Juliet's Nurse

by Lois Leveen

  The noise of the clash is muted within these holy walls. But that only makes the pounding in my head sound louder. “No farther,” I say. Or try to, the words swallowed in a bloody gurgle.

  It is enough for the friar to make out my meaning. He sets me upon a bench and unrolls the sleeve of Tybalt’s cloak. Bunching the gilt-embroidered edge against my nose, he bids me hold it tight to staunch the blood.

  I nod, but even that slight movement shoots pain through my skull. Friar Lorenzo hies to his cell, returning to offer both poultices and prayers. Neither brings me relief. With a rip of pain along my side, my stomach twists, and I heave out a putrid stream onto his holy robe.

  When I croak out an apology, Friar Lorenzo waves the words away. He has all a Franciscan’s devotion to the wretched—coupled, perchance, with some scheme to appeal to Lord Cappelletto for the gift of a new cassock. He moves to make the sign of the cross upon me, but his benedicte is drowned out by a thundering of horses’ hooves and the angry trumpets of Prince Cansignorio’s royal guard.

  “Thank Christ, they’ll put an end to the fighting,” Friar Lorenzo says.

  It’s true, the lance-wielding guard will scatter the brawlers. But Tybalt, who drew his sword to answer so small a slight as he imagined the old Montecche gave him at the convent, has his hot-headed match in a thousand other young men of Verona. As I mark the blood that’s soaked into the gold-threaded Cappelletti crest embroidered on his cloak, I wonder whether it will take more power than the prince has, and a greater miracle than Friar Lorenzo can pray forth, to calm them all and bring a lasting peace to the city’s streets.

  Though Friar Lorenzo offers his arm to lead me back to Ca’ Cappelletti, once we make our slow way out of the churchyard and enter the piazza, he stops to survey the handful of youth who, too wounded to run off, are being held by the prince’s guard.

  Each breath sears new pain into me. I long to be a-bed and have Juliet lay her pretty head beside my throbbing one. But I’m caught quick while Friar Lorenzo weighs the worth of delivering me to Lord Cappelletto against what he might amass here. The Franciscan’ll not easily forego a chance to offer succor to any who are hurt. He must want to tend the injured brawlers, and to plead with the guard to have mercy on them, which will surely earn him the favor of the young men’s powerful families.

  Another horseman cantors up the Via Filippini. He wears Cansignorio’s own colors, the carmine of his high-hemmed doublet and well-turned leg setting off his night-black mount. It’s as if an over-earnest hand has copied over the prince, creating a younger, handsomer, and less haughty version of Verona’s ruler.

  “Is this some new treason against my uncle?” he asks.

  Nephew to a prince—surely the greatest gain is to be made by catering to him. “Young cocks, Count Paris, you know how they crow. But it’s only some ancient grudge, rupturing anew. No treason is intended.” Friar Lorenzo presses his palms together and bows his head as though he’s begging for the count’s guidance to solve a great dilemma. “I might treat both their anger and their injuries, and thus do my rightful duty to Verona’s ruler by calming such disturbances to our streets, if I were not pledged to escort this goodly widow to Ca’ Cappelletti.”

  The count, though no older than the brawlers, bears his princely connection with great pride. “I’ll guide the widow,” he tells Friar Lorenzo, “while you remedy the rest.” He unhorses himself, leaving the reins to one of the guard, and offers me his arm. “If it pleases you?”

  It pleases me to look upon such a pleasant face. And yet it pleases me not, to be bloodied and stained in his handsome presence.

  “May the saints bless you for your benevolence.” I lean unsteadily on him, forcing my features not to betray how badly I ache as we walk along the Via Leoni. “Surely Lord Cappelletto—”

  “Sure Lord Cappelletto surely is, as I’ve seen often enough in my uncle’s council chamber.” He smiles, and despite the pain I do, too. Few there are for me to smirk with, about Lord Cappelletto’s pretensions. “You are by blood or by marriage, a Cappelletta?”

  That wilts my smile. “Neither,” I say. What binds me to Juliet is something I cannot explain. Not to this noble stranger. Even with Juliet herself—we’ve no words for what we share. “I care for Lord Cappelletto’s daughter.”

  “Is she of an age that requires much care?” He gives a curious glance to my mannish cloak.

