by Lois Leveen
“Candles to keep filled the score of gifted silver candlesticks that bear the Cappelletti crest, and a wedding cassone overflowing with trousseau linens.” Having risen from the catacomb and pressed his way through the crowd to find us, Lord Cappelletto takes even more than his usual pleasure in cataloguing his own calculated benevolence. “Along with silver plate for the church altar, and another two chests filled with enough of Prato’s finest wool to make full-skirted habits for every Sister here. And a plot of tilling land near to Villafranca, rich soil that the Cappelletti’ve held for five generations, ever since it was given to us by the Pope’s decree for besting some rebellious mountain peasants with unfounded pretentions to nobility.”
Lord Cappelletto spits the last part, but this thick mule of a man only shrugs. “Rich dirt, perhaps, but poor compense for all the Cappelletti slaughtered by their fiercer, braver foes, in that generation and the next.” He swells his belly all the larger, to be sure we cannot pass, and nods at Tybalt’s wooden chest. “I suppose you may be so indulgent for a niece. Would that I could do as much for my goddaughter Augusta Infangati, who consecrates her vows today. But as a man with seven sons, I must take more care in stewarding my family’s fortunes.”
Son and sons, is that all this man talks about? I’d curse him and every son he has, and be done with him so we can settle ourselves to prayer. But it’s not a woman’s place to speak in public, and Lord Cappelletto’ll not leave off so easily.
“A burden it must be, to know your family’s wealth will be so divided and diminished, when the whole of it has never been even half what we Cappelletti have.” He tips one ear, as though pondering some great question. “But perhaps that’s not all there is to the matter. Even one as poor as Il Benedicto makes tithe out of his meager means, yet it’s said the Montecchi never tally the church’s portion as fully as you ought.”
Marking how the name Montecchi shoots an angry twitch along Tybalt’s jaw, I lean close and whisper to him what I dare not say to Lord Cappelletto. “A nice quarrel to have before a church, while Juliet waits to kneel and pray, as do your aunt and pious Rosaline.”
The Montecche is already thundering back at Lord Cappelletto. Tybalt cuts him off, shoving the box of candles into the man’s fat gut. “I make a gift of these to you, that you may give them to the church to celebrate your goddaughter, and none of your sons suffer a pennyworth of loss for it. Come Uncle, Coz, and Nurse, let’s show the Sisters of Caterina the reverence that’s their due.”
He ducks around the man to walk beside his uncle, taking care that Juliet and I follow unharmed.
“You were right to put your duty to Rosaline before such bickering,” I tell Tybalt, when we reach the church door.
“I’d not put anything before my family,” he answers. “I care not how large a man’s fortune is, nor how many sons he’s spawned. But I’ll not forget how the Montecche insulted me, and Rosaline, and our uncle, and the Holy Church as well.”
There’s only so much insult given as what we choose to take. But high-born Tybalt, braised like the tenderest veal cutlet in all Lord Cappelletto’s talk of family honor, will not see that. So I turn instead to Juliet. She’s laid a hand upon Lord Cappelletto’s arm and whispers some pleasant word to coax a smile from him. Such affection is more than his wife ever offers, and any who look upon Lord Cappelletto can see how he treasures it. Treasures her. He smiles and says, “Darling daughter,” kissing her farewell then hurrying to take his place among the kneeling men, while Juliet and I join Lady Cappelletta on the women’s side of the nave.
Darling she is, and daughter, too. Milk-daughter, and more, to me. Let Lord Cappelletto call her what he will. He’s as blind with would-be father love as Tybalt is with hot rage over whatever slight he’s sure the Montecche made. Mannish pride on either side, and Juliet and I have naught to do but bow our heads and pray among the women.
Rosaline’ll not see us once the Mass is done. The stone-faced prioress nods approvingly at all that Lord Cappelletto gifts the convent, then announces that Rosaline is so moved by her newly consecrated state that she’s vowed not to speak for an entire week. And she’ll keep a holy fast for just as long, consuming nothing but the Host.
By my saints, this Christ is a demanding husband. To ask a wife to forego the pleasures of a conjugal bed, and have neither words nor food to fill her mouth instead.
