by Melinda Taub
His nostrils flared, his dark eyes furious. For a moment she thought he might throw her over his shoulder and lend her his protection by force—even now, she was oddly certain that he would not offer her any physical harm himself, no matter how he hated her—but instead he spread his hands and backed away, offering her a mocking bow. “As you wish, my lady Rosaline. And if you meet with more brigands who wish you harm, do give them my compliments.”
“I shall, for they will likely be your kin.” Without another word, Rosaline turned and left the cemetery, heading up the hill toward her uncle’s house. As she hurried through the dark streets, fingernails still biting into her hands in anger, she sent up a silent but vehement prayer that she would never see Benvolio of Montague again.
Benvolio soon walked the streets once more.
The skirmish with the young men, far from clearing his head, had only made him feel worse. The yearning fury that swelled in him when he thought of Romeo and Mercutio was growing in strength, and he felt that if he did not get an outlet for it soon, he might burst.
Especially when he thought of that devil of a girl.
Benvolio’s steps quickened. The hilt of his sword bit into his palm. What sort of a lady insulted a man who had just saved her life?
In his mind’s eye, he could see her straight, proud back, hands clutching her shawl as she marched away from the graveyard, from him, to be swallowed by the Verona night.
Hell. He shouldn’t have let her go.
No gentleman would have let a lady walk alone into the night, no matter how grievously she’d insulted him. Not with the city in the state it was. But she’d been so vexing, so ungrateful.
No fool, though. He thought of the moment he’d first seen her clearly, after he’d chased off her attackers. Loose brown curls tumbled over her shoulder, face flushed with fear and red from Orlino’s slap, and yet her eyes had been keen and searching as she decided to trust him enough to let him help her to her feet.
Benvolio scrubbed a hand across his face. Aye, ’twas no wonder his cousin had spent long weeks in her thrall. She was a beauty, there was no doubting it. All the easier to flay a man with her hell-forged tongue and icy scorn.
Benvolio wondered suddenly what had won Romeo’s heart away from this Lady Rosaline. He’d never met Juliet—his only memory of her was watching her whirl across the dance floor from afar, the night she had met Romeo. She’d been young, not much more than a child. With her long dark hair, she’d had much the look of her cousin, but Benvolio could not imagine that laughing, innocent face ever holding the pain he’d seen in Rosaline’s.
But of course, it must have. For had they not all felt that anguish these past weeks? He did not imagine there had been much mirth left in fair Juliet by the time she buried her husband’s dagger in her own heart.
Two ladies of House Capulet had Romeo loved. Gay Juliet, reserved Rosaline. The latter a scandalous enough choice of bride for Montague’s heir, but the former so unthinkable as to be fatal. Benvolio and Mercutio had tried so many times to sway Romeo from his Rosaline-induced melancholy by swearing to him that one pretty wench was much like another. How wrong they were.
Somewhere in the darkness a bell tolled the quarter hour, and Benvolio came to a halt. Oh hell. In all the trouble, he’d forgotten that his wanderings were not entirely aimless tonight. His uncle Montague had asked to meet him at a nearby church.
Benvolio turned and retraced his steps back up the hill. He knew not why his uncle had instructed him to go to the church instead of the Montagues’ house, but if he took a shortcut, he could be there inside of five minutes.
His uncle was already waiting outside when Benvolio arrived. Lord Montague was a tall man, like Benvolio himself. His close-cropped hair had been a steely gray as long as Benvolio could remember, but it was almost white now. Unlike his wife, Romeo’s father had survived the death of their son, but he had become an old man almost overnight.
“Ah,” Lord Montague said. “Benvolio.” He started, as though just then noticing him. “My boy.” His normally sharp eyes betrayed a certain dullness—perhaps grief had so shrouded his sight that even the familiar face of his nephew was hard to recognize.
Benvolio bowed. “Uncle.”
Lord Montague frowned, taking in his disheveled state, then inclined his head toward the door of the chapel. Benvolio followed him inside.
Lord Montague took a seat in a pew in the back. Benvolio sat down beside him. He knew not what to expect when his uncle had summoned him. This small chapel in an unfamiliar part of town, far from the square where the Montagues made their homes, did nothing to abate his confusion.
