Juliet & Romeo

by David Hewson

  The black bottle felt slippery in her sweating grip. Then, as if possessed of a life of its own, it tumbled from her clumsy fingers and fell on the tiled floor. The dark liquid escaped the narrow neck and rolled onto the terracotta like syrupy blood.

  Fate, she thought. It loathed prevarication. Here was the decision before her. To take or to leave.

  ‘Wait on me, Tybalt,’ she murmured, getting down on her knees. ‘Here, to you I drink. And Romeo, too.’

  She bent over and carefully licked every drop she could straight from the warm brown tiles. The tincture had a vile, sweet taste. When she was done she picked up the spent bottle, filled it with water from the jar, swilled that round and swallowed it too.

  Slowly, carefully, still in her day clothes, she found her way to the bed. One night before they’d lain here together, sweating and turning, finding such joy in one another, two becoming one. The face on the wall, the curious, smiling girl, eyes too big, hair the wrong colour, amused by her charcoal stick figure, had followed every sigh and wrestling moment.

  If only that painted face possessed a mind, a memory. The ability to see and learn.

  From somewhere came a low sound, a buzz like a hungry mosquito with the most bass of voices. Its source was inside, not out. She knew that in an instant.

  Her eyes grew heavy. She stared at the girl on the wall.

  ‘Watch me now,’ she murmured as her vision began to change, narrowing like a tunnel dwindling to nothing. ‘Watch…’

  The buzz became a roar and then the blackness took her.

  * * *

  Twelve miles south of the city, Friar John’s mule stumbled into a pothole in the shadows and shrieked with pain. From then on the beast began to whine and limp. John had a little money. Enough to borrow a horse perhaps if an innkeeper or farmer felt like taking pity on a man of the cloth. But it was late. Bright as the night was beneath the shining moon, this was no time to be abroad. There was an inn ahead, a miserable place he’d stopped at once before only to be shocked by the rough behaviour of the customers and the foul language of the landlord.

  Twenty minutes on lay another, a more genteel place with a tavern girl who’d smiled prettily at him once. A decent meal, some female company, a beer or two. A straw bed.

  It was not a hard decision. So John and his grumbling mule pressed on, step by steady step. Soon the place appeared. There were men further ahead on the road. Soldiers or villains perhaps. He didn’t want to find out. He urged the animal into the yard, got water for it in the stable, then went to the inn door and found it open.

  The downstairs hall was empty.

  ‘Hello?’ he cried and heard his voice echo round the dark corners ahead.

  By the stairs there was a single sputtering oil lamp. Feeling baffled and a little scared, Friar John began to walk around the place, not calling out any more. Just looking.

  The kitchen was empty too though there was food on the table. Half a roast chicken, some bread, a bowl of cold spelt porridge. He pulled a leg off the bird and munched on it as he wandered. From the windows he could see the stable and it struck him now that the only animal there was his own. John opened the back door and called out once more. Hens clucked somewhere and perhaps a pig stirred. Nothing else.

  Choices.

  He’d gone on when he might have stayed elsewhere. Too late now for regrets. Though perhaps he could persuade the mule to retrace its tracks and lumber back down the road to the other inn. At least there might be people there.

  His feet were about to cross the threshold at the back when he heard it. The faintest, most pathetic of cries. A child, perhaps. Or a woman so feeble she sounded like one.

  The noise came from upstairs. It was just a voice. No one moved.

  John was twenty-one, an orphan from a village on the way to Vicenza. The Franciscans had taken him in when he’d been found wandering the streets destitute and starving. Everything he had he owed to them. God, too, he imagined. Or so they always said.

  And he was a friar. Not a monk made for a solitary existence of private worship and introspection. A Franciscan was there for the world at large, to help when others shirked the task.

  ‘I will, too,’ the young man said, recalling all the teaching he’d received from Laurence and his brothers.

  With that he lobbed the remains of the chicken leg into the yard and set off up the steps. Whoever was there heard him coming. The voice turned louder and more shrill. For no good reason at all John retrieved a rag from his pocket and put it over his nose. There was a smell ahead. Of sweat and something else.

