CHAPTER THREE
I thought I was being incredibly patient and supportive.
Katherina viewed it as criticism, and being my sister and a Montague, she went on the attack. In a strident tone, she said, “You did it first.” She waved me to silence. “I know. You didn’t get caught.”
Exactly. As Papà says, Never exchange skill for luck. “How did you find out?” I asked.
Katherina grinned, suddenly cocky. “I was in your trunk looking for your practice sword—”
“For me,” Princess Isabella said.
“—And there it was. The boy’s outfit.”
“Wasn’t mine.” Kneejerk reaction that immediately confirmed it was mine. I should have claimed it was no more than some misplacement by Nurse.
“I recognized the slash on the thigh. At first I thought...no, no way. Rosie’s my oldest sister. She’s cool. She’s savvy. Sure I helped her with that cut on her leg, but...” Katherina grinned evilly. “Actually I wasn’t sure until you asked how I found out.”
I groaned. Amateur mistake!
“Stop being such a snotnose sister. Tell her why!” Princess Isabella urged.
Alert at once, I asked, “Why you went out?”
Princess Isabella didn’t wait for Katherina to catch up. With her hands clasped before her chest, she said, “Your romance with Lysander has captured our hearts.”
Briefly I closed my eyes in anguish. “Gee, yes, terrific.” A vision of Lysander’s beloved face rose in my mind. A thought to how he would react to the news of tonight’s debacle made me cringe. How to explain? Boldly, I suppose, clearly as always, yet...nothing I could say would bring about a conclusion to mend the inevitable breach.
“All the women in Verona dream of finding their One True Love delivered by the hands of fate!” Princess Isabella spun a romantic spindle threaded with gold.
“Yeah. Fate. Which we’ve now proved conclusively is a man.” The edge of bitterness in my voice made Katherina look sharply at me.
Princess Isabella didn’t notice. “We went to Guglielmo, the poet from far Inghilterra who writes plays for the theater and commissioned him to write a sonnet in honor of you and Lysander!” Reaching into the pouch at her side, she triumphantly pulled out a wax-sealed roll of parchment and offered it to me.
I took it, broke the seal, and as I read, it became clear that...OMG, no gift in my life had ever been so sweet and loving.
“We went to Guglielmo the first night—and picked it up tonight.” Katherina beamed. “He is so proud of this sonnet, he added it to the end of his new production and tonight the players perform it for the first time!”
The sonnet sang a glorious praise for Lysander and me, to romance and first love, to poetry and laughter and...if it was performed tonight before a crowd, the disgrace already set in motion by the girls’ escapades would cause me to be the downfall of Montague honor and prosperity. I would carry the burden of shame for the rest of my days.
Yet I looked at the girls’ hopeful, happy, romantic faces and I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t slap them down. Sooner or later—tomorrow morning at the latest—they’d find out that all their expectations had been shattered by my own foolish actions and by my (as of this evening) betrothed’s deliberate actions. My eyes prickled with tears I held back from an effort of will. I opened my arms to them. “Dear sorelle, how you honor me with your love!”
Both girls came at once into my embrace.
Isabella’s eyes swam with tears. “I’m honored that you call me sister. ”
Katherina, who knew me better than the princess, hugged me tightly and asked in a worried tone, “Is all well with you, dear Rosie?”
I cupped her cheek. “I’m so touched by your thoughtfulness. You lift my heart!” Which might have enlightened her—my sister is wicked smart—but I assumed a sterner demeanor. “What happened tonight to send you scuttling back to Casa Montague with your tails between your legs?”
“Ah.” Isabella hung her head. “We did something not so bright.”
Not so bright? As opposed to all the other nights when they challenged fate and by the grace of God won?
...I did not explode with exasperation. I did not. But it was a close thing. “Can you clarify?” I could scarcely grind out the question.
“We went back to the square to dance.” Isabella whirled around, her arms raised. “Rosie, if only you could do that. It was delightful! Peasant dancing, kicking up our heels, leering at the women, listening to the music, drinking watered wine and eating all manner of jellied eels and fermented onions.”
Her exuberance almost made me smile, but I tempered my amusement by saying in my driest tone, “That explains your breath,” and the memories of my own stolen night at the square nudged me into a small lift of my lips.
But Isabella didn’t laugh, and that wiped my small smile away. More quietly, she said, “There’s a lofty, thin house on the corner of the square. I never noticed it in the day, but at night, it’s brightly lit.”
“Yes?” I knew that house, and my heart sank.
“A woman, rounded and pretty, opened the door and beckoned us in.” Isabella flushed with embarrassment.
We had reached the heart of the matter. “You went.” It wasn’t even a guess. Of course they went. They had discovered the joys of being lads, free and without constraint.
“I had to...go.” Katherina glared meaningfully at me.
“Because you’d imbibed too much watered wine,” I guessed, “and you couldn’t piss in the streets, like all the other boys, without betraying yourself.”
Katherina touched the tip of her nose in acknowledgment. “We entered the outer chamber. Musicians played. A minstrel softly sang love songs. Women wandered about in gowns of gaudy colors and smiled and spoke sweetly to us. Rich materials draped the windows, and flowers and fruit perfumed the air.”
“First clues,” I muttered.
“I know!” Katherina slapped her own forehead. “I’m not the brightest candle in the sconce.”
Isabella took up the story. “A tall woman met us, welcomed us, said her name was Madame Culatello, asked what she could do for us. Katherina jiggled her codpiece.”
Much to my mixed horror and amusement, Katherina demonstrated.
“We went into the room where Madame directed us. The color of the walls seemed to stroke the senses. Lounges covered in pillows of exotic colors tempted us to rest. We used the chamber pots, then we gave in. I chose the lounge with the pillows of silver-and-blue cloth and reclined upon it, and I saw...I saw...” She squirmed and grimaced and ran out of words.
“I chose the lounge of crimson red, so I saw first.” Katherina did not squirm, but she did grimace.
Gentle reader, I knew what she saw, for I’d seen it myself. Yet I would have to fix whatever the problem was, and I know you’ll forgive me for dragging every guilty, uncomfortable admission from them. “Tell me, Katherina, what you saw first.”
“There were paintings on the ceiling.”
“What comprised the paintings?” As if I didn’t know.
“Naked people.”
“Like cherubs? Sweet baby angels with wings?” I managed to ask without a trace of audible sarcasm and surprised a choke of laughter from Isabella.
“No. Definitely not cherubs.” Katherina narrowed her eyes at me as if she saw through my solemn mien. Yet she needed me, so what could she do but admit, “Men and women. Men and men. Women and women. Beasts! With men’s bodies and bull’s heads. All of them...doing things like we hear Papà and Mamma doing, openly, in all positions, sometimes three people! Smiling and...”
“I wish I could unsee all of it!” Isabella blurted. “Euw!”
My amusement soured. Yes, at twelve and thirteen years old, they were of an age to be married, but to me, looking at them from the vast age of twenty, they were too young. “You had entered Verona’s foremost bordello,” I said sympathetically. “It was bound to be unsettling.”
“I simply never thought...right there on the square! A brothel! And it wasn’t squalid, it was...inviting.” Katherina spread her arms expressively.
“Rosie, are men’s parts that huge?” Isabella wanted reassurance. “Or is that simply the size of brush a man picks up to illustrate his pizzle? ”
“Maybe. Probably it’s the painter’s imagination. But from what I’ve heard, they come in all sizes.” I lifted my hands and let them drop. “I frankly don’t know, dear. I really am a virgin.”