Still Star-Crossed

by Melinda Taub

  Rosaline tried to hide the way her breath hitched at his touch. He was standing just a handspan away from her, peering quizzically into her eyes as if he could divine the secret to her defiance there. “Aye, we were friends once,” she said, stepping back out of his grip. “But thou hast spoken not a hundred words to me since thou didst return to Verona, Escalus. Canst truly say thou account’st me amongst thy dearest friends? If not, why should I count thee so? Pray do not so insult me.”

  Escalus’s frown deepened. “You are too familiar, lady. You forget yourself.”

  “Familiar, am I?” There was a harsh, jeering tone in her voice, but she could not seem to stop herself. “One moment thou dost plead thy will on the strength of our friendship, the next thou dost chide me as an upstart peasant. Punish me, then, your lordship, for my temerity. Deprive me of my fortune—I have none. Forbid me to wed. I shall thank you. Exile me—oh, dear sweet friend, you could do me no greater boon.”

  “You’re so angry,” Escalus said, but quietly.

  She swiped a furious hand across her eyes. “No less are you.”

  Escalus looked a bit surprised at that. But yes, she still knew him well enough to see the fury beneath that polished surface of his. “Aye. This feud has treated neither of us kindly.” He took out his handkerchief and offered it to her. She ignored it. “ ’Tis why I would move to bring it to an end.”

  “A noble aim, but your methods are wanting. Marry me with Benvolio and our cousins shall slaughter each other over the wedding feast.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  She smiled mirthlessly. “We shall never know. I have given this feud my blood. It shall not have my body too. I know Your Grace cares little for my happiness, but I promise you ’twill be so.”

  He looked as though she’d struck him. “Think you truly I care not for your happiness?”

  “I know you do not.” She swallowed hard. “ ’Tis no matter. A sovereign’s not obliged to befriend orphans of modest means, too lowly for notice even by their own kin. Livia and I have no need of your patronage, nor that of anyone else in this accursed city.”

  A flash of sadness passed across Escalus’s face. “Think you that is why I stayed away? Rosaline, I—mine own father was newly dead, my sister in a foreign city, myself just crowned. My old intimacies could not continue once I took the throne. I thought only of Verona.”

  “So do you still,” Rosaline said. “An excellent trait in a sovereign.”

  “They all abandoned thee?”

  “Had the Capulets had their way, Livia and I would have gone straight to a convent after our father’s death. ’Tis but luck that renting our house gives us a little income. That is the only reason the duchess lets us keep house in a corner of her estate until we may marry.”

  “Your house is in Verona,” he pointed out. “Perhaps you’ve more need of this ‘accursed city’ than you think.”

  “Aye, but we shall live in it no more.” She hated the look of pity on his face. Had this evening not been bad enough, but he must pry into her and Livia’s years of humiliation? She closed her arms around the pain in her chest. “Set your heart at rest. ’Tis none of your concern.”

  He reached out two fingers, gently tipping her chin into the light. Rosaline took a startled, broken breath as he gently wiped the tears from her face with his handkerchief, just as he had when she was small. Her eyes fluttered shut at his touch. “You would regain your station, and more,” he pointed out, “were you mistress of both the Montagues and Capulets.”

  She laughed. “Poor persuasion, after all that you have ranged against my defenses this night. Admit defeat, Escalus. My chastity shall remain untouched.” She pulled away, offering him a curtsy once more.

  He cocked his head, examining her with narrowed eyes, then nodded, giving her leave to depart. “As time shall try, Rosaline,” he said softly. “I am not so easily thwarted.”

  “As you say. As time shall try.”

  I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow

  than a man swear he loves me.

  —Much Ado About Nothing

  PRINCE ESCALUS WAS NOT sure what to do.

  He leaned out the window, feeling the morning breeze on his face. All of Verona was spread out beneath him, and beyond her walls the river, neat green fields, and roads ribboning off past the horizon. The palace of Verona was at the very height of the city, atop the summit of the highest hill. Verona’s welcome, it was sometimes called, for if one came up the river, the towers of the palace were the very first part of the city a weary traveler would spy.

