Juliet & Romeo

by David Hewson

  She took his head and clutched it to her. The birds were waking in the trees. The edge of the golden sun had begun to rise over the riverside wall. There was a brave new world beyond it. And freedom, or at least the promise of it.

  ‘Tomorrow seems so soon. We only met–’

  ‘You’ve doubts?’

  Her hands reached round his neck. ‘No.’

  ‘Either we do this now. Or they’ll find out and tear us apart. You know that.’ He got to his feet. ‘This morning. Nine or ten.’

  ‘I can’t get out of the house so soon. They’ll stop me. Later. The afternoon. Is it… is it possible?’

  ‘I’ll make it so. Or die trying.’

  A door crashed somewhere inside the palazzo, so loud it made them jump. Then a loud, coarse woman’s voice cried, ‘Juliet? Is that you awake? At this hour? Lord knows it’s hard enough to get you out of bed for breakfast…’

  Another bang. She was approaching.

  ‘Ten o’clock. Send a messenger you trust to the Piazza Erbe,’ he said. ‘I’ll make arrangements…’

  There was the clatter of big feet and the door to her bedroom opened. She took his head in her hands and kissed him one last time quickly, desperately.

  ‘Go, Romeo. Go now! I shall see you soon. When we are wed.’

  He climbed over the balcony, no hesitation, no clumsiness, then scrambled down the old vine so quickly the leaves and tiny, half-formed fruit followed him like confetti.

  When we are wed.

  The words went round and round her head. And his.

  * * *

  Nurse burst in, anxious, bustling through the book-strewn room. Juliet was still on the balcony, smiling at nothing but the glorious dawn.

  ‘You’re awake, girl.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘I heard something.’

  Juliet pulled her nightshift about her. It was cold and she’d never noticed. ‘A cat.’

  Nurse narrowed her eyes. ‘One that talks? Not Tybalt? I heard they call him Prince of Cats. Always sneaking round the place, claws out. Was it?’

  Juliet’s eyes grew round and angry. ‘He’s my cousin!’

  ‘Happens all the time with country folk. Closer than that too. You are an innocent.’

  ‘No, I’m not. More to the point… he’s Tybalt. Please.’ She shuddered. ‘The very thought…’

  Nurse went to the edge of the balcony and looked over. She was staring straight at the bench and the patch of grass where they’d lain. Their shapes were still there, just visible in the morning dew. ‘Well, little one. If you don’t want to confide in me–’

  ‘Don’t call me that. I’m sixteen. Nearly seventeen. If my father had his way I’d be married before the week is out.’

  ‘Oh, Juliet.’ She came and took the girl by the shoulders. ‘Don’t grieve so, lass. A woman doesn’t come into this world with many choices. You got more than most.’

  ‘Not the one I crave.’

  Nurse held, hugged her. Like a daughter. The child she’d lost.

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’ Juliet whispered in her ear.

  ‘How many have I kept in the past?’

  ‘This is the biggest. The most I’ll ever ask of you.’

  She crossed her fat arms and laughed. ‘I’m your servant, Juliet of the Capulets.’ A nod back at the quarters behind them. ‘Not theirs.’

  Ten of the morning. The Piazza Erbe.

  Her messenger was found.

  Part Two: A Paradise for Fools

  Friar Laurence was a slight and smiling Franciscan brother who seemed, to most of his adoring flock, younger than his forty-six years. This was all the more remarkable since those same guileless looks had saved his life in circumstances that would have aged, if not destroyed, most men. He’d grown up in the southern coastal city of Otranto with his younger brother Nico and their widower father, a cheerful merchant who sold fabrics in the market. Then, one hot July morning, an Ottoman fleet bearing eighteen thousand troops landed on the beach.

  The fighting that followed was swift and merciless. By nightfall the entire population had fled behind the walls of Otranto’s castle. A siege ensued. Most soldiers slunk off for safety in the night. Fifteen days after the Ottoman forces arrived they stormed a garrison defended by priests, civilians, women and any youngster able to bear a weapon. The elders of the church were slaughtered as they prayed. Healthy women and children of working age were sent for slavery. The rest the Turks murdered with as much imagination as they could muster.

