Chapter 28
“You’re not getting an argument from me!” Unlike Cal, nothing of reason and gentility existed in my voice. If I was a guard dog, I would be snarling.
I went back to stripping. Because I couldn’t go downstairs in my clothing, could I? I was supposed to be asleep in my virginal bed, dreaming of my prince, and not some generic Disney prince, either. Prince Escalus of Verona.
Who was watching me with such heat in his eyes, I stopped removing my clothes and gently said, “Cal, the tumult is growing louder. I have to go see what the old toad is croaking about now, but if you want to stay and wait on my return—”
Cal let loose a low-toned string of such vulgar invective as I had never imagined he knew, struggled back into his clothes, kissed me swiftly, and flung wide the doors to the balcony. With a leap that started on the stone railing and took him into the tree, he disappeared into the night.
I ran out and leaned my palms against the stone, but I heard nothing that sounded like a man falling to his death, which I took as a good sign.
The cold stung my face and hurt my lungs, and I hated to think what would happen if someone of good sense didn’t hie themselves down to the atrium to moderate the riot now threatening to engulf our already contentious families.
As you know, it doesn’t take much to ignite a battle between the Montagues and the Capulets, and if someone really was trying to murder Great-uncle Magno, and I had no reason to doubt someone was—except for his sycophants, who didn’t want to kill him?
—there would be shouted accusations, drawn knives, and of course the dreaded thumb biting.
Shivering, I shut the doors, then removed another petticoat and my beaded sleeves.
At that point, I figured I’d removed enough clothing that I could disguise my too many layers with my robe, and even if someone downstairs noticed, I could claim that when I heard the shouting, I began to dress and, as the clamor increased, covered myself as best I could in my warmest voluminous robe and rushed to aid Big Tit-Baby, otherwise known as Great-uncle Magno.
Indeed, when I ran down the stairs, torches bobbed in the hands of servants always ready to join the fray and lit the scene of turmoil and hostility. (They were not our servants, for our servants know very well how difficult it is to clean blood off the stones and out of the woven carpets.)
Niklaus of Denmark towered about the crowd, providing for me Magno’s location in the turmoil, and I assumed his other followers had come along at the behest of their master, the great ampelographer and famous annoyance himself, Great-uncle Magno.
I saw others from our household in various stages of dress and undress, especially Mamma, whose rumpled lengths of dark hair wandered down her back, as if …
A quick glance at Papà confirmed it. When Magno arrived and started the fuss, Mamma and Papà had been involved in a private moment.
Probably not the private moment, for I hadn’t heard any rapturous dialogue from their room.
Yet Papà appeared both furious and frustrated, much like Cal had looked when he’d flung himself into the walnut tree’s embrace.
As I feared, Montagues shoved at the Capulets, accusing them of trying to murder the Montagues’ most learned scholar (amazing how Magno’s perceived value increased when he could serve as a springboard to a battle), while the Capulets shoved back, denying that they would be so underhanded as to use poison to extinguish their enemy, then agreeing, since they’d been accused, anyway, that they might as well amputate the most tedious ingrown nail that oozed on the leprous toe of the stinking Montagues. …
That last, by the way, came from my grandmother Lady Capulet, and I had to admire the phrasing and cadence while wishing I could concoct such a character assassination.
Do you suppose she spends her nights alone—that is to say, all her nights—thinking up clever insults?
Or do they flow from her with easy eloquence as the occasion demands?
Naturally, with the outer door now open, the atrium was filling with every person in Verona who was foolish enough to be abroad, and despite my own personal family’s attempts at peaceful intercession, the whole place was going up in magnificent explosions of traditional Montague-Capulet fireworks.
The cacophony reached that peak moment when I knew violence would start; then, from the very edge of the crowd, near the open door to the street, swords were drawn with audible authority.
That sound cut through the shouting as everyone turned to face—ta-da!
—Prince Escalus of Verona. A miasma of dark power seethed around him, proclaiming to all that this was not some family-friendly, soon-to-be-married gentleman, but the prince, the podestà, the sole source of authority in the city-state of Verona.
No Montague or Capulet could have improved on such an impressive center-stage entrance.
The crowd stilled, stared. Knives were surreptitiously slipped up sleeves and into their sheaths.
The clamor became dead silence. The audience parted for the prince.
I could almost hear the ominous drumbeat as he paced forward, leaning heavily into his limp, maybe because he’d hurt himself on the climb down the tree, or maybe to remind everyone here what he had suffered and survived in the Acquasasso dungeon and that he was a lord to be obeyed … and feared.
Marcellus, Dion, and Holofernes paced behind him, sword hilts in hands, menacing expressions in place.
Prince Escalus—for this was not Cal—reached the center of the atrium and slowly turned in a circle, looking as savage as I had ever seen him.
Gentle reader, you know why. Sexual frustration had a way of sharpening the edge of a man’s rage. But to everyone else, this was a guy who held the power of life and death in his hands, and he would command their obedience.
When he faced my father, he halted. In a voice that rumbled with thunder, he asked, “Lord Romeo, what is the cause of this disturbance of Verona’s peace?”
Papà answered with like gravity and certainly the same manner of irritation. “My prince, I have not yet been able to ascertain this without the use of violence, but should my lord command, I’ll gladly apply whatever means is necessary to discover what, or rather who, has—”
Clueless as always, Great-uncle Magno couldn’t even wait for Papà to finish. With a push forward, he seized a lit torch and, with a swirl of his crimson cloak, shouted, “My assassin! It is my assassin who disturbs the peace of Verona!”