by Rachel Caine
“You spoke of a curse—” I would have questioned her, but Mercutio opened his eyes just then, and the vague fear in them chilled me. “Hush, friend, I am here.” I gripped his bloody hand in mine and sank down next to him on the narrow space. He coughed, and blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His face was ashy gray, the pallor of death already on him.
“Did I do wrong?” he asked me, and the childlike worry in his voice broke me within. “Ah, Ben, for love, I did it for love, and for justice; please, I never meant—I never meant it to harm you or Romeo. . . . Forgive me.”
“I forgive you,” I said. I thought it was confusion, as he wandered in the dark fogs closer to his end. “I would forgive you anything, Mercutio, my brother.”
Of a sudden, his eyes were bright and eerily clear, and he gripped my hand very hard as he said, “I will hold you to that, for I have done you dire wrongs. Love is the curse, Ben. Love is the curse. Do you understand?”
He was shaking, every muscle gone rigid, and I knew this was the last. He was clinging tight to that frayed and breaking rope, and I held his gaze, hard though it was. His grief for Tomasso had driven him to this. No wonder he loathed love so much. And thinking bitterly on Romeo, on his folly with Juliet Capulet, I thought Mercutio must be right.
I held his grip, though it bade fair to break my bones, and said, “I do. I understand.”
He searched my face most earnestly, and then closed his eyes. It looked like defeat. “No,” he said. “No, you do not. Ben—”
But whatever he might have said next was lost in a terrible bout of coughing, as he struggled for breath and drowned in his own blood, and though his lips moved, I heard not another word.
I felt the exact moment his spirit departed. It was only then that I realized I had let him die unshriven, here in this dark hut full of witch’s charms and herbs. Mercutio’s hand went slack in mine, and the tension in his face fell away. His eyes looked into eternity, and for a long moment I could not move for fear of breaking, but then I reached over and folded his hands on his shattered, bloody breast, and closed his eyes. I put two gold coins on his lids, and then turned to look at the girl cowering in the corner, now terrified.
She shook her head so violently curls came free from beneath her neat kerchief, and pressed her trembling hands to her mouth. Her eyes were bright with tears and terror. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, sir, I know you think me evil, but I only wanted to help him—”
“I care not,” I said, and handed her another coin. “Fetch Friar Lawrence here. Tell him Mercutio Ordelaffi needs last rites. It is the least I can do for him now.”
She looked wary, but she snatched the coin away, wrapped it in a fold of her skirt, and darted out into the street. I went to the door and breathed in the hot, still air, and gradually became aware of the shouting and furor coming from the piazza. A well-dressed merchant scurried past, trailing harried attendants; I stopped one with an outstretched hand—one well reddened with blood. Well, it made for a useful warning. “What proceeds?” I asked him. He flinched away from me. “What is that noise?”
“Romeo Montague,” he said. “Romeo is bent on dying on Tybalt Capulet’s sword, it seems, for grief!”
I thought that I could not feel anything, but suddenly fear blazed back up within me, real and immediate. “Wait, does Romeo live?”
“I know not!” he shouted back, and broke into a run. “If so, not for long!”
I cast a tormented look back at my friend, but there was naught I could do for him now. If my cousin would recklessly throw himself onto Tybalt’s sword now . . .
This might not be the only death I could regret today.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Mercutio. I bent and pressed my lips to his pale forehead, and then I ran for the piazza.
• • •
Tybalt had fled the place of Mercutio’s murder when I’d carried my friend away; he’d since returned, though his adherents urged him to flee. He stood still in the street, surrounded by his fellows, and his sword was out. He stalked restlessly back and forth, black gaze fixed on my cousin.
Romeo had likewise not put up his sword. Finally, some Montague cousins and bravos had arrived to back him, which was all, I thought, that had held the peace thus far—that, and the fact that they had waited to hear the news—bad news, I realized, that I was bringing. But it was too late to turn away; I had already been remarked, as I pushed through the crowd damp with Mercutio’s dying blood. Romeo’s gaze had fallen on me, and now Tybalt’s did as well. A hush went through the crowd in a rippling wave.
