Juliet's Nurse

by Lois Leveen

  He swears his serving-man is just as true to him as I am to Juliet. But how can a common servant be all I am to her? True in what I do, if not in what I’ve let her believe I am. Surely the time is near to tell her all, though how am I to deliver such unexpected news?

  In wondering at it, I nearly miss what Romeo says next. Lovesick, he prattles as a poet might of tackled stairs and top-gallants of joy, until I discern that he means for me to meet his man a little while hence, and receive some ropes by which Romeo’ll come to Juliet to consummate tonight what the friar will officiate today.

  Tybalt’s never needed ropes to reach our window, cat-nimble climber that he is. Nor did Pietro, directed by me to mount the tower stair and pass into the bedchamber to mount me. But this Romeo wants to believe himself a clever sneak, and so I indulge him, promising to collect the ropes and set them where he may scale his way to her.

  Taking my leave, I do not turn directly back to the Via Cappello. I need to ready myself for the quick of it—my Juliet, wedding this day. Crowded as the Piazza delle Erbe is this morning, I conjure the quiet of it on that Lammas Day fourteen years past when Pietro brought me to Ca’ Cappelletti. Even in this heat, my body still shivers with that ache, that longing for babe newly born, and freshly lost. Or so I thought.

  Wandering through Verona’s streets, I make seven circuits around the city. First for Nunzio, my eldest. Then one after the other for Nesto, Donato, Enzo, Berto, and their littlest brother, Angelo. This is the gift and curse of memory. Though we bury our dead, we cannot ever bid a final good-bye. I circle past the places that hold especial rememberances of each of my boys, some that I’ve not let myself indulge since I was swallowed up within Ca’ Cappelletti all those years ago. I save Pietro for last. His is the longest loop. There’s not a place in this city that does not echo of him. Of us. Again and again I whisper what makes me miss him as keenly as I ever have: that from our love a new love grows, and soon Verona will bear new memories, of our Juliet and her Romeo.

  The sun’s climbed high by the time I return to Ca’ Cappelletti. Juliet secrets herself in the arbor. Sitting in the shade of a poperin tree, she worries the ring Lord Cappelletto set upon her finger a week past. But the dazzle of his emerald’ll not hold her attention once she sees me. She’s on her feet asking, “Honey nurse, what news?”

  Honey nurse, that sweet that gave her life. Sentimental old fool that I’ve become, emotions grow so thick in my throat, not a word is able to escape me.

  Her color fades. “Good sweet nurse—why do you look so sad?”

  “I’m aweary.” I take the place she left upon the bench. “My bones ache from what a jaunce I’ve had.”

  “I would you had my bones, and I your news.” She tugs at me with the same impatience as when she was three or four and thought I held some candied comfit from her. “Come, I pray you, speak.”

  Jesu, what haste. “Do you not see that I am out of breath?”

  But Juliet was never one to be stayed. Nor have I been one to stay her. “You have breath to tell me you are out of breath,” she says. “And take longer in making excuse why you delay, than the whole of the telling would take. Tell me simple, is your news good or bad?”

  If it were yesterday, I’d jest with her as I often have, and tell her she knows not how to choose a man, and blazon Romeo with faults he does not have, and bid her go serve God as nunnish Rosaline does. But it’s as if she’s unlearned her girlish love of waggery in this little time she’s known wistful Romeo.

  “What a head have I,” I say instead. “It beats as if it would fall in twenty pieces. And my back, and side. Beshrew your heart, for sending me about, to catch my death.”

  These words are better meant for Tybalt, chiding earned by what I got when last I ventured from Ca’ Cappelletti. But Juliet at least hears them with a loving and not a wrathful ear. “By all my faith, I’m sorry you’re not well. Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse.” She kisses my head and lays a gentle hand upon my side, which ache less under her caring touch. “Tell me, what says my love?”

  How can I not answer those pleading eyes? “Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and I warrant a virtuous—” But why do I court for Romeo? Does my love count for naught? “Where is your mother?”

  “Where is my mother?” She repeats the question with such wonder—is this at last the time to tell her? Can she have already guessed the truth? But her eyes flick to the arched passage to the courtyard. “Where would she be? Why, she’s within.”

  Is this any poultice for my sore and sorry bones? That she’ll not even know me for her mother, that all I am to her is messenger?

