Chapter 5
Clearly, it was a rhetorical question, but Mamma undertook to explain it again. “Because the peace between the Montagues and the Capulets is short-lived—”
“Twenty-plus years, Mamma!” I stood and gestured to myself, up and down, for if you boiled down the events to the basics, I’m the catalyst of the truce.
Mamma ignored me. “And if someone perceives a slight, the whole dreadful feud will fire up again.”
“Exasperating feud, Mamma,” I said. “Men acting like contentious babies, cheered on by vacuous, vindictive women.”
Patiently, Mamma repeated, “Darling Rosie, they’re your relatives.”
I muttered, “You can pick your berries, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your relatives.”
Moist explosions of laughter sounded throughout the room.
Mamma pointed her index finger at me, the one she used to punctuate her motherly displeasure. “I’m going to speak to your father about the things he says in front of my children”—when she called us my children, Papà was in real trouble—“and you shall never repeat that again.”
I curtsied. “Yes, Madam Mother. I obey, Madam Mother. If I may have leave to add, Papà is not the one who taught me that maxim, so please, Mamma, I beg your leniency for him.” I could see her wanting to demand the source, so I said, “I say funny things on my own sometimes!” Which is true.
Not in this case. It was Imogene, but my little sister was already perturbed enough about my marriage and my leaving the family home, not to mention having to wear nice clothes and sit up straight and behave like a lady, so I wasn’t going to get her in trouble.
“I won’t speak sternly to your father or to Imogene—”
How did Mamma always know?
“And you, in return, will be pleasant to Great-uncle Magno during his sojourn here.”
I was back to vehemently waving my arms. “Only if he keeps his hands to himself. Only if he doesn’t pontificate about anything. Only if he—”
Princess Isabella observed, “You sure use a lot of words to say no, Rosie.”
“Bella!” Prince Escalus viewed his sister in shock. “That sounded like …”
What he didn’t quite say sounded with all the subtlety of a gong. That sounded like one of the Montagues.
I leaped into the breach. “I do not tell my mother no.” At twenty, I wasn’t old enough.
I didn’t know if I would be old enough when I reached the great age of forty.
“She is my dear mamma, and I respect and honor her. But I can set conditions!” I curtsied again to Mamma, a little deeper this time, because I was skirting along the cliff’s edge of her tolerance.
“Where is Magno lodging? I promise you, Mamma, there’s no more room at Casa Montague.
Not unless someone sleeps on the floor. I did warn you of that this morning! ”
“But—” Mamma began.
I counted on my fingers. “You and Papà have the twins in your room. Nonno and Nonna Montague both get up at night to use the chamber pot and must have their own room, and even they have to house their servant within. My sisters and the girl cousins are all smashed into one large upstairs room, which we’ve turned into a dormitory.
If we have any more girls arrive, they’ll be sleeping on the walls.
Thankfully, Cesario and the boy cousins are housed in the palace. Thank you, Prince Escalus!”
“It is a pleasure,” Cal said.
I couldn’t see how that was true, since with parents and servants housed all over Verona, the boys were running rampant through the corridors.
When I and all the ladies present viewed him doubtfully, he said, “Cesario is no longer running palace errands in the streets of Verona. I knighted him and ordered him to supervise the boys. He’s assigned them all tasks in a giant company.
Then, within that company, he’s broken them down into platoons … ”
“Gangs?” I suggested.
“Each platoon is assigned a task, such as foraging, supervising the young ones, or seeking shelter.”
Mamma cupped her forehead in horror. “They’re eating whatever they can find and lodging wherever they want? Whenever they want?”
“Ohhh.” Princess Isabella nodded. “That explains the four three-year-olds sleeping in my cupboard this morning.”
“I swear, Cal, if Old Cook quits because of this, you can plan your own wedding feast.” I meant it, too.
Cal stroked his chin in such a serious manner I suspected humor. “It seems to be going rather well. Cesario is firmly in charge, and according to Old Cook, the food patrol will do anything she commands.”
“And?” Mamma dragged out the word.
“Even when they mess up, they make Cook laugh.” Cal turned to me. “Also, the boys tell me Cesario invents the best games. He says you taught him, Rosie.”
He was right. I did invent good games, and I did teach Cesario. Games could be enjoyed by adults, too. … Hmm. With his handling of the boy cousins, Cal showed an inventiveness to match mine.
I would rise to the challenge.
But for now I still needed to handle Mamma and her unfailing instinct of hospitality.
“I flatly refuse to allow my married sisters to stay somewhere besides Casa Montague. It’s been too long since we’ve seen Vittoria and Susanna, and Susanna’s expecting and her husband is hovering, and Vittoria is being very helpful caring for the girl cousins and helping with the cooking and the organization and—” My voice caught.
For reasons unknown, Vittoria had come from Florence alone, without servants or husband.
Although she seemed happy to be home, the change from the glowing bride who had left us two years ago to the thin woman who dressed modestly and kept her own counsel worried us all.
Yet she refused to talk about her troubles, so what could we do but wait on her confidence?
Mamma blinked against worried tears.
This would not do. Not now. We had plans to make, so I cleared my throat. “Not only do I crave my sisters’ company, Mamma, but I know you do, too.”