“How fares Mercutio?” Romeo asked me. He knew. Any man could see, from the evidence soaking my clothes. But still he asked, so that the answer would be clear to those watching.
“Mercutio is dead,” I said. It felt like fiction, though I knew it for fact.
Romeo nodded. He looked older than his years in this moment, older than I; he looked every inch the heir of House Montague, weighed down with the responsibilities of that office.
Tybalt, perhaps ten feet away, had gone very still in watching us. He could have put up his sword, and by all reasonable measures ought to have done so; his blade had already broken the peace, already claimed a life, but perhaps knowing that, he cared not for the future. I could smell the violence on him, and the rage. He was in the grip of a blood fever that only our two deaths would break.
“And here stands the furious Tybalt,” I said. I put my hand on my sword’s hilt. If the peace was broken, let it be well shattered and done. Mercutio’s death had been stupid, meaningless, and in part it was laid at my own door; if I hadn’t met with the witch, if Roggocio’s companion had not escaped to Tybalt’s side, then none of this would have happened.
“Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain,” Romeo agreed. His voice rose, and hardened. “My forgiveness has gone to heaven with him. Now, Tybalt, call me villain again—Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for you to keep him company, and either you or I will join him!”
“You consorted with him here, and will go with him there!” Tybalt answered.
Romeo lunged forward, all restraint fled. Tybalt met him in a clash of steel, both of them slipping in Mercutio’s spilled blood on the stones. One of the Capulet bravos drew his blade, and I lunged for him with a shout of fury, because, like my cousin, I needed to avenge my friend’s terrible, useless fate. I was aware of the striving of Tybalt and Romeo, but I dueled my own enemy—the bravo I’d chased through the city, who’d led me to this field of slaughter. He was as quick and deadly as any I’d faced. His blade slithered over mine in a lunge, and tore a bloody strip from my shoulder; we parted, circled, and I feinted high and lunged low, aiming for his thigh and the vulnerable vein there. He parried, and pinked me again, but he slipped on the cobbles and his point wavered, and I riposted hard and fast and ripped a thick red line on his cheek. He dropped his sword and staggered back, clapping a hand to the wound.
I stabbed him in the throat and ended him.
Not soon enough, since he’d told Tybalt what he knew of my secrets. I had to silence Tybalt before he could accuse me in public . . . and before he learned of Romeo’s ill-advised marriage vows with his cousin. Silence, but not kill so openly in the street, under a Capulet’s blade; this situation required quick, silent assassination away from prying eyes, if I was to save my house.
It was vital that Romeo not be seen, in public, to bring about his death.
I spun toward the other battle, intending to wound Tybalt enough to render him unable to speak—a blow to the throat would do—just as Romeo, down on the cobbles where Tybalt had toppled him, rolled and slashed, catching the Capulet—more by luck than skill—on his unprotected vitals.
Tybalt staggered back, eyes wide. For an instant, the cut looked small, but then it parted, and the blood, oh, the blood. He fell into the arms of his adherents, thrashing in his death agonies, and I scrambled forward and dragged my bloodied, hard-breathing cousin to his feet. His eyes
were fiery with the fight, and his lips parted in a feral grimace.
It was all done, then. All hope gone. My problem had been solved, but Romeo’s, Montague’s, was only just begun.
I shook him, hard. “Romeo! Be gone from here. Tybalt’s slain, and the prince will see you dead if you’re taken; do you hear me? Be gone!”
The exaltation suddenly faltered in him, driven out by my words, and by something else, something much greater, and worse. He looked horrified well beyond what he ought to have done. “Oh, I am fortune’s fool!” he whispered, and clung to me for balance. “Benvolio—”
The Capulets were turning on us, screaming in their fury. “Why do you stay?” I shouted at him, and shoved him. “Go! Run!”
He did, the bloody sword still in his hand. Mine also was blooded, though not on Tybalt, but I quickly wiped it and put it away, because there was a loud shout from the piazza behind us. The city’s watch had finally arrived, and with them, summoned no doubt by breathless messengers, came the prince of Verona, my own aunt and uncle, and the Capulets as well. Mercutio’s father was not in the group, and I thanked God for it; I might have added him to the tally of corpses for the day, from pure bitterness.
