CHAPTER SIX
Regardless of my wary concerns, as I neared the square, I heard music and laughter, and my heart lifted and my footsteps quickened, to the theater and the backstage door. I asked for Guglielmo, the young sonnet-maker.
The stagehand pointed him out, a thin, bearded, pale-skinned man who wore clothing beset by patches and mended seams. He watched the actors from the wings, waiting to do his walk-on at the end of the play. He clutched a rolled parchment that looked very like the one that Katherina and Isabella had given me. Softly I called him by his name, “Guglielmo.”
His focus was such he resisted my attempt to speak to him with a resolved, “Sh!”
I placed a firm hand on his arm and used pressure to move him around to face me.
The knife I held at his throat may have helped with his decision. “Guglielmo.” I spoke quietly, aware I did not want to intrude on the magic of the onstage play. “Tonight my friends paid you a gold coin for a sonnet which you wrote on commission.”
Immediately he got a mulish look on his face. “I’m not giving you back the gold coin. I earned it, and the poem is one of the best I’ve ever written.”
“I agree. I don’t even like poetry, and the sonnet is pure genius.” The part about not liking poetry was true, as was the part about the genius.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The gold coin is yours to keep.” I nudged his chin with the point of my blade. “On one condition. You don’t perform the sonnet tonight onstage.”
“What? Why? When I told your friends I could add it to the play, they were ecstatic!”
“They were unaware that circumstances have changed.”
Guglielmo took a moment to process that. “You mean, Lady Rosaline and Lysander are a couple no more?”
I sorrowfully shook my head.
His eyes narrowed, trying to save the fee. “I could change the names.”
“Too many people know the circumstances which you so succinctly spelled out, and would believe the changes were a code.” When he would have objected again, I pulled a gold coin from the bag on my belt. “See this?” I held it before his eyes.
Clearly, the lowly playwright could see nothing else. He swallowed and nodded.
“What if I told you you could keep the first gold coin and earn this one in a commission from me?”
“I’m listening.” It could be said he strained to hear my next words.
“Have you heard of Romeo and Juliet?”
“I have indeed. Everyone in Verona talks about them. The players could hardly wait to acquaint me with their local lovers legend.”
“For the price of this gold coin, I would have you write them a sonnet that sings the praises of their love stretching from the first flush, through the botched circumstances in the tomb, and the happiness they’ve found together in the long years since.” Such a poem would be a loving gift to the parents who had supported me through all my previous travails and those that loomed on my horizon.
“That’s not a sonnet,” Guglielmo objected. “That’s a play!”
“Two gold coins?” I offered, grabbing a second coin from my stash and wiggling both at him.
He tried to snatch the coins out of my hand.
I was too fast for him; the second coin went up my sleeve and into the leather holster there. “One now, one when you deliver the play, or sonnet, or whatever you decide to do. It matters not to me, only that you also destroy all copies of the poem for Lady Rosaline and Lysander.”
“It’s in my head.”
I wanted to point out his head could be detached from his shoulders, but such an action was beyond my abilities and indeed my resolve, and if I did work myself up to such a heinous act, the consequences would be even worse than those I was attempting to prevent. “Forget every line.”
“I know it’s stupid to admit, at least while you’re holding that knife, but I cannot.” He tapped his rather dominant forehead. “I’m a player as well as a playwright, and I’ll remember the sonnet always. But as part of our covenant, I will swear to you the sonnet will never be spoken, recited or performed until I return across the sea, and even then, I’ll change the names. Additionally”—his eyes gleamed with greed—“I agree to your terms and will write a sonnet for Romeo and Juliet.”
“Done!” I sheathed the dagger and handed him the gold coin. “Now finish the play with the previous ending and everyone is satisfied.”
Guglielmo hissed at the stage, made a series of gestures that meant nothing to me and earned him a glare from the lead player. I saw the play end, and applauded as vigorously as anyone standing in the audience.
As I prepared to leave, Guglielmo approached me. “One more thing, young man. In the theater, the female characters are played by youths like you. Should you ever wish to tread the boards, you’d make a charming...girl.”
Oof. That struck close to home and was a clear warning to me that my disguise was not impenetrable. “My thanks to you, Guglielmo.” My mouth twitched downward. “If I fail in this night’s challenges, I may be forced to take you up on your offer.”
Taking my hand, he bowed over it. “The story of your parents told as is would be a charming romance, but I believe it will have more impact told as a tragedy.”
With what I knew of the circumstances, I didn’t doubt it. “Their tendency toward drama very nearly turned a love affair into a tragedy, so do as you think best, but I paid for a sonnet to give them as a gift and that I would have in hand.”
He promised it before Sunday next, and I hastily exited the theater and plunged into the crowd. Bakers hawked small, fat loaves of bread, and sausage makers grilled meats which they presented on sticks to hungry theatergoers. Tavern owners sold wines and ciders by the jug.
As the scents wafted around me, my knees wobbled.
I hadn’t eaten for hours, and not long ago, I’d been badly hurt.
Indeed, for many weeks, I had hovered close to death.
My body reminded me that it cared not about my crushed spirit or the unhappy end to my love for Lysander.
The scents of the food carts tempted me beyond my feeble powers of resistance.
I bought a sausage and a roll from makers I trusted and consumed them in greedy bites that should have convinced any onlooker that I was, indeed, a youth, and one who liked his mazzafegato.
I ordered wine and, as Katherina and Princess Isabella had said, the goodwife watered it and sneered when I complained.
It wasn’t until I licked my fingers and started toward the lofty, thin, brightly lit bordello at the edge of the square that I realized...I hadn’t told Guglielmo that Romeo and Juliet were my parents. Somehow he knew.
Just as Madame Culatello knew Katherina and Isabella were girls, Guglielmo, who wrote and worked in the theater where illusion walked hand in hand with entertainment, had recognized something in my tone that told him the truth, and if he could do it, so could others.
Wisely, I took it as a warning and a need for haste. I needed to get to La Gnocca, retrieve Isabella’s ring, and get home before my world collapsed around me, and my family, my reputation and my pride with it.