I am sorry to say that the archbishop’s passing troubled we ladies not at all, and did not cast the slightest shadow upon the forthcoming wedding. If I gave the prelate a thought it was to reflect grimly that a debt had been paid for the life of Guglielma Crollalanza. Even Hero, who was a true devout, merely remarked mildly that she hoped Claudio would not mourn so grievously for his kinsman’s passing as to temper his nuptial joy.
In the afternoon I helped Hero and Margherita with the final touches to Hero’s wedding gown, but could barely sit still. I was hot and cold all at once, and alternately rushed to the window to gulp at the breeze, and shivered on my sewing stool. I had no patience for their womanly chatter about the Duchess of Milan’s latest gown, or which rebato would be better with the wedding dress. When I caught my reflection behind Hero’s in the looking glass I could see my cheeks were hectic, my lips rosy and full and my eyes burning blue. It was little wonder that my companions began to fear for my health.
‘Are you sick, Beatrice?’ asked Hero.
Had she been alone, I might have told her all; of how everything had been explained and all could now end well between Benedick and me. But I did not wholly trust Margherita, who could be a sly little thing; so I agreed that I suffered most grievously. ‘I am exceeding ill,’ I announced. ‘I think it is a head-cold.’ I held my cousin’s eyes with my own, to prevent her turning to the beautiful day outside. I had once told her that I never suffered from head-colds as I was raised in a draughty castle, so would be hard put to explain why I had caught such a malady in the burning sun. I spent the rest of the afternoon counterfeiting to sneeze, and pretending I could not smell the exquisite perfume of the wedding gloves Claudio had sent for Hero. I hugged to myself the knowledge that I might soon receive a pair of gloves of my own.
‘Perhaps you are in need of a tonic,’ said Margherita innocently. ‘I have heard it said that Carduus benedictus is a powerful remedy.’
I quelled her with a look, but she spoke no more than the truth; Benedick was my cure. As the afternoon wore on I began to worry that he would not return – that the archbishop’s assassin would dispatch him too, that his horse would tread in a divot on the road and throw him, that brigands would rob and stab him on the road. That brief afternoon held more agony for me than the year Benedick had spent on board ship.
The menfolk were not back by dinner, so after we had supped there was nothing for it but to go to bed. As maid of honour I was to share a bed with Hero, as was the tradition on the wedding eve. I did not expect to sleep, for it was too hot to even tolerate a coverlet, even without thoughts of Benedick to keep my heart racing. But I must have slept, for I dreamed of rain – blessed heavy drops falling on my face and body. I woke to the warm night, Hero sleeping peacefully beside me. Then a little pebble landed on the pavings and skittered along the floor; another landed on the coverlet.
I went to the window and out on to the balcony. A figure resolved out of the darkness below and for a moment I felt a jag of fear – in just such a manner I had once seen an intruder with a torch, on the night the Spanish ostlers were dismembered. But in an instant my fear was replaced with relief. It was Benedick down there; even his silhouette was familiar to me. ‘Lady Beatrice,’ he called softly. ‘The stars are out. Come down.’
I leaned over the balustrade. ‘I cannot,’ I whispered, my voice keen with disappointment. ‘Margherita sleeps at the door.’
He pounded fist into palm, frustrated.
‘I have waited a year,’ he said, ‘but now I cannot wait for another dawn.’
‘Stay,’ I said. I tiptoed back into Hero’s room, and crept to the door. I had hoodwinked Margherita once, the night that I had stolen from the house to see the Tarantella. I slipped back the bolt and lifted the latch silently; as the door creaked open I could see Margherita’s mat beyond, but no Margherita. Where had the little cate gone?
It mattered not; her defection made my flight easy. In an instant I was down in the courtyard beside Benedick. He held out his hand; I took it.
We flitted through the gardens on silent feet – I trod the very paths and alleys I had trodden that day, as happy now as I had been pensive then. Benedick led me to the Roman baths, to the exact spot where I had been with Don Pedro that morning. ‘Look,’ said Benedick. And there I saw the wonder.
