He stood and offered me his arms and pulled me up. “By a priest . . . and a friend of Dante’s.”
Chapter Eighteen
Just moments from the cathedral up the Via Ricasoli was the Monastery of San Marco. I had passed it countless times in my life, never giving it a second thought. The Dominican friars who lived within were known to live calm and tranquil lives.
Now having traversed the arched cloisters overhung with elegant frescoes, up a flight of stairs and down the dim inner hallway lit only by feeble flickering candlelight, we stood still as statues and hardly breathing, outside the plainest of wooden doors, waiting for it to be opened. My long hair, without the cap to hide it, we had tucked inside my collar.
“Knock again,” I whispered. “Perhaps he didn’t hear. Or forgot we were coming. Might he have forgotten?”
Romeo shook his head, but his worried eyes were fixed on the door. Finally, with a creaking loud enough to echo alarmingly down the tomb-silent hall, it opened. There before us, a bit bleary-eyed and still straightening his brown robe, was Friar Bartolomo. He peered out, looking both ways, and quickly ushered us in, muttering, “Pray God you were not seen. Pray God, pray God.”
“Have no fear, Father,” said Romeo in hushed tones. “We were very careful.”
The cell was bare stone on all but one wall, upon which was painted a most fabulous fresco in jewel-toned colors, of Saint Dominic in the act of reading. I had heard rumors that Don Cosimo, claiming San Marco as his spiritual home, a place to which he retreated regularly to pray, had had frescoes painted by Fra Angelico in all the public rooms, and in every one of the monks’ tiny cells.
The cot and desk and chair, I saw, were of the rudest materials and design, and the crucifix on the wall no more than two unadorned pieces of crossed iron. A few volumes of Dante’s works were piled one upon the other on the desk. Dried flowers hung heads-down from the ceiling, and a long shelf crammed with bottles and vials of potions, and parchment envelopes I assumed to be medicinal powders, were, save the frescoes, the room’s only luxury. On a hook hung a simple white robe of nubby linen, perhaps for sleeping.
“Let me look at you both,” the friar said, his voice urgent.
Romeo turned to me then and with gentle hands pulled the hair from under my doublet’s neck, settling it over my shoulders. It seemed such an odd thing to do and was yet so natural, as if I were already his, and so intimate an act his right. This made me smile. I tried to stifle it, and found Friar Bartolomo amused by our little performance.
Finally Romeo stepped to my side as if presenting me.
“Ah, I remember this lady,” said the monk. “A student of the Poet, and overly bold for a woman.”
“She is a poet herself, Father. You should hear her verse. It’s very good.”
His eyebrows rose in two round arches.
“You are a poet, too, Romeo,” I said. “You began a pretty one on the Duomo roof.”
“You took her to the top?” The friar looked scandalized.
Romeo smiled proudly. “That is where I proposed marriage.”
Friar Bartolomo was staring at me, a look of dismay creasing his features. “I cannot marry you like this,” he said.
“What?” Romeo was aghast. “But you told me . . .”
“The male garb. It is a sacrilege, my son. Blasphemy.”
“But you must. As I told you, this is the only chance for us to wed.”
The monk was sadly shaking his head.
“Is all that I need a skirt?” I asked.
“Well, ah ... a skirt. Yes.”
I was trembling as I said to the priest, “Will you lend me your robe? That one there.” I lifted a finger to the white garment on its hook.
“Ach . . .” He was quite at a loss for words. A strange woman asking to don his personal apparel.
“Yes, please, Father.” Romeo had assumed the tone of a penitent, as if pleading for God’s mercy. I worried that he might fall to his knees, and perhaps so did Friar Bartolomo, for all at once the monk turned and snatched the linen robe from its hook and thrust it at me.
“What we do for love,” he whispered, and pushed Romeo from the room, pulling the door closed behind them.