  “Lady Cappelletta is within, but my heart is without, as only you know, Nurse.” She smiles, and sighs, and takes my hands in each of hers. “And without you, what comfort has my heart?” Her soft hands are still small against mine, gripping with a child’s fretful need. “Come, what says Romeo?”

  Those eyes flash familiar at me, and by all my years of loving her, and loving my Pietro, I know there’s time enough for her to learn what I really am. That it’ll better wait till she is wed, and perchance on the way to being herself made a mother. For now, there’s naught she’ll listen to but what she wants to hear.

  “Hie you hence to Friar Lorenzo’s cell, to make your shrift.” I loose my hands from hers to tuck her wayward hair, straighten her sleeve, and smooth her skirts as I’ve ever done, although in truth such beauty needs no bettering. “There stays a husband to make you a wife.”

  The blood comes up in her cheeks, scarleting my pure lamb. I flush as well, the sudden fevering that’s struck me half a dozen times a day during these weeks past flashing over me once more. But for all the heat, we wrap arms around each other, joy echoing with joy as we breathe air fruited by peach and poperin pear. Breathing together that sweetest of anticipation just before lips part and teeth sink in, and juice and taste explode upon the tongue.

  Though I’d lieve not ever let her go, I pull away first, so I’ll not feel what it is to try to hold her longer than she would be held. “Get you to San Fermo, and take care none see you till the friar’s done his part. I must fetch the roping ladder by which Romeo’ll climb to you once the day turns dark.” I’ve been her age. Knowing what stirs a heart, and other parts as well, I add, “Though I’m the drudge, and toil in your delight, you shall bear the burden that’ll come at night.”

  She laughs and blushes deeper. So new-woke with love, she twitters like a wanton’s bird. Reciting some pretty poesy, she calls parting such sweet sorrow, gives me a giddy kiss, and turns away to meet her match at Friar Lorenzo’s cell.

  It’s no easy thing to watch her leave alone. But I must think for both of us, and be ready for what comes after the marriage vows are trothed. And so I kneel next to the arbor hive, careful not to block the bees as they stream forth. Sliding a hand beneath the cut log, I draw out the box Tybalt long ago hid there.

  It’s no fine cassone. Not carved by a skilled hand, nor painted with some impressive scene, nor tooled in precious leather. The box he chose is simple, to attract no notice. Even the bees fly blithely by as I lift the lid and remove the sack that lies within, my fingers clumsy as I undo the knot. When the pouch opens, I rock back and pour what the hives and I have earned into my lap. Though it’s not a hundredth of what Lord Cappelletto’d give to dowry Juliet, it’ll buy what I’d have her have. A new drawn-thread bedsheet imported from some far-off port, to lay upon with the husband only she and I and Friar Lorenzo will know she has.

  I count out enough to purchase a sheet as wide as her broad bed, slipping the coins inside my gown. Handful by handful, I work the rest into the sack. Twist and tie it, and lay it in the box, then slide the box back into place. Tybalt must not notice it’s been moved. Must not question me, on this of all days. But Tybalt seems to have forgotten the bees. The clay bowl beside the hive is dry. I draw water from the courtyard well to give the honey gatherers, before making my own bizz-buzzing way
from Ca’ Cappelletti.

  Romeo’s man is little more than a boy, and for all Romeo swore he was good at keeping confidence, he’s no good at keeping time, and so he keeps me waiting in the day’s hottest sun. When at last he arrives with the roped ladder, my thirst’s so great I’m grateful he slips out a bulging skin filled with aqua vitae, so we can drink to the marriage of his master to my mistress. A happy omen, for my first sampling of such was on the day I wed Pietro. My new husband taught me to taste the fiery liquor with his own tongue, and sang a merry rhyme to ease me to it. The first sip is bracing, the second’s a blessing, the third’s your last care in the world.

  I sing the foolish verse to Romeo’s Balthasar, as he tells me he is called, and he sings it back to me in a wavering contralto. Though I miss the deep resonance of Pietro’s basso, I’m glad to have another voice mingle with my own, celebrating the vows Juliet and Romeo have by now already made beneath Friar Lorenzo’s cross. Once we empty the skin, Balthasar bows to me and I make curtsy, and we go our ways. Mine is toward the Mercato Vecchio, where I must find among the fabric merchants a bedsheet fine enough for Juliet’s parting with her maidenhead.

