O, Juliet Part 25

Your stars, shape of the mighty bull, elude me tonight, oh why?

They would give me strength, I know, the strength I need to die.

But here am I, green vial in hand, choice of deathlike slumber or life like death in a harridan's house, the Beast's icy fingers on my breast.

G.o.d of Love, hear the prayers of a faithless child, faithful wife.

Overwatch our stumbling trials, let us never come to grief.

I close my eyes and there he stands, bright spirit in my room, figs in hand, hands of blood.

Will he come to my tomb?

I laid down the quill beside the page of new verse and sat still as stone, all but my eyes. They swiveled right and I saw the moonlit garden, to the left set upon a wooden form my wedding dress in all its obscene splendor.

Freedom, I thought, I thought, or tyranny. or tyranny. The choice was mine. Spoken thusly, it was an easy election. But choosing Romeo a.s.sumed that Romeo would come. The choice was mine. Spoken thusly, it was an easy election. But choosing Romeo a.s.sumed that Romeo would come.

Friar Bartolomo, without hesitation or doubt, believed he would. Even Lucrezia presumed that her letter would find a husband ready and willing to steal back into the city of his banishment, with certain death should he be caught, to carry me away from my father's house.

At first I had believed in his resolve. I had leapt at Lucrezia's plan to call him back from Verona. Why had Jacopo's sabotaging of our scheme also wounded my faith in Romeo's steadfastness? How could a simple evil act have had such insidious power over me?

Romeo had done nothing, not a single thing, to incite my mistrust of him or his love for me. Yet I had begun to think him weak for failing to come of his own volition, or to find a way for his letter to reach my hand.

But it was I who was weak. I who was faithless. I who, having been thrown down once, refused to stand up again and face my tormentor.

Shame rose in me, flushing my face red.

Jacopo was clever and was now provoked to action by the one emotion whose strength rivaled that of love-jealousy. Should I, my resolve unnaturally weakened, give license to this despot and allow his unholy sentiment to prevail? Allow to unravel the whole precious cloth of Romeo and Juliet that the G.o.d of Love had so flawlessly woven?

All at once the courage that Friar Bartolomo reminded me I owned burst through my skin and straightened my spine. My will hardened, and joy came flooding in great waves onto the sh.o.r.es of my battered soul.

I went to the small wooden casket under my bed and unlocked it, pulling forth my many poems. I unfurled the sketch Romeo had given me of the G.o.d of Love. I shuddered when I saw the woman draped in red, lying in his arms, for to my eyes she looked limp and dead. I flattened the paper and, gathering it and all my writings into a single sheaf, tied it with a string. I pulled over my night-robe and gown a warm cloak and, grabbing my dagger, opened the balcony door.

I was glad for the moonlight so bright it cast shadows, for without it I might not have found the edge of the floor stone I sought near the balcony's center. It was one I had many times felt as a small ledge under my feet, an imperfection I avoided so not to trip.

Now I knelt at it, feeling its height with my fingers. With the blade I found its weakness and began frantic digging into the mortar. It was loosening! A moment later, using all my strength, I raised it up and slid it aside. Rain in the cracks had happily softened the thick mortar beneath it, and this I carved away with the flat of the dagger, making a s.p.a.ce the size of my sheaf.

I put it in its hiding place, replaced the stone, and bore down on it with all my weight till it was even with ones near it. With fingers gone numb I pressed the dried mortar into the s.p.a.ces to hide my handiwork, then scooped up piles of remaining stone dust, heaving it over the balcony wall.

I swept the place with my hand and walked on it till it was flat and I was satisfied that it looked no different than it had before. I stood and looked up at the sky. Somewhere there was Taurus, proud bull. Romeo's stars. Romeo's House. The stars that had promised me to him. But this night clouds hid all sight of the stars. The constellation eluded me ... and there was no time to spare.

Inside again, I was perspiring beneath my cloak and threw it off. I removed my night-robe as well and stood at my family's jewel box, pulling it open to reveal the gems that glittered in the torchlight.