My uncle looked at me with bewilderment, and a good deal of fear, and I understood in a moment—here I stood, in the center of the bloody scene, drenched in red, while Tybalt gasped his last among his cousins.
“Where are the vile beginners of this fray?” Prince Escalus snapped, as he stepped forward out of the watch’s protection. He looked every inch the city’s ruler, iron faced, tempered hard by his years. Even his gray hair had the glint of steel in the lingering sun.
His eyes swept the scene, and came to rest upon me.
I bowed low, and found the words to explain, sticking close to truth, since there were too many witnesses to Romeo’s act for any hope of clemency. Lady Capulet let out a bloodcurdling wail, and broke free of her husband’s hand to throw herself down beside Tybalt’s twitching corpse.
“Tybalt, my nephew, my brother’s child— Oh, my prince, my cousin, my husband, look, his blood is spilled! My prince, if you are true to your word, blood of ours was shed by Montague, and Montague blood must answer it!” She gathered Tybalt’s limp form in her arms, and though I knew there was more politics than grief to her emotion, still it raised a sympathetic murmur in the crowd.
The prince noted it, but he was not like to be moved by theatrics. “Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?”
“Tybalt,” I said without equivocation, and gave him the tale, ending, “Romeo came between them, beating down their blades, but Tybalt struck under his arm, and hit the life of Mercutio, then fled.”
“Fled?” The prince cast a significant look on the dead boy gathered in Lady Capulet’s arms. “Here he lies.”
I bowed my head. “He came back to have at Romeo, who was much aggrieved; he entertained revenge, and who could blame him? They went like lightning, and so was Tybalt slain.”
“And Romeo?”
“Fled, my prince. This is the truth, on my life.”
Lady Capulet gave me a bitter, hateful stare, and said, “A kinsman of the Montague! Affection makes him false, and he lies! Some twenty of them must have fought my Tybalt, to bring him down. I beg for justice, my prince, and you must give it. By his own cousin’s words, Romeo slew Tybalt. Romeo must not live!”
“Romeo slew him,” the prince agreed. “And Tybalt slew Mercutio. Who now owes the price of my kinsman’s dear blood?”
My uncle stepped forward then. “Not Romeo, Prince. He was Mercutio’s friend. His fault concludes but what the law should have ended: the life of Tybalt.”
“Whose word have we that Benvolio Montague did not kill my cousin himself!” Lady Capulet spat. “Look, you, he is drenched in red blood that cries for vengeance!”
“Mercutio’s blood,” I said. “My friend lies in a hovel not far from here, if you wish to water him with your tears. And his blood did cry out for vengeance, and you hold that vengeance in your arms.”
She gave a raw shriek of fury, and let Tybalt’s body thump back to the street as she rose. “Will no one kill this Montague?” she demanded, and turned that basilisk’s gaze on her own bravos, who quailed. “Tybalt’s death demands it!”
No one stirred hand or foot. The watch’s armed presence ensured it, and so did the prince’s moody, cold stare.
As the silence fell, the prince said, “It is fair that Capulet have a measure of vengeance, and so, Romeo—”
My aunt gripped her husband’s arm hard.
“Romeo,” the prince continued doggedly, “is immediately exiled hence from Verona, never to return. I have an interest in your grief; my blood also for your rude brawls lies bleeding. But I’ll punish you not with death, but with so strong a fine that you shall all repent the loss of Mercutio. Nay, Lady Montague, I am deaf to pleadings and excuses, and tears and prayers shall not purchase out your son’s abuses, so give me none. Let Romeo go in haste, or when he’s found, that hour will be his last. Go now, take Tybalt’s body and attend our will.”
The Capulets were pleased, I thought; if they had lost the ever-raging Tybalt, then it was public justice to them that Romeo had been taken from the Montagues, if not in body, then in fact. He would no longer be the heir on whom we rested our family’s future. He was disgraced, cast out, and exiled. The enormity of it had only begun to strike me. My cousin, feckless and reckless as he was, had been unquestionably the hope of Montague, and now, in an instant, in a lucky strike in the heat of a battle he had not invited, he had lost everything. Exiled from our family, our city, from everything and everyone he knew and loved.
