TEACH THE TORCHES TO BURN #2
Nonna faced the sun as it slid toward the horizon.
The light cruelly revealed every wrinkle and dark hair on her upper lip, her drooping nose and eyelids.
She indeed resembled a fearsome witch and she used her authoritative, aristocratic tone to heighten the effect.
“For Prince Escalus of Verona and Rosaline of the House of Montague, I predict a magnificent wedding that will live as a shining example of peace and love in the memories of all who attend.” She turned her head from side to side to pin the Montagues and the Capulets in her white-blind gaze. “No fighting!”
I looked at the skull of Yorick.
He grinned as if even he didn’t believe it possible.
“I foresee a long, happy, fertile marriage blessed with many sons.” For one moment, she returned to her normal, dowager princess tone. “After all, her Mamma Juliet has given birth to nine children, all living, and some in duplicate.”
Laughter rippled through the guests. My youngest brothers, still babes in arms, were twins.
“Who better to carry forth the romantic legend of Romeo and Juliet than their progeny?” I asked.
Mamma slanted a smile at her daughters around the table, then at her Romeo, and he, of course, stared soulfully and adoringly at her.
A gusty sigh swept the room. Only the most pinch-mouthed and cynical could resist the loving glow that shimmered between them, and I, who as the practical daughter of the most famous lovers of all time and suffered my pinch-mouthed, cynical moments, was forcibly reminded that yes, true love did exist in this world.
My lower lip trembled briefly.
But not for me. You see, although I marry Prince Escalus, I love another. I continue as I am, a practical woman who has been chosen by a prince for her practical virtues.
Nonna returned to her I’m a seer voice. “Among the wedding gifts a long-lost treasure will be found which will end an old feud.”
That was interesting. Specific. I scrutinized Nonna Ursula. How had she come up with that? Did she know something, or was she stalling for—
Like a stage light created by candles and mirrors, the last rosy ray of the sun struck her face and lent her the blush of artificial youth. It wasn’t that, though, that brought a gasp from the guests. The sun’s final flame bounced off her cloudy eyes and they shone with a fiery red.
Silly Lady Luce gave a moan and performed the dramatic swoon for which she was justly famous.
Looking like an apparition herself, Nonna Ursula lifted one finger and in a voice deep and prophetic, she proclaimed, “But first, a murder! Hatred such as I’ve never seen!
A man dies horribly, and acrimony spreads, challenging Verona’s long-held peace!
Only through wisdom and the lost art of listening will disaster be averted!
” She froze, staring into the shaft of light, her eyes still lit by that demonic glow.
Lady Pulissena gave a shriek and reached out to Nonna with trembling arms. “My royalty! My oracle! Death! Disaster! You strike fear in my heart! You must take care!”
As if God was Nonna Ursula’s stage manager, the sun slid below the horizon and the light vanished, leaving her a mere woman, aged, gray, prune-faced, not a prophetess but a frail, elderly princess who had seen too many days.
She collapsed, lifeless, in her chair.
The chamber exploded into chaos. Women screamed. Men shouted. Everyone crossed themselves and murmured prayers, and the stampede for the door could only be called every man for himself.
I leaped to my feet, bent over Nonna Ursula and checked her pulse…which beat strongly under my touch.
Prince Escalus appeared on the other side of his grandmother. Leaning down, he murmured in her ear, “Nonna, you wretched female! Nonno indulged you too much.”
I felt her shake with laughter or, knowing Nonna, the thwarted desire to retort.
While Imogene rested her head on Katherina’s shoulder and wailed, Mamma wrapped Lady Pulissena in a rug to calm her trembling.
Gentle reader, you cannot possibly be surprised by the dramatic abilities of my famed family.
As Cal lifted Nonna Ursula in his arms, Princess Isabella fluttered around like a pretty butterfly, distracting attention from Nonna’s healthy color. When Cal moved toward the door, she ran ahead, looking tragic enough to be an adopted daughter of Montague.
I paused long enough to gather Yorick’s skull and place it in the black bag, then followed behind, my attention fixed on the prince’s tense shoulders.
So…
Prince Escalus.
What to say about him?
He’s a good man. A noble man. A man of Verona who would give his life to protect his city, and nearly did, and for that he’s scarred and he limps. He needs a wife, and after making a pro and con list about me, decided I would do.
Be still my heart.
The pallor of the dungeon clings to him and when he wishes, he can slide into the shadows. Become one with the shadows.
