by Lois Leveen
I’ve not got Paris’s regal right to order a gate open, nor the strength to scale a convent wall. But the entry to Santa Caterina is already swinging wide, which sends me even quicker across the grounds.
I stumble in the dark beneath a yew tree. Trip across some unseen thing, heart thundering as I fall sprawled beside a lifeless body.
The seeming corpse shivers out a snore. It’s pimply-necked Balthasar, moaning with some troubled dream. A new knife-slice of terror shudders up my spine. If Romeo’s got to her before Paris—
I pull myself to my knees, find my uneasy way onto my feet. Head bent, I search out the winding path and hurry on.
Just as I near the entry to the catacomb, something wraps icy around my wrist. A too-familiar voice says, “Angelica, we must make haste from here.”
The only haste I mean to make is to Juliet. But Friar Lorenzo has such a hold on me that though I twist and shove, I cannot push past.
“Has Romeo already come?”
“Yes, come unbidden,” Friar Lorenzo says. “The messenger who should have born my missive to Mantua was quarantined within a pestilence-ridden house.”
“The plague is truly here again?” Why do I ask, as though I do not within my bones already know? Know once it’s come, all that it might take.
He nods, murmuring some self-preserving Latin. “Romeo, ignorant of my scheme, believed Juliet was truly dead. And now he’s gone.”
Romeo, gone off again. This gives me hope enough to ask, “And Count Paris?”
“Both he and Romeo departed in a single unkind hour.”
Unkind, and worse, of Paris to leave Juliet. I’d not’ve believed it of him. Mayhap he was afrighted by the sight of her newly woke from what he thought was death. Or worse—perchance Juliet, without me here to advise her, refused Paris with the tiding that Romeo’s already wedded and bedded her.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Where is my Juliet?”
He nods toward the crypt.
“You left her alone within the tomb?”
“God forgive me, I left one who would not leave.” He gropes with his free hand for his Pater Noster beads, the way Tybalt from the time he was a boy would touch unwitting fingers to where his dagger hung. “Juliet swore she’d not come away, although I begged her to.”
“Well that she disobeys you, when your intent was to give my girl to live in secret exile with the false-hearted Romeo. But you’re well practiced in stealing such a daughter from her parents.”
He tightens his grasp on me. “I never stole, or switched, I swear it.” But then his grip loosens, and he shakes his head. “And she’ll not live with Romeo.”
This last makes me so glad, I break free of him. I must get to my girl, must comfort and counsel her. I quicken past, worried Friar Lorenzo will follow. But some alarm sounds beyond the convent wall, and he scurries off, unmanned.
The stone steps down to the catacomb lead me into as deep a dark as swallowed me during my night climbs in the Cappelletti tower. Upon the final step, I’m hit by a stench that turns my stomach. The putrefied stink of what’s become of Tybalt.
Groping my way along the dismal passage, I thump my leg into a mattock. It lies beside a crowbar at the entrance to the Cappelletti crypt, along with a hundred fallen petals shaken from what was Paris’s bouquet.
No. Not petals. The crimson spots are blood, slicking the marble floor.
“Juliet? My lady, my lamb?” My words sink unanswered into the dank, cold vault.
A dropped rush-and-tallow torch glows just inside the entry. I raise it up, and by its smoke and stink discover the crimson spots puddle into a carmine pool beneath Paris.
He lies motionless, his chest bearing a wound I know too well, a match to what felled my beloved Tybalt. Paris’d not had time to strike before he was struck, his sword half-drawn as the last of life slips silently from him.
God forgive me for bidding him come here. And God damn Romeo, who surely was the one who killed him.
A chill shivers over me. If Friar Lorenzo was mistaken, and Romeo is yet here after all, hidden as he waits to smite again—
Tipping the torch away from me, I call again to Juliet. I step deeper into the tomb, and the light catches a face grimaced in bitter death. It’s Romeo, his pale hand clutching an emptied apothecary’s vial.
Self-poisoned, I suppose. But what comfort is dead Romeo without my living Juliet?
By the friar’s mark, Paris and Romeo were both departed in the same unkind hour. But not Juliet.
