O, Juliet

by Robin Maxwell

  I grasped the hilt in woven-fingered prayer and held the blade over my heart. I closed my eyes.

  “Juliet!”

  The echoing voice startled me and the dagger fell from my grasp, clattering on the marble floor at my side. I looked up to see hurrying toward me down the catacomb’s aisle a familiar form, a torch held high before her.

  Lucrezia.

  “Dear friend,” she cried as she set her torch on the wall. Then she saw the still form of my husband, his head cradled in my lap. “Oh, oh, poor Romeo!” She knelt across from me and placed her hand on his lifeless chest. Tears threatened, but she refused to let them fall. She looked at me. “Thank God you are back among the living. Come, we must away.”

  I stayed planted firmly where I was.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “Friar Bartolomo stands guard outside the tomb door. We cannot be found here.”

  “Bartolomo is the cause of Romeo’s death.”

  Lucrezia looked stricken. “I know. He arrived in Florence just after Romeo . . .” She stumbled on the words.

  “After Romeo killed Jacopo.”

  Then her eyes fell on the blade that had dropped from my hand. “Juliet, what are you contemplating?”

  “An end to my grief.”

  “I do not think Romeo would wish you to take your own life.”

  “He said that. He did.”

  Lucrezia grew hopeful. But then she saw my stubborn expression.

  “Do you not fear God’s punishment?”

  “What worse punishment can he have in store any greater than this?”

  Lucrezia’s face was full of anger. I needed to make her understand.

  “For a moment in time,” I said, “a man knew me for who I was and, without reservation, loved me for who I was. How can I now live knowing no one will ever see me again in such a perfect light? Hear me as I wish to be heard? Love me as Romeo loved me?”

  “By holding the memory in your heart!” she cried.

  “What, exist in memory the rest of my life? That is not living, Lucrezia.”

  “Then write it. In poetry. Let your love flow through the point of your quill, find form on the page.”

  “ ‘The Story of Romeo and Juliet,’ ” I mused. “To bring hope to all that true love can flower in a world as cruel and comfortless as this one. But you will have to write it.” I managed a smile. “Just be sure to write it as a man.”

  “Oh, Juliet!”

  “Lucrezia, friend, I am done with this life. It is done with me. All that made it worth living is here on my knee. What lies outside this tomb is more a death than what lies within.”

  She was shaking her head from side to side.

  “Would you ask me to live only for the sake of living? Or for fear of eternal damnation?”

  She set her lips firm and refused to look at me.

  “I begged Romeo to stay with me, but much as he wished, he could not. And much as I will miss your tender friendship, I cannot stay with you. But don’t you remember? You have ‘an extraordinary life’ ahead. A brilliant future of love and children and learning and beauty. Live it with me in your heart. And Romeo. Remember us, and we will live forever. I promise you. Now go, friend, please go. Tell the friar you found us both gone to our maker. Seek help before you enter here again. And one thing more. Take Viola into your house, her husband and child, too. There is another marriage for love to sweeten your life.”

  “What kind of friend am I to leave you here like this!” she sobbed, her face awash with tears.

  “The very best friend. One who truly understands my heart. Here, give me a kiss.”

  She took my face in her hands and laid her lips on my forehead. I held her fingers to my cheeks, not wishing to release them and dreading the last sight of this beautiful angel. But with a wounded cry she stood and, taking her torch from the wall, strode away into the dark of the catacomb’s aisle.

  I looked down upon Romeo’s face. Strangely, I felt heat flowing into my limbs.

  “Here we are, my love, alone at last. No one to harry us. Here in the peaceful calm.”

  I touched his skin and found it warm.

  “Are you still close enough to hear?” I whispered. I bent down and spoke into the cusp of his ear. “I’m frightened. Not of fiery hell or shrieking harpies overhead. Only of failing to find you.”

  I kissed him one last time.

  “If there is any justice in the world, I will.”

  I fumbled at my side and found the handle of Romeo’s blade. I placed its tip above my breast and prayed for strength and grace.