  Escalus’s perspective on the palace was an unusual one. Immune to its beauty, he found its thick gray walls stifling. Even more so now that he dwelt within them alone. His mother had died when he was fourteen, three years after he’d gone to Venice to be the duke’s squire; he had been too far away to return for the funeral. The next time he had come back was to bid farewell to his father, who was wasting away from a fever. Three days after he arrived, the old prince had died, and Escalus took the throne shortly after his sixteenth birthday. The crown was heavier than he’d expected.

  Which was why he was now leaning out the window and staring down at the river, indulging in a game he had been refining since he was small: Suppose Prince Escalus Forsook His Crown to Become a River Pirate.

  A game all the more charming for its juvenility. No more squabbling families. No more demanding ambassadors from neighboring tyrants. No more hurt in the eyes of his childhood playfellow, just because he asked for her aid in keeping the city from flying apart at the seams. Just himself, his trusty crew, and the sparkling blue water …

  “Your Grace.”

  With an inner sigh, Escalus turned to find his chancellor, Penlet, waiting patiently for his attention. Penlet was middle-aged, and had been for as long as Escalus could remember. His drab black robe, his colorless hair, his mouth always set in a frown—all these looked the same as they had when Escalus was still in the nursery. The man seemed always to have the slightest of colds—not enough to keep him from his tireless work, but enough to provide a discreet cough to draw his liege’s attention back to the business at hand. Escalus trusted him, relied on him utterly, and sometimes loathed him as the plow horse does the whip.

  Escalus settled himself behind his desk. “Yes, Penlet,” he said. “What news?”

  “My lord,” Penlet said, after covering his mouth for one of those genteel little coughs. “ ’Tis something concerning the houses Capulet and Montague.”

  Escalus resisted the urge to turn back to the window and ignore him. “Yes, what now? Has Capulet finally rousted Rosaline to the altar? I’ve waited three days for him to persuade her. How long can it take a lord to bend a maiden to his will?”

  Penlet shook his head. “She claims she is sick, and will see no one, not even her uncle.”

  If Rosaline was sick, he was the Emperor of Russia. “What then? Have the watch discovered who defiled Juliet’s statue?”

  “No, Your Grace. Lord Montague has had it cleaned and returned to its former beauty. The Montagues swear it was not they who defiled it, and the watch can find no proof it was.”

  Of course not. The watch was incapable of finding anything not hidden at the bottom of a barrel of ale. Escalus pressed his fist between his eyes.

  Penlet gave another little cough. “There is more, my lord.”

  “Yes? What else?”

  “ ’Twas in the market square this morning,” said Penlet. “When the merchants arrived at dawn to open their stalls, they found this hanging from a tree in the center of the square.”

  He rang a bell, and a footman came in, bearing an oddly shaped bundle of cloth and rope. At Penlet’s nod, he held it up.

  It was a cloth effigy in the shape of a man with a noose round its neck. Scrawled across its chest were the words DEATH TO HOUSE MONTAGUE.

  “Fie and fie again!” Escalus burst out. “Who did this, Penlet?”

  His chancellor swallowed. “Not a soul saw it happ
en.”

  “No, of course not. But all the merchants saw it hanging there this morn. Which means the whole town knows.” Escalus slammed a fist against his desk. Penlet jumped and suppressed a small squeak.

  Damn them all. If this kind of provocation continues, it shall not be long before the two houses are in open war. God only knows what else they’d bring down with them. “Send runners to Montague and Capulet,” he told Penlet. “Tell them to keep their swords sheathed. We’ll learn the truth of this. And tell old Capulet that if he knows who did this, he’d better tell me now or ’twill go badly for him.”

  Penlet nodded and bowed, backing out of the room.

  “Oh, and Penlet,” Escalus called, “tell Capulet I want that niece of his married before the month is out.”

  Rosaline had shut and barred the doors.

  Usually at this time of year the cottage doors were opened to let cool breezes chase the heat from the house. But for the past three days, they had been closed and locked at Rosaline’s order. Any visitor wishing to speak to the sisters would have to knock on the door and wait to be admitted. Which none were.