I account myself shrewd when judging what thoughts make a person act and thus I guide them in the direction I judge best. Yet so far, a complete comprehension of Prince Escalus has eluded me.
In fact, when I found myself betrothed to him through his contemptible stunt of compromising me…
to the delight of our smirking neighbors…
I realized my knowledge of him was superficial.
Perhaps that was best between husband and wife, but I found it a sour potion to swallow after at last and unexpectedly meeting my One True Love.
Lysander of the House of Marcketti…how shall I describe my One True Love?
Not with poetry—poetry insisted on lingering over rhymes, sighs and iambic pentameters until I wanted to scream.
No, practical woman that I am, I dwelt on Lysander’s straight, dark blond hair streaked with strawberry, his ears, whimsically too large, his countenance so handsome that the sun must hide its face lest it be outshone.
I am as God made me, a shallow woman who sees beauty in a youth who will so quickly age, worships his wit and cleverness, and finds in him a soul that communicates, empathizes with and admires me.
A man who shared my sense of humor was a rare find and a man who could laugh at himself even rarer.
To sum up: I loved Lysander, and even more, I liked Lysander. Of great moment, that.
As if my thoughts had compelled him who makes my heart swell with tempestuous devotion, a hand brushed my fingers.
I turned my head.
Our eyes met for a moment, so brief no one noticed.
Yet as I walked away from Lysander, I realized Cal had paused, Nonna Ursula in his arms, to wait for me?
Had he seen Lysander’s brief touch and my almost imperceptible response? No, I thought not, for already Cal walked again toward Nonna Ursula’s chambers.
Nonna Ursula’s sumptuous suite of rooms was on the ground floor, to facilitate her aging inability to climb stairs, so she said, but really it was to allow her to keep her fingers on the pulse of the palace.
She received visitors in her sitting room and slept in her bedchamber, as did Lady Pulissena who had arrived to visit and never departed, and her aging handmaiden, Old Maria.
Paintings, luxurious furniture, mementos of her past, and a real glass window gave the rooms a cozy, almost cluttered feeling that spoke to me of home more than anywhere else in the palace.
Soon I’d have to make changes to the living quarters upstairs where Cal and I would reside.
Cal, still holding Nonna, stood to one side to allow Princess Isabella and me to enter the antechamber. As I passed, I shot a sideways glance at him.
How would he take it? When I moved in and cluttered his austere living space?
Old Maria rose from her place at the hearth, and with a sour glance at Nonna Ursula and a clucking sound of annoyance, she stirred up the fire.
“Bring her into the bedroom,” I instructed. “She may be grand charlatan, but I perceive she’s weary from the day.”
Lest you think I am a bossy know-it-all, let me explain that I train with Friar Laurence, the Franciscan monk, and therefore give health-related instructions as necessary.
Although some do call me a bossy know-it-all. My family, for instance.
Princess Isabella stripped the heavy covers down. Cal carried Nonna to her bed and placed her against the pillows, stepped back and waited until she cracked an eye. Seeing we were alone, she cackled, and in his I’m-the-prince-fear-me voice, Cal asked, “Nonna, what were you thinking?”
Both of Nonna’s eyes snapped open and in a clear I’m-the-dowager-princess-and-I-wiped-your-baby-bottom voice, she said, “The Montagues and the Capulets were already at each other’s throats, and watching for a treasure among the gifts and a murder among the guests will give everyone a break from sharpening their blades. ”
“Guests are fleeing the palace!” Cal gestured toward the street.
“Good. We’re overrun with guests. We have too many guests. Every home in Verona is stuffed with guests. Let them flee over the bridges, drown in the river, escape through the catacombs.”
“I wish,” I muttered, because Nonna Ursula was right. Verona was overrun with guests, Casa Montague was stuffed from the attics to the wine cellar with guests, and our purses emptied and our hospitality was overtaxed as they ate and drank and snarled insults at each other.
In a return of her good humor, Nonna settled against her great mound of goose down pillows. “Did you see the looks on their faces? I live to inspire awe and terror. This was a good evening.”
Princess Isabella seated herself on the side of the mattress. “It was a magnificent sleight of hand, Nonna. That trick at the end…” She shivered. “I’ve seen it before, and it still scared me.”
I dragged a heavy chair over to sit close. “I suppose I could plant some lost thing among the wedding gifts. Do you have something in mind?”
Princess Isabella made a small sound, something between a cough and the noise you make when your wine goes down the wrong pipe.