Still Star-Crossed

by Melinda Taub

  The door banged open and Lord Capulet was in the doorway. “Ah, thou art here,” he said to Rosaline. “I told you to wait.”

  She gave him a polite smile. “You were occupied, Uncle. I came to pay my respects to my aunt.”

  “I am ready for thee. Come hither.” He ushered her toward the door, then hesitated, jerking back over the threshold. “My lady,” he said in the vague direction of his wife’s bed. “How fare you?”

  She smiled faintly. “Well, sir.”

  “Good.” He took Rosaline by the elbow. “Come, child.”

  Her uncle led Rosaline back to his study, indicating she should sit in the chair opposite his desk. She had only been in here a handful of times. When she was a child—the last time she was a regular guest in this house—she, Juliet, and Livia used to sneak in here, though it was strictly forbidden. She could remember hiding under the large oak desk, her hand pressed over Juliet’s mouth to stifle her giggles.

  Her uncle settled himself behind that desk now, hands clasped over his prodigious stomach. He peered at her, but he made no move to speak. His forehead furrowed. “Rosaline,” he said. “Rosaline of House Capulet.”

  Rosaline fought to keep her features even. “Of House Tirimo, my lord.” Verona might be inclined to forget her dead father’s name, but she was not.

  Her uncle, as she expected, waved this off. “Thy Tirimo sire wedded my sister. That makes thee Capulet enough. Besides, he proved himself one of us in the end, eh?”

  Rosaline laced her fingers together. “I suppose there is no more Capulettish trait than falling to a Montague blade.”

  “Curb thy tongue, girl.” He grasped for a bowl on his desk and thrust it toward her. “Here, have a sweet.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He shook the bowl at her again. “Go on. You children loved these.”

  “Aye, when we were still in the care of a nurse.”

  Her uncle peered at her, as though startled she was no longer a small girl running about underfoot. He cleared his throat. “I suppose we’ve not seen much of thee these last years, thee and—ah—”

  “Livia.”

  “Livia. Of course.”

  Had her uncle ever known his niece’s name? Or had he forgotten it in the six years since they had been regular guests here? Father had died when Rosaline was eleven; Mother had followed two years later, after a long time of being sickly. Even before she went, two fatherless girls with no great prospects had not been thought fit companions for the young flower of the proud, ambitious Capulets. Rosaline and Livia had been invited to the house for feasts and holidays, but their friendship with Juliet had come to an abrupt end. Rosaline considered reminding her uncle of this, but the man looked so tired she found she had not the heart.

  He broke the silence. “Thou wast ever a sweet child … Juliet—” He cleared his throat. “Juliet missed thee.”

  Rosaline nodded slowly. “Sir,” she said. “Tell me why I was summoned.”

  “Rosaline,” he said. “From whatever house thou tak’st thy name, thou art a Capulet and thou wilt obey.”

  “What mean you, Uncle?”

  He rose and walked over to her, taking her chin between finger and thumb and turning her face this way and that as though she were a calf he was thinking of buying. “Quite pretty,” he said, as though to himself. “True Capulet looks, so the picture will be just right. And old enough that thou shouldst be married by now, anyway. Yes, thou art just what he asked for.”

  Rosaline grew cold. “Married, sir?”

  “Aye, I’ve made a match for thee. Well, not I alone. Boy!” Capulet leaned out the door and roared to his valet. “Bring in our other guests.”

  The next moment Rosaline leapt from her seat, because in walked a man she recognized as Lord Montague. And with him was Benvolio.

  Her cry of “What?” broke the air at the same moment as Benvolio’s “Uncle! Her?”

  She whirled on him, gaping. “You knew of this?”

  Lord Montague put a restraining hand on Benvolio’s shoulder. “Now, boy, you consented to wed a Capulet maid, not half an hour ago.”

  “Aye, I consented to marry a maid, not a harpy!”

  “Niece,” Lord Capulet said drily, “I see you and your betrothed have already met.”

  “I am betrothed to no man,” she snapped. “And certainly not to him.”

  Benvolio crossed his arms. “On this we may agree, lady.”

