by David Hewson
In all four encounters he’d only ever heard her utter a single word.
Scusami.
Excuse me. And then she was gone.
That this was love he didn’t doubt. All the symptoms he found described in verse were there. Never a night passed without his thinking of her, dreaming of her, seeing in his head the two of them together. Alone in the woods. Dancing. Laughing. And in his bed. That last happened a lot, not that he was willing to speak of it to anyone except, discreetly, in confession, though he wished with every fibre in his body there was some real secret in his breast – or better, hers – deserving of a priestly cleansing.
Books should have been a comfort. Verse more than anything. Poetry ran through Verona’s veins. Catullus, the recorder of many kinds of love, had been born here. Petrarch, another chronicler of the heart, once lived in the city. When Dante was expelled from Florence under pain of death it was Verona’s ruler Cangrande –the ‘big dog’ – who gave him refuge. Yet every time and in every place Romeo looked for comfort, verse seemed to do nothing but jeer at his failings.
He opened the small bound copy of Catullus he’d brought with him and found, at random, another taunt.
‘I hate and I love. Well may you ask me why. But I don’t know. Only that it happens and I am tortured.’
He sat down on a fallen tree beneath the shade of an overhanging branch and placed the book on his knees. No fancy clothes for Romeo, no slashed sleeves and rich velvet. He wore plain dark blue britches, a linen shirt of saffron yellow for the season, and went about the world hatless because this seemed to him somehow poetic.
‘I am tortured,’ he whispered. ‘Here. In a grove of plane trees. Close to the flowing river. Surrounded by the birds and animals of the forest who notice my agony no better than my so-called friends.’
There ought to be a limit to how much a man could feel sorry for himself. He believed he’d reached that several days before only to discover he was mistaken.
A thought occurred and it was briefly cheering.
‘I’ll go home and pen a poem. Like Catullus did for his Lesbia. Petrarch his Laura. Dante for Beatrice Portinari.’
Except Catullus and Petrarch and Dante seemed principally to write about rejection. They rarely got so much as a kiss. Romeo had been hoping for rather more than that, especially from the daughter of a horse trader, a man who would surely ache to place his offspring inside a grand Verona household.
A large stag beetle ambled past, black horns waving. It stopped and seemed to look at him and laugh. He raised his foot above the thing. The beetle kept on staring. Romeo placed his toes next to the creature and gently urged it along.
‘Women can be cruel and horrible. Just like the world.’
There was a sound behind him, within the walls. A racket he knew. Angry voices. Shouts and alarums.
He picked up his book and trudged disconsolately back towards the city gate.
* * *
Escalus was a military man. By rights he should have been with the Venetian fleet in the Adriatic, waiting on the Turks. But four years before, in a clash near Cyprus, an arrow had taken his right eye and part of the cheek with it. A black patch and a small silver plate replaced them now. When he found himself restricted to terra firma his masters in Venice had given him Verona with a simple instruction: ‘Keep the peace. With armies gathering on three sides of us, plague and financial uncertainty abroad, we have no time to deal with petty matters like riots and civil disturbance.’
He hated the place. It was easier fighting heathen warriors than maintaining order in a disputatious little city that seemed able to create an argument out of morning mist.
Most of the time he spent in his quarters in the Cangrande castle. That was where he felt at home. But the duties Venice had given him made his job as much that of city official as its marshal. So he was in the market tithes office at the foot of the Torre dei Lamberti checking that all due taxes were being paid when the sergeant walked in, saluted, took a deep breath and said, ‘They’re at it again, sir. Out in the market. Montagues and Capulets. Like cats and bloody dogs they are. Well, worse actually. I mean cats and dogs don’t scrap like–’
Escalus adjusted his eye patch and wondered: perhaps it was best to let them fight it out this time. Then clean up the corpses later and count himself lucky there’d be fewer of the quarrelling clans to worry about when next they came to blows.
‘What’s it this time?’
‘Someone biting their thumb, it seems.’
