Still Star-Crossed

by Melinda Taub

  “Buck up, you flap-mouthed baggage, it’s naught but a bit of horse-dirt. No puking on Vestiver there.”

  Rosaline straightened, swallowing with an effort. “Your pardon. I did but pause to draw breath.”

  “Well, you’re a hard-working enough young fellow,” Tuft said reluctantly. “That’s enough for today. Come, let’s wash and sup.”

  Rosaline looked up and realized the sun was actually setting. She and Tuft left the stables, and she found that the monks had left them several buckets to wash with. She had a moment’s panic when Tuft stripped off his shirt and plunged it in one bucket and his head and arms in another, scrubbing himself vigorously. “What are you waiting for?” he asked when he saw her hanging back. “Wash, boy. You cannot dine so among holy men. Nothing brings lofty thoughts to earth like a good stink.”

  Rosaline fingered the edge of her shirt. He was right, but she could hardly disrobe before him. “I—I—”

  Tuft gave a mighty sigh. “You are a soft one, aren’t you. Here.” He tossed her a change of clothes. “Friar Francis left this for you. Watch out, I think he means to make a monk of you. Take it and go and wash in yonder bushes.”

  Thank God for Tuft’s towering contempt for nobles. It seemed to make him lose any interest in “Niccolo’s” eccentricities. Rosaline took the shirt and some water over to the bushes, which afforded her enough privacy to wash and change without fear of detection. Niccolo of Padua would live on for the moment.

  Newly scrubbed, she and Tuft made their way into the kitchen. Tuft was right about Friar Francis—he seemed to have designs on “Niccolo,” and asked her to join the monks for supper, “to discuss your future.” But Rosaline begged off, fearing to come face-to-face with Friar Laurence, and instead ate in the kitchen with Tuft and the other lay servants.

  Finally, supper was done, the pots and pans scrubbed, and the monks had found “Niccolo” a place to sleep by the hearth. Rosaline changed back into Benvolio’s clothes—she did not intend to pass another day here, and she did not wish to steal from the monks who had been so kind. Friar Laurence was another matter. She lay awake, listening to the pops of the logs and the evening prayers echoing against stone, until at last the noise was still and the abbey was silent. When she was sure that the monks had gone to bed, she rose.

  Now or never.

  Her heart was in her throat as she picked her way over the snoring scullions, praying for sure-footedness. Once past the kitchen, she found the stone corridor empty and silent, lit only by a few torches. What had Benvolio said? Friar Laurence’s study was at the top of a tower? There were two, one at the northeast corner and one at the northwest. She crept toward the northwest corner of the abbey, but found the door there locked.

  It would have to be the other one, then. Rosaline slipped into the shadows, pressing herself into the wall to allow a group of sleepy young monks to pass by, before tiptoeing eastward. As she passed the chapel, a light caught her eye. A candle rested on the floor, next to a figure bent in prayer. It was Friar Laurence, though the calm, gentle man she had met a week before was nearly unrecognizable in the desperate figure before her. He was on his knees, rocking, his body a slumped arc of shame, his hands clasped as though he could hold on to God’s mercy with the strength of his grip. His mumbled prayers were too quiet to understand, but she did hear the words “Montague” and “Forgive me.”

  Rosaline hardened her heart against a stab of pity. He could beg for forgiveness until doomsday as far as she was concerned. It was his fault they were in this mess. His fault Benvolio was in danger. Besides, his midnight attack of conscience was good luck for her. It meant his chambers were empty.

  She sped toward the east tower. Finding the door unlocked, she slipped up the winding stair and into a small, moonlit chamber. Sure enough, the walls were lined with books, plants, and mathematical models, just as Benvolio had said. Now where was the book she sought? She looked on the desk where Benvolio had discovered it, but found it bare. None of the drawers contained a small red book either, nor any of the shelves. She looked in his closet, even under his bedclothes. In her haste, she no longer tried to leave the place looking undisturbed, throwing books and robes and blankets all around. Nothing.