  Just before I reach the marketplace, a flash of regal carmine catches my eye. I draw back, for the last man I want to see today is Paris.

  But it’s Mercutio who stumbles from the nearby passageway, his carmine robe stained with a darker crimson. A sword drops from his hand, metal clattering against street-stones as he curses Cappelletti and Montecchi.

  I espy within the passageway a second sword. Wet with blood and being slid by a quaking hand back into its too-familiar scabbard. My eyes catch Tybalt’s, and in that instant I read his terror at what he’s done.

  Mercutio lets out an animal’s anguished howl. He cries, “A plague on both your houses,” and crumples to the ground.

  FIFTEEN

  A plague on both your houses.

  If Mercutio’s many fornications are not enough to send him straight to hell, for this spiteful oath alone he deserves damnation. How could anyone wish such suffering as the plague brings, not just upon the Cappelletti and Montecchi but on all Verona? For the pestilence’ll not stop at the boundary of one house without stealing its awful way into another. None knows that better than I do. So though I should cross myself and pray for Mercutio’s departing soul, instead I spit and say, “May the devil have you.”

  Then I look back toward Tybalt. But he’s gone.

  Tybalt, my last boy. As near a son to me as I’ll ever have again. And as much in danger now as mine were on that awful day they stole into our plague-dead neighbor’s house.

  I know what I am, and what I’m not. Much as I ache to protect Tybalt, I turn the other way. Back to Ca’ Cappelletti.

  Though Cansignorio might eventually have killed his nephew himself, the Scaligeri honor’ll not bear anyone else having slain him. When the prince pronounces the punishment for taking Mercutio’s life, all I feel for Tybalt’ll be not a pennyworth of help to him. But Lord Cappelletto—surely he’ll cast every bit of favor he’s ever curried with Cansignorio to save his heir.

  Only when I reach Ca’ Cappelletti do I realize I still carry Romeo’s cords. I secret them outside the compound wall, then hurry into Lord Cappelletto’s study.

  When I burst in, the old man jerks up, astonished. He’s been dozing among his accounting books. A happy fool, whose joy I rob by saying, “Prince Cansignorio’s nephew is slain.”

  I need Lord Cappelletto strong, need him at his most conniving. But he shrinks, so small and weak and old. “Paris? Slain?”

  “Not Paris. Mercutio. Stabbed in the street by Tybalt.”

  This brings him to his feet. He reaches out an unsure hand, and I offer my arm to steady him. “Where is he?”

  “He vanished when Mercutio fell.” The tolling of bells and blasting of trumpets drown out any more I might say.

  Lord Cappelletto bolts from behind his desk, shouting for me to show him where last I saw his heir. And so we rush together through the courtyard and out of the compound, Lady Cappelletta, alarmed by how her husband cries out Tybalt’s name, hastening along with us.

  The street where Mercutio fell is already thick with people. Prince Cansignorio stands in the middle of the keening, kneeling crowd, far changed from the bravadoed young man who first seized Verona’s throne. Looking upon his sister’s slain son ages him well past his not-quite-forty years.

  “Which way ran he that killed Mercutio?” he asks. “Who began this bloody fray?”

  A youth steps forward. One of the ones I met at the fountain this very morning, though it seems a century ago. He bites his thumb, and points with it past the prince.

  My knees buckle beneath me. They’ll not support the weight of what I see. Tybalt, sprawled motionless upon the ground.

  The same ground rears up at me, and something roars inside my head. My stomach twists and fills my mouth. The thundering resolves into words, shouted by that pointing youth.

  “There lies quarrelsome Tybalt, who killed brave Mercutio. And who for that crime, was slain by young Romeo.”

  Each sharp word stabs into my heart. Tybalt, killed. Romeo, his killer.

  Lady Cappelletta rushes to where the young man points, wailing for her nephew. Dumbstruck, Lord Cappelletto follows, falling to the ground and cradling his heir in disbelief. What enfeebles him inflames her. She clamors back to the prince. Throws herself upon her knees, kissing his knuckles and kneading his fingers, pulling his hand to her heart. “Romeo slew Tybalt,” she says. “Romeo must not live.”