The trouble was… word of unrest got back to the Doge’s palace faster than a horseman might ride sometimes. Venice had its spies everywhere. There were stone lion’s mouths throughout the city, with invitations for citizens to post their anonymous accusations through them for the authorities to read. Most of those missives wound up on his desk, but not all, of that he felt sure. Nothing could be hidden from the Doge’s palace. If he couldn’t maintain order in a petty little spot like Verona the chances of him getting another command in the navy were gone for good.
‘Biting their thumb?’
‘A very rude thing to do if you ask me,’ the sergeant replied.
‘It’s time these quarrelsome bumpkins learned their place. Fetch me the day watch. Arm them. Tell them to follow my every command.’
He got up and found the sword that had followed him through twenty-five years of service under five different doges wearing the horned bonnet known as the corno ducale, two Mocenigo, two Barbarigo and a Vendramin.
Escalus walked to the door of the tithe house and shielded his one good eye against the bright morning sun. He could see them, hear them. A fractious rabble, not yet a riot, behind the meat stalls. A bunch of youths – some servants – two others of nobler stock. Then four more figures came into view. Two well-dressed, middle-aged men scuttling along, followed by their women.
The sergeant walked up and stood beside him. From behind came the clatter of armour and the rattle of weapons against steel, the watch getting ready.
‘That’s all we need,’ said the sergeant by his side. ‘Capulet and Montague themselves.’
‘At least they brought their wives to enjoy the show,’ Escalus pointed out. ‘And they shall see one. Get your men. Follow me.’
* * *
The rising heat made the piazza stink. Raw meat and rank cheese. Horse muck steaming from the cobbles. Benvolio walked into the centre of the circling servants, Montagues on one side, Capulets on the other. His sword was drawn, for warning, nothing more.
‘Enough of this, lads!’ he cried. ‘No blood on Verona’s piazza this day. Put away your knives. Go home. I’m sure there’s work to do. Let’s have some peace–’
‘Peace!’ It was Tybalt, out from the shadows, his long rapier drawn, his face keen and angry. ‘If it’s peace you want, why’s your blade out? And these two scum of yours waving their kitchen knives around?’
The crowd were milling, muttering, getting angry and restless. The butcher started brandishing a club and yelling the kind of imprecations only country folk used.
Benvolio looked around him. Only two friendly Montague faces in the growing tumult, Abraham and Balthazar. Three Capulets, one of them Tybalt. Men perished quickly in circumstances like this.
‘There’s no need…’ he started.
‘I hate Montagues. As much as I hate peace,’ Tybalt cried. ‘Fight you, coward.’
With that he struck out, dashing his rapier through the air once, then straight towards Benvolio’s breast.
All the fencing lessons came back then. Feint and parry. Riposte and remise. The two of them joined then halted, each holding back the other’s blade with his.
‘We are here to set an example,’ Benvolio said. ‘Not teach them how to riot.’
Spitting vile curses, Tybalt pushed him away. Benvolio stumbled on a tile made slippery by blood from the butcher’s goat. Another move he’d learned returned. Passato sotto. He half-fell, stopped himself with one hand to the ground, waited on the a
ttack. Tybalt, too angry to be wise, came on. Benvolio’s blade rose, not towards his foe’s stomach as it might but to his sword hand, finding the gap between loop guard and grip, nicking Tybalt’s fingers, loosening his hold. There was a brief yell of anger and pain. Then the rapier flew to one side and clattered on the cobbles.
The commotion around them was rising. The brawl had begun.
Screaming obscenities, the butcher waded in, swinging a club first at Gregory then at Abraham, a handful of traders behind him, a little less keen.
‘Let’s have these buggers,’ the man yelled. ‘Stinking Capulets. Bloody Montagues. All the same. They think they own this place…’
Tybalt still stood there, one hand on hip, sucking at the cut to his fingers, not caring to find his weapon, staring at Benvolio, a look that said: another time. The servants bent under the blows of the butcher and the shopkeepers who’d joined him, brandishing knives and sticks, any makeshift weapon they could find.
‘I tried…’ Benvolio whispered, then heard a voice cry out.
‘What noise is this? Give me my sword, Bianca. I will not have my servants beaten by this filth.’
