Prince of Shadows: A Novel of Romeo and Juliet

by Rachel Caine

  “I can,” she said. “I am not weak!”

  “Forgive me, but I do not think your needlework has well prepared you for—”

  “I ride,” she shot back. “To the hunt. I have helped spear a boar. My father—”

  Such pleasures were normally reserved for men, and I was surprised to hear that the Capulets had allowed a girl so much, but then I remembered that her father was dead, like mine. Unlike me, she had known hers; he must have allowed her beyond what convention and propriety said was right. And she was right: She was no weakling, not if she had faced down a maddened boar bent on escape.

  “Well, boar killer,” I said, “then we will try.”

  She was far stronger than I expected, for a housebound young woman; I wondered whether she still, in secret, practiced the exercises her father would have made her take to fortify her arms and legs for the hunt, and the weapons she would have to bear. She could not, as I could, climb a wall with a running start, but when I climbed first and gave her the first handholds, she pulled herself up more competently than I expected.

  “Careful,” I told her in a whisper, from the top of the Capulets’ wall. “There is—”

  “I know,” she huffed back, a bit waspishly, and I smiled down at her and offered her a hand for the rest of the way. Once she was crouched beside me in the single ivy-covered spot of safety—and her balance was only a little unsteady, from effort—I braced myself, took her hands, and lowered her slowly down into the dark corner of the garden.

  “Can you make your balcony?” I whispered down, and she looked up, face cool and calm in the moonlight, and nodded. I tried to think of some good-bye, something other than what I ached to say, and I settled for the lukewarm, “Be most careful.” I think the tone of my voice betrayed me, even so.

  “And you,” she said, and her own sounded soft, almost a caress. Then she smiled at me, a full and carefree urchin’s grin, and made her way to her safety.

  For my part, I waited a bit longer, watched her climb to her balcony and slip inside, and then eased down from the wall and ran back, quickly and quietly, to the monsignor’s household. Why would they fear my return, when the city watch had carried me off to meet the prince’s justice at the end of a short dangle?

  I let myself in as before, made my way down to the still-broken stronghold, and this time I took away as much gold as I could comfortably carry.

  Then I piled it in the doorway of the Church of Santa Maria Antica, with a note scratched into the white stone beside it: Alms for the poor.

  Then I went home, to an uneasy few hours of sleep.

  • • •

  I slept like the dead until I was roused by impatient servants; my uncle had business for me to do in town, and I received the instructions from him, only barely aware of what I had agreed to do. At least I was dressed and decently barbered, though the steadiest of hands could do nothing for my swelling nose and spectacular bruising, which occasioned much exclamation when I presented myself to my uncle’s chambers.

  “Well, this won’t do,” my uncle said, frowning at my aching face. “I can scarce recognize the boy myself. Very well, rest, Benvolio, and lay some poultice on those bruises; you’ll do me no good bearing my messages out looking so ill used. A Montague is meant to win the fight, you know!”

  “But I did,” I said, and bowed respectfully. He waited, head cocked, for more explanation, but I did not give it, and he finally let out a frustrated sigh.

  I listened to the man’s hasty lecture about how I should comport myself, to reflect honor upon Montague. I suppose he had thought that since Romeo had received these lectures as heir, I had been spared too many of them, but I’d endured hours of sweating, hellish torment in my grandmother’s chambers listening to much of the same. I well knew what was expected of me, and in fact, the bruises upon my face were a testament to how much I valued the honor of House Montague, though he could not know it.

  It had the fine benefit, though, of freeing me to my own devices for the day—and a portentous day it was. Friar Lawrence’s account had claimed that if all went well, Juliet Capulet would wake today in her tomb, and my cousin Romeo would be there to joyfully greet her and see her swept away. A triumph of love and devotion.

  Perhaps I was too much of a cynic, but I could not see it happening so. Mercutio’s dire words in his journal haunted me, and so did the frantic desperation of the witch who’d crafted the curse on his behalf. If hate could move mountains, then the mountain was still moving, and we could only watch, helpless, as it collapsed upon us.