The green gla.s.s vial was in my hand. I did not hesitate. I did not question. I drank the liquid down, hardly tasting its bitterness, for its purpose was so sweet. I pushed aside the heavy necklaces that lined the box's bottom and found a place to set the trinket. With our family's jewels piled atop the thing, it disappeared, nothing more than a costly emerald's fragment to an unsuspecting eye.

I was still strong and steady on my feet as I walked to my bed. I kept as a constant vision the face of my Romeo, bright eyes, sharp-angled jaw, that mane of hair as it had been the night we'd met. But as I lay me down and drew the covers over my chest, I felt the first cold fingers of the potion in my veins. Weariness came upon me quite suddenly, and I thought, This is not a fearful thing. It is just a long slumber at whose end I shall see the face of my beloved smiling down at me. This is not a fearful thing. It is just a long slumber at whose end I shall see the face of my beloved smiling down at me. Then utter darkness fell, like an enveloping velvet curtain over my head. No light. No sound. No feeling. Then utter darkness fell, like an enveloping velvet curtain over my head. No light. No sound. No feeling.

And all at once I was gone from this world to another.

Romeo Time dragged, and no word back from my love was nearly my undoing. Certainly she had received my letters. Once a trusted courier, Ma.s.simo would prove one again. And the friar, my friend and adviser in love, he who had risked all manner of punishment for overseeing our clandestine marriage, would he not be sponsoring the correspondence between Juliet and myself?

Why had she not written?

Had Marco's killing been, despite my innocence in an act of murder, too much for her to bear? Had my weakness and tears at our last meeting been repulsive to her? Had her apparent bliss in our marriage bed been no more than a kind deception?

No! I refused to believe such perversions of our faith in each other. If I had had no word from Juliet, then some evil force was at work to prevent it.

Still I was uneasy. How could my scheme unfold without her complicity, her consent? Without knowledge of my time of arrival to rescue her, she would be forced into preparedness every moment of every day and night.

I revised my arrangements without any word from Juliet. She would know, of course, that darkness was our ally. I must a.s.sume, too, that she had procured her male disguise and would bravely come as she had on our wedding night, down the ladder from her balcony. All that was needed now was our conveyance.

My uncles Vittorio and Vincenzo must be convinced to a.s.sist me. I would ask them for the use of a wine cart and a team of two horses. When I parked beneath the Capelletti's garden wall, Juliet would climb down and hide beneath some rugs, and I would drive the cart at full speed from the city.

But I had to move quickly. I had to move now. For the present she and I could live happily in this house, away from prying eyes. Our bed was almost finished. Then perhaps I could come to some arrangement with my father-to receive some part of my inheritance before his death. Juliet and I would need little for a happy life. Perhaps we would, as she'd always dreamed, travel to the far corners of the world.

Thus fortified with my plan, such as it was, I left the crone's house as night descended and made my way to my uncles' villa. As always I extinguished my torch within a hundred yards of the place, this night struggling with only the dim quarter moon for illumination.

I became alarmed at my first sight of the villa from a distance, for no lights shone at the walled gates' lanterns, nor in the second-story windows that could be seen above the wall. I felt my stomach churn, but told myself the servants must be lazy or forgetful, though I did move stealthily as I approached, straining to hear the familiar sounds that would tell me all was well within.

But all I heard was the wind singing eerily in the pines and a single hound baying mournfully. When I found the gate ajar and no lights shining from the ground-floor windows, my worst fears gripped me with terrible force.

Then I stumbled, having tripped over something soft yet solid lying in the drive. It was my uncle Vittorio's favorite dog, stone dead. Even in the dim moonlight I could see its belly had been slit and its bowels sprawling obscenely on the ground.

Suddenly I was paralyzed, not with fear, but with rage, for I knew with no small doubt what horrors lay within my uncles' house, and the cause of it.

With all the fort.i.tude I owned, I willed my legs to move and made for the front door. This, too, was half-open and upon entering, I found myself standing in a pool of gore, though no body from which it had flowed. I lit a lamp and saw at once that whoever had been savaged at the door had dragged himself away into the house. Farther on I found Francesco, who lay in a heap near the stairs, too much blood covering his torso to see where he had been stabbed.

