Page 55 of Rogue

“The Great War is World War I?”

“Yes, that one, and he did not have any legitimate children. There was a huge crisis because once the nobles of Monagasquay—”

Augustine started coughing again, and Dree reached over to pound him on the back. “You okay?”

He recovered, “Oh, God, yes. I’m more than okay.Monagasquay.Anyway, once they’d traced his lineage, the next heir who was not the issue of a morganatic marriage or an illegitimate child wasa German duke.”

“Oh, Germany. Yeah.Germany.”Dree was wracking her head for any information about World War I. None of her school history classes had gotten past the US Civil War in the late 1800s. She figured that Germany must have been on the opposite side, while the US and France were on the same team, just like in World War II. Monagasquay must have been on France’s side, too.

Augustine continued, “Monagasquay did not want a German duke to be our sovereign because it looked like Germany was going to war with the rest of Europe. France certainly didn’t want a German-allied small country right on their border.”

“Right,”Dree said. Yes, she was probably right about the sides.Okay, then.

“So, there was a great national crisis, but within a week, a constitution was written that allowed the few nobles of Monagasquay to elect a new sovereign.”

“I’ve never even heard of any country electing a king,” she said. Obviously, that was because Augustine was messing with her, but it was a pretty cool story.

Indeed, she kind of wanted to see just how far he could go with this story of his.

Quiz time.

She was totally going to pimp him with questions about this baloney.

He said, “It was commonly done in Viking and Scandinavian cultures. Denmark elected their monarchs for centuries. That’s why in the playHamlet,his uncle waselectedas king after Hamlet’s father, the original king, died. Hamlet thought his uncle usurped his rightful inheritance because he couldn’t get back from University before the election.”

Oh, he was telling her the story ofHamlet.“Tell me a bedtime story, Auggie.”

Augustine laughed and flipped the covers over himself better, holding them against his stomach with his arms. “That’s about it.”

“But how are you a prince of Monagasquay if the next king is going to be elected?”

“We don’t have a king. We have a sovereign prince.”

“And he’s the ruler.”

“Yes,” he said.

“So, your head honcho is a prince, not a king.”

“Right.”

“So is it a prince-dom instead of a king-dom?”

“It’s called a principality, but I’ve been accused of being a Prince-Dom.”

Dree tried to wrap her head around the word. “I don’t get it.”

“Never mind. Not important,pet.”

“So,” she said, “you have a ruler who’s a prince, you have more than one prince, but you have no kings and it’s not a kingdom.”

He grinned. “Yes.”

“That’s so screwed up.”

“Ah, now you’ve got it. I think so, too. We should have a king, but there are rules about calling someone a king or a prince. Anyway, ever since the World War I election, the nobles have almost always elected one of the previous sovereign prince’s sons as the next ruler.”

“Only sons?” Dree asked. “Why not daughters?”