  “Oh, happy dagger,” I prayed, “take me home!”

  “Juliet . . .”

  My name was being called. I heard it as if from a distance and I saw a point of light before my eyes.

  A star . . . the one at the tip of Taurus’s chin. I was speeding through the blackest of night skies, but where it once was filled with glittering points of fire, it now but showed the one constellation—the bull in all its power and glory.

  Those fixed points grew larger and brighter, glowing like each was a sun unto itself. But the light did not blind me. No, no. The whole of the heavens had gone from black to white.

  White as clouds. Clouds endlessly changing their shapes into faces and fabulous creatures. Oh! Now I could see there was blue sky. Blue as a summer’s day. And a wall. A garden wall, ivy tendrils and flowery vines tumbling gracefully down.

  Then I saw it. A ladder set against the stone, and I heard my name called again.

  “Ju-li-et!”

  I began to climb. It was high, this wall, but my legs and arms carried me up and up, my heart bursting with hope and joy.

  “Come to me, love. Come to me now!”

  His hand reached down, that hand with its woven band of gold. He gripped me tight and lifted me up and into his warm embrace.

  Romeo smiled. “See where you are.”

  Above in the changing clouds I saw for the briefest moment the shape of the God of Love. Below was the Garden of Sweetest Delights. Flowers in the colors of silk danced in the soft breeze on broad meadows. A grove of ancient olives and walnuts and figs shaded a clear rushing stream. And there beside it, contentedly grazing, two white horses.

  But the garden, I could see now, was walled on only three sides. From where we stood on high, I saw in the distance lands of great majesty. Mountains. Deserts. A city of golden spires. A sunlit sea. All stretching to infinity.

  Romeo came close, his sweet breath caressing my face.

  “This is ours,” he whispered. “For eternity.”

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  Cosimo de’ Medici, for his extraordinary service to the Republic of Florence, was named at his death Pater Patriae—“Father of the Country.” Through his singular efforts and investments in learning and the arts, and Poggio Bracciolini’s scouting for the lost books of antiquity, Europe emerged from the Dark Ages into the brilliant light of the Renaissance.

  Cosimo’s daughter-in-law Lucrezia Tornabuoni de’ Medici became the foremost woman of the age—shrewd businesswoman, supporter of the greatest artists of the day, and primary patron of Sandro Botticelli. Lucrezia’s marriage to Piero de’ Medici was an unusually happy one, and their firstborn son, Lorenzo—taking up the reins from his grandfather Cosimo—presided over the Golden Age of the Italian Renaissance. For his brilliant leadership and patronage of the arts and philosophy, he came to be known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent.” Her younger son she named Giuliano. Two of her grandchildren became popes. But Lucrezia de’ Medici’s greatest personal achievement had nothing to do with her offspring or the patronage of others.

  She became the greatest poetess of her time.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Acknowledging those who have helped me in writing my novels is always a pleasure. But during the course of writing and promoting my last two books, an interesting shift occurred. While each individual assisted and supported me in his or her own particular way, I realized that everyone’s efforts had tran
smogrified into a well-oiled “team effort.”

  Communication was open, smooth, and easy. Everybody—aside from doing the jobs at which they were experts—all worked laterally, “outside the box,” as they say. Agents gave me wonderful story notes; my editor came up with marketing strategies; publicists, my webmistress, bloggers and fellow authors supplied ideas for promotion. Thus enthusiastically surrounded, supported, and protected, I was able to do my job—writing and promoting my books—comfortably and happily.

  David Forrer and Kimberly Witherspoon, my agents since the beginning, are simply awesome. Lyndsey Blessing, Alexis Hurley, and Susan Hobson in foreign rights, keep my books flowing out into the rest of the world. Rose Marie Morse and Patricia Burke brought expertise in publicity and Hollywood that beautifully rounded out the agency team and really spiced up the stew.