  “Not Romeo.” Lord Montecche erupts through the crowd, pushing his way between Lady Cappelletta and Cansignorio. “He was Mercutio’s dear friend, and concluded only what the law otherwise would end—the life of Tybalt, who laid your nephew dead.”

  The prince swings from one to the other like a weathervane caught in an angry wind. None seem to breathe, no heart to beat, until he speaks. “Tybalt disturbed our peace, and for that paid the proper price. But Romeo took what it was my lawful right alone to take. Let him hence in haste. Banished, he may live. But if he’s found again upon Verona’s streets, that hour is his last.”

  Cansignorio calls for his guard to gather up Mercutio and carry him to the castle to be prepared for burial among the other Scaligeri in Santa Maria Antica. The crowd follows, eager to insinuate themselves into his princely grief. Only Lord Cappelletto, Lady Cappelletta, and I remain. And Tybalt, our dear Tybalt.

  Creeping close, I cannot keep my eyes from the wound upon his chest. His face, his hands are already deathly pale. But that dark, wet mark—it seems the only thing alive of him.

  I tear tooth into my tongue till I taste my own blood, hating myself for every harsh word I’ve had for Tybalt of late. I wish with all my soul that I could take them back. Why did I not keep him from this fatal fight?

  Lord Cappelletto shakes his head like a dog trying to loose a porcupine’s quill from its nose. “Why would Tybalt raise a sword against the count?”

  “Honor.” Lady Cappelletta spits the word at him. “All your talk of honor, of your precious family name. All the ancient prideful grudges of the Cappelletti. That’s what laid him dead.”

  Lord Cappelletto touches the gold crest worked upon the hilt of Tybalt’s sword. “The Cappelletti had no enemy in Mercutio. He was a relation to the Scaligeri, I’d not have wanted Tybalt to—”

  “It was not for you,” I say. For in this instant I realize what must have caused the quarrel: Tybalt was more like my Pietro than I’ve realized, dying not for some foolish male honor, but to protect precious female virtue. “Tybalt knew there was a rakehell who was trying to seduce Rosaline. He beseeched and besieged her, and would not let her be. Even came into your house to find her. Tybalt tried to tell you, but you’d not listen to him.”

  Lord Cappelletto loses what little color the shock of Tybalt’s death had left him. I know my words have hit the mark. Know, too, it does not matter. So what if he’s as sorry as I am, to not have
stanched what stormed in Tybalt?

  Blade, street, blood. They’re Tybalt’s death, just as they were Pietro’s.

  Lord Cappelletto pulls at Tybalt’s cloak until it covers that awful wound. “I’ll take him to Santa Caterina, to our family crypt.” He crosses himself, plodding out each deliberate word. As though he must convince himself that Tybalt’s truly gone. “Best not to make too grand a public funeral, with Cansignorio’s own mourning turning him against us. I’ll have Rosaline and her convent Sisters pray a month of private Masses for our Tybalt, God have mercy on his soul.”

  Lady Cappelletta grips one of Tybalt’s lifeless hands, refusing to let go. Though it’s no woman’s place to travel with a body to its burial, she insists on going with him. Insists with the same wildness in her eye that haunted the years in which her womb squeezed forth one ill-formed creature after another. Her madness blazes like a fire, warming Lord Cappelletto, and me as well. Weak as this blow has made us, its her fierce strength we need.

  Lord Cappelletto nods, agreeing to let her come. Turning to me, he says, “You must tell Juliet.”

  If all of heaven’s angels sang in one great harmony, it’d not sound sweeter than what I hear as I approach Juliet’s chamber: her lilting voice weaving love lines into an adoring tune. From the doorway, I watch my newly wedded girl take each of San Zeno’s statued hands in one of hers, swaying as though she’d dance the saint about the room. Giddy, she twirls herself from him and catches sight of me. Taking a half-step back, she studies my grief-struck face. “Why do you wring your hands?”

  I look down at my hands, as though they’d speak. Wishing they might, and save my tongue the torture of answering her. “We are undone.”

  She stares at me, and I know those words are not enough. My eyes swim past her, searching out the window and across the arbor to what were Tybalt’s rooms. “He’s gone. He’s killed. He’s dead.”