They sat in the dark, empty chapel for some time before his uncle broke the silence.
“Thou art grown so tall,” he said.
“My lord?”
His uncle sighed. “I remember the three of you, hopping around the courtyard with wooden swords.” He held out his hand, as though measuring the height of an invisible small boy. “And now thou art the last of them.”
A chill washed over Benvolio’s skin. His uncle was a kind man, but proud and reserved. He had never spoken so to Benvolio in his life. “Uncle, why have you summoned me?”
A slight smile flickered on Montague’s face. “Because,” he said, “I was sure that if I told thee where we were really going, thou wouldst not have come.”
“Where—”
“Mark me well.” Lord Montague turned and gripped him by the shoulders. “The Montagues have never known such a dark hour, Benvolio. My wife is dead. My only child—” For a moment his mask of composure cracked, and he looked as though he might break down in tears. But he recovered, gripping Benvolio harder, heedless of his wound. “But thou, thou liv’st.” He shook him slightly. “Thou liv’st. And we Montagues have need of thee now. Wilt thou help us?”
Benvolio clasped his uncle’s hand. “Anything.”
The gates of Capulet had ne’er before filled Rosaline with such intense relief.
She’d always thought her uncle’s house ugly, an overdone monstrosity perched on top of the hill for all those not fortunate enough to be Capulets to admire it. She would walk streets out of her way sometimes so as not to pass by it.
But now she walked toward its many-torched walls with all haste. Fear winged her feet and she all but ran for the house, sure that now when she was nearly safe was the moment the Montague brutes would spring upon her again. Down the hill to her left stood the house she and Livia had lived in as children, dark as usual—its foreign tenant must have had less business in Verona than he had expected, for he never seemed to use it. Normally it gave her a pang to see her home out of her reach, but now she welcomed the sight, as it meant she had nearly reached her destination. It had been the height of foolishness to insist on making this walk alone, as her fluttering heart seemed ever more determined to remind her. She ought to have endured Benvolio’s detestable company as far as her uncle’s door. ’Twas not as though he would have followed her inside.
But Rosaline was lucky, and she arrived at the gate, panting and no doubt in utter disarray, but safe. She nodded to the sentry and said, “My uncle expects me.”
The man motioned her inside. Rosaline’s hands clutched her shawl as she passed the threshold. The last time she’d been here was two weeks ago, on the eighteenth of July. She’d come for Juliet’s wedding to Count Paris. It had been Juliet’s funeral instead.
The servant took his torch and hurried into the house, leaving Rosaline alone in the darkened courtyard. She shivered, though the night was still warm, and pulled her shawl closer about her.
Juliet’s was not the first corpse she’d seen in the Capulet courtyard.
“Open the gates! Niccolo is wounded!”
“A duel with the Montagues—”
“Bind his wound—so much blood—”
“Look to the child!”
Rosaline had been eleven years old the day she watched her father bleed to death on these very cobblestones. Ever sin
ce, the elegant yard seemed to smell of the tang of blood.
A light far above caught her eye. Looking up, she saw a glow at one of the upper windows. Odd. That wing of the house was not in use—her uncle Capulet had a smaller family than his ancestors, and the unused bedrooms were rarely opened. Juliet’s nurse used to shoo them away from the locked door when they wanted to play there.
As she looked up, the light winked out, as though aware of being watched.
“Well, come in, niece, stand not there in the dark.”
Rosaline turned to find her uncle silhouetted in the doorway, his bulk blocking most of the light from within. He turned, motioning her inside with a jerk of his head.
Rosaline followed him. Past silent servants bowing, over the impossibly rich red carpet in the hall, up the marble staircase toward her uncle’s private study. If he noted the mud on her gown, he gave no sign. At least her cheek felt cooler. Her face would bear no bruise from Orlino’s slap, she thought. She wondered if she’d left Benvolio’s cheek as unmarred. Her uncle waved a hand toward a chair outside the door. “I’ve other visitors to entertain. Wait thou here.”
With that, he disappeared through the oak door to his study. Rosaline fumed. He had demanded her presence, and now he would make her wait? She should have expected no better, she supposed. Her uncle probably thought she should be flattered he’d deigned to speak to her at all.
