by David Hewson
Out in the garden something scurried, rustling through the dry leaves. A cat. A rat. A serpent. The world was full of unseen things. Some harmless. Some as deadly as could be.
Along the corridor, across the many halls, she heard her father bellow a wordless roar of anger.
Juliet wiped an unwanted tear from her eye then returned to her bedroom, closing the windows behind her. He didn’t wake when she stole beneath the sheet beside him.
‘This must not be our last night, love,’ she said in the quietest whisper. ‘But when again…?’
A door slammed somewhere. Her mother’s angry voice echoed that of her father’s. Sometimes he hit her. Never when Juliet was around. That would have been… unseemly.
Unmanly, too.
She pulled a second pillow into her arms and held it like a child. Then, in time, she slept.
Part Three: Such Sweet Sorrow
When he opened his eyes, Juliet was upright next to him in her nightshift, wide awake, hands around her knees. Rose-pink dawn had begun to break, bringing with it the lyrical song of a bird.
‘Don’t stir,’ she said, putting a hand to his chest as if to stop him moving. ‘Listen to the nightingale. She lives in the pomegranate bush. I know her voice.’
He struggled up anyway and leaned against the cushioned bedhead. ‘The light…’
‘It’s not dawn. Just a comet or a meteor or something. Perhaps the day will never come.’
The bird sang again.
‘That’s the lark, love. Morning’s herald. And that’s the rising sun. But call them what you want.’ His right hand found the fabric on her shoulder and gently moved it aside. Romeo’s lips brushed the skin there. ‘The marshal’s men can kill me now. I’d die content. Better a happy corpse than…’ he stared at the windows, ‘than leave Verona. And you.’
She pulled the gown around her and withdrew a little. ‘Don’t say that. This isn’t a game for children.’
‘I know.’ He touched her again. ‘How are you then, sweet Juliet? If it’s not day let’s talk a while. Or if you like… resume our practice…’
She got up, walked across the room, opened the long windows then stepped out on to the balcony. ‘You must be gone from here. Everything’s amiss. Even the lark sings out of tune.’
He came to stand behind her, arms around her shoulders, lips on her neck. She pushed him back.
‘No, no. I’m sorry. I should never…’
‘Never what?’
‘Get dressed. There’ll be soldiers all over the city soon. I’ve no wish to see you hanging from a noose.’
One more brief kiss and he whispered, ‘The greater the light, the darker our woes. Be patient, sweet Juliet. We will see each other soon. As soon as I can make–’
From inside the palazzo came three crashes so loud the racket made them jump. Romeo raced for his clothes. Juliet walked to the bedroom door and opened it a crack. The nurse had her head to one side against the wall.
‘Time to be moving,’ she whispered. ‘Your mother’s up and about and your father will be too once his head’s cleared. If they catch him here–’
‘Tell her I sleep.’
She shook her head. ‘That won’t work. She wants to see you. There’s a funeral coming. And other things on her mind.’
‘Then say I’m ill.’
The woman groaned. ‘You can’t put this off, love. Chuck that boy out of your bed.’
‘That boy’s my husband.’
Nurse laughed. ‘And how many people witnessed that? You two and a priest who’s away with the fairies half the time. One night of pleasure don’t make a marriage. If it did half the world would be wed twice over.’
Juliet closed the door and bolted it. Romeo was pulling on his boots. He checked his money, found his hat. No blue feather. Just a plain black velvet cap, the kind any traveller might wear.
The door rattled. Someone was trying to open it. There were two loud raps and then her mother declared firmly, ‘Juliet? Will you kindly let me in? We need to talk.’
‘Go,’ she said quietly and they embraced one last time. She followed him out to the balcony and watched as he climbed down the old vine. At the side gate Romeo turned and waved.
‘Poor thing,’ she whispered and didn’t think to gesture back. ‘You should have run.’
The bangs on the door were getting frantic. She dragged her gown more closely around her and went to open it.
Nurse was through first, bustling towards the bed. ‘Such a tormented night that lass has had. I will change this bedding for sure.’