  “She’s a girl for whom none can help but care. Including her devoted kinsman Tybalt, who dotes on her while I am off upon a pressing errand, gifting me his own cloak to do it in.”

  “A greater kindness it might have been, had he not been so generous.”

  Savvy this Paris is, discerning what I’ve not wanted to admit to myself. Tybalt put me into danger by bidding me wear his family crest while the Montecchi seethed to avenge themselves on him.

  “You seem to be a man who knows much of kindness.” And being a man, like all men happy to be praised. So happy that haply in lapping up my flattering he’ll forget whatever he’s surmised about me and Tybalt. “We’ve no feast fit for a count prepared,” I say as we turn into the entry to Ca’ Cappelletti, “but perchance we can decant some of Lord Cappelletto’s finest Carmignano for you.”

  Before he can answer, Juliet’s merry laugh rings from the loggia. “There you are, at last.” She hurries down the stairs into the courtyard. “Tybalt and I spent the morning collecting blossoms from our arbor, so I could make you this.”

  A bright garland, worked with more love than skill, drops to the hard ground when she sees my bloodied face.

  “What’s happened to you?” She covers me with kisses like a mother cat licking a hurt kit, then issues a curt, “Raise a bucket from the well,” ordering the count as if he’s one of her family’s man-servants. He wordlessly obeys. She does not notice the bemusement dancing on his lips as she undoes the fazzoletto scarved around her neck and dips it into the water he’s drawn.

  I mark that, and more, as Juliet gently washes me. All the love with which I’ve fed her, she gladly feeds back to me. She may not have the learned friar’s knowledge of medicinals, but her tenderest mercies do me more good than any holyman could.

  Paris drops to his knee, gathering up the garland and offering it to Juliet. “She ought to be a-bed. Perhaps I—”

  Juliet gives no notice to the kneeling count, keeping her worried eyes on me. “Are you tired, Nurse?”

  “I should like to lie down, though to climb the stairs may be much for me,” I say, imagining myself carried in the arms of the handsome count and laid beside Juliet in her great bed.

  But Juliet, my innocent, asks, “Shall I call for Tybalt?”

  The name throbs pain through me. I shake my head, which worsens the hurt, and tell her I can manage without him if I might lean upon her. She wraps her dainty arm around my thick waist and draws my hand across her narrow hip. Wrapped together, we walk like a single lopsided creature up the stone steps, Paris watching until we disappear inside.

  Once we’re in our chamber, Juliet unclasps my borrowed belt and removes the soiled cloak, then unravels my braids and works her own ivory comb through my hair. Undressing, undoing, freeing what’s confined—her tending echoes how I’ve put her to bed, how many thousand times.

  She settles me beneath the bedclothes and pulls wide the window, letting in the fruit-ripe arbor air, before setting beside me. “Am I a good nurse, Nurse?”

  “So good that I’m a lucky sufferer.”

  But the lock upon the tower door turns, and my luck turns with it. Tybalt swings his way into the room. The sight of my swollen features stops him short.

  “Stung?” he asks.

  “Struck. By some unruly youth who mistook me in your cloak.”

  “Dishonorable dog.” The score along his cheek pulls taut. “I’ll pay him what he’s due for treating you so.”

  This is the difference between the warmth of Juliet and the heat of Tybalt, the measure of what each will do believing they do it for m
e. “And what will he pay you, in return? Or pay me, or Juliet, or anyone of us?”

  “It is our honor—” he begins.

  “It was her blood.” Juliet lays a protective hand against my cheek. “Better saved than spilled, if that’s the cost of honor.”

  “Do not let Lord Cappelletto hear you speak so, Coz.”

  She draws her hand to her mouth so fast you’d think it burnt. Juliet does not bear harsh words well. Especially when they menace with the threat of harsher still from Lord Cappelletto.

  “Cansignorio’s nephew knows that I am struck,” I say. “If he tells the prince, they’ll soon discover it was you who drew the first blade.”

  “Who’ll trust what that pleasure-loving Mercutio says? He’s overfond of the Montecchi, and even the prince knows it.”