Lord Cappelletto scowls at this proroguing of his planned feast. He’s thinking of the powerful guests he’s longing to impress, and of ravioli and savory pie and all the other already-prepared dishes that’ll not keep another week. Lady Cappelletta, who’s learned to love an evening’s revelry since her husband, grown too old to dance, leaves her to terpsichore among his guests, shares his displeasure. But Tybalt’s jaw softens at the prioress’s pronouncement. Though I wonder what in his sister’s self-denying devotions so pleases him, I give Juliet’s chin a loving chuck and say, “It’s just as well to wait the feast. For all we’ve sewn of Rosaline’s trousseau, there’s been little time to array Juliet, and Lady Cappelletta, as finely as we ought for such a fête.”
The thought of getting up greater finery satisfies girl and woman both, and Lord Cappelletto’s hairy fingers busily tally how much can be made of another week of preparations. Tybalt catches my eye with his own, endarting his gladness to me before taking his leave to untether the post-horse.
Plodding as the carriage ride is, still we arrive at Ca’ Cappelletti before Tybalt. Lady Cappelletta hastens to the upper storage room and unlocks the cassone that holds the finest of the household fabric stores. “The zetani, at last,” she says, pulling out a length of cloth as azure as Santa Maria’s own celestial robes.
Juliet’s slim fingers ripple along the velvet-embossed silk. “Does my lord father bid it, Madam?”
That she calls Lady Cappelletta by the same Madam as I do is comfort to me, though to hear her mouth form father for Lord Cappelletto always sets a sharp shard in my craw.
But bid is the word that catches for Lady Cappelletta. “This zetani was pawned to him in payment for some debt so long past, the color fades along the folds.” She raises an eyebrow in careful calculation. “Surely even my lord husband’ll not begrudge us fabric enough to make new sleeves for his dear daughter, and his wife.”
Juliet raises pleading eyes to Lady Cappelletta. “Can I not have a whole gown of it?”
It’s not greed but a child’s innocent delight that makes my girl ask. But such innocence only draws a frown from Lady Cappelletta. Indulgent as Lord Cappelletto is with Juliet, my girl’s not noticed he’s harder with his wife.
“No simple stitch will pull such well-wefted cloth to proper shape,” I say. “Which means we’ll have enough to do to get sleeves cut, set, and sewn in one week’s time.”
The soft zetani scents our fingers with the rosemary that’s kept it free of worm and moth, and I know my Juliet will shine in so rich a color worn against the pale yellow stripes of her gown. But it seems whatever rest I’d hoped to have once Rosaline’s trousseau was done will never come, for we work long past the evening torches being lit. Although I keep a ready ear for Tybalt’s return, I never hear him. Such is the man that he’s become, still prancing on cat paws though he’s long grown—yet oftener and oftener keeping counsel only with himself.
It’s a short night’s nap I get, because not long after the lauds bells are rung trumpeters pierce Verona’s sleep, summoning Prince Cansignorio’s most trusted advisors. Lord Cappelletto responds to the blasts like a hound to the huntsman’s whistle, rushing down into the still-dark street to join the hastily called council.
I swing open the window in our bedchamber. “Why let in such chill?” Juliet murmurs, snuggling deeper beneath the bedclothes.
I do not worry her with an answer as I lean out to smell the air. No fire, no powder. The city’s quiet, except for the peals of the trumpeters, the hoofbeats of their horses, and the clatter of the lords answering the call. But after I pull the window tight within it
s case and turn back to the room, a shiver catches me. Not of cold, but of something else. Some foreboding makes me cross myself and ask safekeeping from my Virgin before I climb once more into the bed where Juliet, fast asleep again, breathes a steady rhythm into the still room.
By the time Lord Cappelletto returns, the sun is high and the whole house is long awake. He barks down in the kitchen before storming his way into the sala.
Lady Cappelletta, practiced at ignoring her husband’s moods, does not even turn her head when he enters. Juliet wraps the length of zetani she is working around her shoulders, wanting Lord Cappelletto to take some pretty notice of it, and her. “Will I not make a fine sight at the feast?”
But for once his brooding brow does not raise in joy at Juliet. “There’ll be no feast,” he says.
This at least works a response from his wife. “Does my lord husband not wish to celebrate our brother’s daughter Rosaline’s most holy state?”
