by Rachel Caine
“What?” I asked. It sounded abrupt, but I did not care, not at all.
She burst into tears again, this time (I was sure) feigning grief. I was tempted to walk on, but the maid sent me a beseeching look, and since I pitied her mightily for her role in soothing Veronica, I sighed and sank down on the bench next to my sister. “What?” I asked again, more gently.
“Nothing’s as I thought it would be,” she said, and muffled her words against the kerchief. “The dress is wretched, Benvolio, our uncle has imposed such a restraint on it that it won’t flatter me, and the feast—why, there’s hardly a feast at all! It’s the one day when I can show my quality to the women of Verona, and he’s making me hardly better than a common fishwife. . . . How can I rise in esteem with such a beginning?”
Not so much a female complaint as a problem of ambition meeting its limits, then. “It’s of no matter,” I said. “You bring the family blood of Montague, and your husband is rich enough. Society will embrace you as a woman of quality, Veronica.” God help society, but what I said was true. “Now stop your tears. It ill becomes a woman grown to weep like a spoiled child.”
She sent me a murderous glare through swollen lids, but she wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and threw the soiled kerchief to her attendant. Then she stood up, smoothed her skirts and patted her hair (none of which made any difference to the red mottling on her tearstained face), and took in a deep, trembling breath. “You are acid and vinegar, brother dear, but at least you are bracing. Tell me, then, how fares your friend Mercutio?”
I sensed a barb under the honey, and was instantly wary. “Happily espoused. I see him little now. He has new responsibilities.”
“Espoused,” she agreed. “But happily? It stretches the word’s meaning to say so.” She leaned closer, and dropped her voice to a low whisper. “I hear that he saw a witch. Perhaps to cure himself of his . . . appetites?”
I shoved her away. “Peddle your gossip somewhere else,” I said. “Witches! What next, then? Furies and dragons? Will the old Roman gods come down from Olympus?”
She shuddered and crossed herself. “I pray not. But you should not mock, brother. Witches exist; all the churchmen say it. It takes a dire cause to drive him to one.”
“Then go be pious and pray for Mercutio’s immortal soul,” I said, and stood up. “Pray for mine, while you’re at it. I’m sure I have sins to be forgiven.”
“Many,” she agreed with false sweetness, and snapped open a fan. “I should leave this dreadful sunshine. It won’t do to go to my wedding with spots!”
I wished her a plague of them, as disfiguring as possible, but I said nothing, only stepped aside as she swept past me, heading indoors. Her servant followed with a handful of soiled kerchiefs she’d have to wash and iron and have ready for the next ill-tempered tempest, which might come any moment. She, at least, had my genuine sympathy.
Two more days passed, each another twist of the strangling cord of tension that gripped our household; I kept within the precincts of the palazzo, and so did most of us. Veronica threw more fits, but I observed them only at a hearty distance. My grandmother demanded my attendance once, to interrogate me on Romeo’s behavior and express her pleasure at what had occurred at the Capulet feast; it seemed rumor had run riot in the streets that we had trespassed with impunity, and that one of the minor Capulet girls had been sent, in haste, from the city. Mercutio’s doing, but the old witch was eager to take the credit for Montague.
As to Romeo, he seemed quiet. Subdued, in fact. I saw no more poesies from his pen lauding Rosaline’s beauty, at least, so perhaps the visit to the Capulet feast had yielded some positive result after all.
By the end of that time, the tension and suppressed violence of the household drove me out into the dark once more. I crawled rooftops, dropped silent into bedchambers, and took away the adornments and prizes and secrets our enemies cherished. It was a busy few nights, seeking out Capulet allies and discovering their vices; some were expensive but not sinful, like the man who had an entire room filled with brocades and silks—not for his wife or daughters, apparently, since there were also finished (and never worn) doublets and cloaks made to his measure. I took the richest selection of fabrics and had them sent to my mother and aunt as a gift from a friendly merchant willing to conceal the silk’s origins in order to draw their business toward him.