The limpid green pool of that morning had been transformed into a starfield. It was a map of treasure, a sparkling Turkey carpet of stars which had been captured and brought to earth, reflected perfectly in the rectangular bath. Night had been distilled into a looking glass. Benedick had laid these jewels down before me, like the conquistadors who went to the Americas and dazzled the poor natives with their bounty. He had sailed many miles to come all the way here to this island, to me. I was his haven, and he had brought me treasure.
But he returned to me that which was my own; for there, in the middle of the constellations, was Cassiopeia’s chair, and my star beneath. I could have sworn that I could have stepped out and walked upon the carpet, as if I was walking in the sky, could seat myself in that silver chair and converse with Cassiopeia and the rest of the deities of the heavens.
We sat on the stone basin, just where I’d sat with the prince; but we faced the other way, into the pool and not the garden. For Benedick had once again altered everything; he had changed one sky for another and tipped the universe. The stone was still warm from the day and we dangled our feet above the water, careful not to touch that sacred surface. For the smallest ripple would create a celestial maelstrom, and now the stars were aligned I was afraid to disturb them.
Benedick made as if to speak but I put my finger to his lips. I had to tell all, to wipe the schoolroom slate and begin again.
‘Don Pedro told me how he tricked you, a year past.’
‘Don Pedro did?’ I had astonished him. ‘He told you all?’
‘Of how he brought you to the beach, and concealed the cheat’s deck of Scopa cards in your room.’
He was silent for so long I thought him angry with his friend, and tried to mitigate the prince’s crime. ‘The sequel makes amends for the original offence. He is an honest man and a brave one too – it took great courage for him to tell me what he did.’
He smiled tightly. I thought him jealous then. How much more jealous would he be if he knew what I had left out? That the prince had offered me marriage first?
‘Enough of other men and their good qualities,’ said Benedick, the laughter back in his voice. He squeezed my hand, for he’d never let it go. ‘For which of my fine attributes did you first fall in love with me?’
I smiled at him. ‘Who said that I loved you?’
He looked at me in a way that made me shiver. ‘Your eyes say it, for they are brighter than any of these brave stars.’
I’d admitted to a prince here that day that I loved Benedick; I could not counterfeit to the man himself. ‘I will not deny you.’
‘So come. Which of my good qualities caught at your heart?’
‘Nothing which other men would name so.’
He feigned distress. ‘Then, for which of my bad parts did you first fall in love with me?’
I looked at him, mock-earnest. ‘That is easier to answer. Your foolishness, your garrulousness, your vanity, your gullibility, your facile nature.’ I paused for breath. ‘And for which of my good parts did you first fall in love with me?’
‘I cannot think of any qualities that you possess.’
I smiled. ‘Then which of my faults drew your notice?’
‘Ah, that is simple. Your conceit, your disdainfulness, your wilful pride, your stubborn nature, your runaway tongue.’ He smiled too.
I would rather hear such insults from his tongue than a thousand compliments from any other. ‘We will never be civil to each other, will we?’
‘Never,’ he said. ‘And in that cause we will ask the friar tomorrow to bind us when he binds my brother and your cousin. Then we can be unpleasant to each other every day for the rest of ou
r lives.’
It was the second proposal I’d received that day upon this spot, and I knew, this time, that everything was as it was meant to be. Benedick had righted the skies again. Hero’s wedding would be mine too, just as I had wished. ‘Yes,’ I said, and that single frugal syllable was worth more than all my spendthrift wit. My happiness was complete. I could have nestled against him for ever.
Much, much later, I was struck by a thought. ‘You call Claudio your brother?’
He breathed in and out again audibly. ‘It is an oath we took on board ship,’ he answered, his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek, ‘once we knew we would live.’
I wriggled out of his arm so I could look at him. ‘What happened out there?’
He avoided my gaze but looked up, now, at the stars in the sky; as if he did not want to look upon water. ‘Deeds that should stay there, where we left them. All I can tell you is that there was little glory in the action, nor nobility nor bravery. But I did find nobility in Claudio and courage too. True courage.’ Again, he did not mention the prince. ‘Claudio and I held each other up, above the water.’