Now I saw that the house had been ransacked-tapestries torn from the walls, furniture toppled, my uncles' prized Venetian urn in a hundred pieces on the floor.

It took no time to discover my father's brothers. The attack had come as they sat eating their midday meal, the a.s.sa.s.sins rushing in so quickly and unexpectedly in broad daylight that Vittorio still sat at the table, the napkin at his neck caked brownish red, and his soup bowl overflowing with the blood that had gushed from his slashed throat.

Uncle Vincenzo, it seemed, had put up a fight, as his hands and arms were covered in deep gashes. He lay on his back near the table. I fell to my knees beside him and covered his body with mine, tears beginning to well, howls of rage forming in my throat.

But then I heard a sound from beneath me. I took Vincenzo's hand and found that while it lacked warmth, it did not have the feel of icy death. I put my face close to his and felt the softest rush of air on my cheek, and heard an unnatural hiss from his chest.

"Uncle," I whispered. "I am here."

"Romeo ..."

It was hard for him to speak. I saw now that his doublet front was heavy with blood.

"I did not tell them where you were . . . even as they held the knife at Vittorio's throat."

"Strozzi's men?" I uttered, horrified at my own words.

"Who else?" Now he groaned and I held him closer, tears falling.

"Nephew . . . ," he managed, blood trickling from his mouth, ". . . a confession."

"I am no priest, Uncle." I was agonized by my helplessness.

"No priest . . ." His words were more difficult to hear. "Confession to you ..."

"Me? What?" I pulled back to see his face more clearly. "You have done nothing but love and protect me."

"The letters . . ."

I shook my head uncomprehendingly.

"... letters to your wife . . . unsent."

"Unsent?"

"Too dangerous for you."

Now it was dawning-the reason for Juliet's silence.

"She never received my letters?"

"Forgive us, Romeo. . . . The family . . . our blood . . . our blood." I groaned at the irony of his choking on the blood he had wished so fiercely to protect.

"You do forgive us?"

"Forgive you? You must forgive me me! I am the cause of this. I am the cause!"

I hugged him again and kissed his face, but then the long final rasping breath was expelled and settled him into death's ease.

I sat numb by his side for a s.p.a.ce of time, then took my uncle Vittorio under his arms and lowered him to the floor, dragging him with regrettable gracelessness to his brother's side. I laid them out in as dignified a fashion as was possible in this circ.u.mstance. I steeled myself to find the cook and their body servants in the house, who were all most certainly dead, but as I stood, I heard a sound at the door . . . footsteps.

I rose and reached for my dagger, but before I could spring into action, the figure of a man appeared in the dining room doorway. He was unarmed and held a torch that illuminated his face. He was young, wearing the simple garb of a messenger, and he expressed in his features a look of abject horror at what he had seen, and now fright at the sight of me, covered in blood, standing over the mutilated bodies of my uncles, enraged, and clutching a dagger.

He turned to bolt but I shouted at him, "Stay, stay! I am Romeo. My uncles have been murdered. I thought you were their killer, come to finish me!"

He turned back, trembling and openmouthed with shock. "You are Romeo?"

I nodded. "And you are . . . ?"

"A page in the house of Medici."

Word from Juliet! A glimmer of light in this ghastly scene around me.

"Tell me," I said, going to him. I grabbed him with such force he recoiled.

"I am come to say . . ." He stopped as though to refresh himself of the words he was meant to recite. His face hardened and his eyes went cold, avoiding my gaze entirely.

A chill rattled through me in the moment before he said, "Lady Juliet Capelletti is dead, having succ.u.mbed on the eve of her wedding to Jacopo Strozzi."

The rest I do not remember well. I moved slowly, as though ice were in my veins. Disorder and bewilderment reigned inside my head. My uncles and their servants needed burial-of that I was sure-but the thought of remaining at the villa, overseeing their funerals, was untenable as long as their murderers were at large.