But there were far darker secrets, and less cheerful prizes. I found a heavy, locked chest in the home of a count, and instead of gems discovered inside the body of a young servant girl; this I left in place, as it was too unwieldy to move, but posted an accusing letter on the church door, along with the bloody silk banner in which she’d been wrapped. I doubted he would ever pay for the crime, but the girl’s pitiful, huddled end had deserved that much effort.
On a moonless night, carefully chosen for cover, I crept into Capulet’s feasting hall, removed the banner, and stole the most doleful-seeming donkey I could find; it bore the indignity of being tarted up with the florid silk banner, and the all-too-drunken Capulet adherent I’d paid to ride it through the streets as a tribute. Unfortunately for the fool, he ran afoul of a nest of his own. It did not end well for him.
I missed having Mercutio at my back. I was taking risks, I knew—ones that might destroy me. But it was as hard to stop stealing as others found it to give up drinking. Perhaps I’ll give it up for Lent, I thought as I crouched in the shadows atop a roof, watching the moon rise. It was only a quarter full, and was the color of rich cream. So many stars above, and as I stared upward, I spotted a vivid shooting star that burned as red as Lucifer’s horns. It was gone in a few seconds.
I heard someone passing below on the street, and flattened myself; in the dark, I would be just another decorative corner to the roof, but the moon illuminated the passerby clearly. He was alone, and anonymous in a worn cloak too big for him, but when a stray gust of wind caught the edges and sent them flying, I spotted the familiar, deadly line of a rapier. No commoner, though he had left off his finery save for the sword.
I was curious. The hour was very late, and I was very bored, waiting for my latest target to douse lights; I made a decision, lowered myself to the iron of a balcony, and then from there to the cobbles, where I quickly stepped to the shadows as he turned. I’d made no noise; this was a man on business just as illicit as mine, clearly.
I followed him down the winding streets. He turned in the shadow of the cathedral, and from there we were in less friendly territory—for me, at any rate, since it was Capulet controlled, and patrolled by their men. I took to higher ground again—rooftops—and watched the brave (or foolish) wanderer. He had sense enough to hide when Capulet guards ambled by, arrogant and loud, spoiling for a fight; as soon as they’d sauntered on, he hurried around the corner.
I dropped down to the street, following in the shadows, and was on the point of avoiding a man asleep in a doorway, cradling a wineskin, when my dark-adapted eyes picked out the familiar sigil of the Ordelaffi on the drunkard’s doublet, and the changeable, cloud-draped moonlight limned the sharp lines of his face.
Mercutio. He was drunk and asleep—muddy and filthy in a doorway that, unless my nose had numbed itself, had been used as a privy more than once.
My casual curiosity about the wayward traveler I’d been tracking vanished, and I glanced about to be sure no one was watching. I still held doubts about Mercutio—we’d avoided his company since the last ordeal of the Capulet feast—but for the love I had once borne him, I could not leave him lying dirty in the street, an object of mockery and a target for thieves and murderers.
I tossed the wine aside, which woke a sleepy murmur from him, and pulled him up to a sitting position. He was as boneless as a corpse, if considerably more mobile, since he shoved at me with ineffective, drunken fury and then flopped back flat on the dirty cobbles.
“I should leave you here, fool,” I said to him in a low, fierce voice, but in truth, my guts ached for him; this was no simple indulgence, coming
here into enemy territory. He’d made himself a true foe of the Capulets at the feast by bringing us under his invitation, and for him to be lingering here, helpless . . . it smelled of a desperate desire to meet his God.
I got him on his feet, with great effort, and held him there with his arm around my shoulders. We had stumbled on for several steps before he seemed to realize that he was upright, and several more before he said, tentatively, “Benvolio?”
“Aye,” I said. “Hush, fool; know you not where we are?”
“In the lion’s den, my Daniel,” Mercutio said, and laughed, raw with wine and a barely suppressed wildness. “Hear them roar? Raaaaaar!” He swiped at me with a claw-crooked hand, which I slapped aside. He giggled and nearly slipped to the ground again, but I bolstered him up. “Have you any shiny trinkets tonight? No? What good are you, then, for a thief?”
“Quiet!” This, I realized, had been a mistake, however good-hearted my intentions. Whatever demon drove my friend to drink himself senseless within the easy grasp of his foes would also push him to betray us both. “For the love of God, man, even if you court your own death, don’t court mine!”