‘And he brought you back?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You did.’ He pointed to Cassiopeia’s chair. ‘You once showed me a little star, and told me that you were born in the same hour. For when everything else went awry, that star stayed true, as true as I now know you to be; for the prince admitted all to me too.’
A little cloud passed over my happiness; for should he not have trusted me for myself? Should he have needed to be told of my innocence by his patron? Then he laid his hand on my cheek and I forgot my doubts. ‘Your star was my guide. I kept my eyes on it from dusk to dawn, each night from Scotland to Santander.’
‘I am glad,’ I said. ‘So glad I could do you such an office. I would have stowed on the ship if I could, then I could have been with you.’
‘You were with me every day,’ he said. ‘And now there will be no more sailing by the star.’ He took my face in his hands. ‘I am home.’
It seemed that we kissed for hours, and the dark pool turned paler, bluer, like the layers of my starlight dress. Now the stars were not diamonds upon velvet, but milky pearls on Mary’s cloak. ‘I have to go back,’ I said, regretfully. ‘Hero will go to church in a few hours, and I have barely slept.’
We walked back through the night gardens and in the coloured courtyard I kissed him. ‘One last time as a bachelor,’ he said. He had been wrong; his eyes were the brightest stars of all.
I passed Borachio on the stairs – on another night I would have questioned his presence, for that stair led only to Hero’s chamber. But that night my heart was full of Benedick and me. When I climbed the stairs Margherita was curled upon her mat once more – her cheeks flushed, her eyes screwed tight, her breathing even, feigning slumber.
I hesitated, standing over her. She had clearly been about some mischief for she was no more asleep than I. But if I allowed her counterfeit, she could ask me no saucy questions. Striding over her confidently into Hero’s chamber, I let her lie.
Act V scene iv
Leonato’s house
Benedick: As Claudio’s groomsman I was charged with getting the count ready for his wedding.
Claudio stood naked in a pool of sunlight in the middle of his chamber, his brows stern, his face thoughtful. I joked with him, employing those timeworn jests that men have broken against grooms since antique times – but he did not respond. I was in tearing spirits myself; after my night among the stars with Beatrice, the future seemed paved with diamonds. I had not slept, but I was bursting with joy. I wanted to confide in Claudio, but his demeanour was so forbidding that I left him to his thoughts. I imagined that he was not just apprehensive of the ceremony ahead, but that his spirits were much depressed by our trip to Monreale to visit his uncle’s corpse.
When we’d arrived at the beautiful hilltop town the day before, we had been invited to view the archbishop’s body, for the constables had charged that it not be moved. So we trooped into the vast, sand-coloured palace and entered the prelate’s velvet-draped chamber.
The archbishop lay with his eyes open, a black trickle falling from his mouth and his accustomed tears still standing in each eye. I had no love for the man, could not forget how he had condemned the dark lady to the fire; but I knew it must have been a rude shock for Claudio to see his kinsman so. He had planned, I know, to come here to ask the archbishop to officiate at his wedding; now he must arrange for his uncle’s burial.
The sergeant-at-arms of the archbishop’s palace gave us a cup of Rhenish in the gatehouse before we rode. ‘‘T’was a lone assassin,’ he said, ‘a hooded man. He was dressed in the habit of a monk, but scaled the walls like a monkey.’
He grunted at his own jest, then straightened his face at Claudio’s stern glance. ‘We have heard tell of a hooded assassin who goes by the name of Cardenio, the Ragged One. In the last year his legend has grown.’ The name jolted me; for that had been the signature upon the pamphlets I’d seen at the Vara. ‘The poison is Mantuan – most parts mercury. Have a care, gentlemen,’ he said as we drained our stirrup cups. ‘And tell Lord Leonato to do the same at his daughter’s wedding. These brigands are getting bolder.’