Rosaline was about to settle into the proffered chair when she heard a familiar wheeze approaching up the servants’ stair.
“Oh bless me, bless me, but these stairs are become as steep as mountains. Ah me! My poor knees.”
A slight smile pierced Rosaline’s annoyance. Juliet’s old nurse never missed a chance to complain. It was good to know she, at least, was unchanged.
“Nurse?”
Rosaline went to the top of the stair just as the nurse heaved herself into view carrying a large basket. When she spotted Rosaline she froze, her burden nearly slipping from her fingers. Rosaline hurried to help her. “How now, good nurse?”
The nurse clutched her chest with one hand, gripping her basket tight to her bosom with the other. “Ah! ’Tis young Rosaline. I’ faith, lamb, you did affright me. To see you standing there, I thought you were my mistress come back again. What brings you here so late?”
Rosaline winced. She and Juliet had looked much alike. “I am sorry to startle you. Mine uncle summoned me. Come, sit.” She tried to pull her toward the chair, but the nurse shook her head.
“Nay, nay, I must to my lady.”
Rosaline pushed her shoulders down gently. “I am sure thy care is crucial, but my good lady aunt can wait a moment. Thou art as pale as ashes.”
The nurse acceded with a sigh, sinking into the chair. Rosaline gripped her hand. The nurse’s face had become a mass of wrinkles. In the years since Rosaline had been Juliet’s playmate, her cousin’s caretaker had grown old.
“To think that you should resemble her so much,” the nurse said. “You have heard, I suppose, that my mistress Juliet is dead?”
“All Verona knows she is,” Rosaline said with a squeeze of her hand. “I was at her funeral.”
“Ah, but then she yet lived, mark you.” The nurse frowned in grief-muddled confusion. “We lay her in the tomb, and in the night she woke and slew herself anew, while I slept. I knew not of her second death until the next day.”
Rosaline swallowed an angry reply. Of course the Capulets had little thought to inform a mere servant of Juliet’s strange fate. No matter that the nurse had been their daughter’s loving companion her entire life.
“My sweet ladybird!” the nurse continued, her voice growing hoarse. “To think a dagger split its pretty breast. And in the tomb! Surrounded by dusty bones— Ah! Could I but have held her in my arms, let her blood spill ’gainst my breast instead of on the cold stones! Oh, my poor lamb!” She shook her head. “ ’Twas that Romeo, mark. I had thought him an honest gentleman. Had I but— Ah well.” She began patting herself, and from somewhere amongst her voluminous folds she produced a handkerchief, which she used with a great honk. “Enough moans. Servants may mourn, but they must do so on their feet. I must to my lady.”
“I’ll go with thee.” Rosaline took the nurse’s arm to support her. If her uncle intended to keep her waiting, she might as well accompany the nurse. Clearly no one else in the household gave the poor old woman a moment’s consideration.
“Nay, madam,” the nurse said. “My lady is abed.”
“I know. My guardian attends her. Is she awake?”
“Aye,” the nurse admitted with reluctance.
“Then perchance a visit shall be some succor. Pray ask if she will receive me.”
The nurse pressed her lips together, looking about to refuse. “Aye,” she muttered.
Rosaline followed the nurse down the long hallway to the blue doors that led to Lady Capulet’s bedroom.
Rosaline waited a long time before the nurse reemerged, her face beaming. “Come in. My lady will see you.”
Her aunt’s room felt as stale as a crypt. Despite the summer heat, heavy drapes were drawn over the windows. At the far end was her aunt Lady Capulet’s large canopied bed, the tall, silver-haired Duchess Francesca of Vitruvio bent over it. As Rosaline drew near, her guardian straightened and looked her up and down.
“Ah, niece,” the Duchess said. “What, didst thou crawl here through a field of brambles?”
“My ladies.” Rosaline sank into a curtsy, allowing her hair to fall to hide her burning face. She’d done her best to straighten her mussed gown, but there was a tear at the shoulder and a smeared, muddy boot print on the hem. But she had little interest in recounting the night’s events to House Capulet. They’d know soon enough, if her hothead cousins could not keep their mouths shut.
