by Rachel Caine
I cared only to stop our unsafe little world from flying apart around us.
Friar Lawrence saw me, and his plump face went still for a moment, then took on an expression of resignation as he closed the door behind him. “Master Benvolio,” he said. “What brings you?”
I held out my palm and let the pearl roll from one side to the other. The guilt was plain to see in him, but he assumed a brave martyr’s stance, with his hands folded together in his sleeves.
“Don’t you know what will come of this?” I asked. My tone was tight and dangerous, and he took note, but he did not back down.
“Peace, if you will allow it,” he said. “Montague and Capulet have too long let their blood flow down these streets; your own father died for—”
“You betrayed us.”
“I am on no one’s side but God’s, my son. Their love was so strong that if I had refused to bless it, it would have been done without God’s seal; there is no doubt of it. Would you have me step aside and allow the sin instead?”
“You’ve said the words, but I may yet stop them from this folly. Where are they?”
“I’ll not say.”
“Where?” I gripped him by the shoulders and stared hard into his eyes, and he flinched. “He is my cousin, close as a brother, and I won’t see him dead on Tybalt’s sword. Now tell me where they plan to make their bower, and do it quickly!”
The look he gave me was oddly sad, as if he pitied me in that moment—and also knew that I might do him harm. “The passion between them is too great, Benvolio; I’ve never seen the like. A madness, you understand, a thirst slaked only by love’s drink, or death. Which would you have?”
This time I shoved him against the wall, and with my right hand I drew my dagger. I did not put it to his throat, but he knew that was where it would be bound if he delayed me again.
Friar Lawrence squeezed his eyes closed a moment, and his lips moved as if he prayed. Whatever God instructed, he did not seem happy with it, but he finally said, “They will do it by night, in secret. You need not seek them out now; they will wait. I made them vow it under the eyes of God. There is time to separate them, but I warn you: What pulls them together is nothing a mortal man may battle; it is a holy fire, I tell you, a most holy fire that burns in them.”
“The devil can stoke a fire as well as ever God could,” I shot back, but I sheathed my dagger. “You swear on the cross that they parted from each other?”
“Yes,” he said. “Juliet’s nurse has taken her home, and Romeo has gone as well. I swear it upon the cross.”
“If you see Romeo, tell him I know,” I said. “Tell him this is done. It goes no further.”
Friar Lawrence gave me a sad look, and poured himself a cup of wine, which he downed in a great, messy gulp. “I remember a boy swaddling in a robe and playing a monk one evening, for the love of a girl,” he said. “Have you no pity in your heart for your cousin’s strong desire?”
“No more than I will have pity for you, should this go badly,” I said, and drew the dagger. I sank it into the table to a depth that would have reached his heart. “Mark me, Friar. I speak not for myself, but for Montague.”
Balthasar shut the friar’s door behind us, heaving a sigh of relief that he had not been forced to crack the friar’s skull for me. I was not feeling lighter—the damage was still great, most certainly, and the marriage would have to be undone by the Capulet and Montague elders alike, but it could be fixed in secret, with careful diplomacy. Romeo would be punished; Juliet would be hastily married off. But all could still end well enough.
So I wished to believe.
• • •
I had frankly forgotten my appointment with Mercutio’s witch until Balthasar reminded me, skipping close to murmur it in my ear as we passed out of the cloister’s walls. We were not so very far from the river; the muddy, rotting stench of it hung heavily on the air, churned but not dispelled by surly gusts of wind. I was eager to make straight home and beard my cousin in his chambers . . . or beat him, as Tybalt had thrashed the servant. Perhaps pain would bring him to his senses. Failing that, my grandmother’s towering wrath certainly would.
But even so, I shifted course and followed Balthasar’s lead down narrowing, noisome alleys, stepping over drunkards and beggars and keeping a close eye out for villains. I was a richly dressed man in hostile quarters, and not all thirsty blades belonged to Capulet hands. Some merely wanted my purse. Ironic that it was full of fresh-stolen florins. But I was in no fit mood, and my scowl must have warned off any who might have accosted us; we arrived at the docks, where fishermen unloaded their cargoes, and costermongers loaded carts to trundle them to a late market. It was too hot, and the air was slick with the thick scent of rotten oceans.