  The first two rooms were empty. The door to the third was open. The air at this end of the building was close and far too hot. The lamp ahead of him trembled in his outstretched hand. John went in.

  ‘Water,’ croaked a shape, huddled on a cot by the window. ‘For pity’s sake, my dear lord. Water. I beg you.’

  He remembered the pretty barmaid from the time he’d stopped here. This was her, he felt sure from the country voice. But shadows hid her from him. He asked where the others in the tavern had gone.

  ‘Please. I beg you… Drink. My throat is parched and I can barely speak.’

  He had a flask on his hip. Water mixed with a little wine for the journey. John came close, lamp in hand. He thought he heard horses outside, and voices. Perhaps the men had gone out hunting rabbits. There’d be a feast then, good fresh meat charred from the fire.

  ‘Your master’s returned,’ he said, pulling out the flask. ‘No need to worry now. They’ll…’

  Her hand came out and grasped his wrist. An iron grip, her skin damp, cold as the grave. The girl’s face rose before him. It was the one he remembered. At least he thought so. But her cheeks and brow were sweaty and dirty and as he got closer he saw they were covered in spots, some small, some large, some bloody where she’d scratched at them.

  ‘He ran away. I beg you. Do not leave me…’

  John fought to get her fingers from his skin. It was hard. She scratched him, screeched at him, started to wail and cry.

  Already he was retreating, legs shaking as he took the stairs two at a time, the oil lamp shaking in his hand, sending its waxy light all around the dark corners of the inn.

  * * *

  They slept. They dreamt. The shining moon stood over the world, beneath it so many different reveries.

  In Mantua, Romeo had a fitful slumber as the valerian took hold of his imagination and raised from it such visions of the night before. Juliet’s body slick with sweat, the sweetness of her mouth, the softness of her skin. His racing, feverish mind recalled the smell of her, the way she tautened beneath his touch, the wild sighs she whispered in his ears. Then came a swift, cathartic release. And a buzzing sound in his ear. Like an insect. But it wasn’t and he knew it. The tiny whirring creature was Queen Mab.

  For Luca Capulet the night was dull and heavy, made so by drink and fatigue. In bed at his side his wife kept waking, her head full of visions of the day ahead and vague frets that, like flies too, hovered round, so persistent she couldn’t ignore them, yet so intangible there was nothing there to name, to swat, to see.

  The nurse, Donata Perotti, found herself back near Garda, gazing at the silver lake and the boats fishing there, fetching home pike and trout, shad and chub, eel and perch. A face came to her: young and smiling. Her sister Chiara, half-forgotten after the bleak patch that followed the death of Donata’s husband and child. But alive. She knew that from travellers who reached Verona. One day they’d meet again. Perhaps soon.

  Friar Laurence had a nightmare, one that woke him screaming from a shallow, writhing slumber. The dead had come into his small dark cell, fragrant with his herbs and potions. Juliet, Romeo, Tybalt among them. They were looking into his face, one word upon their lips… why?

  Because you demanded it, the dreaming Laurence answered. While I was too weak and meddling to refuse.

  Twenty-five miles south his brother Nico was wreathed in pleasant drink-fired memories of Cons
tantinople. From the Seraglio Point he could see the shining waters of the Golden Horn teeming with vessels large and small. In his garden their cheerful master, Paulus, was serving them a meal – meat from a charcoal brazier, fresh fruit and goat’s milk – all the while lecturing them on which herb to use for flavour and which to bring good health.

  In her bedroom above the Capulet garden, captive to an opiate stupor, Juliet went deeper and further than the rest. She dreamt she’d returned one last time to the basilica of San Zeno. Not to the crypt where the embalmed corpse of the African lay stately in his robes. That had always frightened her. Instead she stood in the piazza outside, staring up at the great rose window, the Wheel of Fortune. The six figures around the circumference were in front of her, alive, breathing, crying, screaming, those on the right falling miserably from grace, the ones on the left rising in their stead. The blind goddess of luck would spin the wheel around and fate with it. In this sharp vision she saw something she’d always missed before: that the ascent of one party depended upon the fall of another. Men went up because others tumbled down. All at the whim of the blind creature who loved to play this game, not caring who prospered and who faded, who lived and who died.