And Juliet. How was it possible she was dead? Dead, and "on the eve of her wedding to Jacopo Strozzi"? The Medici courier was useless for any further facts than those that he had been sent to deliver, all but that the planned marriage of Lucrezia and Piero de' Medici had taken place, though without celebration-a mere formality, the exchange of rings and the dowry given, everyone dressed in mourning black.

Before he rode back to Florence, he asked if there was any message I wished to send back to Lucrezia. I had none.

I had not a single coherent thought in my head.

I did find that though the stable hands had been killed, the horses put out to pasture in the afternoon had been overlooked. I took one and must have saddled and bridled it, for I rode it back to the crone's house, low branches scratching at my face, though I felt nothing. I did not hear the birds, the sounds of the forest. I did not smell the moist ferns or moss as I crossed the stream. Was blind to the sight of sun-dappled ground that had always cheered me so. My senses were altogether absent. Those joyful perceptions in which I had reveled my whole life and with which I had courted my wife were far beyond muted.

They were lost. As dead as she was.

I gathered what little I owned from the cottage and began my journey home.

I rode like the Devil was chasing me, though in truth he was before me-in the city of Florence. Jacopo Strozzi. Evil incarnate. I spurred my horse faster.

What is the hurry, Romeo? a cold voice whispered in the wind at my ear. a cold voice whispered in the wind at my ear. Juliet is dead. There is nothing can be done. Juliet is dead. There is nothing can be done.

Nothing but revenge her death. And the others, I answered. I answered. Tearing Strozzi limb from limb, watching him writhe with agony in an ever-widening pool of his own blood. Tearing Strozzi limb from limb, watching him writhe with agony in an ever-widening pool of his own blood.

Here on the road from Verona to Florence, farmers with their carts full of onions and cages of squawking chickens jammed the track, forcing me time after time to gallop around them, kicking up clods of dirt and clouds of dust, causing all manner of cursing at so rude a traveler.

Farther on a coach had broken down and a distressed family, their small children squalling, gestured for me to stop and help. I did not. Even a monk who knelt by the side of a fallen horse shrieking with the pain of a badly broken leg moved me not at all.

Instead I spurred my mount unmercifully. For I had no mercy left in my soul, and no love either, save that of revenge and the sight of Jacopo Strozzi's heart, still beating, impaled on the tip of my dagger.

My first sight of Florence, one that I'd believed would soothe my soul, did nothing but anger me. Here was the seat of all my sorrow, all my pain, all my loss.

It was midday, midweek, and I knew where I was most bound to find the object of my loathing. But when I dismounted round the corner from Capelletti Silks, I came upon a scene most unexpected. No one was working. The street in front of the factory-much rehabilitated since the fire-was crowded with Florentines. An entire bolt's worth of twisted silk, black-in honor, I a.s.sumed, of the recent deaths in the family-was draped the whole length of the building.

It was a strange gathering, ceremonial in nature, though all those in attendance were, too, in black. Among the throng I found Capello and Simonetta Capelletti, grim and shrunk by their loss.The weavers, dyers, and spinners employed within were there, looking uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to another. Don Cosimo and Piero de' Medici, and Piero's new bride, Lucrezia, were just descending from a coach with Poggio Bracciolini.

Coming to greet them, oozing with deference and grat.i.tude, was Jacopo Strozzi.

My first sight of him roused a fury in me, but I held myself steady, certain that for the ending I desired for him, my own cool head was necessary. I further a.s.sessed the scene before me.

On a table was displayed an official-looking contract, an inkpot and a quill, and a pair of giant-bladed scissors meant to cut the thick ribbon, signifying, I a.s.sumed, the legal commencement of the partnership of Capelletti and Strozzi.

With everyone of importance now in attendance, an obsequious Jacopo led Don Cosimo and Poggio forward and beckoned to Capello. Joylessly, he kissed his wife and joined the three men at the table.

Don Cosimo gazed at the a.s.sembled but was silent for a long moment. He was never a man at a loss for words, but this day it appeared he could not find a sentiment that pleased him.