  “Overfond of much, Mercutio is.” I flash a look toward Juliet, to warn Tybalt not to utter any more in front of her about pleasure-loving Mercutio’s debauchery, rumors of which are enough to shock all of Sodom and half Gomorrah. “But it’s Paris who happened upon the brawl and brought me home. Let him advise the prince on how to settle it. He seems a fair man.”

  “Fair to look at,” Tybalt says. “Your sight’s not harmed, nor is your lus—”

  “Truly, my head aches. Juliet, would you call for some aqua vitae to soothe me, and a plate of walnut-candied figs?” I take care to name a delicacy she’ll crave along with the drink I want. With a devoted nod, she’s off to have both brought.

  Once she’s gone, I tell Tybalt, “You must watch what you say when Juliet is present.”

  “What harm can unchaste words do chaste ears?”

  I know well how easily unchastity undoes the chaste, especially at such an age. But before I can answer, something in his own words draws Tybalt’s attention. “What reply have you from Rosaline?”

  Rosaline—when the bees teemed Santa Caterina’s breast, I forgot about his message for her. But when I tell Tybalt what I witnessed, he waves off my terror.

  “A harmless swarm, flown from a hive that’s grown overcrowded because I’ve not been to collect their comb and honey.” He lectures as though I am a thick-witted child. So when he says, “I must gather them into a new hive, and bring the missive to my sister,” I do not try to stop him. I’d not realized what risk there was to me in going out wrapped in his cloak, and mayhap he’d not known it either. But if it’s danger for him to lurk about Verona, that’s his own doing. I’ll stay safe inside with Juliet, as I’m meant to be.

  As I pass back the letter, he says, “The bees are nothing for you to fear. As for the Montecchi, I’ll give them more than even for the hurt they’ve done to you.”

  I make no answer as I wait for him to go. And for Juliet to return with the sweetness of the figs, and the numbing flow of aqua vitae.

  Lady Cappelletta’ll not bear the sight of me, banishing me from the sala like a thief from the city. What offends her is my swollen nose, though it’s the smash to the back of my skull and the boot-blows to my side that more trouble me. How am I to see my own hard-used face? But I cannot help but feel the thudding ache across my head and the groaning pain in my gut—and half a dozen times a day the flashing of that feverish heat, which I might’ve hoped the beating had knocked out of me.

  Still, I have my truest comfort, for Juliet begs leave to tend me. And so we’ve the days, like our nights, to ourselves.

  “How do you feel?” she asks me for the hundredth time.

  Like I’ve had my head bashed in, my body bruised, and my nose broke. But instead I say, “Funny, how sharp my smelling sense has got. I can detect each fruit and flower in the arbor, the way a keen ear perceives the separate notes within a harmony.”

  “Can smells make a harmony?” she asks. “Is that not a lovely riddle?”

  Juliet is lovely, yet no riddle. No convolution or dual meaning in her, still taking delight in such simple games as she and I conceive for ourselves. “Rosemary and roasted veal make a harmony.”

  “That is taste, not smell.”

  “Close your eyes,” I tell her. “Can you not conjure both? How the sweet-sharp rosemary scents the roasting flesh, perfuming the air around the kitchen in the hours before you sit in the sala and taste how tender and succulent the meat.”

  The tip of her nose twitches as I talk, her pink tongue peeking from between her lips. I press my tiniest finger to it. Her lids fly open, and she laughs. “Tell me another.”

  “No.” I give her only a single heartbeat of disappointment before adding, “it’s your turn to tell me.”

  “Minted lamb stew?” So tentative, until I nod. Assured of my approval, she catalogues a rush of toothsome dishes as would do the Pope’s chef proud. “Pork and ginger pie. Piacentine cheese in fennel sauce. Partridge and pine-seed ravioli. Plum and cardamom tart.” Wonder wrinkles her pretty brow. “Must it always be food?”

  I bow my brow to hers and slowly tilt my head from one side to the other, as though I’m rolling out a delicate crust. How that simple touch soothes us both. “It may be whatever you wish.”

  Her eyes rove, landing upon the statue of San Zeno. “Incense and a woolen habit,” she says.

  “That’s Rosaline’s harmony, as sure as beeswax and the steel of a Toledo blade is Tybalt’s.”

  “And what is mine?”