  I had been all but ordered to keep within Montague’s walls, but I had never cared for being penned up, and by the time the evening Angelus bell had rung I was moving through the streets. It seemed Verona continued untouched by the upheavals of the past week—all the deaths, the tragedy, the drama had passed by the common folk, whose lives were full of their own troubles. I bought a roasted leg of pork to eat as I walked, and made for Friar Lawrence’s cell.

  He arrived after the service had finished, out of breath but smiling for all that; he greeted me warmly, clucked over my wounds, and hummed a merry—though scandalous—tune as he ushered me within. “All’s well, all’s very well,” he told me. “Romeo will have received word in Mantua and hastened here, and even now he should have entered the tomb and gathered his love in his arms, to ensure her waking goes from rest to paradise itself.” He seemed so very pleased with himself, I thought. “And then they will be safely off together.”

  “To what?” I asked him. “Two youths with no funds and no family?”

  “Love will sustain them.”

  “Hard coin would sustain them better,” I said. In my purse I had some of the monsignor’s gold, rescued from his vaults. It was not right to keep it for myself, but a donation to the poor was a just and good use for it. “You must have been plotting to meet them, Friar.”

  “I will see them soon,” he said, and accepted the heavy gift with a smile. “Your cousin will be most grateful, young master.”

  I had no time to question him about the time, though; he poured himself a cup of ale and drank it thirstily, and pressed one upon me that I sipped without savor, though it was the best of the abbey’s stock. “Friar—” I was ready to broach my concerns of Mercutio’s curse, but he held up a hand to stop me, one ear cocked toward the hallway.

  “Hush, I have a visitor— Here, stay there, and silent!” He pushed me behind the only coverage in the room, a small screen, and I stood there clutching my mug of ale and felt foolish for coming.

  Another voice, as hearty as Friar Lawrence’s, called out, “Holy Franciscan friar! Brother, ho!”

  “Well, this same should be the voice of Friar John!” my friend boomed, and I heard the two men give fraternal embrace. “Welcome from Mantua. . . . What says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.”

  I peered around the corner of the screen, and saw a monk as thin as Friar Lawrence was round; he was older, with wisps of white hair circling his tonsured crown. He had a beaming look on his face that clouded over as my friend spoke, and by the end of it, he was as penitent as a tardy schoolboy.

  “I went to find a barefoot brother of our order to accompany me to Mantua,” he said. “And I found him here in the city visiting the sick, but the searchers of the town, suspecting that we were both in a house of infectious pestilence, sealed up the doors and would not let us go forth. So, you see, my passage to Mantua has not yet begun.” He spread his hands in helpless apology.

  I watched the hard truth dawn on my friar’s face. “Who bore my letter, then, to Romeo?”

  Friar John searched quickly within his robes. “I could not send it—here it is again.” He handed over the sealed message with an apologetic smile. “Nor could I get a messenger to deliver it back, so fearful were they of infection.”

  “Unhappy fortune,” Friar Lawrence said, and his distress almost crumpled the note in his hand. “This letter was no simple greeting, but full of import, and neglecti
ng it may do much damage. . . . Friar John, find me an iron crowbar and bring it hence.”

  “An . . . iron crowbar?” Friar John’s mystified face would have been funny to see in any less dire situation.

  “Yes, yes, go!”

  “I will go and bring it.”

  He left, much speeded by the obvious distress of Friar Lawrence, and I came out behind the screen and put the mug aside.

  Friar Lawrence met my eyes with mute horror for a moment, and then said, “I must to the monument alone, then—within three hours will fair Juliet wake. She will be angry that Romeo does not come to greet her, but I will write again to Mantua and keep her here, in my cell, until Romeo comes.”

  No more sunny smiles, no more all will be well . . . he was afraid now; I could see it in the tight lines of his eyes and mouth, and the wretched washing motions of his hands.

  “I will go with you,” I said.

  He did not look so much relieved. His thoughts were far from me. “Poor living corpse,” he said softly. “Closed in a dead man’s tomb.”

  I prayed she would not wake to know it, but already I could sense the darkness of the day spinning darker still.

  QUARTO

  5

  It was a cloudy night, with no kindly moon to light the way; out of respect for the friar, I had shouldered the weight of the crowbar and shovel he had demanded of his fellow. The lantern in his hands should have shed enough light for us, but the path was narrow, and the friar’s robed bulk blocked out most of the glow.