He giggled again and shushed himself—noisily—as we stumbled along. If we ran into a Capulet watch, all would be lost; I was anonymously dressed, but Mercutio wore Ordelaffi colors. I stripped off my long cloak and threw it over his shoulders, shrouding the betraying crest.
As we turned the corner, I spotted the single, stealthy traveler I’d started out to follow. He was staring up at a wall, and as I watched, he sprang up and began to climb it. I knew that clumsy scramble, especially when his hood fell back and moonlight exposed his face, angelic and determined beneath a riot of black curls.
My cousin Romeo.
I bit back the impulse to call to him, warn him; the wall, I well remembered, was trapped at the top, and he was ill prepared to deal with such things . . . but I had underestimated him, and as he scrambled up, he balanced carefully above the sharp points, and vaulted over with more grace than I’d have credited. Perhaps my cousin had learned something from me after all.
“Romeo!” Mercutio suddenly brayed, and I almost dropped him in my surprise.
“Hush, man; he’s leaped the orchard wall—”
“Nay, he’s stolen off to bed, but whose bed?” Mercutio thumped me painfully in the chest with an outstretched finger. “I’ll conjure him, like that mad old witch—no, hush; we speak not of witches. . . . Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!”
He was too loud, far too loud, and I shoved him onward, desperate to get him away. He dragged his heels, and would not quieten, rambling nonsense that I only half heard. “The ape is dead, and I must conjure him. . . . I conjure you by Rosaline’s bright eyes, by her high forehead and her scarlet lips, by her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, and the domains that there adjacent lie—”
“Be still!” I whispered furiously, and shoved him to the wall hard enough to bang his head on stone. “For the love of God—”
“That in your likeness you appear to us! Romeo!” Mercutio’s eyes were acid-bright, his face almost exalted with feverish intensity, as if he believed his childish nonsense was real spellcraft, as if he believed in witches and curses, devils and furies. “I conjure thee appear!”
I had no choice, because I could hear the fast-approaching footsteps of Capulet guards. I hit him hard, twice, to daze him into silence broken only with incoherent moans. As the guards turned the corner, swords drawn, I drove a fist hard into Mercutio’s stomach, and he bent over and promptly vomited up most of the wine he’d downed, all over my boots.
I supported him as he sagged, and stayed in the shadows; the hood covering his face would do well enough, but I was too recognizable to Capulet eyes. “Pardon,” I said, and slurred the word hard. “My fiend—my friend is worse for wine; your pardon, excellencies, most surely pardon—”
“Fool,” the taller of the three guards said, and kicked Mercutio’s leg so he staggered and fell in his own mess. “Wine-soaked idiots! Take your stinking hides home or I’ll carve them for you!”
“Pardon, lord, pardon, most sincere—” I groveled, cringed, and dragged Mercutio with me until he could find his feet again. The Capulets threw stones at us, and one hit with enough force to leave a fist-size bruise on my back; I was lucky he did not hold more ill will, or I’d have a broken rib. Mercutio stayed silent, panting and groaning, until we were well around the corner; then he shoved me hard away.
“You beat me,” he said—moping, like a child.
“I saved your life,” I snapped back. “Move; we must be gone quickly, before they follow.”
“Let them!” He pushed me again when I tried to take hold of him. “You think Romeo would be angry at my conjure? It would anger him to raise a spirit in his mistress’s circle of some stranger, to let it stand until she laid it down. That would be spite. My invocation was fair and honest, in his mistress’s name. . . .”
He was still fevered, I thought; all this talk of witchcraft, of conjuring and invocations gave me chills. Veronica had spoken of witches, and said that Mercutio had sought one out. What madness was this? A dangerous one.
A fatal one.
That, and the thought of Romeo beyond the Capulets’ garden wall, chilled me. Was he seeking Rosaline yet again? Had he misled me after all? No, not chills . . . the cold turned hot, flamed into anger.
Anger that he dared put her at risk.
I tried again to move Mercutio, but he shook me off. “Go, then,” I said. “Be off home.”
“I seek Romeo!”
