workload was undeniably immense.
Unless invited to a banquet by Her Majesty the Queen, Pope Sistine I’s daily routine was regular and simple. A half-hour of morning prayer, breakfast, receiving one or two visitors, then an afternoon of work, followed by tea, and finally, the most important meal of the day, dinner, and some free time.
This routine continued until February when the Royal Council of Perigo convened to discuss the issue of Princess Sancha’s legitimate succession rights.
The first day of the meeting was open to both upper and lower houses of parliament, where they publicly debated whether to uphold the Sarik Succession Law, an ancient law that had been in place in Rome for hundreds of years, excluding women from the right of succession. As the only legitimate child of Lav XI, Sancha was naturally excluded from the line of succession.
According to the law of succession, if Sancha was excluded, the heir would need to be traced back up the bloodline to find the closest male relative to inherit Lav XI’s throne. As Lav XI’s cousin, Duke Horton was the chosen one.
Naturally, Amandra couldn’t bear to see her daughter’s throne fall into someone else’s hands. The nobles, on the other hand, held an ambiguous attitude towards this problem. They were hesitant to have a princess with foreign blood ruling Rome, especially since this could potentially lead to Rome becoming part of Assyria. But this also meant that Queen Mother Amandra would have to make significant concessions to them to gain their support. Moreover, women would always have to eventually marry and have children. Perhaps they had a chance to introduce their family’s lineage into the bloodline of Rome’s royal family?
After all, people are selfish creatures. In their pursuit of power and the expansion of their family’s influence, the nobles sometimes didn’t care so much about the fate of the Roman Empire. As long as the price was right, they could kneel before Sancha and swear their allegiance without blinking an eye.
The Princess faction and the Duke faction had been at odds for the five years since Lav XI’s death, but neither side had completely broken with the other. The longer the time dragged on, the more opportunities there were for the nobles to profit by playing both sides. They didn’t want to completely offend either party. As long as they didn’t resort to unforgivable means, even if they lost in the struggle for the throne, the loser would still be the duke or princess, while they themselves didn’t have such a golden ticket to immunity.
The debate in the parliament about the succession law had continued for dozens of sessions, each time halted for different reasons. Until this time, with the escalating chaos in Assyria and the arrival of the Pope, everyone knew that this meeting would be the last. The Roman crown, which had been vacant for nearly five years, was about to find its new owner.