  Despite her growing panic, she paused, and took a deep breath to regroup. The book was gone from its former place. Had Friar Laurence destroyed it? She would have. If you had a secret you feared would be discovered, why keep it writ down? But she suspected the friar was of a more sentimental turn of mind than she. He would not want to destroy it. But he would, perhaps, hide it. Rosaline clasped her hands behind her back, turning a slow circle as she allowed her eyes to drift over the friar’s small room. Where could he hide anything?

  Her gaze caught on one of the chamber’s few bits of adornment: a drawing mounted on the wall. Frowning, she drew nearer. It was more of a sketch than a drawing, really—just a handful of lines and a bit of shading, suggesting its subjects rather than detailing them. The drawing was merely competent, but what the hand of the artist—the friar himself, Rosaline imagined—lacked in brilliance, it made up in affection. The sketch portrayed several small boys of about nine, all of them with slates in their laps. One, a lanky lad, was peering over his mate’s shoulder, as though to steal his answer. His neighbor, a small boy with a comical mop of curls, was gazing dreamily off into the distance. Only one serious young figure was bent industriously over his sums, his dark brows furrowed, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.

  Rosaline swallowed, brushing her fingertips over their young faces. Mercutio. Romeo. Benvolio. She knew she’d found the friar’s hiding place.

  Sure enough, when she pulled the drawing back from the wall, she found a small crevice in the stones, and inside it was a slim red book. Rosaline seized it, preparing to run, and then with a surge of irritation turned back and seized the drawing too. The sentimental old coward had no right to such a thing when two of its subjects were in heaven, the third shortly to join them, and he’d done nothing to stop it.

  Rosaline ran down the stairs as quickly as she could, not caring so much about the noise now. She was not far from the rear door. All she had to do was get to the stables without being stopped and she and Silvius could be on their way. She had almost reached the bottom when she ran headlong into Friar Laurence.

  He stumbled back, nearly falling down the stairs. Righting himself, he grumbled, “Boy, why art thou about? The abbot has promised me that no servant—” He looked properly at her face and his jaw dropped. “Lady Rosaline? What in the world!” Rosaline made no reply, merely tried to push past him. He stopped her with a hand on her elbow. His eyes narrowed as he saw the book she carried. “Ah, that way goes the game. Stop, thief!” he shouted, reaching to grab it away from her.

  And then his grip went slack, falling away. Rosaline glanced at him, and realized he’d spotted her other prize, clutched against her chest: his drawing.

  “Father—”

  “Go.” He pressed a trembling hand to his eyes and stepped out of her way. “Go.”

  She started past him, and then turned back, pressing the drawing into his hand. Then she ran straight down the stairs, out the back door, and into the stables. And she and Silvius rode once more toward home. She prayed with all her might that they would reach it this time.

  “Livia! What dost thou hereabouts?”

  Livia’s heart swelled at the concern on Paris’s face. He was seated behind a small desk in the middle of a military tent, where the two guards who had found her had dragged her. “I had to see you,” she said. “I know ’twas foolish to fly the city all alone, but when I heard yesterday that you were nearby I could wait no longer. I rode all day. Ay! That hurts, you joithead.” She tried without success to shake off the grip of the two guards holding her arms.

  Paris jumped to his feet with an impatient gesture to the two men. “Take your hands off my lady, louts, or I’ll cut them off.”

  “You said not to allow anyone into camp,” one of them p
rotested.

  Paris waved them off and snapped, “This is your lady. Obey her as you would me. Leave us.” The two men bowed and withdrew.

  “I told you you’d be in trouble,” Livia called after them.

  Paris turned to Livia, smiling. “My dear Lady Livia.” He took her hands in his, brushing his lips over one set of knuckles, then the other. “Aghast though I am to find thee here among these rough men I command, I must admit my heart leaps for joy to see thee.”

  “And so does mine,” Livia said. “How I longed for thee! It feels an eternity since I watched thee ride away.”

  “Oh, my love. I shall never leave thy side again.” Paris pulled her into his arms and kissed her sweetly, and for a moment Livia lost herself in the touch of his lips and the joy of his words. He loved her.

  But reality intruded in her thoughts and she pulled back, laying her hands against his chest. “My lord, what is all this? I expected perhaps a half-dozen men when I came to seek thee, and instead I find an army! Why are they here? And where is my sister?”