  When it comes to editors, there are none that compare with Kara Cesare—smart, insightful, and compassionate. I can always count on her to be at my side from soup to nuts and never steer me wrong. Editorial director Claire Zion is a veritable lion, and made the promotional phase of the editorial process a dream. While she is not in my everyday purview, I always know that publisher Kara Welsh is covering my back. Publicists Megan Swartz and Kaitlin Kennedy really “worked the room” with Signora da Vinci. When it came to O, Juliet, Caitlin Brown and Julia Fleischaker in publicity, and Ashley Fisher in marketing knocked themselves out. The folks in the art department, who have designed consistently stunning covers for all my books, went way beyond the beyond for O, Juliet.

  Many thanks to Roberto Zecca for all his help researching olive growing and pressing in the fifteenth century, the history of Florence, and the hills and villas south of the city.

  Thirty-year partner in crime Billie Morton, and dear friend Betty Hammett—my trusted “first readers”—gave me the thumbs-up on this manuscript. Once I had that, I knew I could breathe a sigh of relief. James “the Padre” Arimond again assisted me with all things Latin and religious, and my all-around assistant, Tasya, turned chaos into order.

  Special thanks go to my spectacular Web designer, Linda Lazar, for outstanding work on my Web site, and to author friends Christopher Gortner and Michelle Moran, who dragged me kicking and screaming into the new world of online promotion and my first-ever “virtual book tour.” With the Internet and the blogging community as a conduit, I am connected with my fans in a way I never was before and now, with some sense of who they are, I can express my gratitude to them for their priceless support.

  My sourcebook for all versions of Romeo and Juliet wrapped up in one volume was Romeo and Juliet: Original Text of Masuccio Salernitano, Luigi Da Porto, Matteo Bandello, William Shakespeare, edited and with an introduction by Adolph Caso (Dante University of America Foundation, by special arrangement with Brandon Publishing Company).

  It may be unfair to single Shakespeare out from all the other storytellers, but I must, since Romeo and Juliet would never have become so overwhelmingly iconic without him. I have to be honest—I had never read a word of Dante Alighieri until I decided to make him part of my novel—but I was flabbergasted by the beauty of his words, both poetry and prose, on the subject of love. I took great pleasure in finding the right quotes for the right moments in my story.

  Last, but never least, I give my deepest love and thanks to my darling Max, who simply makes life worth living.

  READERS GUIDE

  O, Juliet

  ROBIN MAXWELL

  A CONVERSATION WITH ROBIN MAXWELL

  Q. Why were you drawn to Romeo and Juliet’s story?

  A. I am a hopeless romantic.

  As early as thirteen years old I foresaw myself with a career, and I dreamed of “being friends with the Beatles,” which was my way of imagining myself surrounded by extraordinary people. But above all, my future was dominated by a single relationship. I desperately wanted a wonderful husband, someone who understood me and accepted me for who I was—a true “marriage for love.” I had no idea what this man might look like or what he’d do for a living. All I demanded—for reasons I’ll never understand—was that he possess a pair of “strong, square hands.”

  On the road to finding my life’s partner, I claimed many remarkable men and women as friends. My career, of course, became writing, but the screenplays I began with were broad, bawdy comedies about bawdy broads, ancient civilizations, and extraterrestrials. Later, in my novels, I wrote of the strong, ahead-of-their-time women of history who defied despots in male-dominated societies.

  During my search for a soul mate I was always drawn to great love stories, in books, films, and songs. But nothing moved me as profoundly as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The first time I saw Franco Zeffirelli’s version, I sobbed for half an hour after leaving the movie theater.

  It was the perfect romantic tale. Beautiful, tenderhearted, yet passionate young lovers, gorgeous language, glorious Italy, family feuds, and a touch of violence. Even the tragic ending wasn’t so bad because Romeo and Juliet were reunited in death.

  Q. Romeo and Juliet was famously set in Verona, and yet, you set your lovers in Florence at the time of the Medici. Why?

  A. Of course it’s been rejigged a hundred different ways—from Broadway musicals to operas to ballets. Most recently director Baz Luhrmann’s feature film starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet. What I didn’t know till recently was that Shakespeare’s play was not the first telling of “Romeo and Juliet.” Since the time of the Greeks and Romans, countless “girl-and-boy-from-warring-families” tragedies have been written. But in 1216 in Florence, two families from opposing factions came to blows when a Donati girl ran off with a Buondelmonti boy, and her cousin was killed at the Ponte Vecchio during the ensuing battle.