  Lord Capulet raised his hands to quiet them both. “You will marry!” he thundered. “Insolent children, you will do as you are told. For the sake of your families.”

  Benvolio snorted. “The last thing my family needs is for me to bring home a snake.”

  Lord Capulet shook a finger in Rosaline’s direction. “For your honor—”

  Rosaline glared at him. “Uncle, if you but knew how little I cared for Capulet honor—!”

  “How about for Verona?”

  A smooth voice cut through the strife. Softer it was than their shouts, and yet it silenced them instantly. Rosaline swallowed when she saw the newcomer.

  “Your Grace,” she said.

  Her face burnt as she sank into a deep curtsy. Prince Escalus stood in the doorway of the study.

  His arms were crossed as he looked round the room, surveying the tableau of squabbling subjects before him. Verona’s ruler was a young man of twenty, only four years on the throne, but the cool, commanding glance he directed toward the two middle-aged vassals bowing to him carried no hint of hesitation or deference.

  “Rise,” he said to Rosaline with a nod. His lips twitched slightly as he looked at her, as though he might smile at her fury. My lady Thorn, he used to call her, because, he said, she was much too prickly for her sweet, flowery name, but if he remembered how he’d once teased a small Rosaline to distraction with the nickname when he was a boy, he gave no sign.

  Rosaline stood, meeting her sovereign’s gaze with a deep breath. “Your pardon for my conduct, but if you only knew what they were planning, Your Grace—when I tell you of this sodden-witted plan of betrothal—”

  “I know it well. ’Twas my idea.”

  Rosaline’s voice lost its stridency. “Yours?” she whispered.

  The smile he gave her was not unkind. “Indeed,” he said. “One of my better ones too.” He looked around at them, hands clasped in front of him. “You Montagues and Capulets are a plague on this city,” he said. “I’ve lost too many subjects and too many friends to your senseless hatred. I know”—he held up a hand when Lords Montague and Capulet both moved as though to protest—“you swore on your children’s graves that your hatred died with them, but ’tis not the first time such vows were made. ’Twill take more than pretty statues to keep them.” The prince gave them a hard stare, and Rosaline and Benvolio exchanged a glance. It seemed the prince knew about how Juliet’s statue had been defiled, but their uncles appeared oblivious. She decided not to speak of it. She was not at all sure Lords Montague and Capulet would be much better at keeping their tempers than their nephews. Better to let them find out on their own, separately.

  The prince turned to Rosaline once more. A little of the regal coolness left his face as he looked at her. For a moment, she was able to see the tall blond boy who had once run and chased her through the palace garden. During her days of playing in the palace she’d thought Isabella’s elder brother the handsomest, bravest knight in all of Italy, for all that he’d been only three years older than she. Before he was sent away to foster in Venice and learn the ways of knighthood, he’d had a small, adoring Rosaline-shaped shadow that followed him everywhere. He’d treated her with the same exasperated affection he held for Isabella.

  Her own feelings toward him had never been sisterly, though. Now, as he reached for her hand, her heart stuttered out an odd rhythm at the feeling of his warm fingers around hers.

  “Dearest Rosaline,” he said, looking straight into her eyes. She tried to breathe. His eyes were so blue, so full of honest affection. �
�My earliest playfellow. There is no dearer soul in all Verona. That is why I chose you to be Benvolio’s wife, you see.”

  Rosaline stood frozen, unable to do anything but stare. How could it be he who had chosen this fate for her?

  “Your families must not further destroy each other,” the prince was saying. “ ’Tis clear you cannot exist as two, so you must become one.” He turned to the Montagues. “Benvolio is now the highest-ranked unmarried gentleman who bears the name of Montague; Rosaline the closest kinswoman to Juliet yet a maid.” Prince Escalus reached for Benvolio’s hand and pressed it together with Rosaline’s, sealing them together with his own. “You will marry, and the two families will be knit together. And the city will see that a marriage of Montague and Capulet need not end with a half-dozen corpses.”

  The prince’s words were light, almost jesting, but there was strength in his grip on their hands. “I do not normally interest myself in whom my subjects marry, but in this case I truly believe my city’s survival depends on it. Be ruled by your families and your sovereign in this.”