  The last eight hundred and thirteen men alive were told they would be spared if, at the point of a sword, they converted to Islam. When every man refused they were led to the Hill of Minerva and beheaded one by one. Laurence was sixteen at the time and intent on joining his father among the martyrs. His brother Nico, though two years younger, was always the stronger and pleaded with a Turkish soldier to spare their lives, lying about his brother’s age. Laurence could say nothing since Nico had punched him into submission and at that moment he was so dizzy he could not speak.

  And so they survived, to be shipped in chains to Constantinople, once the heart of the Byzantine Empire, later Venetian, now capital of a Muslim state determined to strike hard at every point the compass offered. There, fortune found them once again. The brothers were bought by Paulus, a kindly and wealthy physician, born Christian in Athens, and converted to the religion of the Turks which he followed rigorously for purposes of survival much more than belief.

  There was a necessary distance between the two brothers from that point on. Laurence never lost a nagging sense of guilt that he’d cheated martyrdom. Nico, influenced by the pragmatic Paulus, berated his sibling for his misery, saying life was life, and death would come soon enough without the need for any man to hasten its arrival.

  Amidst these fraternal squabbles the physician taught them what he knew about herbs and poultices, infusions and tinctures that might stave off fever, colic and, with a little luck, the plague. His mansion was a few doors away from Hagia Sofia, the great church built by the Emperor Justinian almost a thousand years before, now turned into a mosque. One bright June morning, fifteen years before, the boys found Paulus in the hall, money in hand, papers for travel, a sad but friendly farewell on his lips.

  ‘Your service is done,’ Paulus told them. ‘What feeble wisdom I have the two of you now possess. Go.’

  ‘Why?’ Nico asked.

  ‘Because I’m enough of a physician to understand I’m dying. When I’m gone they’ll sell you to whosoever offers the highest price, regardless of their nature. I doubt the dead have consciences. Even so I’d rather not find out.’

  ‘Go where?’ Laurence wondered.

  Paulus tapped the travel papers. There was a map, drawn in his own spidery hand, along with some instructions.

  ‘Home, of course. To Italy. Tell them when you get there that good and bad exist in every man. Muslim, Christian, Jew and heathen. Until we recognise that truth and act upon it we shall never, any of us, live in peace.’

  He had them gather their things then showed them outside. There, in the bustling Constantinople street, he patted the two of them on the head, Laurence first, then Nico, not that he showed either special favour.

  ‘Make the sick well. Heal anger and division most of all. Because these vile ruptures among us drive men apart and lead them to whatever devil they choose or chooses them. That is the most difficult sort of medicine. Leave the easy kind to the many quacks you’ll find upon the way.’

  The addresses were for two apothecaries Paulus had dealt with, one in Verona, the second twenty-five miles south outside the Venetian Republic in the independent city state of Mantua. Neither of them knew this part of Italy but still they went. Nico to Mantua and a sickly bachelor who maintained a market stall in what was once a round church supposedly based on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. And Laurence, to disobey his master’s orders once and once only, when, on reaching Verona, he walked straight to the Monastery of San France
sco al Corso and took Franciscan orders.

  Though perhaps, he often thought, Paulus had pointed him in this direction from the very first, since his parting note included a quotation of Saint Francis from his ‘Canticle of the Sun’.

  Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth who feeds us and rules us and produces diverse fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

  As the summer morning broke over Verona, Laurence was remembering those words as he worked his little patch of paradise, the garden. The monastery was a complex of dark cells with a small, frugally-decorated church and, towards the river, a green and verdant plot so large it might have been a modest farm. Vegetables took up the lesser part; the few kale, cabbages, leeks and onions the poverty-loving brothers of San Francesco al Corso required. Mostly the rich dark earth grew medicinal herbs for the monastery’s patients: followers of the Franciscan churches, Dominicans, Jews, heretics. Laurence, who was chief apothecary in all but name, never asked and never cared since sickness knew no creed.

  When he heard a familiar cough behind him the friar was on his knees removing seedlings from a patch of motherwort, a fertile herb he used for depression and ailments of the heart, and a species that liked to stray beyond its own allotted bed.