“There,” Balthasar said, and pointed me in the direction of a cloaked form in the shadows.
He had kept a detail from me, indeed; I’d expected some broken old woman, with moles and an evil cast to her eye. As the woman pushed back her hood, I saw before me a lovely, pointed face, clever and calm, framed by thick brown curls only barely managed by carved wooden combs. She looked a little older than I, but not by more than a thin handful of years, and she might have been a modestly placed merchant’s wife or daughter. Her clothing was not fine, but it was well fitted, and clean. She carried a nosegay of herbs to ward off the stench of the docks.
She was hardly the crone I had expected to find. That, then, had been Balthasar’s juicy, withheld tidbit of information.
I was clearly not what she had expected to find her, because she cast a near-panicked, betrayed look toward my servant, and dropped into a quick curtsy. “Sir,” she said. “I little expected to see someone of your quality. I apologize for the condition of our meeting.”
“You’re the witch?” I had little patience for niceties, even given the pleasant surprise. “Mercutio has visited you?” I kept my voice low, but she still blanched, and cast anxious looks about us. No one noticed, in the clamor of the dock.
“I cannot tell you, sir, with great respect—”
“Is he planning to do harm?” I asked her bluntly. “Have you given him poison?”
“No!” she blurted, and put out a hand that showed she was no stranger to hard work. “No, sir. Please, I beg you, do not say so; I sell only helpful herbs. . . .”
“Then why does he seek you out?” I leaned in on her, threatening, and she shrank back against the wall. I put out an arm against the stones to block her escape, and Balthasar took up a post to hold her on the other side. “Confess. Now. I have no time for games.”
She looked pallid and terrified, and miserable. “Sir, it is only that your friend and I have a grief shared; his friend Tomasso was my cousin, and my dearest friend. I will confess that I hate those who took his life, and that also I share with Mercutio, but I have provided no poisons, I swear. Only—” She had babbled on too far, and I saw the realization of it cross her face in horror. If she could have breathed the words back in, she would have.
“If not poisons, then what?” I snapped, and grabbed her chin in my hand to raise her eyes to mine. She was frankly terrified, and she was right to be. I was in a killing mood. “Confess to me, and you might escape death. Defy me . . .”
“I only helped him,” she whispered. Tears shone wetly, and spilled down her cheeks; I felt the quiver in her flesh where I held her still. “I swear, my lord, the guilt is not mine; it is not—”
“Tell me!”
“I showed him how to cast a curse,” she whispered. “The sin is upon him, sir, not me; I swear, not me! Please, sir, let me go. Please!”
I would have dragged her to Prince Escalus in my fury, but Balthasar cried urgently, “Sir!” and instinct screamed at the same moment, and I released the girl and spun, drawing my sword and getting it free of its scabbard just in time to block a deadly blow aimed for my heart.
I did not know the man who faced me, snarling, until he said, “Dog of a thief! I know who you are!”
It was Roggocio,
the fool I’d robbed on a night that seemed so far distant now, the one who’d ripped away my mask. He’d glimpsed my face indeed, though until this moment he had not known my name.
Shock ran through me, cold and hot, and as I settled into the chill silence of the fight, I knew that I could not let him walk from this. He knew too much, enough to betray me, enough to add even more chaos to the already brewing pot of poison.
That, and of course he intended to see me dead.
Balthasar cried another warning, and I heard his cudgel smack flesh; Roggocio had at least one friend willing to come to his aid. I trusted Balthasar to hold my back, and focused upon the blade in Roggocio’s hand. He was well practiced, as would be expected if he’d survived so long as a hired bravo; he wielded a plain but quality blade, well suited to his hand and height. I concentrated not on his eyes, nor on his hands, but on the whole of him: the tiny betraying flickers that would tell me where he’d strike.