  In this languid state she stayed before San Zeno, eyes locked on the stone wheel. As if moved by a gigantic invisible hand the marble circle began groaning and straining at its setting in the portico, twisting the living figures trapped in its façade, sending them screaming one way, then another, back and forth in endless torment.

  Stop, the dream Juliet cried, her ears full of their shrieks and the grinding of the stone wheel that trapped them. For pity’s sake…

  The basilica was still. Perhaps the goddess listened. Half of the figures lay again in agony, the other in joy.

  Move, the dream girl whispered.

  And so, with a pained howl, the great circle did, sharing round the suffering and the anguish among all.

  * * *

  Friar John reached the back door, gasping, frightened, trying to think. There were no other animals at this tavern. Only his own lame mule. It was late. There’d be villains about. The trek back to Verona was perilous. But there was plague here, and that was surely the greatest danger of all.

  He stumbled out into the yard, tripped over something, found he was falling forward, straight towards the dry mud ground.

  Then a hand came out to stop him.

  ‘That were clumsy,’ a muffled voice told him.

  ‘Thank you, sir…’ he began. And stopped, his heart thudding in his chest.

  There were four creatures there, clear in the moonlight, all clad in billowing black cloaks. They sported the long beak-like masks of the men they called the Plague Doctors, and resembled nothing more than gigantic pale crows, sniffing at the posies of herbs they carried with them.

  ‘You know what to do,’ the tallest of them said.

  The nearest peeled off, a bucket in one hand, a brush in the other. He went to the tavern door and slapped a large cross upon it. Red, John guessed, not that he could tell clearly in the moonlight.

  ‘You…’ the lead one said, pushing John back inside. ‘How many left in there?’

  ‘One. I was a visitor. Looking for shelter. I just stepped through the door for a look. I’ve touched no one. There’s just a girl there.’

  ‘Aye,’ the man said. ‘A sick girl. We talked to her man some way back.’

  All hope seemed to be deserting him.

  ‘And?’ John asked.

  ‘And now he’s locked in a plague house too. Just like you’re going to be.’

  His hand came out. A heavy leather gauntlet ran all the way to his elbow. The man grabbed the hood of his habit and dragged him back.

  ‘I’m a friar,’ John pleaded. ‘In the saddle bag of my mule there’s medicine. At least let me keep that.’

  The white-beaked mask seemed to hesitate.

  ‘Take what you want. Be quick about it.’

  He dashed and got the bag. They watched him retreat into the house. Upstairs she was still bleating for water. He’d go and see her now. There was no choice. That had been made for him. As for his task, the apothecary in distant Mantua… the letter John carried from Laurence was useless. Even if he could get out of the plague house the mule could scarcely travel, and all the other horses had been taken.

  The tall Plague Doctor came to close the door. ‘We’re shuttering this up with planks now, lad. Don’t so much as think as trying to get out. Or it won’t be the plague that kills you.’

  ‘How long for?’

  The beaked head of the tall one turned and stared at him with black, blind eyes. ‘You’re a sight more amenable than most we’ve had to deal with. I’ll say that for you.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘There’s a physician doing the rounds tomorrow. If you’re the same we’ll leave you a while. If you’re worse we’re not coming near.’

  ‘And if we’re better?’

  He laughed. ‘Then God’s kinder to his own than he is to the rest of us.’

  John stood in the kitchen, listening to the hammers and nails clatter against the door and windows. First the back and then the front. They were boarding up the place, leaving the two of them to die. He wondered how many days men like this waited. What told them it was finally safe to enter the plague house and take out the corpses.

  ‘I die of thirst!’ cried a faint and angry voice above him.