There I was, all alone and needing to make myself a bride. I stripped quickly and stood there shivering in my nakedness, nipples so hard they were painful. I threw the robe over my head, happy that the friar was a short man and the garment clean, smelling of starch and lavender. I took up the doublet again and slipped it on over the linen dress, pulling the laces tight, approximating a lady’s bodice. I stepped back into the shoes, which, with the outfit, looked comically large. I tried to arrange my hair prettily, but without a mirror I was stymied.
All at once I thought, Here I stand in the moments before I become a bride—all alone. I had always envisioned Lucrezia dressing me for that occasion, as I would do for her, the feel of Papa’s precious silk against my skin, studded with a thousand seed pearls, fresh flowers woven into my hair....
Well, it was not to be so. This was different. Romantic and unique. Something we would someday tell our children. Your mama wore a priest’s nightgown and floppy shoes to her wedding. The thought made me chuckle.
It was then I spied a dried nosegay hanging on a string. I could not make out the particular flowers in their desiccated condition, but they would do. Carefully, so as not to crush them, I separated a half dozen from the bouquet and wove them through my hair.
With a single fortifying breath, I opened the door. Romeo was all smiles at the sight of me. The friar was bemused. But he wasted no time.
“Hurry,” he said. “Follow quietly after me, and pray God we meet no one. Wait!” He rushed back into his cell and collected two books.
Then with Romeo’s arm about my waist we made haste behind the friar and presently found ourselves in the Chapel of San Marco under Fra Angelico’s altarpiece of the Virgin Mary and Christ among the saints. When Friar Bartolomo turned to face us, we fell quickly to our knees and made the sign of the holy cross on our bodies.
Suddenly I felt all apprehensions lift from the priest’s mien. He placed one hand on my head, one on Romeo’s. Though my eyes were lowered, I was sure he was smiling.
“Dante and his Beatrice,” he murmured. “In a perfect world she would not have died and the two would have married.”
Friar Bartolomo read passages from the Bible, all in the Latin tongue, and several benedictions.
“Romeo Monticecco,” he said. “Do you wish to marry this woman?”
“I do,” Romeo answered, smiling broadly.
“Juliet Capelletti, do you wish to marry this man?”
“Yes!”
When the friar paused then, I thought the ceremony over and sought my husband’s eyes. But they were impish, as though he and Bartolomo possessed a secret. When Bartolomo began to speak, again in Italian, the secret was revealed.
“ ‘She is a creature come from Heaven to earth, a miracle manifest in reality.’ ” He was quoting Dante! “ ‘Ever since you were a boy you have belonged to her.’ ”
Now Romeo quoted, passion thickening his voice. “ ‘This is no woman, but rather one of heaven’s most beautiful angels. A lady, refined and sensitive in love.’ ”
I groped for only a moment before I responded, speaking Dante’s words with quiet reverence. “ ‘Now my bliss has appeared. I am clothed in happiness.’”
Romeo clutched my hands and tears sprang to his eyes. “ ‘As this battle of love rages within me, I am more humble than my words can tell, for here is a God stronger than I, who shall come to rule over me.’ ”
I found myself speechless, at a loss for all but emotion.
“ ‘Love governs your souls,’ ” the friar intoned, again quoting the poet.
“I will cherish and adore you,” Romeo said. “I will have no other.”
These words were not Dante’s. They were Romeo’s own vows.
“I will cherish and adore you,” I repeated. “I will ha
ve no other,” and added, “For all days and all eternity. For you are my lover and my friend.”
He took my face in his hands and kissed me then, with a passion perhaps unseemly for the Chapel of San Marco. We were utterly lost in the kiss, that sweet collision of flesh and mingled breath—so that when the friar spoke, we were startled.
“Have you the rings, my son?”
“Yes, yes,” said Romeo, and produced three of them—pretty bands of braided gold.
Bartolomo signaled that they should be given and with shaking hands, as custom demanded, he placed two on my fingers and one on his own.
“Romeo. Juliet.You are married, my children. In the eyes of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”—the friar flushed—“and blessed by the spirit of Dante!”
I took Bartolomo’s hand and kissed it with gratitude.
“You should go now,” he whispered with terrible urgency.