  This legend apparently took root in Tuscan consciousness, because no less than three writers in the two following centuries decided to commit it to the written word in novella (short story) form.The first, Masuccio Salernitno, set the story in Siena, with Juliet traveling to Alexandria, Egypt, to find her banished husband. Both Luigi Da Porta and Matteo Bandello placed the tale in Verona, with Romeo escaping to Mantua. Those locations “stuck” when, in the sixteenth century, Arthur Brooke wrote the story as a narrative poem, and in 1594 Shakespeare finally took up the gauntlet, immortalizing the lovers in his masterful play.

  I had just completed my seventh historical novel, Signora da Vinci, the story of young Leonardo and his devoted mother, Caterina, and had become completely immersed in the culture of Renaissance Italy and enamored, in particular, of the glorious Medici family. My divine editor, Kara Cesare, had been urging me to stay in the Italian Renaissance for my next book, an idea I liked, as it meant I could do without long months of monumental, brain-scrambling research once again. She suggested the possibility of using as a character one of her personal favorites from Signora da Vinci, the magnificent materfamilias of the Medici clan, Lucrezia Tornabuoni.

  Since I dearly wanted a close female confidant for Juliet, a young woman with whom she could celebrate and commiserate, Lucrezia became the perfect “best friend.” Having decided on that, I realized I had my place—Florence, where Lucrezia and the Medici lived—as well as the date, a year in which the girlfriends at eighteen were considered ripe and ready for marriage, 1444.

  This allowed me the run-up to the social event of the decade, Lucrezia’s wedding to the heir of Florence’s ruling family, the Medici. It came at a time when the city was at peace, and was prospering with its nexus of bankers, artists, and textile merchants.

  And it afforded me another utterly brilliant character—Don Cosimo de’ Medici. He was, after all, the man most responsible for the Renaissance happening in the first place, and he would have adored his beautiful, highly intelligent daughter-in-law-to-be. For the family Juliet was meant to marry into, I chose the Strozzi, who were, in fact, second only to the Medici in wealth and power. Allessandra Strozzi was famously fierce when it came to matchmaking for her children. Jacopo—the ig
nored and bitter “third son”—was a figment of my imagination.

  Suddenly I had a perfectly logical, believable, and richly textured setting for my scenario and all my characters.

  Today in Verona, “Romeo’s Castle” and “Juliet’s Balcony” are popular tourist attractions. I hope the citizens of that fine city will forgive my literary license, returning the bulk of the story to its earliest Italian roots, Florence.

  Q.What surprised you most in your research of Shakespeare’s famous tale and why did you decide it needed a fresh twist?

  A. One day, in one of those moments of epiphany that writers long for, and only occasionally in a whole lifetime of writing are afforded, I realized that no one had written a historical novel of Romeo and Juliet. I’d been longing to write a great love story, and while every one of my books included a love relationship, the love between a man and a woman had never been its central theme.

  Richly lyrical and transcendentally passionate as the Bard’s rendition was, I’d never gotten a true sense of these two young people who inspired the story. I wanted to know about their inner lives, about their families and the society whose stringent rules and restrictions attempted to keep them apart and brought about their tragic ends.

  For research I read the three Italian short stories and used Shakespeare’s play as my “skeleton,” and as all the writers before me I liberally borrowed, embellished and changed the details to suit my personal tastes. Never did I feel constrained by any of the earlier versions.

  I knew that I did not want my Romeo and Juliet to be the fourteen-year-olds as Shakespeare had written them. That age for girls to marry was customary in sixteenth-century England, but not fifteenth-century Florence. Eighteen for a woman and twenty-five for a man was the norm, and that suited me perfectly. I wanted my lovers to have fully formed minds and full-blown passions.