“Dearest lamb. My darling girl.” Why does she not answer me? How could she have voice to refuse Friar Lorenzo but not to call to her beloved nurse? “Juliet. Susanna. Juliet.”
Something rasps back at me. Low and wretched, all the world’s agony shuddering in it. As I turn, my torchlight glisters along the bands of gold ribboned through Juliet’s green gown. And the shining silver hilt of a dagger, jutting from her chest.
The sight pierces my own heart. I drop the torch, grasp the hilt in both hands, and tug. A gurgling suck shudders up the knife as it rips free from her.
Letting the dagger fall, I cradle her to me. “My loveliest one, I bid you. I beg you. Do not leave me.” Blood oozes through the thick samite, and the thin linen shirt beneath it.
I am too late.
If only I could carry her from here. Could will life back into these chilling limbs. Could breathe my breath into her, though it cost me my last gasp. I’d die willingly that she might live. But all my love cannot stanch what’s already lost.
I bend my head to her breast and, baptized in the final warmth that seeps from her, beg forgiveness for not saving her.
What mother would not cling to her own child, would not hold, and hold, and hold one final time? But horse hooves thunder in the distance, along with the shouts of the night-watch coming toward the catacomb. I’ll not stay here while strange men blaze torches to gape and gossip over my innocent girl, nor listen to them weave around my blameless babe some sordid tale.
I kiss Juliet. I mean to hold all my life’s love within this single kiss, to bid with it one last good-bye not just to my girl, but to Pietro, and our boys, and even Tybalt. But already death has sucked the honey of her breath, leaving only the bitter truth of mortality.
With that terrible taste upon me, I turn back through the dank air of the catacomb and climb the worn stone stair. At the top, I waver. I might steal unseen into the church and offer up Ave Marias for Juliet’s departing soul. But what good could my prayers do her? What good have they ever done her, or me, or any that I loved?
A brace of watchmen hastens from beneath the yew tree, bearing Friar Lorenzo and Balthasar between them. I duck around the far side of the church, shivering even as midsummer’s light begins to blaze the darkness into day. It’s not yet Lammastide, yet an eternity since I walked these spreading grounds between Juliet and Tybalt, all the possibility of spring binding the three of us in promised joy. What God could take them both so quick, so young?
The God who’s taken all I ever loved from me. The God whose saints have always failed me.
Beshrew my soul, but this is what I think as I round the convent path and come upon the statue of Santa Caterina. I ought to bend knee, beg forgiveness, and seek comfort from her. But for all the holy icon’s brilliant golds and greens, the robust pinks and red catching the rising sun, can I not see it’s just dull stone that lies beneath the paint? Only hard rock, quarried and carved into the image of a woman who did naught but suffer and die, because she thought Christ wished it of her. What Christ is that? What saint for me to bow and beg to? What model for a living, loving woman, who’s never wished to be a martyr—and who never dreamt death could steal so much, and leave her alone alive to bear it?
The last time I stood before this statue, bees writhed thick upon Caterina’s breast. Now every bee is gone, the relentless buzzing silenced.
I wish they were still here, clustering on me instead of her, sinking their thousand-fold stings into my breast. I c
rave the burn and swell and itch of those stings, a torment to match my shattered heart. But even the sweet agony of such pain is denied me.
A swarm is harmless. Pietro said as much, and so did Tybalt. What I witnessed was just bees gathering themselves to build a new hive. But what is left for me to gather, what can I build, without Juliet?
Water pools at the foot of the statue. The lingering last of the summer storm, half a dozen bees floating dead along the surface. Another awful omen. Or so I think, until I notice a single still-living bee crawling beside the water, seeking some purchase so it can drink without succumbing as the others did. Lowering my hand into the puddle, I spread my fingers, knuckles crooked to rise above the water. The bee climbs onto the thick joint of my littlest finger, holding safe on me while she bows her head and drinks her fill.
She lifts effortlessly into the air once she’s done. I try to track her flight, but in the glint of sun she disappears.