“Nurse, get her a cloth and pin her gown. Filthy as an urchin may’st thou be, Rosaline, but at least thou mak’st a pretty curtsy, fit for any court. Though even that is wasted on my sluggish daughter here.” The duchess gave the figure in the bed a sharp nudge.
After the nurse had fluttered around her, setting her gown to rights, Rosaline drew beside the canopy. Her aunt showed no sign of recognizing her presence. Rosaline smothered a gasp at the sight of her. Lady Capulet had been one of the most admired ladies of Verona for as long as Rosaline could remember. Small in size but great in beauty, she commanded every ball and festival, her sharp gaze raking the room as lesser Capulet ladies trailed in her wake. No woman could hope to ascend to the upper ranks of Verona’s society without her patronage.
Now the delicacy of her features remained, but her power seemed to have fled. Her skin was waxy and pale, her once-fearsome gaze was dull and unfocused, and she was as docile as a child as the nurse and her mother sat her up against the pillows. “See, Lavinia?” the duchess said loudly. “Thy niece is come to visit thee. Wilt thou not rise to greet her?”
Lady Capulet did not seem to hear. Her gaze was fixed in a dark corner of the room, her fingers dancing fretfully along the hem of the coverlet. Duchess Francesca gave a great sigh. “ ’Tis ever so since her Juliet bled away in the tomb,” she said to Rosaline. “Grief is a foe, but she welcomes it like the dearest of friends, and will keep company with none other.”
“She has had a terrible shock,” Rosaline said. “Certainly she shall recover.”
“Shall she indeed?” the duchess demanded. “Lady Montague did not. She died when she learned her son had slain himself in the arms of a Capulet.” She gave her daughter a little shake. “The Capulets can ill afford such feebleness. Daughter, thy family has already lost their heir—must they lose their mistress too?”
There was no response. The nurse, with an apprehensive glance at Duchess Francesca, pushed closer to Lady Capulet, cooing soothing murmurs in her mistress’s ear as she readjusted the blankets around her.
The duchess shook her head, turning away from the bed. “What’s Lord Capulet’s will with thee, Rosaline? He would not tell me.”
&nbs
p; “I know not. I am but just arrived, and my uncle has other business.”
“Let us hope he’s kept more wit than his wife. ’Tis a scandal, to see the Capulets brought so low. And our prince complicit in it! Knowest thou, child, he means not to bring the Montagues to justice?”
Rosaline frowned. “Justice? What wrong have the Montagues done that’s not already punished?”
Her great-aunt snorted. “Seduction. Abduction. Murder. For a man to steal a maid from her parents’ home, to seduce her, ravish her, lead her to her death—the prince is far too forgiving of House Montague’s crimes.”
“Even had Romeo done those things, he is dead now.”
“Perhaps, but his house prospers on. The prince cares not for justice, nor to bring peace to souls afflicted by this strife like my poor daughter.”
“Peace?” Lady Capulet’s voice issued behind them. Rosaline turned to find her aunt’s position unchanged. Her gaze still fixed a thousand leagues away, she seemed unaware of their presence as she continued to speak. “Think you, Mother, that the fall of House Montague would be enough to salve the wounds of Juliet’s death? ’Twas our own Tybalt’s sword that slew the prince’s kinsman Mercutio. Will you demand the prince pull House Capulet stone from stone too? Would that then be enough to buy back a moment of my sweet child’s life?”
“Hush, fool. Speak not such nonsense ’gainst your own.” Duchess Francesca shook her hard. Rosaline cried out, seizing her great-aunt’s hand.
“Let me go, girl. Thou forget’st thyself.”
“She’s grieving! Think you a beating will cure her of it?”
But the blow had failed to dislodge Lady Capulet’s dreamy smile. “The dead cannot return,” snapped the duchess, “but they can be avenged. Grief is no excuse for feebleness.”
At last, Lady Capulet’s gaze found them. She looked surprised to see Rosaline. “Thou, child,” she said. “My husband and his cousins slew the Montague who slit thy father’s throat. Pray, was’t enough blood for thee?”
Rosaline could not answer.
“No,” Lady Capulet murmured. “No, Capulet blood is dearer still than that.”