“What I find ironic is that we have this extraordinary historical information because of one person’s venality.”

“True,” Shawn agreed with a more open laugh. “But what I find ironic is that the same venality is quite likely going to vault me into the archaeological stratosphere. Belzoni, Schliemann, and Carter will have nothing on me.”

Sana couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Although Shawn’s seeming self-confidence had impressed her at the beginning of their relationship, she now found it puerile and self-absorbed, again suggesting Shawn harbored insecurity that she had not initially suspected.

Catching her reaction and misinterpreting it, Shawn added, “You don’t think this is going to be a big event? You’re wrong! This is going to be huge. And you know who I’m going to have the most fun breaking the news to?”

“I can’t imagine,” Sana said. She was more interested in continuing the discussion of the contents of the shocking letter, rather than its potential effect on Shawn’s career.

“His Eminence!” Shawn said with a touch of mock disdain. “James Cardinal O’Rourke, bishop of the Archdiocese of New York.” Shawn laughed, savoring the anticipation. “I can’t wait to drop in on my old Amherst College drinking buddy, now the most elevated member of the ecclesiastical establishment that I know and the one who’s forever lecturing me to mend my ways. I’m going to have a lot of fun rubbing his nose in this letter, proving to him that one of his uppity-up popes, believing he was infallible, was dead wrong. Mark my words!”

“Oh, please!” Sana scoffed. Too often, she’d witnessed her husband and the archbishop arguing uselessly into the wee hours of the morning, particularly about papal infallibility, after a dinner at the cardinal’s residence. “You two are never going to agree on anything.”

“This time, thanks to Saturninus, I’ll have proof.”

“Well, I hope I’m not there,” Sana remarked. She’d never enjoyed those evenings and lately had stopped participating. She’d asked if they could go out to a restaurant instead, which Sana thought would calm their behavior. But neither Shawn nor James were willing. They enjoyed their endless, seemingly acrimonious debates too much and didn’t want to be restrained.

Back at the beginning of their relationship, when Shawn had first told her about his long-standing friendship with the archbishop, she didn’t entirely believe him. The archbishop was the most powerful prelate in the country, if not the hemisphere. The man was a true celebrity. There was even talk that he might be destined for the Vatican.

Yet it wasn’t just their respective positions that made their friendship seem so unlikely. It was their personalities—Shawn the sophisticated extrovert, constantly seeking opportunities for real or imagined self-aggrandizement, James the ever-modest parish priest who had been waylaid by fate to assume more and more responsibilities for which he was ill prepared. What never ceased to amuse Sana was that these opposite personality styles were denied by the old friends themselves. Shawn would have none of James’s expressed modesty, accusing him of unbridled ambition fortified by exceptional pragmatism, shrewdness, and his ability to flatter. James considered Shawn’s bravado equally suspect, convinced Shawn was a deeply insecure person, a belief Sana was beginning to share. James never tired of constantly reminding Shawn that God and the Church were there to help him.