The sheets.
She glanced at them. Their love, their sweat, their passion now seemed reduced to nothing more than twisted cotton. Nurse scooped up all the bedclothes in her hefty arms and scuttled out of the room.
Her mother was sniffing suspiciously.
‘Even virgins sweat,’ Juliet told her. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve opened the windows. It was a hot night. I dreamt. I tossed and turned.’ A smile. Time to change the subject. ‘And father? He seemed… loud when I last heard him. How is he?’
‘He has a thick head and a vile temper as a consequence. Best stay clear of him for a while. Black.’
‘What?’
‘Black. Tybalt’s funeral’s this morning. You must wear black. You have something?’
She shrugged. ‘Just the dress you bought me the last time we buried someone. Nurse will have to let it out. I’m… bigger. Older now.’
‘True,’ Bianca Capulet muttered. ‘Be ready by nine. We must talk. You know of what–’
‘I can guess.’
‘And your dress–’
‘Black. You said. Black it shall be.’
She waited. Her mother stared at her, aware something was different here.
‘Let’s try and make this day peaceful, daughter. With a modicum of respect. I know you didn’t like Tybalt–’
‘Did you?’
‘He didn’t deserve to die like a base thug in the street. At the hands of that vicious son of the Montagues.’
‘You know the circumstances? Tybalt had arguments aplenty. He killed someone himself last year. No one banished him for that. If only they had.’
Her mother looked around the room again. ‘The books from Venice…’
‘You asked me to tidy them. So I did.’ She began to close the door. ‘And now I’d like a little time to…’ She put a finger to her cheek. ‘Mourn. Yes. That’s it.’
In a moment she was alone.
No tears. Just anger. A sense of relief, too. She’d come so close to telling her mother everything, to spitting the truth out loud, straight in her disbelieving face. Lies seemed to spin around her everywhere. But then… as Laurence said, their brief marriage would be unwound in an instant, annulled by the fury of her father.
Face to the door, determined not to cry, she whispered to the polished wood, ‘If I must bear false witness, by God, I’ll do it. Even to them. And do it well. I’ll plot and scheme and…’
There was the lightest of knocks on the other side. She stopped and opened it a crack.
Nurse was there placing two jugs of hot water on the tiles. ‘You have a bath, love. Busy day ahead.’
‘Busier than they can know.’
Nurse stared back and for the first time Juliet wondered about her. Whose side she took. Her own, most likely.
‘Be wise, girl. Think of yourself. Your mother will want to see you very soon.’
‘I heard.’
Nurse didn’t move. ‘Those things you kindly promised me yesterday. For fetching him here. I hate to ask…’
Juliet opened the door and beckoned to her dressing table. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Not now. No rush, eh?’ She put a finger in the water and tested the temperature, a gesture she must have made a thousand times over the years. ‘There’s plenty of time to come.’
* * *
Cap low, Romeo flitted through the waking city. No one looked. No one stopped him. Within a few minutes he was by
the guardhouse on Cangrande’s swallow-tail bridge presenting his papers to the same surly sergeant who’d seized him on the piazza of Sant’Anastasia the day before.
Balthazar was waiting with more money and a horse, its saddle bags packed with clothes. He was a year younger than Romeo, the son of a baker who lived across the Ponte Pietra, close by the ancient amphitheatre that stood against the hill outside the walls of the city.
The sergeant barely looked at the servant’s warrant to enter the city for work. But he went through Romeo’s exit papers line by line. The two of them excused themselves and went to check the horse. Young, fit, the animal seemed ready for the three-hour ride south. Romeo thanked Balthazar for the money and the mount.
‘Not me you should thank. It’s your parents. They’re heartbroken they can’t see you off themselves. One day soon in Mantua they say…’
‘Aye,’ Romeo said. ‘One day.’ They were far enough from the guards not to be overheard. ‘May I trust you, Balthazar? In a matter so… private I’d trust no other man. Not my father even.’