It took two passes and clashes of steel, and then he showed his intentions too soon. I parried just enough to move the line of his blade past my chest, turned with it, and struck hard and low, aiming for finding the vulnerability of his inner thigh. My blade slipped easily in, through, and I cut sideways to open the vessels. Blood gouted like a fountain, sheeting gory down his hose, and he let out a short, sharp cry as he fell to his uninjured knee. It was a killing wound, and he knew it instantly. He’d be bled white in only a moment.
As deaths by the sword came, it was a quick and almost painless ending. But he fought it, trying to rise, failing, collapsing back to the cobbles. His sword continued to stab the air, trying to reach me, until his hand lost its grip.
He looked past me then, and I glanced back to see his compatriot rising dizzy from where Balthasar had struck him down. He was in no fighting condition, but he retrieved his fallen sword and sheathed it to show his peaceful intention.
And then Roggocio, with his fading last breaths, said, “Tell Tybalt that my murderer is the Prince of Shadows.”
It seemed as if the world stopped.
Few were close enough to hear or understand his ragged words, but I did, and Balthasar, and so did Roggocio’s companion.
I looked to him, and his eyes met mine, and widened.
Then he took to his heels, running.
“Get him!” I snapped to Balthasar. I’d forgotten the witch in the press of events, but now I saw her running as well, darting between fish carts and making for her own safety.
I had to let her go.
Tybalt could not learn the truth, or I was a dead man.
• • •
Balthasar was dogged, but while he was loyal and solid, he was no runner; Roggocio’s friend was as fast and lean as a greyhound set on deer, and as nimble. He used the crowds, carts, and obstructions to slow us, and within only a short distance I’d caught my servant and passed him, yet had not gained a step on the man running ahead.
The throng in the street was slowing me too much.
“Keep after!” I shouted to Balthasar, and turned sharply toward a stack of wooden crates beside a wine seller’s shop. I no longer feared excited comments on my acrobatic skills. There was far worse to be risked. I leaped and made the top of the first crate, then vaulted up to the next. From there, it was a leap to grasp the ledge of the roof, and I scrambled up, heedless of the birds that flapped in agitation at my boldness. Once on the low, flat roof, I raced without opposition.
The next building was built close, but still separated, and I sped faster and leaped the distance, risking a glance to the side as I did to see that Balthasar had fallen farther back, and the man we pursued still had half the street on us. He seemed to know where he was bound, which was worrying; I did not, and it was hard to form a strategy without a clear objective, except to catch and kill.
The next rooftop was more treacherous, littered with bottles left by someone who did their drinking in secret, and probably by moonlight; I managed to avoid them, and when I made the next leap, to a pitched tile roof, I saw that I’d gained on my target.
If I’d been thinking of my danger, I might have hesitated at the next jump, which was wider and to a higher point, but now I was fiercely committed, and I had forgotten caution. I could see that only half the next building’s length separated me from my quarry now. He’d run into a funeral procession, and though he was pressing through, to the outraged cries of mourners, he had lost his lead on me.
I put all I had into the dash to the edge, and launched myself into the gap, aiming for the next roof.
I missed.
The rise was higher than I’d thought, and the gap farther, and as I realized I’d miss the roof itself, I saw that I would instead fall inside a small stone balcony with a closed door. There was no real choice to make; I braced myself, landed hard, and threw myself forward with my shoulder as lead.
The balcony door slammed back, and I stumbled into a bedchamber. No one was inside save an old woman embroidering by an open window; she blinked at me as if I were a phantom, and I did not wait to see what she might do, but moved out and into the hallway. It ran straight the length of the house to another balcony, the mirror of the one I’d landed on.
I burst out into the sunlight, put both hands on the hot stonework, and vaulted over and down. I landed hard, rolled, and ignored the aches and bruises, because only a few feet ahead was the bravo I’d been chasing.
He glanced back and saw me. His eyes went wide, and he dodged to the right, down another street and away from the choking crowds. I raced after, but I tangled with a fat old priest and went down hard enough to leave me bruised and dazed.
I shook the impact away, scrambled up, and dashed in pursuit.