Brother, Rosaline, and holy state—she offers all three when any one of them ought to be enough to catch his heart. But none do.
“There’s been fighting,” he tells her, “upon Verona’s streets.”
“Surely there has.” I answer fast, in case his words have frighted Juliet. “As happens on so many nights, while we are safe inside.”
“This was not some night-brawl in a remote corner of the city. There’s blood spilt among the Scaligeri monuments in the Santa Maria Antica churchyard. Prince Cansignorio, fearing some treason, has forbidden any gathering of lords outside his council chamber until the culprits are caught.”
Such is a man’s reasoning, which makes everything that happens have to do with him. Cansignorio, who with cold heart and quick hand killed one brother and keeps the other chained within a prison cell, knows well how easily traitorous thoughts can turn to deeds. But with a woman’s wit, I sense something else at play.
I let out one cough and then another, hacking louder and louder until Lord Cappelletto orders me from the room to take wine and water.
Needing neither wine nor water, I swallow my false coughs and head instead for Tybalt’s rooms. But he’s not there. Not in the courtyard. I spy him at last in the arbor, staring at the beehive.
I cannot move on so fleet a foot as he does, and, keen as his long-ago lessons from the master-at-arms have made him, he calls, “Good day, dear Nurse,” without even turning.
“A good enough day for those who did naught last night. But for any who scaled the compound walls and went—“
“Will you not come close,” he cuts me off, “and look at this?”
I’ve no use for bee watching, and he well knows it. But to talk to Tybalt, one must talk as Tybalt will, and so I edge closer to the hive. At a limb-hole of the log, a mob of bees savages some winged foe like fierce-jawed dogs tearing at a fox.
“Why do they attack one of their kind?”
“Not one of their kind,” he corrects me. “An intruder, who snuck into their hive to steal their honey. Do you not see the difference?”
I’ll not get near enough for my old eyes to mark it. But he leans yet closer, admiring the raging insects. “It’s said the bees are more like us than the English or French or Germans. Always seeking for what is sweet—but when something goes amiss, fast to fight to defend their hive.”
“A foolish sacrifice, to waste one’s life just to sink a single sting.”
He turns, ready to tell me I am wrong. But my gasp overruns his words. A finger-long cut crusted with blood slices his cheek. “You’re hurt,” I say, as if to dare him to deny it.
“It’s but a scratch, and well worth the greater damage I did the Montecche.”
“That pompous old man? He must be your uncle’s age.”
“It’s not him I fought, but one of his precious sons. Less precious now, for the hurt I’ve done him.” He smiles, and the cut snakes into an angry curve. “Insult they gave us, and injury I gave back.”
Insult, ever insult. The Cappelletti honor is like that finely worked zetani. A pretty, precious thing, though in truth too delicate. The poor who cloak ourselves in coarse woollen bigello, which bears a host of blows, can only wonder that the zetani of a rich man’s honor is so easily marred. And so often in need of avenging.
“Prince Cansignorio believes both insult and injury were meant for him,” I tell Tybalt. “When he discovers you’re the culprit—”
“He’ll not know. I took care to meet the Montecche when only stars were watching, as he returned alone from a night of drinking.”
Is there no way to make Tybalt see the danger in what he’s done? “The Montecchi will cry for justice.”
Tybalt laughs as though I’ve truly turned into the foolish old virago he teases that I am. “Will the man whose blood I drew denounce me publicly, and admit to all Verona how clumsily he fought, and how easily I bested him?”
He unseals one end of the log hive and daggers off an edge of comb. The bees arc around him, intoxicated by the sweet scent of their own handiwork. But none offers an angry sting. It’s as if they believe him one of their own, and know he means no enmity to them.
He holds the dripping comb out to me. “Honey will keep the cut from festering. Will you not offer a careful rub and a kind word, to have me healed?”
For all the sauce and swagger with which Tybalt wields a weapon, deep within he’s still the lonely child who’s ever needed me. Needs me as much as I need him.
I take the comb and dab honey along the angry stripe that mars his cheek, as I tell him about Prince Cansignorio’s decree. “Your uncle’ll not be pleased to learn you’re the cause that cancels Rosaline’s holy-wedding feast.”