  Rosaline’s gaze caught Benvolio’s. His face was set in an inscrutable scowl as he stared at her. He opened his mouth as though to protest, then closed it again. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Rosaline’s heart sank. If even a man who loathed her would not speak out against their marriage, who would?

  “There is another reason I thought of this match.” The prince’s voice softened slightly. “So many are dead, but you—you, Benvolio, you, Rosaline—you live. You survived. This whirlwind of death that has decimated your families and even taken Paris and Mercutio, mine own cousins—it has passed you by, left you unscathed.”

  Benvolio’s dark eyes caught hers again. The depth of pain she saw there made her own throat ache. “Hardly unscathed, my lord,” she said softly.

  The prince’s hands tightened over theirs. “No. None of us is. But still, you are here, and they are not. For the others, strife and death; for you two, peace and life. Do you know why that is?”

  They said nothing.

  “Nor do I,” said the prince. “But whatever fate or chance or wisdom ’twas that saved you, Verona hath need of it now.”

  Rosaline broke his pretty words with an inelegant snort. “Peace?” she said. “Peace?” Ripping her hand free, she pointed to the red mark on Benvolio’s face. “Would you like to know how the peaceful Benvolio got that? From mine own peaceful hand.”

  The prince’s eyebrows shot up. He turned a questioning look to Benvolio, who nodded. His fingers traced lightly over the welt she’d raised on his cheek. Rosaline had not known she could hit that hard. “Aye,” he said. “Not an hour since.”

  Rosaline laid her hand on Benvolio’s cheek, showing how the mark fit the shape of her fingers. He winced and drew away from her touch. “This is what five minutes’ acquaintance with this rascal brought about,” she said. “Imagine what a lifetime of marriage would wreak. We’d bring no peace to Verona, Your Grace.”

  Benvolio turned and stood shoulder to shoulder with her, facing down the prince. “She speaks aright, my lord. You would sentence us to a lifetime of misery.”

  The prince said nothing, merely stared his young vassal down, arms crossed, eyebrows slightly raised.

  A strained smile crossed Benvolio’s face. “But of course,” he said, “my misery is ever at Your Grace’s command.”

  Rosaline stared at him. How could he accede to this madness? He hated her far more than she loathed him. The vicious words he’d spat at her in the graveyard had proven that.

  Well, if she had lost her only ally, she’d simply have to prevent this madness herself. Stepping forward, she fell to her knees at the prince’s feet, taking his hand in hers. “My prince,” she said. “I beg you. As your loyal subject and”—she swallowed, and made herself look into his eyes—“as one thou may’st once have considered a friend. Escalus, please do not ask this of me.”

  Behind her she heard old Montague draw a sharp breath. Her uncle lurched as though to seize her, but checked it. Rosaline sat frozen. Her familiarity was inexcusable, she knew. To call the prince by his name! To call him thou, as though he were her equal, her intimate friend! Quite possibly she was the first to address him so since he had taken the throne. But she was sure that if she could only reach him—if he could only break through that cool, absent mask of majesty and see her—

  He pulled his hand away. She thought she saw a flare of something in his eyes, but he turned away, leaning against her uncle’s desk with his back to them.

  “You forget yourself, lady,” he said, turning back around, that mask of regal uncaring ease once more on his face. “And I was not asking.”

  Rosaline let her hands drift back to her lap. She stared at the faces above her. Her uncle, as red-faced as if he’d drunk a bottle of wine. Montague, drawn and cold. Benvolio, miserable but resigned. Between them, these men had sealed her fate.

  Or so they thought.

  Smoothing her skirts, Rosaline rose to her feet. “I was not asking either. My lords, I will not marry Benvolio.”

  Her uncle harrumphed. “Do not be mad, girl. You’ve no choice.”

  “Oh? Powerful men you may be, but even you cannot force a lady into marriage vows she will not speak.”

  The prince frowned. “No,” he said. “But I can forbid you from marrying another. Refuse Benvolio, Rosaline, and you will die a maid.”