He was a short, fair-haired youth. Decent, quiet, faithful. ‘Sir! I am your servant and have been since I was a boy. Have I given you reason to think me a double-dealing sort? I–’
‘No, never. Take no offence. But what I must confide in you–’
‘Whatever it is, your secrets rest safe with me. If I’d seen that rogue Tybalt yesterday I’d have stuck the Capulet rogue myself and saved you all this trouble.’
Romeo laughed. ‘Then you’d surely be dead. It’s only my name that’s kept my neck out of the noose.’ He looked at the grey river, empty now, not a single boat, scarcely a bird even. ‘My name…’
Balthazar coughed to get his attention. ‘A servant’s a servant. You tell me what you want.’
He did then and watched as the lad’s eyes grew wide with shock.
‘You wish me to convey messages between you and the Capulets? The Capulets? Who got you into all this trouble in the first place?’
‘Just to the daughter. Juliet of that house. And this… trouble is of my own making. No one else’s. I should have walked away and I didn’t. You live the other side of the bridge. You’ve a warrant to come and go. This plague ban needn’t stop you.’
‘Maybe not. But the Capulets are our enemies.’
Romeo leaned on the red-brick wall, wondering how long it took for hate to die. This young man had no reason to loathe the Capulets. Any more than Tybalt had good cause to hate him. At some point this bitter rancour had to fade. How many would suffer along the way?
‘You mustn’t think like that. Old rivalries soon will be forgotten if–’
‘Oi!’ the sergeant bellowed. ‘Montague! Get your bony arse over here.’
Quickly Balthazar said, ‘I may not understand any of this but you’re my master. I’ll bring anything the lady tells me straight to you in Mantua. That’s a promise. No, no.’ Romeo was offering him coins. ‘I do it out of loyal duty. I’m paid for that already.’
Romeo thanked him swiftly and returned to the guards. They were grinning, looking him up and down. The sergeant waved the paper from Escalus in his hand. ‘It says here that should we find you anywhere in the territory of the great Republic of Venice from midday on we must, without delay, take your life.’
‘I understand that.’
One of the soldiers tapped the paper. ‘Don’t say how though, do it? Leaves that small detail to us. So what do you reckon, mate? Any preferences?’
They liked a joke, he guessed. A little fun before he was on his way.
‘I do not intend to give you reason or opportunity, sirs. But should the occasion arise… I imagine you have your methods.’
The second soldier butted in. Another face familiar from the piazza of Sant’Anastasia the day before.
‘I saw what this vicious young bugger did yesterday. Stuck one of his own kind, another toff, straight through the belly. I know we tend to hang ’em. But that’s much too good for the likes of him.’
The sergeant nodded gravely.
The first guard agreed as well. ‘And as for an axe… I mean that’s quick and painless they reckon, so long as you do it proper and the fellow don’t move his head.’
That wasn’t right either, the sergeant declared. Though being professionals they wouldn’t make it a mess of it at all.
‘We could chuck him in the Adige,’ one of them suggested. ‘In a sack. With a rock. Like we do with cats.’
‘I take water from that river,’ the sergeant cried. ‘Are you trying to poison me?’
They scratched their heads for a while, enjoying their game. Romeo folded his arms and waited. He had no choice.
Finally the sergeant’s eyes lit up. He jabbed a finger in the air with a joyful cry. After that he went into the guardhouse and came back with a length of black wire attached to a lump of wood.
‘Oh, genius.’ The first soldier had happy tears in his eyes. ‘When did we last garrotte anyone? I can barely remember.’
‘Vicenza,’ his mate said. ‘Two years ago. That bloke from Naples who stabbed one of our lads over a card game. Poor sod’s eyes almost popped out. Tongue went kind of black. Lots of gagging and croaking, too.’ He scratched his long and florid nose. ‘I’m not sure we did it right at all.’
The sergeant walked round and round, staring at Romeo’s neck. ‘You know what I think, lads. We need some practice. This one here…’ He opened up the wire loop and slipped it over Romeo’s head. From the bridge, by the horse, Balthazar watched in horror. ‘Just the right size.’ The metal noose tightened against Romeo’s throat, enough so he could barely breathe. ‘We need to find ourselves a stool and a piece of timber for his back.’