  His smile vanished. “Thy sister was here. We had a disagreement, and though I begged her to remain in my protection, she would depart. But I assure thee, she was whole and well when last I saw her.”

  Livia frowned. Rosaline certainly preferred to keep her own counsel, but wandering the countryside alone? “Did she say when she would return home?”

  “I do not believe she intended to return to Verona,” Paris replied vaguely. “But, sweet Livia, thou wilt understand my aims better than she could. Thou must do so, for they concern thee too.” He took her hand and pressed it to his heart, and told her what he intended to do.

  Livia’s eyes went wide as Paris described his plans to overthrow their sovereign. “You intend to seize Escalus’s throne? You cannot! ’Tis madness!”

  He smiled. “All great plans appear mad at first. Canst thou not see, Livia? Just as thy gentle hands cleansed my wound each day till I was sound, so shall I rid Verona of the pestilence that brings it low again and again.” He drew back, taking both of her hands in his. “And once I’ve the crown, there shall remain only one thing necessary to be perfectly happy evermore. A prince needs a princess by his side. I can think of no one better to be my help and comfort than she who restored my very life. Before I left Verona I asked and received thy good aunt’s blessing, so the choice is thine—Livia, wilt thou be my wife?”

  Livia’s heart seized in her throat. Paris’s eyes were wide and smiling, boring into hers, and she found she could not look away. Princess of Verona. Paris meant to raise her above all other ladies in the city. To marry her.

  Dazzling visions swam in front of her eyes. A crown on Paris’s head … Paris taking her hand before the bishop, making her his wife, eyes lit by love … standing with him on a palace balcony, waving to cheering crowds … children with his warm eyes and her honey-colored hair …

  “Dearest, sweetest Livia.” He kissed her again, and again, as though he could not have enough of her. “Say thou wilt stand with me.”

  Benvolio’s head was throbbing when he woke.

  His vision swam with vague, muddy shapes and colors that slowly drifted back into focus. He winced, trying to raise his hands to scrub the haze from his eyes, but found his wrists shackled.

  The last two days had passed in a miserable blur. Paris’s army had moved out the morning after Rosaline’s escape, but because of their numbers they moved more slowly than he and Rosaline had, and they had only just arrived outside the city walls—he hoped that meant she was already safe at home. Paris had kept him chained in a supply wagon when they were on the move, and in a tent when they were not. Occasionally one of his captors would come in and knock him around a bit, trying to learn what he knew of Rosaline’s flight. He was able to take those beatings in fairly good spirits, because as long as they continued, it meant Paris’s men had not found her. Now he was in yet another tent, curled in the mud with several men talking over him, and though a series of blinks failed to bring their faces into focus, their voices could not be mistaken.

  “He will not say a word of Rosaline,” a voice he recognized as Paris’s said. “Prepare yourself, cousin. He will no doubt spin you a heartbreaking tale of his innocence, and may even lay all his crimes at my feet. I have never met so skilled a liar.”

  “That’s to be expected,” said a cool, amused voice. “The prospect of imminent death is often a great inspiration to the imagination, I have found.”

  Benvolio’s fingers flexed against the damp grass beneath him. The prince.

  A hand gripped his arm, hauling him to his knees. “The dog stirs. What have you to say for yourself, cur?”

  Benvolio squinted, forcing his eyes to obey him. Before him stood the captain of Paris’s guard, Paris himself, and the prince. After all that he had been through—hell, all that Verona had been through—Benvolio found it odd to see the prince looking just as usual, his hair combed smoothly back, his fine doublet unspotted by mud or blood.

  Even the day Mercutio had died, the prince had been ever spotless.

  “Your Grace,” Benvolio said, forcing the words like jagged glass through his aching throat. “You are not safe here. He means to kill you! Run!”

  The prince’s eyebrow shot up. “Kill me?” He exchanged a glance with Paris. “Why should my kinsman kill me, when he has delivered me the knave he tracked down at my behest?” He shook his head. “Why did you kill young Gramio? Was it for revenge? Did your temperate face hide hotter hate toward the Capulets than the basest of your breed?”

  Benvolio shook his head. “Upon my honor, ’twas not I.”