  Rosaline actually laughed. The men surrounding her were certain they had her trapped into doing as they wished; little did they know she’d already slipped the net. “Oh, my lord, ’tis my dearest wish. Long ere Romeo heard the name Juliet, ’twas my intention to one day remove from Verona and take holy orders somewhere Montagues and Capulets are unknown.” She moved for the door. “And it seems I have tarried long enough. Perhaps my lords will find another lady willing to bear sons to be fodder for Montague and Capulet swords, but you’ll find her not in House Tirimo. Good night, sirs.”

  And with that, Rosaline walked past the astonished men, down the richly carpeted stairs, and through the gates of House Capulet into the cool air of the Verona night.

  The breeze was soothing on her heated cheeks. House Capulet’s sentries blinked at her, and Rosaline could not help but laugh again, remembering the way her uncle’s jaw had hung open. Probably he’d yet to shut it. How often had she imagined telling her Capulet kin just how little she cared for their brawling, selfish ways? She never thought she’d have a chance to say it to their faces. To thwart the plans of both Montague and Capulet at once—ah, furious as she was, it was a heady thrill.

  Of course, having Escalus there to see her screeching like a harpy had never been part of her daydreams.

  His Grace, she reminded herself, not Escalus. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, which burnt anew. He’d not spoken so much to her in years. And when he did seek her out, it was for this. To trade her off like chattel.

  She’d spoken true: Ever since her parents had died, she’d been determined to become a nun rather than allow herself to be married off to some minor noble or other who would like as not die at the end of a sword. No, the life of a nun might not be exciting, but at least she would not watch her kin slaughter and be slaughtered. She would take orders as soon as Livia found a husband. She’d told no one of her plans, not even Livia. It was her greatest secret.

  No, not her greatest secret. She rarely admitted it even to herself, but with her heart still pounding in her chest and the heat of his palm burning on the back of her hand, it was impossible to deny. There was, in fact, one man who could stop her flight to a convent with a word. Escalus.

  “Rosaline!”

  Speak of the devil. Her sovereign’s voice rang out behind her. Even now, there was little urgency in his tone, only annoyance; the prince, it seemed, was little used to being refused, and did not quite believe it.

  “Rosaline, stop, I say!”

  Rosaline halted and turned around. There stood her prince in a pool of torchlight, looking cross. She
sank once more into a mocking curtsy. “Even as Your Grace commands. What’s your will?”

  “Thou knowest my will.”

  Now it was he who thou’d her. Did he do it as she had, to remind her of their old friendship? Or was he addressing her as he would a servant? “I am Your Grace’s loyal subject to command,” she said. “In all things but this.”

  “By heaven, Rosaline, Benvolio is an excellent gentleman.”

  “He is none.”

  “I say he is. Wilt thou not take my word?” His smile, when it came, was as dimpled and sweet as ever. How was that possible? “As thou didst say, we were friends once.”

  “Sweet little Rosaline, why dost thou weep?”

  “Thou knowest right well why, thou churl,” she said with a sniff. “ ’Tis right a maid should weep when she’s heartsick.”

  Escalus began to laugh. “I’ faith, who has left thy tiny heart so bruised?”

  “Is’t true, my lord, you go at dawn to Venice?” She turned her little tearstained face to his.

  Escalus looked startled. “Aye, of course.” His adolescent chest was puffed with pride. “I serve the Duke of Venice as his squire.” Rosaline burst once more into tears. Escalus patted her shaking back. “Cry not.”

  “I shall,” she vowed. “Yea, I shall weep and weep, and never cease till thou return’st to wed me.”

  Escalus laughed, and ruffled up her curls. “Pray dry thy tears. I swear I shall return.”

  Return he had, several years later, when his father fell ill. But her own father had died in the meantime, and her mother died shortly after his return. The little girl of seven he’d left behind had been replaced by a poor, grim young maid barely acknowledged by her own family, not nearly grand enough to be friends with the prince. She’d seen little of him.

  All traces of that merry, adoring child were long gone, except her love for him.

  She stayed sunk in a deep curtsy, eyes modestly lowered—the picture of the polite obedience she was refusing him. With an impatient sound, Escalus’s hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her gently upright. “Stand up, for God’s sake.”