  “I’ faith,” said Livia, putting aside her sewing as the boom of the door knocker sounded through the house. “That’s the third one today. ’Tis certain we never had so many visitors. Thou shouldst flout the prince’s will more often, Rosaline.”

  Rosaline finished an embroidered rose with such violence that the needle stuck into her hand. “Such company we can well do without. Go and send them away, prithee.”

  Livia nodded, carefully folding the tablecloth she was mending. “Who think’st thou it is this time? Uncle again, or one of his servants, or the prince’s men?”

  Rosaline laughed, hissing a bit as she unstitched herself. Her uncle and the prince had taken it in turns to try to wheedle, cajole, and command her to wed. Luckily, the duchess, the only person with any real power to threaten the Tirimo ladies, had declined to involve herself. Which, given her hatred of the Montagues, was not surprising. “I care not. Only tell them—”

  “I know.” Livia threw a hand across her forehead in an imitation swoon. “Oh, my lord, my dear sister is deathly ill. And though she longs—nay, pines—to see the face of her very favorite Capulet uncle who has not spoken three words to her in years, the doctor has strictly forbidden her to see anyone who wishes to induce her to marry, as hearing the name ‘Benvolio’ makes her break out in pox.”

  Rosaline laughed and gave her sister a shove toward the door. “Leave the dramatics to the stage players. Just tell him I am sick and can receive no visitors.” This was the reason she gave for becoming a hermit these last few days, and no one would publicly contradict it. Only a few Montagues and Capulets knew the truth about the betrothal the prince was trying to force on her—her uncle and the prince had not announced it publicly. In this, at least, they were wise. If Verona society knew a Capulet maid had spurned a Montague suitor, House Montague’s humiliation would know no bounds.

  “That’s dull,” Livia’s voice floated back from the corridor.

  Shortly Rosaline heard the scrape of wood from the front hall as Livia hauled the front doors open. Her sister’s voice rose and fell in polite tones, though from her bedroom Rosaline could not make out the words. Then another voice answered. A woman’s, but not the genteel, courtly accent of a Capulet lady. This voice was loud, and common. Rosaline frowned. It almost sounded like—

  Rosaline threw her sewing behind a chair, pulled her hair out of its pins, and had just enough time to toss the covers aside and jump into bed before the door flew open and Juliet’s nurse burst in.

  “Good morrow, Rosaline dear,” she said. “I heard you were sick.”

  Livia, trailing in after her, shot Rosaline an apologetic glance over the nurse’s shoulder. “Dear nurse, I told thee, the doctor has said Rosaline is to receive no one—”

  “And quite right he is too.” The nurse plumped her prodigious bulk down on Rosaline’s bedside and began searching around inside a large sack that smelled strongly of cabbage. “Ah, my dears, I pray you never know the torture of my corns. A stream of bothersome visitors? ’Twill do naught for your health. ’Tis just what I always told your mother when you two were small. I’d say, dear lady, you go and attend the princess, leave the pretty wretches with the old nurse when they’ve caught fever. I’ll soon make a physic so hot ’twill burn the fever out of them.”

  Rosaline could see Livia trying not to laugh. Indeed, the nurse’s homemade medicines had been the terror of their young lives. As children they’d rarely been at home; they were either with their mother at the palace or playing with Juliet at House Capulet. They’d spent so much time with their cousin as children that the nurse had come to consider them nearly as much her charges as her beloved Juliet, and she was especially fierce when any of them fell sick. Her medicines tasted so vile they required immediate recuperation.

  “Your color’s good,” she said, taking Rosaline’s chin in a critical hand and turning it side to side. “Of course, so they say ladies in a consumption look just before they die.”

  Rosaline sighed. “I am not in a consumption, nurse.”

  “No? Good. We’ll soon have you right, then. I cured every fever and cough dear Jule had from the day I weaned her. Dost thou mind when I weaned her? I laid the bitter wormwood on my dug”—the nurse gave her breast an affectionate squeeze—“and she did scream! Thou wast then a little puling thing of six, Rosaline.”