From his own love.
If there was anything, anything at all, that could be gleaned as silvery hope from the ashes of this disaster, it was that at least that Romeo would now be forced to give up his mad pursuit of Juliet. His life would be forfeit if he lingered inside the city beyond this hour, and Friar Lawrence had told me that though vows had been spoken, no marriage bed had been made. Even in the eyes of God, it was still no marriage at all.
Still, Mercutio’s cry upon being mortally struck haunted me as I joined my family for the uncomfortable journey back to our palazzo. A plague on both your houses!
Surely his dying warning was already coming true.
• • •
I took my leave of my aunt and uncle and went to my rooms, where Balthasar had already arrived; who had found and informed him of the day’s dark events, I did not know, but he had arranged for a tub of hot water, and took away my bloody clothes. Whether they were to be cleaned or burned, I did not care. I sank into the steaming bath with an almost pitiful sense of gratitude, and washed death’s leavings away.
I stayed in the tub, easing stiffened muscles, until Balthasar came back with a bath sheet to dry me. As he scrubbed me down with rough, efficient motions, I felt I was a toddling boy again, and a strange lassitude washed over me. I wanted to take to my bed and be coddled until the fever passed, but this fever was cold, not hot, and I feared it might not be banished so easily.
Inside me was a wild, howling emptiness where all my certainties had once lived. I had lost Mercutio, burning bright in both anger and love; I had as much as lost Romeo, just as hot-spurred but with a sweetness to his temper that Mercutio had never dreamed. My brothers in spirit, if not in blood, and both gone, blown away on an ill wind.
I had never felt more alone.
Balthasar wisely said nothing to me, only brought me warm wine and sat me in a chair near the window, where I might look down on the streets below. After a moment, I rose and closed the shutters. The cobbles outside were stained with a sunset Mercutio would never see, and it put me too much in mind of the blood I’d washed away in the tub. The sight of gray Verona’s stones reminded me of his pallid face and slackened lips.
I closed my eyes awhile, and when I opened them, my mother was there.
Balthasar must have brought her a chair, for she sat straight-backed
and proper across from me, dressed in her habitual mourning black with glints of gold at her throat and cuffs. In the privacy of our house, she had taken off the wimple; her hair was pinned up in a complex series of braids and knots that must have taken her lady’s maid hours to achieve. As always, she seemed almost blank of expression, but I thought there might have been a flicker of concern, at least a passing one.
“Benvolio,” she said.
“Mother.” My tone did not invite discussion.
She ignored the dismissal. “I am sorry for Mercutio,” she said. “He was a loyal friend, if sometimes a loose one.” I waited. She had not come to see me to give me her regrets. After a moment’s silence, she came to it. “Your cousin Romeo is ruined in Verona. No one faults him; he was right to kill the Capulet villain for Mercutio’s death. But without him, Montague has no male heir to take hold of its fortunes. Your uncle must name you, Benvolio.”
“Me?” I said. It was fool’s work to be surprised, but yet I was. I had not thought of it, and now that I had, it disgusted me. I had never wanted such a role, and never at the cost of Romeo’s future and fortune. “My uncle does not favor me, Mother. He never has.” I did not say, Because I am a half-blood. The English in me was a matter of constant suspicion, however much I looked or acted the part of a true Veronese. I would always be seen as an alien, either here or in my mother’s home of London.
“Needs must he favor you now,” she said, and looked down to fuss with a fold of her skirts. “Have you seen your poor cousin since the brawl?”
“Not since he fled, as I urged him to do,” I said. “Should I seek him out?”
“Under no account should you be seen to involve yourself in his troubles. He has done Montague a good turn, there is no doubt of it, but be careful, my son, lest you share his fate.”
The phrasing, I realized, was deliberate; I should not be seen to involve myself; she meant I should be careful. It was a masterful piece of misdirection. My mother gave nothing away in either her posture or her voice, but there was a slight tightening around her eyes that told me she was worried—worried to be sending me this message, which doubtless had not come from her. She was only the helpless messenger.