Capulet was trying to push through the melee from the right, his wife struggling to hold him back.
‘Don’t be an old fool,’ she pleaded. ‘You haven’t got a sword with you. At your age I shouldn’t let you out of doors without a crutch.’
There was a furious howl to his left. A voice Benvolio recognised.
‘Is that Capulet? Leave me, woman. Leave me I say. I must aid my own.’
It was Benvolio’s uncle, held back by his wife, too, desperate to join the fray.
‘I am a peaceful, law-abiding man,’ Andrea Montague shouted, his patrician voice wavering amidst the din. ‘But, by God, I swear I’ll not take insults from any villainous Capulet.’
‘No brawling, husband,’ his wife told him. She was a touch taller and somewhat broader. Stronger too since Montague was a spindly, sickly man unfit for any kind of fight. ‘Best not tangle with these thugs. We shall not…’
The words were lost. Benvolio tapped his cap to Tybalt and looked around him. Of late disorders seemed to happen almost daily in differing degrees. Some short and reluctant. A few long and brutal. This Monday morning affray lay somewhere in between, more a scuffle than a battle. Thankfully most of the market men stuck with clubs and mallets, keeping their blades well sheathed.
Then he found himself barged out of the way by a soldier in shiny metal armour. There was the sound of boots on old stone, and a hard Venetian voice, commanding, military, silenced them all.
Ah, fair Verona, Benvolio thought. How we pass the time.
Escalus pushed to the front. A soldier through and through, tall and ramrod rigid like a general. That black eyepatch and silver cheek guard were enough to silence even the most heated of those around him. Tybalt had quietly slipped back into the shadows, ready to slink out of the piazza altogether.
‘Enough. Enough!’ Escalus bellowed. ‘Put down all weapons, clubs and all. I will not–’
‘He started it, sir,’ Samson piped up, jabbing an accusing finger at Abraham who now clutched his head, blood issuing from a slash in his scalp.
‘I did not,’ the Montague servant cried. ‘He was biting his thumb. We merely wished to point out–’
‘Quiet, you rabble,’ Escalus ordered.
Capulet stepped forward. ‘I was witness to this, my lord. These young men of mine did not set a foot wrong. They merely went about their business and were, as usual, subject to such slander and violence from the thugs of this accused house–’
‘It’s only slander if it’s a lie!’ Andrea Montague bawled. ‘And, try as I might, I cannot think of any calumny of which a Capulet might be accused that does not bear some firm basis in the truth. They cheat and swindle, spread foul slander about their rivals and–’
Escalus’s one eye twitched. ‘I swear to God this flea-bitten town puts me in a murderous mood. One more word…’
The butcher was next to him, bloody club in hand, both scared and awed. ‘I served with you, sir. In Cyprus. I was on the galleon when you suffered that terrible wound. It was a miracle. You didn’t even whimper.’
The marshal squinted at him, trying to place the man. ‘And now you’re a butcher in Verona?’
‘That I am. Trying to earn an honest living. Not easy when these two tribes of toffs cause havoc in the streets morning, noon and night. Three times we’ve had it in a month. And where’s our business now? I’m a citizen of the Republic. I swore to defend it. Time it did something to defend me–’
Escalus held up his hand. ‘Time indeed. I’ve had my fill of rebellion. Of breaches of our precious peace. We’ve enemies all sides of us, plague not far away, God knows what other nightmares waiting in the wings.’
‘Was them what started it, your worship,’ Samson objected, then fell silent when the man’s single eye fell upon him.
The quiet in the Piazza Erbe was broken only by the squawks of chickens cooped in cages and the distant wail of a crying infant.
‘And for what?’ the marshal’s deep voice boomed. ‘A stupid insult of the kind a child might utter. For nothing more than a petty jibe you turn this peaceful city into a place good men and women dare not walk.’ He pointed at Capulet, then Montague. ‘Hear me well. If any of you disturb our streets again, servant or lord I care not, you’ll pay for it with your lives. Peasant, merchant or nobleman, the miscreants can go to torture then the gallows. Whatever your station I’ll string you up by the neck myself and pull on your damned ankles while you writhe.’