Balthazar raced over and pushed his way between them. ‘My master’s got papers that say he’s clear to leave here. If you lot don’t allow him over that bridge, by God, I’ll go to Escalus myself and tell him what you’re up to. Right now!’
The sergeant laughed and loosed the wire round Romeo’s throat, then unlooped it and dangled the thing in his hand. ‘Only checking to see it fits. Don’t think us choosy. Either of you will do. Way things are going right now… who’s going to spot one more corpse among many?’
Balthazar jabbed a finger in his face. ‘I’m warning you.’
The bell in the Torre dei Lamberti started to toll.
‘One…’ the sergeant said gleefully. ‘These papers say you’ve got to be out of the Republic by midday. Out of Verona by nine.’ Another bell. ‘And that was two.’
Romeo ran to the mare, ready by the wall, Balthazar fast behind him. The threat of pestilence had done its work. There was no one crossing Cangrande’s bridge. He could gallop the animal all the way over the river. Verona ended at the far side.
He jumped onto the saddle. Balthazar slapped the animal’s haunches and the beast leapt forward.
The horse’s hooves set up a rat-a-tat across the stones. Over the racket Romeo could just make out the ninth bell as he reached the river bank, with it the distant braying laughter of the guards.
Don’t turn round, he told himself. She was there somewhere. To look back was to invite peril into their lives again. He’d done enough of that already.
Ten minutes on, in the flat fields going south, following the dusty track through vines of Garganega on one side and Trebbiano on the other, he found himself peeking over his shoulder anyway, against his better instincts.
Verona’s barbed rooftops, that line of miniature castles he’d grown up with, rose on the horizon against the grandiose backdrop of the mountains. From this distance they looked like a glorious crown of thorns.
He slowed. The horse protested. The beast wanted to run. So he let it, racing hard, the summer wind in his face, the repetitive sound of its beating hooves filling his ears, dulling his thoughts. When he next looked back the crown of thorns was gone. He was in the flatlands, the plain that ran all the way out of the Veneto south to Mantua.
By a shallow stream that fed a field
of wilting artichokes he passed a hamlet of rough country cottages, spurring on the beast since some soldiers were milling round. There was a red cross on the nearest house which seemed to interest them far more than a single passing horseman.
Plague, Romeo thought. It was closer to Verona than ever.
* * *
Juliet stood with her mother and father in the cemetery, her head swimming with memories of the illicit wedding in the monastery of San Francesco a little way along the path. No clouds now, no wind. Just the unforgiving sun. On this airless day, surrounded by the greying monuments, stone angels casting long shadows, grieving cherubs, she felt as if she could smell the dead mouldering in the earth beneath them.
A pale wooden coffin was all she saw of Tybalt. On the far side of the graveyard Escalus, in black to match his eyepatch, silver guard shining on his cheek, had just seen his nephew Mercutio placed into the ground. The servants said the lad should have been shipped back to his family in Venice. But the marshal had forbidden it. The restrictions on movement applied to the dead as much as the living. Only the unwanted like Romeo escaped the net, for the simple reason they knew he could never come back.
Father Cesare, the dour Dominican priest from Sant’Anastasia who weekly heard her feeble confessions, saw to the ceremony. All the old words. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
Juliet stared at the coffin and thought for a moment she could see through the plain timber lid, Romeo inside, pale and stiff and ready for the earth.
Oh God, I have an ill-divining soul. It imagines death everywhere.
‘Daughter?’
She didn’t take her eyes off the grave. ‘Mother?’
‘I thought you said something.’
‘Only a prayer for Tybalt. To wish him on his way.’
She wondered what she’d say to Father Cesare the coming Sunday when he invited her into his wooden box.
I married in secret, my father’s enemy. Then I slept with him. If only I could be in his arms now instead of this stuffy upright coffin, listening to the judgemental words of a priest who knows nothing of who I am and what moves me…
Then it was time to go. Funerals were short, mourners for a surly thug like Tybalt few.