This cools a little of his hot pride. “My sister deserves more banquets than all Verona has the means to give. But she’s too saintly to care whether we feast her. And my uncle, who values naught more than the good name of the Cappelletti, must be glad to have his heir defend it.”
Tybalt speaks the words his heir as one might speak of his silver belt or his ermine-lined gown or the fee-simple of his landed holdings. Lord Cappelletto’s taken Tybalt as his heir, but never given in return what Tybalt so longed for from his father, and found only too briefly in Pietro.
I slip the comb into his pouting mouth so he can suck the remaining honey from it, as he learned to do when Pietro first set the hive here. I wait until I’m sure the sweetness is on Tybalt’s tongue before I say, “Lord Cappelletto loves you, and Rosaline, as surely as he loves Juliet.”
He chews the comb until he’s worked all the golden honey from it, then spits the palish wax upon the ground. “My uncle loves Rosaline for being pious, which he hopes will bring the favor of God and Church upon our house. He loves me for matching honor to that favor, so long as my first honoring act is unwavering obedience to him. But Juliet has his purest love.”
Quick as my words come, he lays a long finger against my lips before I can utter any of them. “Hush, Nurse. We both know it’s true, and you know I’ll not resent it.” He smiles again, and the glistening honey on his cheek makes this curl of the cut appear less sinister. “Juliet is as charming as Rosaline is good. Any man might love her. Why would her father not?”
I’ll not answer as I could. Not dare betray to Tybalt what I’ve not let anyone know that I know: who her true father was. “You’ll have to stay within Ca’ Cappelletti until the cut has healed, to keep clear of Prince Cansignorio’s suspicion. But there’ll be no hiding it from your family.”
I lead him out of the arbor and through the courtyard, stopping to collect some wine before we climb up to the sala. Though for my part I might prefer some aqua vitae, wine is all Lord Cappelletto drinks. And so I pray the vin santo will be enough to calm his ire, and to let flow Lady Cappelletta’s full sympathy for Tybalt, which runs as deep as my own.
It’s Juliet who first catches sight of us as we enter the sala. Paling at her dear-loved Tybalt’s bloodied cheek, she cries out, the zetani sliding from her lap and pooling on the floor.
Lady Cappelletta’s amber eyes flicker with surprise, then horror. “Who’s done this to you?”
Lord Cappelletto, who stands at the window, turns to see what’s amiss. Spying Tybalt’s wound, he demands, “What villain is this within my house, jeoparding our family by raising a weapon against the prince?”
I step between them. “He’s not jeoparded—”
Lord Cappelletto cuts me off, pushing his way to Tybalt. “Are you yet a child, hiding behind the nurse’s skirts?”
“I’m neither villain nor child.” Tybalt draws himself to his full height, dwarfing Lord Cappelletto. “I raised a weapon only to defend our family. Glad I was to do it, and to pay this simple price”—he runs his smallest finger along his sliced cheek—“for the pleasure of spilling a greater quantity of Montecchi blood. Such was their due, for insulting our gifts to the Holy Church.”
Lord Cappelletto’s mouth sharpens to a pucker, as he takes in Tybalt’s words. But then it broadens as he laughs, pulling Tybalt into his arms.
“Dry your womanish tears,” he tells Lady Cappelletta and Juliet. “Tybalt’s done right. Done as I did many a time when I was of his age, to pluck the crow of the Montecchi and their allies.” He claps a hairy hand upon his nephew’s back, like a knight patting his stallion after a victorious joust. “Prince Cansignorio’s quick to take a slight where none is given. But he’s got no part in this private quarrel between families. So long as none know the part you played last night, it’ll be but a short delay before the edict’s lifted, and we feast for pious Rosaline. And for brave Tybalt.”
It’s not love of the sort Pietro showed Tybalt, that tender echo of what he felt for our own sons. But it’s all Lord Cappelletto offers, and Tybalt drinks it in like a bee sucking nectar from a blossom.
One note, then the next, then yet another—they fly so swift from Tybalt’s lute, I can barely draw air in fast enough to match singing to them. Together we turn such a bright tune that Lady Cappelletta hums along, one foot tapping as she sews.