I had forgotten the warning on the road, for by then the stars were kindling and my thoughts were only of Beatrice. But now I guessed that the archbishop’s murder, and the threat of some disruption to the day, hung heavily on Claudio’s mind. For indeed, he did not resemble a man on his wedding morn.
The groom of the stool guided me through the elaborate dressing process, for I had never performed such an office before. I chafed Claudio’s body with a linen rubber – gentle on the breast and back, then vigorously on the limbs until a ruddy blush stood forth upon the skin. Then I held out the little vials of perfume and the pomades to sweeten his scent and he took them and applied them as if in a trance. I helped him into his suit of clothes; the purple that he always wore, the purple of the Medici. This attire was a statement of wealth woven in cloth, for a year earlier, when he was more of a boastful boy than a man, he’d told me it took thirty thousand whelks to make the dye for just one ounce of this cloth. He wore his inheritance on his back, and when he was dressed I looked at him with pride; my new brother was a comely fellow; if only he would smile. I coaxed him to grin once, so that I could pick at his teeth with a toothpick made of the quill of a feather, and polish them with a toothcloth of stripped linen. But his smile was more of a grimace. Lastly I held a silver basin while he swilled his mouth with white wine, and gave him a handful of cumin seeds to chew. ‘Must keep your breath sweet for Hero’s kisses,’ I said. He snorted; not the reaction I had expected to such a jest. I led him down the stair and through the courtyard as if he sleepwalked.
The little chapel was packed with a press of people and was dressed in its best for a feast day. The pews were bright and brave with ginestra blossom, the pillars hung about with garlands. Likewise, the stained windows transformed the workaday sunlight into a rainbow of colours, the panes dazzling prisms splitting the light. Even those of the congregation who had come in their simple fustians were painted such brave colours they might have been wearing velvet.
At the altar stood the bride in cloth-of-gold, a veil of gilded filigree thrown over her face. And by her side, a vision that eclipsed her as fully as May does December: Beatrice, in silver tissue, with diamond stars pinned in her blond curls. Natural order was inverted, as Beatrice’s stars eclipsed Hero’s sun. My heart raced – for these good people who ranked the pews thought they had come to see one wedding, but they had come to see two. By the time I left this holy place, I would be Benedick the Married Man.
In my role as groomsman I walked beside Claudio, who was as silent as a stone. I jostled him slightly and smiled, but his face was stern. No matter – when the formalities were done, we would raise a cup together, husbands both. A wake for our bachelor days.
Don Pedro walked before us and stood next to
his brother Don John. Today the prince looked as tartly as his brother did, and said just as little. I thought that I could better interpret his moody silence; he must watch his protégé take a prize which might have been his. And yet today I had reason to love Don Pedro. Despite my misgivings he had kept his word; he had told Beatrice of her misprision, and wed her to me in all but law. Opposite the dons stood Leonato and his brother Antonio, two noble greybeards mirroring the princes, and showing them their futures in old age.
Friar Francis stood forth. I had not seen Father Francisco Maurolyco since the night he had dragged me out of the Mermaid tavern in Messina and brought me home; the eve of my departure a year hence. Then he had listened to me rail against Beatrice. Today he would hear me swear to love her unto death.
The friar raised his book, and began to speak the Latin of the wedding mass, but Leonato, as if an assassin were at his very gates, hurried him along. ‘The plain form, the plain form, Father,’ he urged, mopping his perspiring brow with a silken kerchief. ‘You may recount their particular duties later.’
I might have thought him rude and peremptory on any other day; I might have thought him indelicate to disrupt his daughter’s moment. But today his haste pleased me; it chimed well with my own impatience to complete Claudio’s nuptial so that we might proceed to mine and have the business speeded as soon as we might.
‘Very well,’ said the friar, his disapproval just audible in his voice. ‘But you know, sire, that the law requires a certain form of words.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Leonato waved his handkerchief at the friar. ‘Proceed.’
The friar cleared his throat. ‘Who giveth this woman to this man?’
‘That do I,’ said Leonato.
Beatrice and Benedick Page 34