  Rosaline’s eyes narrowed. The nurse’s lethargy of the night at House Capulet had given way to a frantic energy. What had caused so great a change in mood? Her contemplation was interrupted by the glug of the medicine bottle as the nurse poured out a dose. “Truly, there is no need—” Rosaline’s words dissolved into sputtering as a spoonful of horror was shoved into her mouth. She sat up, the burning from the brew racking her with coughs.

  “There, you see? You’ve more spirit already.” The nurse brandished a jar of murky liquid. “Just you drink a dram of this every hour and you’ll soon be on your feet.”

  “Worry not,” Livia said with a wicked gleam in her eye. “I’ll see she takes it.” Rosaline shot her a glare.

  “Good,” said the nurse. “I’d stay here and attend to her myself, but my lady has much need of me.”

  “How does my lady aunt?” said Rosaline, in a desperate attempt to distract the nurse from the second spoonful she was pointing Rosaline’s way.

  A strange look crossed the nurse’s face. “She is well,” she said, then pressed her lips together.

  “Is she? I thought that she was still abed since Juliet’s death.”

  “Aye,” the nurse said uneasily. “She’s very well, for one that has not left her bed for grief. ’Twas that I meant.”

  Rosaline blinked and said, “Ah.” It had never been profitable to try to follow the paths blazed by the nurse’s brain.

  “Well,” the nurse said. “I must away. See you take your medicine, ladybird. My lord is very anxious you should get well, that you may wed that handsome fellow.” She frowned as she stood, brushing off her skirts and absently licking a stray drop of medicine from her hand. “Not that I hold with the marrying of Montagues, mind. If I’d only kept my Jule from their clutches …” She crossed herself. “Well. She’s with God now, and the Montagues will surely get their punishment in the hereafter, so I suppose you may as well marry one in the meantime. ’Twould certainly be better than wasting your beauty in a nunnery.” Next to the bed, Livia went very still.

  “No waste will it be,” Rosaline croaked. She found her poor scorched throat needed no encouragement now to make her sound as if she were at death’s door. “What waste is there in dedicating my life to God and helping the poor?”

  “Hmph. Nunneries are for ugly girls. Good day, my dears.”

  When she had gone, Rosaline gave a sigh of relief and got out of bed. “Thank heaven. I thought she would cover me with leeches next.”

  “Mmm.” Livia had shut the door behind
the nurse; she lingered with her hand on the doorknob. Finally she turned back to her sister. “Rosaline …”

  Rosaline was taking up her sewing again. Throwing it down like that had tangled the thread terribly. She tensed, having some idea of what was coming. Why had the nurse mentioned the nunnery in front of Livia? This was not how she wanted her sister to learn of her plans. “Yes, dearest?”

  “Is it true, what she said?” Livia curled up in her chair. “About taking holy orders? Uncle Capulet mentioned it on one of his visits, but I thought ’twas but a way thou didst seek to escape this match.”

  Rosaline winced. She’d been lucky to avoid this conversation for so long; it wasn’t one she looked forward to. “Well … no. I truly do wish to go into a convent.”

  Livia picked at a loose thread in the hem of her gown. Rosaline waited for expressions of horror that Rosaline could be thinking of adopting a way of life that included neither dancing nor young men nor the latest hairstyles, but Livia said nothing.

  “I know it may seem strange,” Rosaline said. “But ’twill take me away from all things Montague and Capulet forever, and I have no dearer wish than that.”

  Livia did not look up. Finally she said, “When meant you to tell me?”

  “I’d hoped to see thee betrothed first,” Rosaline said. “There seemed no need to mention it before— Oh God’s teeth, not again!”

  The boom of the door knocker was sounding through the house once more. Livia went to the window, where she could lean out and see who was at their gate. “It’s one of Uncle’s servants.” She called down to him, “What is your will?”

  “I’ve a message from my master,” the man yelled up. “His niece Rosaline is to unbar her doors and come to his house forthwith. I’ll not budge from your threshold till she does.”

  Rosaline peeked over Livia’s shoulder. Sure enough, the man had sat down and made himself comfortable outside their door. “Lord. I’ll go down and chase him off—”

  “No need,” Livia said. She turned away from the window. “I’ll go to Uncle’s house in your stead. Perhaps if I speak to him, he will leave us alone.”