  ‘Romeo,’ he said, and plucked out the last of the errant seedlings. ‘I’d know those nervous footsteps anywhere. Good morning, boy. You’re looking tired. But well. Kneel down and help me.’

  The Montague boy was always willing. Perhaps one day he’d make a gardener, too.

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Tending the herb garden,’ the friar said and placed his wicker basket by the tidy bed. ‘I need to refill our stock. There may be plague on the way.’ With a pair of crude scissors he snipped a few leaves, held them to the light, sniffed them, nodded, and placed the slender green blades in his pannier. ‘Understand this. Some herbs are medicine. Some poison. And a good few a little of both depending on the dose. This…’ he plucked a few stems from something that looked like hairy mint. ‘…is horehound. It can cure a sore throat. Perhaps save a man’s life from the poison they know in Rome called cantarella.’

  ‘The sort the Borgias use?’

  ‘Shush,’ the friar urged him. ‘Don’t waste your time on gossip, son. This pretty blue flower is called monkshood which may dispel the most severe or fevers. Or, in excess, put a man in the grave within the hour.’

  Romeo’s fingers shrank back from the blooms. Laurence pulled a leather glove onto his right hand. ‘Keep calm. It’s the root that does the work and I’d never let an apprentice deal with that. The Romans called this potent wonder aconitum and said it grew where the three-headed monster Cerberus drooled poison as he fought Hercules.’ He lifted the smallest specimen and cut a length of tap root with a knife. ‘But it’s just a plant. The earth is both nature’s mother and her tomb. Nothing’s so evil that it doesn’t give back a little good. And nothing so good it may not perform a little evil in return.’

  ‘Friar…’

  ‘Virtue may turn to vice. And vice to virtue. One way or another we choose.’

  Laurence tucked the monkshood root inside a goatskin pouch and placed it in his basket. ‘You look the same, Romeo. And you look different. Lovelorn but… happy. Excited even. I haven’t noticed that in a while.’

  A shy smile was all he got. No words. The friar groaned. He was the one person to whom Romeo had confessed his infatuation for the horse trader’s daughter from across the river.

  ‘Rosaline. Don’t tell me she gave in at last.’ He removed the glove and wagged a finger. ‘I hope there’s no sin here. If it’s forgiveness you’re looking for–’

  ‘No,’ said Romeo. ‘Something much… greater.’

  The friar waited and, when he realised it was pointless, got to his feet. ‘I see this is not a conversation for these open fields. Let’s go to my cell. Darkness and seclusion.’ He lifted the wicker basket. ‘And we’ll put these little leaves to bed.’

  * * *

  The Capulets took breakfast together in the palazzo dining room at eight. Juliet was still in her nightshift, a gown thrown over it. Her parents were dressed and beyond complaining.

  Luca Capulet ate mountain ham and cheese as usual, washed down with milk. Her mother much the same. Juliet picked at some fruit from the garden, drinking a goblet of pomegranate juice squeezed by one of the kitchen boys. She did it better, she thought. More flavour, less bitter pith. When we are wed. Then she’ll make her own.

  ‘Count Paris…’ her mother began.

  ‘Why are we at war with the Montagues, father? I know the consequences. How we can’t talk to them. How our servants brawl in the street and Tybalt looks to stick his stupid dagger in any of them he can find. But I’m unaware of the causes. Why?’

  Life, Capulet said. Business. Both were much the same.

  Paris was due in the house in an hour. Her mother wanted her bathed, dressed, hair tidy, manner polite and sweet.

  ‘Is it true you and Andrea Montague were friends when you were little? Best friends?’

  He stared at her across the table, a piece of ham on the fork before his mouth. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I don’t remember. They seemed to think it common knowledge.’

  Her mother intervened as usual. ‘It’s rare for childhood friends to last. People change.’

  Juliet waved a chunk of apple at her. ‘I understand that. But it’s not that they’re no longer friends. They’re bitter enemies. We all are as a result. I do think I ought to know why–’

  ‘Business!’ he cried. ‘I told you.’