  Yet he was the one who grumbled. “Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight have my old feet stumbled upon graves. . . .” He froze suddenly. We were well close now to the graveyard, and to the grand structures of the tombs. “Who’s there?” I prayed it was not the watch; carrying tools of grave robbing was yet another hanging offense in Verona, and here was I, well equipped for a crime I did not intend to commit.

  But instead, I heard a familiar voice out of the darkness. “Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.” Balthasar! My servant approached, and I peered around the friar to see the calm set of his face. Friar Lawrence put down the lantern and threw his arms around the man.

  “Bliss be upon you!” he cried, and kissed him on both cheeks out of sheer effusion . . . but then, as he pushed Balthasar away to arm’s length, his gaze went past, and his face paled. “Tell me, good my friend, what torch is yonder that vainly lends light to eyeless skulls? It burns in the Capulet monument.”

  “It does, holy sir, and with it is my master Romeo,” Balthasar said, and I closed my eyes for a moment in sheer relief. All will be well. Despite the lost letter, despite Mercutio’s curse, Romeo had found a way to Juliet. The friar’s optimism had been sound, after all.

  But Friar Lawrence did not sound reassured. “How long has he been there?”

  “Fully half an hour, sir,” Balthasar said, and I understood that was too long a time.

  “Go with me to the vault.” He was speaking to me, but Balthasar had still not glimpsed me behind the friar’s bulk, and he stepped quickly back.

  “I dare not, sir. Master Romeo thinks I am gone, and he menaced me with death if I stayed.”

  “Stay then,” Friar Lawrence said, and pushed past him. “Fear comes upon me. Oh, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing. . . .”

  Balthasar called my name in surprise as I came after, carrying the tools, but I had no mind for him in that moment, until he caught my arm and delayed me. “Master, wait. . . . As I slept under this tree, I had a dream—a dream that Romeo and another fought, and Romeo slew him. . . .”

  I thought he had dreamed of Tybalt, but before I could say so, I heard Friar Lawrence cry out, and none of that mattered any longer. I dropped both crowbar and shovel with a clatter and followed the bobbing light of the friar’s lantern down.

  I slowed when I saw the blood.

  “What is this?” the friar asked, in a trembling voice. “What is this blood that stains the entrance of this sepulchre?” He was right. The blood was fresh, still red and glistening, and two swords lay entangled together in the dirt, but only one was well smeared with crimson. That sword at least I knew: It was Romeo’s. I bent to pick it up, but before I could, Friar Lawrence leaned into the tomb, which held its own guttering flame, and cried out in such a voice that I started to my feet again. “Romeo! O, pale—who else? What, Paris, too, and steeped in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour is guilty of this terrible chance. . . .”

  Count Paris and Romeo, both dead? But only Paris must have suffered a wound. I tried to force my way past the friar, but he blocked the doorway, and now he said, in a terrible hushed voice, “The lady stirs.”

  I froze, and heard her soft voice, much softened by sleep and the drug, say, “Friendly friar, where is my lord? I remember where I should be, and there I am, but where is my Romeo?”

  There was a noise from behind us, rocks rolling under approaching feet, and I clapped a hand on the friar’s shoulder in warning.

  “Lady, come you from that nest of death and contagion. . . . A greater power than we hold has thwarted our intentions here. Please, come away. . . .” He took a great gulp of breath when she did not answer. “Lady, thy husband lies there dead, and Paris, too. Come to me. I’ll get you to the sisterhood of holy nuns. Stay not to question, for soon the watch will patrol—come, come, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay—”

  The sound of her movements stopped, and there was a terrible silence, a silence that seemed to me to be filled with unvoiced screams, and then the girl said, in a dreadful soft voice, “Get thee hence. I will not go away.”

  I heard a distant clatter. Men walking on the rocks, armed and armored. I tugged hard on the friar’s shoulder. “We must go,” I hissed at him. This was a terrible thing, and our presence here would demand questions we could not answer. “Come away, Friar, quickly! She’ll be safe enough; the watch is coming!”