  “When you were a newly born babe, you smelled like softest down, brazier-warmed swaddling bands, and my milk.” No need to speak of what soiled the swaddling, which I was quick enough to clean. “Now you’re a rose that’s freshly bloomed, a dancer’s flush when the tempo’s fast, and a spice-and-honey comfit.”

  She purrs at the first part but frowns at the last. “No more food, Nurse. We agreed to it.”

  To believe I agree to whatever she demands—she’s not so far off in that. “And would you not eat such a comfit, if I offered it?”

  She grabs at my sleeves. “Have you been hiding comfits?”

  As we make mock battle over imagined candies, heavy footfalls thud their way to the chamber door. Lord Cappelletto calls, “Is my Juliet within?”

  “Why not enter,” she answers with a laugh, “and find out?”

  She’s not noticed how the man who once barged in at any hour now stops, always, when he’s without to ask if she’s within. Or rather, if she’s noticed, she’s not reckoned why. Lord Cappelletto has no worry that he might open the door to an empty room. His concern is that opening it unannounced, he might see more of his daughter than a decent father deems right, now that the bodices of her gowns grow tight across her chest. Juliet is too pure-hearted to fathom the worry her tenderly budding body could work into Lord Cappelletto—or what else it might work into another man.

  If he’ll not gather her into his lap as he did in years past, still he’s pleased to have her give each of his cheeks a kiss. “Nurse is nearly better,” she tells him, “for I’ve given her good care.”

  He nods without so much as glancing my way. “Well that you’re done with it. Prince Cansignorio gives permission for us to feast Rosaline this Sunday, thanks to a member of his household who made the plea for me.” I’d expect resentment to tinge such words, for Lord Cappelletto likes to believe he speaks directly into the prince’s ear and needs no one to intercede for him. But I hear something else instead. A glimmering of some hope Lord Cappelletto has for even greater alliance with the Scaligeri.

  “You shall wear this for the dinner, and the dancing afterward.” He slips an emerald ringed in gold upon her finger. The stone is as big as a cherry and as green as the first leaves in spring. “A jewel as lovely as my Jule.”

  “How heavy it is,” she says.

  “You do not think it too archaic, I hope.”

  She smiles reassurance at him. “An old style, but a pretty one. Was it my mother’s?”

  “No. It was—” He draws a short breath. “It was Juliet’s.”

  “Another lovely riddle, that a ring can always have been mine though I’ve never before seen it.”

  I
’d not let out the answer to that riddle. Not let on what I think of how he means to spoil her by gifting her his dead wife’s rings.

  “The color will shine against my zetani sleeves.” Juliet twists the ring one way, then the other, as though screwing some unvoiced doubt into its place. “Although the pale hue of my gown’ll not show it nearly as well.”

  “Why not have a whole dress of the zetani, then?” Lord Cappelletto’s no wiser than a fly, carried by carefree wings into the silken tangle of her carefully stretched web.

  But I’m the one who’ll be mope-eyed from working silken strands to finish a new dress by Sunday. “We’ve no time to sew a gown,” I say.

  “I can buy time,” Lord Cappelletto says. “A dozen sempstresses’ time, if Juliet requires it.”

  Juliet takes her eyes from the ring to beam at me. But she raises a hand to her own nose at the reminder of my bruised face. “May we make it a masked ball? I might be the summer sky, in an azure gown—and my lord father bedecked in gold could be the shining sun.”

  She means to find a way for me to hide my face so I might join the feast. And she knows to make best case with Lord Cappelletto by letting him believe she thinks only of what ought delight him.

  “Have you forgot we fête to honor Rosaline’s consecration of her vows?” he asks.

  “Rosaline might mask herself as virtue,” I say.

  “Or a saint,” suggests Juliet. “Would it not honor her order for her to dress as Santa Caterina?”

  “No.” I answer too fast, my chest prickling with the memory of the teeming bees. “Lord Cappelletto is right.” I bow my head as though begging his pardon. “Rosaline must come only as her pious self, whatever mask and costume anyone else might wear.”

  To be told he is right is enough for Lord Cappelletto. He does not mark how Juliet and I’ve bested him into consenting to a masquerade, as he nods assent.

  I suppose there is some convolution to Juliet after all, though I’m the only one who discerns it. And with that same discernment, I espy the swirl of carmine in the courtyard in the days that follow, as Paris visits Lord Cappelletto’s study.