Other bees must share her thirst. This is all I let my troubled mind think of, as I rise and snake my way to the convent well. Drawing up the bucket, I dip my cupped hands in. Carefully cradling the water, I cross back and forth to the pebble-filled dishes set by each hive. But I do bear a brain, and as I work it seeps into thoughts of when Tybalt, yet a boy, took over the tending of the bees. How I’d scolded him, not understanding what comfort he found in doing as Pietro’d done. Not realizing that this was how he grieved: by breathing in the raw sweetness of honey and humming along with the unwavering buzz of bees.
Not just honey—the air around the hives smells yeasty with brood, each egg tucked within the comb bearing the promise of a future bee. It sharps through me: that promise, that hope, rubbing against the cutting pain of all I’ve lost.
On the far side of the grounds, the convent bell is already tolling death knells for Paris. For Romeo. And for Juliet. The solemn peals mark another day in which prince and lords will make their way into a church, kneeling as high priests intone the Reqiuem Mass while unseen nuns chant within their hidden choir. But I’ll not go to hear the half-familiar Latin sung. Not smell the incense spicing the sweet beeswax of the candles Tybalt brought here. Not gaze upon my beloved Virgin clinging to her sacred babe. I’ll not fool myself into finding comfort in such things. Not fool myself, as I’ve ever done.
Was I not fool enough to let Juliet deceive me? A fool to believe she’d not been capable of such a thing, even as I helped her deceive the Cappelletti. A fool to think I knew her heart, that it was ever one with mine. A fool to trust that I would always have her.
But worst—to have been fool enough to lose her. To lose her to such a violent death.
This is what, fool that I am, I’ve tried hardest not to know: what awful hand drove the dagger into her?
A fatal vision dances before my too-imagining eyes: Paris, discovering Juliet in Romeo’s embrace and stabbing a jealous blade into her, before Romeo slashes avenging sword at him.
But surely it cannot have been so. Even horn-mad, Paris’d thrust only at Romeo. He’d never have harmed Juliet.
That villainous Romeo might have snuck back to take some final perverse vengence on the Cappelletti, slaughtering noble Paris and stabbing my trusting Juliet—this I can believe. But why would he not skulk off again? If all Romeo wanted was to kill, and kill, and kill again, why would he stay and take some deathly draught?
Who else could have, would have, slaughtered my dear lamb?
Friar Lorenzo—once he learned his morbid plan was thwarted, he must have rushed to the catacomb. Rushed yet arrived too late, and discovered Paris already killed by inconstant Romeo, who then, with some twisted desire, drank poison in a final violation of the Cappelletti tomb. When Juliet awoke, Friar Lorenzo, afraid the night-watch would discover them, must have pleaded for her to leave with him for some other secret place. Frightened, my girl would have refused to go.
The friar must have wanted mightily to hide his part in all these dreadful dealings. Was he so desperate he plunged a dagger to silence Juliet?
The man who absolved me of my every sin. Who the Holy Church has given the power to bless and shrive and shepherd human souls. Who’s hidden his own crimes from the world: the illicit marriage, the feigned suicide, the web of lies he wove that’s left fresh corpses littering the Cappelletti crypt. I know them all, as he well knows. And this is how at last I know who slew Juliet.
Friar Lorenzo, having killed Juliet, could not have suffered me to live. He’d’ve had to lay me dead as well, to bury all I know.
Scheming and fawning and deceiving he might be. But he’s no killer.
A fool I’ve been. A fool I am. But not fool enough not to realize that her own hands must have driven the knife that pierced her heart, stealing the life I gave her.
My precious lamb, how could you?
The answer shivers over me. Do I not know what it is to love so fiercely, to feel loss so keenly, that death seems a welcome respite? Could I not choose this very moment the metal-sharp edge of a well-honed blade, the bitterest of poison draughts, a headlong plunge into the deep, wet well? Does each not promise a final relief from love’s greatest grief?
The sin of suicide. How strongly it seduces. Wherever Juliet’s soul has gone, mine could follow after. What hell could there be in an eternity with her? Whatever we’d suffer, we would be together.
But I cannot forget the others. Pietro. Nunzio. Nesto. Donato. Enzo. Berto. Angelo. My first love, and our six cherished sons. They are waiting, too—in a place Juliet now will never reach.