“I’ll have your robe returned to you,” I told him as Romeo helped me to my feet.
“No need,” he said, smiling. “I will get another. That is your wedding dress.”
Romeo pulled him into an impulsive hug. “I will never forget this!” Then taking my hand, he led me from the chapel.
I cannot say I remember making our way back to my father’s house. It was dark, and Romeo, holding me close by him, hid my eccentric wedding gown under his cloak. It was a dangerous walk, but I felt nothing that could not be likened to joy. I was a married woman, married to a man I loved.
My dream had come true.
I came to my senses as I climbed over the wall to my balcony.
“Dawn is breaking,” Romeo said. “Into your bed.”
“Our bed,” I teased. “When will you come to it and make me a complete wife?”
Romeo graced me with a slow smile. “I’ll surprise you.” Then he grew more serious. “And when we’ve bedded, we’ll tell the world of our marriage.”
“Let it be soon, my love. My husband.” I liked the sound of the word on my tongue.
There were noises at my bedroom door. “Go!” I said.
He kissed me quickly and descended the ladder. I watched his shadowy form in the last dark moments before first light, and then throwing off his doublet and shoes and the friar’s robe, I leapt naked into bed, pulling the covers up to my neck. There would be no sleep for me now, only repetition in my mind of the great adventure of the night past. Some trembling thoughts of my angry father and an outraged Jacopo. My mother, despite her words, would be happy in her secret soul for me. I was sure of it.
But most of all there were visions of my love as husband, father of my children, sweet companion of my life, for all my life.
O Romeo . . .
Chapter Nineteen
With the harvest upon the countryside he did not come to me. A week, two, passed since our marriage with nary a letter, but my heart was calm. He was mine, I was his, embraced by the God of Love and sanctified by the church. It had grieved me to remove my wedding rings and, placing them in a tiny satin pouch, hide them in a hole I had torn in my mattress. But our secrecy would not be long-lived. As soon as Romeo and I had bedded, we would promptly announce our joining to the world.
The days grew chilly, the stone floor beneath my feet damp and drafty, but I walked in the sweet warmth of perpetual spring. Mama grew suspicious of my unnatural mood and when at the table Papa mentioned a generous gift of wine sent to us by his “friend” Roberto Monticecco, I was forced to stifle my urge to cry out, “Your family now!”
It was a great relief when Lucrezia and her mother invited me to go with them to Maestro Donatello’s bottega, where much of the work of her wedding was taking place, for I’d had no time for private conversation with my friend since the night of my own marriage.
The place was a hive of artistic industry with a dozen apprentices working, as was done at all such artists’ workshops, on everything from splendid frescoes and marble statuary to silver-work, death masks, and festive costumes.
Mona Elena Tornabuoni, a pretty-faced but spectacularly obese woman, was held in thrall by the maestro’s explanation of the craft involved in the filigreed gold salt cellars she was considering for purchase. Lucrezia and I had hung back out of her hearing so that I could admit to my marriage to Romeo and the rare events that had brought me to that moment.
By the time I’d finished, her features had slackened, the pretty mouth falling open in an O, the green eyes growing suddenly unfocused.
“You look as though I’ve told you of a murder,” I said, dashed with disappointment. “Lucrezia, I thought you would be happy for your friend. I have made a marriage for love.”
With thumb and fingers she squeezed her forehead. “You put on men’s clothes, tramped about in the street with gamblers and prostitutes and Florenzers, climbed”—she shook her head disbelievingly—“four hundred and sixty-three steps to the top of the Duomo, then put on a monk’s robes. . . .” Lucrezia seemed unable to go on with her recitation, and I was growing more and more angry.
I finished for her. “So I put on a monk’s robes, but do not forget I used Romeo’s doublet for an odd bodice, and some dried herbs as flowers in my hair, and I snuck down the hall of the monastery with a rogue friar and a half-crazed lover, and blasphemed before God by taking my vows of marriage!”
“I did not say that!”
“But you thought it. You did, Lucrezia. Do you deny it?”
“No,” she said quietly.