  There was a pump in the corner by a sink. The inn had its own spring. He raised some water, smelled it, tasted it. As sweet as any he’d known.

  That feeble cry came down the stairs again. ‘I know you’re there. I can hear you. For the love of Jesus… bring me something to drink.’

  Friar John threw the saddle bag over his shoulder, filled a jug of water and climbed the stairs.

  Part Four: Violent Delights, Violent Ends

  Thursday. Another humid July morning. The garden of the Capulets was alive with butterflies fluttering through a busy army of servants setting up trestle tables, building gazebos in the orchard, arches of roses and honeysuckle to make a winding path through the greenery. Luca Capulet had decreed this would be the best wedding Verona had known in years. He wouldn’t count the cost or stomach anything less than luxury.

  In the kitchen, pheasants, peacocks and quails were being stripped and prepared for the ovens. An entire table was given over to three pastry cooks making tarts of dates and quince and figs. Chickens roasted next to lambs. During the night two hogs were put on spits by the garden gate, local boys brought in to turn them constantly for long hours to come. Now the aroma of pork and herbs and garlic drifted through the borders and the fruit trees, mingling with the scent of flowers and spices from the palazzo.

  The musicians of the previous Monday were back, in greater number and with a small choir. As cooks worked, as Bianca Capulet bustled from table to table issuing orders about decorations and seating, as her husband watched with quiet pleasure from the bower seat beneath the pomegranate tree, viols were tuned, voices tested.

  Over them all the bell of the Torre dei Lamberti chimed nine. Capulet looked up at his daughter’s balcony window. The curtains were closed. No sign of life there. He remembered the time Juliet demanded a little apartment of her own inside the palazzo. She couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. Always an independent child. Stubborn and wilful. Much like him if he were honest.

  He asked one of the servants to bring him a cup of iced water with the slightest touch of Garganega in it. Later he’d move on to wine alone. And then, after the marriage, when all the guests had gone wearily home, he’d sit alone in his study with a bottle of fine brandy. Satisfied with a job well done, finally.

  An independent mind was to be admired in principle. But in practice…

  The boy came back with a pewter goblet full to the brim. Capulet sipped at it. More wine there than he’d wanted but it would do. His wife came and sat next to him on the wooden bench, tapped the cup and gave him a warning glance.<
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  Gently he said, ‘I know, I know, dear. Fret not. There’s barely a grape in it.’

  ‘No arguments this day!’

  ‘The storms of recent times are over. I shall return to being the peaceable husband you desire. And then…’ He closed his eyes and beamed with pleasure. ‘This palace will be for the two of us. As it was when we married.’

  She sighed, smiling. ‘Thank God for that. I wouldn’t have been without her for all the world. But it’s time the girl grew up.’

  ‘We’re all slaves to one thing or another, aren’t we?’

  His wife frowned and said she didn’t follow.

  ‘I mean… a man’s a slave to his wife and children. And his business, too. Women to their husbands. All of us to God. The young think they’re above it all. That this world of ours will change just because a few numbers alter with the century. The Borgia Pope dies and goes to hell at last and by some miracle a holy man’s elected in his place. Or…’ He laughed. ‘And this amuses me the most… A foreign adventurer crosses the ocean then, like a pirate, finds a far-off land of savages to plunder. And behold! Everything we know… every last fact and certainty we’ve lived with for as long as any man remembers… we throw them out. Dead wisdom. Spent and useless. Because the world’s turned upside down. The young know everything and the old are nothing more than dribbling fools. Ha!’

  ‘Things do change. We bend with them or we break.’

  He winked and raised his cup to her lips. She took a draft and winced at the strength of it.

  ‘I want you sober. And in good temper. All day long.’

  ‘What about the night?’

  ‘The night… we’ll see. Our little girl will be gone to this fresh life of hers by then.’

  He kissed her cheek and whispered a few lascivious words in her ear. She glanced at the balcony. ‘It’s past nine, Luca. She should be up. Paris will be here before long. There’s much to do. Women for her hair and dress. All manner of preparation.’