“You seek him in vain, to seek him here where he means not to be found. Go.”
Changeable, like all drunkards, he suddenly threw his hot, sweated arm around my neck and gave me a sloppy smile. “Come with me,” he said, “my good friend. I am alone and lonely, and I need the comfort of my friends. What have I left but friends?”
“Go home,” I told him. “The cloak will hide you. I know not what you’ll say to your lady wife, but . . .”
His smile curdled, and he looked murder at me for a few seconds before he pulled away, settling the cloak heavily around his shoulders. “The brave Prince of Shadows,” he said, and acid dripped from the words. He sketched a bow that nearly ended with him collapsed on the street. “Prince of thieves, prince of liars, prince of idiots. Why have you killed no Capulets for me, Benvolio? Is there not death between them and me, for the sake of the one I don’t dare name under penalty of the same? You creep, you steal, you take your revenge in secret. I crave more; do you hear? I desire blood!”
“You desire your own ending,” I said to him, and it was brutally honest, and said in love and fear. “Please, my friend. There is blood between Capulets and Montagues, it is true—a lake of it large enough to row on at our leisure. But you can still escape the crimson stain. Let it be done. Look forward, to your future. Find your way, I beg you, before you’re lost to yourself, and to all of us.”
He grabbed me behind the neck and pulled me close, pressed our foreheads together, and said, “I’m already lost, my dear Ben. But I’ll drag those who’ve killed me to hell alongside me.” It was a broken whisper, full of the anguish I knew boiled within him, but in the next second he pushed away and staggered on, one hand trailing the wall for support.
I let him go. Mercutio trailed fate like a cold black cloud, and for a moment I could almost see the sinister shape of it in the cloak that rose and flapped in the night breeze.
Death, I thought. Death stalks behind him.
I should have gone with him, but fear for Romeo, and my family responsibility, held me there after he’d stumbled around the corner, heading vaguely in the direction of the Ordelaffi palazzo.
I looked up, found a handhold, and climbed to the roof of the two-floored shop building. As I passed the open shutters I heard the twin snores of the shopkeeper and his wife; his were low and rumbling, hers thin and halting, though from the lumps wrapped in sheets she was twice his size and half
the volume. I scrambled up, balanced on the roof tiles, and ran lightly along to the far end, which overlooked the Capulets’ garden wall—from which I saw, in pantomime, the love-struck Romeo kneeling among the flowers, and the young Juliet bending toward him from her balcony. Well, a part of me thought, at least it is not Rosaline again. Though, in truth, I was not sure this was any better for Montague, and it might be a good deal worse. The yearning between them seemed almost a visible shimmer, like heat upon stones, and she went in and came out, went in and came out, as if she could not bear to be parted from him. Finally, though, in she went, and her doors shuttered to him, and Romeo, dejected and melancholy, climbed the garden wall to leave.
He looked up, then, and saw me perched there watching, and the guilt and horror that flashed across his face were, at least, a little gratifying.
But I forgot it, and nearly forgot him, as another set of windows opened, another set of curtains billowed, and another girl stepped to her balcony. Taller, stronger, older, more richly beautiful to my eyes. She did not look toward us, but up, to the eastern horizon.
Rosaline looked sad. So very sad, and so very alone.
Romeo dropped down into the street and put elbows on his hips, looking up at me. “You spy on me, coz? You dare to—”
I hushed him with an outstretched hand, still staring at Rosaline, whose gaze had sharpened now, and fixed on me exposed and visible across the way. She saw me—I knew she did, for her eyes widened and her hands tightened on the railing—but she said nothing, and raised no alarm.
I nodded toward her. She slowly nodded back. It lit a burning fire within me that drove away all the chills. That one single gesture told me more than all the flowery speeches that must have passed between my cousin and his new love.
She will be leaving soon, sent away to her tomb in the convent. You’ll never see her again, the solemn, practical part of me advised. And so I looked on her, with honest hunger, for as long as I dared. She was so beautiful in the soft glow, all her curves caressed by the dim light; her hair was a glossy dark fall with hints of blue, like a raven’s wing. The wind played with it, and I could imagine the heavy weight of it in my hands, warm and soft, scented of flowers.