  The girl’s voice, through some eerie trick of the tomb, followed us as we escaped into the night, with Balthasar quick behind us. “A cup, closed in my true love’s hand? Poison has been his end . . . and no friendly drop to help me after? I will kiss your lips, and hope some poison hangs on them. . . .” The frantic anguish in her voice twisted at me, slowed my steps, and I turned back to stop her, but Friar Lawrence’s hand grabbed for mine.

  “You cannot,” he begged me. “A Montague, present at such a scene! Come; the watch will save her; they are moments away!”

  From behind us, in that torchlit tomb, Juliet whispered, “Your lips are warm,” and I shuddered as if a ghost had riven straight through me. Now I plainly heard the clatter and calls of the watch as they closed in. “Noises sound. I must be brief—oh, happy dagger, this is your sheath. There rust, and let me die—”

  Romeo’s dagger. She hadn’t waited for the poison on his lips to finish her.

  I heard her cry out, just a little, as the dagger found its place.

  Friar Lawrence let out a choked, desperate sound, and now it was my own turn to hold him away, push him forth.

  Juliet Capulet was a suicide, and so was my cousin, and Count Paris murdered beside them. Mercutio’s curse, made flesh and evil intent.

  I felt my body flush suddenly with an unnatural heat, and sweat began to pour from my body, dampening my clothes. I felt as I had always when facing my grandmother—roasting in discomfort, aching to be elsewhere . . . no, not elsewhere.

  I knew where I needed to be. My body bent that way, like a compass to true north. In the blink of my eyelids I saw Rosaline’s face, and I felt the press of her lips on mine like a ghost’s promise, and I wanted . . . no, I needed her. Fire was a pleasant warmth in a hearth, but it could also burn down a house, and that was what I felt: a fire raging beyond control, beyond sanity.

  I breathed, and breathed, and breathed, and behind us I heard the watch coming to discover the dead.

  Balthasar hesitated, and then said, “I will delay them, sir,” and before I could think to stop him, he was scrambling bac
k the way we’d come, and drawing away the pursuit.

  “They cannot find you here, young Montague,” Friar Lawrence said. He pushed me on my way. “I will explain all that occurred here. Go.”

  I heard them catch the friar and drag him back, and as I achieved shelter behind another set of tombs—ironically, the graceful marble lines of the Montague death house, where lay my sister only newly arrived—here came a new line of torches and lanterns, and well-dressed nobles roused from their beds to see the horrors that awaited them. Prince Escalus, and with him Capulet and his wife. I was too far now to hear all but the loudest of cries, but Lady Capulet’s screams could have sundered a heart of stone.

  As I stole away, feeling bruised and broken inside, and drawn like metal to a magnet toward the emptied-out Capulet house, I passed my own uncle hurrying through the streets to join the lamentation. He looked wild-eyed and not himself, and I grasped the arm of his manservant, Gianni. “Where is my aunt?” I asked. She was too strong-willed; she’d not have allowed herself to be left behind in such extremities.

  “Oh, sir, great tragedy tonight—your aunt’s breath stopped, and none could rouse her. She died of grief, sir, for your cousin’s exile, and now they cry that Romeo is dead, and Juliet, and Count Paris, too; is it true?”

  My aunt, dead in her bed. I let go of him, too numbed to feel much. “It’s true,” I said. “Be careful of him. Too many have died already, and I fear the shock may undo him.”

  Gianni nodded and hurried after, anxious for my uncle’s health in such disasters.

  And I stumbled on, moving the other direction, through predawn streets boiling with roused, confused citizens all telling dire tales of war, murder, treachery, and assassins.

  A plague on both your houses, I heard Mercutio whisper, and give that mad laugh.

  “You have your revenge,” I told his shade, which seemed to stalk me in the dark now. I felt dizzy, and there seemed no goodness in the air I gasped in. “Let it be, my brother; please let it be, . . .” But the ghost was not Mercutio, not him in whole; it was made of grief and fury and rage, and it knew no measure or mercy. And so it drove me straight on, through the chattering sleep-dazed crowds gathered by lantern light, through the Piazza delle Erbe and the fountain topped by the serene Madonna, into the streets past and toward the Capulet palace. There was a fell tension in the air, and I saw Capulet adherents fighting Montague on every corner, wildly shouting, “Murder!” and “Assassin!” without knowing anything of what had occurred.