He was just throwing himself through the doors of a laundry when I spotted him at the corner, and I ran after. My breath was coming in fast pumps now, sweat soaking my Montague finery; I smelled the strong soaps and lye of the vats, and saw him as he shoved aside a burly washerwoman and ducked behind some hanging wet bedsheets.
I yanked them aside. Another door. I plunged through and had just enough time to see that he’d decided to make a stand; he’d hoped to catch me surprised, and he almost did, but I knocked his blade up with my elbow as I spun, and drew a dagger with my left hand. He was fast, faster than I, and he avoided the slash and turned to run on.
I aimed and threw the dagger, but he veered and it missed its mark, merely slicing a wound in his arm and then ending its course in the wood of a barrel. I snatched it free as I ran after him.
Our pursuit burst out into the open streets surrounding the Piazza delle Erbe, to shouts and cries and flocks of pigeons making for the skies, and as I dodged the fountain, I felt a hand grab at my shoulder.
I spun, blindly striking with the dagger, and it was a lucky thing that Mercutio was just as quick, or I’d have opened his throat. That earned me an instant response as he stepped back and put a hand on the hilt of his sword. There was unreasoning black murder in his eyes. “That was ill considered,” he said. “What game have you flushed?”
“A quick and deadly fox,” I said, and pushed into a run as I shouted back, “If you’re going with me, keep your head!”
I did not think he would do it—he was more drunken now than he had been before, when he’d left me in disgust—but he laughed, and easily caught up and paced me. “You’re like one of those fellows who enters a tavern, claps his sword upon the table, and says, ‘God send me no need of thee . . .’ and by the second cup, you’ll draw it for no reason!”
I had little breath for it, but I grinned and said, “Oh, am I such a fellow?”
“You’re as hot a Jack in your moods as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody,” he said, and dodged a squawking rooster that fluttered in his path. “And as soon moody to be moved!”
He went on, firing quick and razor-edged barbs at me, and he was not wrong in most of what he said. I had a bad temper, a black one when it moved over me. I had quarreled with a man once for coughing in the stree
t, and with a tailor—but not for wearing his new Easter suit before Easter. I could not remember the quarrel rightly, in this blood-hot moment.
But he was right: I was a dangerous man when put into this evil mood.
Roggocio’s compatriot was ahead of us, but not far ahead, and he was tiring, as greyhounds do when the sprint bids fair to become a longer footrace. Mercutio whooped and passed me, vivid with the joy of taking unthinking action.
And then I saw where the bravo was taking us.
Tybalt, his cousin Petruchio, and many more of his adherents than I cared to number, all lounging like a pride of lions in the shade of a portico. Tybalt spotted the running Capulet bravo and came to his feet, sinuous and graceful, and around him his fellows roused.
They descended the steps to meet the man I’d chased, who pushed through to Tybalt’s side.
“Stop,” I said, and pulled on Mercutio’s shoulder. “The odds are against us.”
“Well against,” he said. “But I thought you were on a hunt. Will you let your quarry slip away so easily?”
“By my head, the Capulets will have us if we are not careful.”
“By my heel, I care not,” he said, and bared his teeth in a fierce grin. “Come, Benvolio, you led me a merry chase. ’Tis a shame to end it with a coward’s retreat.”
He spoke to my anger, my fury, my fear. My blood was up, and though I knew it was wrong, though I knew it was disastrous, I let him draw me onward at a walk.
Even then, it might have been avoided; we might all have passed like wary ships on the sea, all our gun ports opened and glares all around. But then Tybalt stepped into our path and said, “Gentlemen, good evening. A word with one of you.” The speech was courteous enough, but his hand was already on his rapier, and there was fury in his face. The sight of him made the skin tighten on my back—not in fear, oh, no, but in utter fury. I could not see him without thinking of Rosaline, and bruises, and threats.
And Roggocio’s companion was urgently whispering in his ear. I knew what he was telling him. I knew it from the way his expression shifted from casual malice to something more intent—no longer a lazy cat toying with mice, but a lion on a wounded, limping deer.