“I do want my darling girls at home with us—and we have the issue of your father.”
“What issue is that?” Cal asked.
“For good reason, Papà has taken a dislike to Magno.” Hastily I added, “For an even better reason than we’ve already mentioned.”
Mamma looked worried. “Magno will expect to stay with family.”
Mamma, for all her charms, failed signally at household management.
Luckily, from my earliest days, I had shown an aptitude for all things organizational (something Cal included on the pro side of his reasons to choose me as a spouse).
Given the right staff, I could organize the world, which, since the coordination of the wedding had fallen on my shoulders, as well as the burden of being The Bride, was a Good Thing.
“I’ll secure him lodging at the best inn on the square.
” More and more, Prince Escalus was proving to be a pretty good organizer himself, due probably to juggling all the axes in Verona at the same time, all the time, and seldom getting a scratch.
“I’ll arrange to send him there in the royal sedan chair etched with the Leonardi escutcheon. Will that do, Lady Juliet?”
“That should soothe his ire.” Lady Juliet looked toward the door, where Nurse had appeared, looking harried and worried.
“Is it my mother?” For among the early disasters that had occurred was Lady Capulet’s demand that she be allowed to use Nurse as her personal servant, thus depriving us of Nurse’s helpful, steady influence at Casa Montague.
Why wasn’t Lady Capulet lodging at Casa Montague, you ask?
Because she and my paternal grandmother, Nonna Montague, did not get along, so Cal had offered her a room in the palace.
Another question, gentle reader? Why don’t I call my grandmother Lady Capulet Nonna Capulet?
Because Lady Capulet was such a frigid, disagreeable stick of a woman, it would never occur to me to grace her with such a fond epithet, nor did she want or expect it.
To be called Grandmother indicated a greater age than she wished to admit.
Actually, she was not yet fifty, for at the age of fourteen, she had borne my lady mother to my much older grandfather.
Though she was now a widow and blessed with both beauty and wealth, no man had indicated an interest in marrying her (frightening feral female!), nor had she shown interest in marriage at all. Tragic dowager fit her very well.
Mamma rose and excused herself to go to her mother.
Nurse hung back and gave me the Look.
I recognized the summons. “Pardon me. Nurse has a message for me.”
As I passed Cal, he caught my hand. “Rosie, you will return.”
Cal usually spoke to me with the most diplomatic of words and tone, and so his gravity, which bordered on sternness, startled me. “Of course! As you wish, my prince.”
As soon as I cleared the door, Nurse grabbed my arm and started walking me out toward the long walk, speaking into my ear while smiling at passersby with such ferocity they steered clear of us. “That woman.”
“Lady Capulet?” I guessed.
She nodded. “As she’s aged, she’s grown more muleheaded and selfish, and make no mistake, she always was, anyway.
Do you know why your mother ordered me to serve her when I’d be better off helping with the wedding?
I’ll tell you why! Because she would drive any other maid crying from the room with her rigid insistence on what to wear, what to say, where to go and when, how to behave. ”
Gentle reader, if you didn’t know, Nurse was my mother’s wet nurse and remained with Mamma after her marriage to Papà to be a bulwark against any hostile Montagues.
Of course, since Mamma came to Casa Montague already expecting (me), they figured the deed was done and took her to their bosoms. It helped that Mamma was kind and loving, ready to embrace her new residence with the man she adored.
Since Nurse didn’t have to be a bulwark, she turned to other occupations, like caring for the rapid succession of babies, managing the household (until I aged up a bit,) being a dragon that protected us from harm, and generally becoming a beloved pillar of the household.
She liked bossing people around, and she excelled at it.
Now she chafed at her limited duties caring for Lady Capulet, and I understood my task, which was to soothe her.
“I know, Nurse, and I wish I had your capable hands, strong back, and authoritative bark to help, but Mamma does what she can, and all the staff of the palace and Casa Montague have risen to the challenges presented by the staging of the wedding.”
“You look tired,” she snapped. “Is he keeping you up all night?”
“He? He who?” Realizing what she meant, I said, “What? Cal? No! I still live at home, remember? Cal can’t—”
“Love will find a way.”
“We don’t love each other!”
Nurse stepped back and looked at me.
“We don’t. You know I love Another!”
“You’re clinging to that … boy?” She did incredulous very well.
“Lysander’s not a boy. He’s a man, smart, handsome, and funny.
I’m committed to Prince Escalus, but love him?
No.” Later I realized I was perhaps louder and more emphatic than I should have been, but she made it sound like my feelings for Lysander were but a spiderweb to be swept aside and forgotten. I was not so shallow!
“What I saw in the garden by torchlight looked as if loving Prince Escalus could have its consolations.” When I glared, she lifted her hands in a gesture that begged for peace. “My lady, you’re a practical woman. You know the bonding properties of passion!”
“Indeed, and I will so bind him, but passionate moments have been few and measured”—mostly, although that one encounter had been shocking in his intensity and my reaction, and for this moment, the memory was better suppressed—“and I expect to arrive in my marriage bed with my imene intact.”
“The odds given on the street disagree.” Seeing the look on my face, Nurse snorted. “You had to know the people are betting.”
I turned to go back to Nonna Ursula’s rooms. “I don’t have to like it.”