He paused, looked round the crowd. With the eye patch and the silver cheek he resembled a glorious wounded eagle surveying its prey. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
No answer. Then Escalus nodded at the sergeant.
‘Capulet comes with me now. I’ll deal with him in private. Tell Montague I’ll interview him at three o’clock this afternoon. If he’s late put the man in irons and let him fester in a dungeon for a while. This performance is at an end.’
With that he pushed through the mumbling crowd with a nod for the butcher, who saluted then gave a little bow. The soldiers took Luca Capulet by the arms and dragged him in the direction of Cangrande’s castle.
‘We’ve having a banquet tonight, sire,’ he said, pulling free and scurrying up to walk beside the marshal. ‘Some very fancy recipes shipped in from Venice. Peacock. Have you ever tried peacock? All manner of delights. It would be the greatest honour if you…’
‘I have better things to do. Besides…’
Word was in of a new case of plague in Soave. If that was confirmed it meant the disease was travelling west towards Verona. Escalus had issued orders: any suspected house was to be immediately quarantined, none allowed in, none allowed out, a red cross painted on the door. That command was to stay secret until it was required; he had no need of more unrest.
‘As to the peacock it will be stuffed and reassembled according to a rare recipe from Constantinople,’ Capulet waffled on.
‘Sergeant!’
The soldier rushed up and said, ‘Sir?’
‘If that fool beside you utters one more word until I ask for it chuck him a dungeon and throw the bloody key in the river. Now…’
In the square, the storm abated as quickly as it had risen. Traders returned to their business. Benvolio went to the colonnade wall and closed his eyes. The sooner he could leave this place for more placid and learned streets the better.
He bought himself an apple. But before he could take a bite, someone called his name. That familiar, faint and wheezy voice: his uncle Montague. It seemed he wished to speak.
* * *
Benvolio’s home was outside the city but he stayed with his aunt and uncle from time to time. Never long. Romeo, he liked, though he sometimes found his cousin a touch distracted. Francesca Montague was a sturdy woman, always well-dressed in the finest Venice could supply. Her husband stood an inch or two shorter, a thin an
d delicate man. Theirs was a happy marriage, principally because he deferred to her on most things. An afternoon in his study, with books and wine, was all Andrea Montague desired in his declining years.
But at that moment there was a spark of anger in his eye. ‘What was all that about? I wasn’t going to say it in front of Escalus but I’m rather with him on most points. We shouldn’t pick fights with the Capulets unnecessarily. There are enough good reasons to do so without inventing them. And that young brute Tybalt…’
Benvolio knew his uncle was no fool. Luca Capulet’s nephew had a bloody reputation in the city. ‘As far as I can work out the Capulet servants started it. Yours responded. I did my best to part them. Then Tybalt turned up waving his sword in my face. I’m afraid I cut him slightly.’
Montague shook his grey head and said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’
‘Escalus has dealt with it, Uncle. He’s made his position plain. I doubt you’ll have much trouble from the servants for a while–’
‘He’s going to deal with me, too, isn’t he? It’s not the servants I’m worried about. That young man of the Capulets has a wicked, vengeful nature.’
Francesca Montague barged in and prodded Benvolio with her finger. ‘Never mind Escalus and that young Capulet thug. What about Romeo? Your cousin? Where is he?’
Benvolio had stayed with them the previous night. That morning he’d been woken by Romeo sneaking out of the house, and thought to follow him. Through the dawn light the young man trudged, beyond the city walls to a little wood that lay to the west of the river. He told them this.
‘I tried to talk to him but he ran away. Romeo seemed so melancholy it made me feel the same. I’m sorry. I don’t know why…’
‘We’re his parents. We’ve a right to know.’ She looked around the busy marketplace. ‘He goes out every morning. Then comes back and locks himself in his room. We’ve tried to talk to him. It’s as if there’s a worm eating at him from inside. What are we to do?’
It was the first time he’d ever heard Francesca Montague ask him a serious question.