I’d have given my life to save her. But I’ll not take my life and lose them as well.
NINETEEN
I pull the edge of my widow’s veil down over my neck and tuck the corners inside my dress. Then I pass my hands close to the torch so they’ll bear the scent of smoke. Unsheathing my newly purchased knife, I cut the first warm slice. It’s the day before Lammas Eve. Time to begin my harvest.
I’d not paid much heed when Pietro taught Tybalt about the working of a hive. Or, in the years afterward, when Tybalt repeated what he’d learned, eager to offer me something of my lost Pietro. But now I gather every memory, skimming all I can.
It’s the warmth that most surprises me. The heat from countless thousand bees clings to the sticky weight of what I take from them, as though something lives and breathes and beats within the golden liquid covering the comb. My thick hands have never been more grateful, more careful, than cradling their warm honeycoated wax into the rounded pot.
I’d not anticipated how fast the pot would fill, or how heavy the full pot would be. How I’d struggle to lift it, and how careful I must be to bear it off upright. Each step chinks the sack of hidden coins against me. Though I’ll bruise purple from it before the harvesting is done, there’s solace in feeling the weight of my long-saved soldi and denari, an assurance there’ll be more to come. Pestilence snakes once more across Verona. No one can say for how long it will ravage, who’ll be lost before it’s done. In such times, the righteous will call for candles, and the wicked for bodily delights. Wax for one, honey for the other, and either way a well-earned sliver to keep me.
The harvesting takes longer than I expected. A half-day, and I’m still at the first hive, deciding how much comb to take, how much to leave. I must calculate what each family of bees will need to survive the winter, and what they can spare for me. To survive, to spare, to be spared. I’d not have thought such choices would be mine. But I labor with the same droning purpose as the bees. Relying on them as they rely on me.
While I work I imagine the weeks that’ll follow. I’ll skim and strain my many pots as what I’ve gathered slowly separates. I do not yet know who or where the chandler is that I might bargain with, how my long-past years of marketplace haggling will serve me now that I’m to sell instead of buy. Tybalt spent whole seasons clinging close to Pietro, without either of them suspecting how soon he’d be left to carry on alone. None of us ever dreamt such tasks would one day fall to me.
I su
ppose the hives will need me less as the days cool to autumn, frost to winter. I’ll have time then to take my coins to the Piazza delle Erbe, or maybe all the way to Villafranca. I’ll trade for spices and teach myself to make comfits such as Pietro sold. For this, more than linen shirts or even our cockly-eyed Madonna, is what he’s left me.
I’ll never again be what I’ve been. Not wife, or nurse, or mother. But I’ll not be servant to such as the Cappelletti, nor shuttered away in a convent, either. I’ve my little buzzing livelihood, enough to keep me in my two rented rooms not far from the Via Zancani—and yet much further than I ever thought I’d come.
Thinking of comfits growls hunger into my stomach. I slip a slice of comb into my mouth and suck the honey off. Savoring the taste, I reach greedily for more comb. I sense too late that a bee is crawling there. In a startled flash, she sinks her only weapon in. The burn, the sting, the too-familiar pain shoots through my clumsy finger. For weeks it will ache me. But it’s worse for her, for in that angry instant she is dead.
Did I ever fear bees? Was I afraid of how a sting might hurt me?
I cradle the poor bee in my palm and weep for costing with my carelessness her life. A foolish sentiment, but I’ll not forgo it. What would Pietro think of me shedding tears over a bee? I imagine he might whistle, just to nettle me. But then he’d pinch the stinger out. Kiss the pain away. Rub honey where I hurt. Tell me how he adores me, how glad he is to see how I’ve grown to love his bees. He’d remind me of what I already know: loving what’s in this life is our only remedy for death.
But I also know the more you love, the more you have to lose.
I weep for him. For her. For me. But then I press close my veil to dry my tears. I wave my swelling finger near to the smoky flame and heave myself back to my task. Whole hives still need my tending.
The days are short, the winter long. And on many of these darkened days, I hate her.
How could I not? She took everything. Everything I gave. Everything I had. Or thought I had.