“Lucrezia, Juliet,” Mona Elena called without looking back at us. “I want you to see these bowls and tell me what you think.”
“We’ll be right there, Mama. We’re deciding on some gilded fruit decorations for the tables.”
Lucrezia turned back to me. She was near tears, but then so was I.
“So only you are allowed a happy marriage?” I accused her.
“Of course not. But why could you have not waited? Your families had become friends. Romeo was near to making it possible in an open way. A legal way.”
“I told you he said it was not possible! I told you what he learned about Jacopo and Papa’s business.”
“That is what he told you.”
“And that is what I believe! Why would he lie?”
Lucrezia forced herself to hold my angry eyes. “Your Romeo is a good man. A peace-loving man. He’s proven that. But he is impulsive, Juliet. Willful. Wild. I think he loves danger too much. Taking you out in the streets at night dressed as a man? Don’t you see? Danger sweetens the brew. Makes it more delicious.”
“No.”
She took on a stubborn expression. “I know you too well. You may be a romantic, but do you swear to me you did not question his mad adventure? Why he would put the woman he loved in harm’s way?”
“Of course such things occurred to me, Lucrezia,” I finally said. “And yes, Romeo courts danger, but it is well measured.”
The image returned of my cap being blown from my head and landing on the red arch of the Duomo’s roof.
“This is what I love about him, don’t you see? He is gentle. But not too gentle. He is thoughtful and scholarly, but at times his mind soars to far and exotic places. Places where I would like to be. He adores me, but he does not grovel or whine like a sick dog. When he holds me, when he touches me, I know that I have been held and touched.” I was blushing now, but it did not matter. I could see that Lucrezia’s expression was still unaccepting.
“Romeo is my husband, and I have done well marrying him. One day, you and my parents and all of Florence will understand that, and if you do not”—my voice was stronger and prouder than I thought possible—“then to hell with you all.”
A terrible and angry quiet fell like a wall between us.
“Lucrezia, I need you right now!” Mona Elena called. Hurt beyond measure, my friend turned away and joined her mother.
The painful silence between us continued for the rest of the afternoon, though Mona Elena was too busy chatting about wedding preparations to notice.
Night had fallen as the Tornabuoni litter approached my house.
“So I think we are settled on the dinnerware,” she droned on, “though the ornaments may be too expensive. What they charge for goldwork these days . . .”
I was relieved when we came to a halt.
“Thank you, Mona Elena, for bringing me with you to the maestro’s bottega.”
“But of course, my dear. You are so much a part of our family”—she gazed fondly at her daughter—“and this wedding.”
I gave Lucrezia a kiss, but she remained cool and rigid.
As I descended from the vehicle, the front door of my house suddenly flew open and Papa burst through it, followed by two agitated men. As they raced away on foot, my mother, pulling on a cloak, came to the door, a look of terror on her face.
“Mama, what is it? What is happening?”
“There is a fire at the factory!”
Our litter appeared now, next to the Tornabuoni’s. I saw Lucrezia and Mona Elena staring out, bewildered.
“Your father does not want us there,” Mama said as she climbed into our litter, me following her in.
So my mother does have a backbone, I found myself thinking.
Then I began to pray.
We rode in silence, both of us shivering as much with fear as the bitter night. The grunts of our bearers were loud in the otherwise quiet streets. Soon, though, we began hearing a commotion—shouting, clanging, and a crackling roar that I had never before heard, but knew must be the voice of fire.
Mama and I from one litter and Lucrezia and Mona Elena from another emerged, wide-eyed and gasping, into a Dantean circle of hell. The office end of the factory was ablaze, the windows of all three stories belching flames. Along the outside of the weaving chambers and warehouse there was a long line of men—many of them our factory workers—heaving bucket after bucket to the front, where Papa and Jacopo tossed water onto the extravagant orange inferno. The hissing steam, the black roiling smoke, and the licking fingers of fire that darted out at will were so terrifying a sight that I felt Mama’s knees buckle almost at once.
O, Juliet Page 14