  The prince knelt down before him. Those cool, assessing eyes held an unaccustomed glint of anger. “I am aweary of making excuses for the vicious things your families have wrought upon each other,” he said quietly. “Of believing there are honest men among you, only to be proven again and again that you are naught but dogs. Of seeing innocents fall victim to your enmity.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Knowest thou the sycamore grove to the west of the city walls? Even now, my men are preparing the highest hill for the executioner’s work. Every gate to the city shall stand open, so that every merchant, lord, and vassal may come and see what becomes of a traitor to the Crown. I offer thee one last time the mercy thou hast never shown. Tell me what thou didst to Lady Rosaline or thou wilt be dead by tomorrow’s sunset.”

  Benvolio glanced up. Paris was smiling faintly. He looked back to his sovereign, endeavoring to show him with his gaze that he was in earnest. “Listen to me, Your Grace,” Benvolio said, trying to keep his voice low. “I speak as one who was ever your honest and true servant. I will go to the grave as such, even if ’tis your own hand that dispatches me. Paris means to depose you. Why think you he raised such a massive force? Would it take a thousand men to find one Benvolio? You must flee now and close the city gates behind you, if you value your life and wish to guard our city ’gainst his tyranny.”

  Paris laughed. “A thousand men? Though Benvolio speaks, ’tis his cowardice that babbles with his tongue.” He swept open the entrance to the tent, and with a nod, beckoned his guards to haul Benvolio outside.

  Benvolio blinked as the sun stabbed into his eyes. As the scene before him swam into his sight, he thought he must be hallucinating. There were but two other small tents. No more than a dozen men. That was all.

  “They are coming,” he said, turning to the prince. “He has left them over the next hill, or hidden them in the forest, but they are coming. I saw them, Your Grace, and so did Rosaline—”

  “Stop this raving!” the prince said sharply. “Rosaline! Where is she? My cousin says she was raving when he rescued her, unable to tell friend from foe—that she fled his men when they tried to help her. What did you do to her?”

  “Answer him!” the captain growled, and cuffed him across the face, sending him sprawling into the dirt. He raised a foot, about to bring it down on his ribs, but a sharp gesture from the prince made him fall back.

/>   Benvolio shook his head to try to clear the ringing from his ears. “She— I made her flee.”

  “Where?”

  “I know not, and if I did I would not reveal it in such treacherous company. I pray she will never return.”

  A ripple of anger passed across the prince’s face. “Wherefore? So she cannot tell the tale of her ravishment at thy hands?”

  “How I— No! I never—”

  “Silence, you dog.” The prince knelt before him, and for the first time, that cool mask cracked, revealing a fury such as Benvolio had never seen him show. “No word you can say now will save you from the executioner’s blade.”

  “I never touched her,” Benvolio said. “She came with me willingly, to prove I was falsely accused.”

  The prince looked up at Paris. “Art thou certain thou knowest nothing of where she’s gone?”

  “She was raving when we found her. Her sojourn in his clutches had quite destroyed her wits. I know not where she may have gone. I shall never forgive myself for letting her wander away,” Paris said sadly.

  The prince shook his head. “I thought you the most honorable of men, Benvolio. Never have I been so mistaken in placing my trust. To think I nearly forced her to marry you.” He drew a sharp breath in through his teeth. “And now you have ruined her.”

  “No man could ruin her,” Benvolio said. “She is the wisest, bravest, best of ladies. I had rather cut off my hand before using it to outrage fair Rosaline—”

  The prince barked a bitter laugh. “How speak you so of the lady you destroyed, Benvolio? Is’t possible that e’en as you betrayed her trusting spirit for your own foul ends, she’s won your heart?”

  Benvolio’s eyes widened as he stared up at his sovereign’s impassioned face. “My lord,” he said, “has she won yours?”

  The prince’s hand dealt him a fierce blow to the cheek. Benvolio crumpled to the ground, his head ringing again.

  “Make your peace with God, Benvolio,” the prince said over his shoulder, turning to leave. “You die at dawn.” Benvolio tried to move, to cry out, to warn him once more, but darkness drew him inexorably into its embrace.