  She looked at her mother as if to say: is that it?

  Capulet stopped eating and pushed back his chair. His daughter thought he was about to storm out of the room. But he didn’t.

  ‘You’re a girl,’ he said.

  ‘A woman surely. If I’m to be married.’

  ‘A woman then. You’ve no need to worry about business. A man does. Montague and I inherited these trades. He got the Trebbiano grape. We have the Garganega.’

  ‘Lots more besides that, Father. Even a girl understands we sell all kinds of things.’

  ‘It began with the grape! The argument, that is.’

  Nearly two decades ago, he said. The Capulets had a contract agreed in principle with an aristocratic house in Venice. ‘My friend stole his way into the deal, offered several sweeteners and seized the sale before there was a signature on the contract.’

  ‘Not an amicable act,’ Juliet agreed. ‘Why did he do it?’

  He didn’t speak. Finally her mother answered, ‘It was when his wife was pregnant with that boy of theirs. Montague said they needed the money.’

  ‘And we’d just lost a son!’ Capulet roared. ‘How could he even think of it?’

  His wife reached over and took his hand. ‘He didn’t think, Luca. Or perhaps… knowing of our bereavement, he wanted to make sure his wife received the best care possible…’ She looked at Juliet, a sad smile on her lined face. ‘I wasn’t well after we lost your brother. I went to Venice myself for a while. There was a doctor there who helped. Some nuns.’

  ‘My own friend cheated me,’ Capulet muttered in a low, hurt voice.

  ‘They were mad and desperate times, husband. None of us knew what tomorrow would bring. Riches or disaster. Or just another day.’

  This conversation pained him. He pushed away the plate and announced he’d lost his appetite.

  ‘If the boot had been on the other foot, Father… would you have done the same to him? If your family really needed it?’

  ‘We didn’t.’

  ‘I know. All the same. To lose a childhood friend and replace it with a feud. To hope their house will one day lie in ruins–’

  ‘Oh, for the love of Mary!’ Capulet bawled. ‘Why talk business with women? What’s the point? You fail to understand the smallest detail.’

  Juliet met his stare and didn’t waver. ‘Explain it to me then and let me try.’

  ‘I’
ve no wish to ruin the Montagues. Why would I? They’re our foes in business, much the same size, much the same in competence. If they vanished someone else would take their place. Perhaps a more capable man. A bigger house. With more money and friends further afield. A man always has enemies. Better they’re weak than strong. I’d never dream of trying to force Montague out of business. Why? When I’ve no male heir to run my own house? Only… only…’

  His voice faded to nothing.

  ‘Only me.’ She finished the sentence for him.

  They sat in silence. No one moved.

  ‘So that’s the role Count Paris will perform. Not so much my husband as your proxy son. I marry him because it’s good for business.’

  He raised his voice. ‘This coming century belongs to merchants. Not kings. Not popes. Not emperors. To the likes of us. But only if we remember our duty–’

  ‘Duty…’

  ‘Yes, duty! I do not wish the fruits of all my long, hard labour to perish with me. Is that so hard to understand?’

  She glanced at her mother and said, ‘We could, between the two of us–’

  Bianca Capulet laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Even if we had the knowledge, no merchant, no trader, no great family will entertain commerce with a woman.’

  ‘Tybalt then–’

  ‘Tybalt’s a vicious young fool,’ her father snapped. ‘I wouldn’t trust him with the stables.’

  Capulet pulled his jacket about him. ‘Paris is a man of standing with a name far nobler than ours. You should be flattered he even considers a commoner for a bride. The man will make you a loving husband and see you’re both well cared for after I’m gone. That is that. How else is my mind to be at rest?’

  She took her time finishing the last piece of apple and then the pomegranate juice. They watched her, both of them, expecting an impudent response. It was hard not to deliver it, too. There were so many that flitted through her head. Most, she realised, were childish, and the time for childish things was past.

  ‘Do you think you could be friends with the Montagues again?’ she asked, heart beating so quickly she wanted to put her hand there, where Romeo’s fingers had wandered the night before, and try to still it. ‘If an unexpected turn of events might heal that rift? End that pain? If–’