Chapter 29
From above, I heard the unmistakable sound of a soft female voice calling down a plague on Magno and his theatrics.
I glanced up to the gallery; there Nonno and Nonna Montague stood overlooking the atrium, clad in their warmest robes, with their sleep caps on their heads.
Nonna was the one cursing, while Nonno pointed out she knew what she was getting into when she married into his family.
Seeing me watch them, he winked and returned to soothing his wife’s ire.
Likewise clad in their robes, my sisters Vittoria and Katherina flanked me in a manner similar to the formation Cal’s bodyguard had taken with him.
“The braying donkey speaks,” Princess Isabella muttered. She, too, had arrived from the girls’ dormitory upstairs, and it was obvious that her brief appreciation of Magno had died an ugly death. More and more of the female cousins from the dormitory arrived and formed a phalanx around me.
In a voice as chill as the winter cold that made us tremble, Cal asked, “Tell me, Lord Magno, why do you believe you’re the object of a killer?”
“You know, you know, of course, about the previous attempt on my life.” Magno stumbled over to Papà and gripped his shoulder and sagged in typical Montague melodrama.
“I’m so sorry, Cousin Romeo, you were caught in this net of murder and madness.
I had no idea someone envied me my knowledge and power so much they would attempt to take my life and, with cruel disregard, yours, too. ”
At this moment, I had no doubt from whom I’d inherited my highly eloquent eye-rolling: My papà managed to both roll and speak at the same time. “I’m your nephew,” he said, and in a tone that clearly scorned Magno’s attempt to lend himself the youth that graced the wildly romantic Lord Romeo.
Magno was a worthy purveyor of Montague melodrama, and he couldn’t be contained by mere facts. “Such earthly connections matter not when I’ve already been so close to heaven I could longingly peer through the pearly gates.”
“Could he see Lord Bortolo already inside?” As was her wont, Emilia was too loud, but no one shushed her.
“Let me restate my query,” Prince Escalus said with chilly disdain. “What has occurred that you should think someone wishes to kill you?”
“Assassinate me.”
“Can you believe Magno had the guts to insinuate to the prince that the end of his worthless life would be a state tragedy?” Katherina muttered.
The bulwark of girls behind me had quite a sarcasm fest going on.
Not that Great-uncle Magno paid them any heed. They were, after all, children and, worse, worthless females and, for the most part, adolescents. “I reside at the inn where you placed me, where I’m treated with the respect rightfully given a professor and expert of ampelography.”
“Of what?” Vittoria wondered aloud, but she merely said what most were thinking, for all across the atrium, puzzled glances were being exchanged.
Before Magno could enlighten her, I flatly said, “Wine.” Did Magno always have to use his words of many letters to make others feel foolish, as well as squeeze every bit of spectacle from every random act?
Magno winced, as if it hurt to hear me describe his glory in such plebeian terms, but before he could expound further—and he would have, for he held the torch and the attention he craved—Prince Escalus snapped, “Magno! What happened to make you believe you’re under attack?”
“Tonight in my rooms I hosted an exclusive celebration of tasters, who always gather round me to learn what I can teach them, at least as much as they can learn with their pitifully limited senses.” Pity dripped from Magno’s every word.
“I pray you, name each taster who came to be enlightened.” Prince Escalus did not so much ask as mandate.
“So many seek to join me, it’s difficult to remember from one moment to another who—”
Cal gestured at Holofernes.
Holofernes lifted his sword and examined the edge, which glittered in the torch light, then looked pointedly at Magno.
In rapid succession, Magno listed, “Niklaus of Denmark, Sir Christofolo of Cittadella, and one of my dear comrades, a fellow professor, if an unhoned wine master, Tobias of Valpolicella. He arrived tonight and joined my little gathering, all of them seeking wisdom in their pursuit of wine history, of grapes and where they grow, of how to best savor the scents on the nose.” As if to demonstrate, Magno paused and inhaled for a long moment. “And the flavors on the tongue.”
Holofernes ran his thumb along the blade, winced, showed Magno the welling of bright crimson blood the sharp edge had brought forth. …
Magno’s gaze clung to the bloody evidence, and he spoke more quickly. “This lad, for he is barely a man, handsome and with the blush of health on his cheeks, in a joking manner and in a way that did him no honor, drank from my goblet and …” He began to sob.
Someone whispered, “Another poisoning …”
Cal would not allow the foreboding to build. “Magno, you will tell me now what happened to Tobias of Valpolicella, and in detail.”
“He suggested the wine was not of the best, which it was, for I had previously accredited that vintage and vintner. He then laughed at his own wit, then sat for another moment, lurched to his feet, and hurried from the room.” Magno shrugged.
“I took the time to speak to my other fellows about the wine, and we discussed whether young Tobias had lost his—”
A low growl started in the prince’s throat, a threat echoed by his bodyguards, then by Papà and perhaps a few other property owners, who didn’t want a full-fledged panicked riot rampaging through Verona.
Magno got the hint, such as it was, and changed his intended narrative.
“I walked to the window and saw Tobias in the street, on his hands and knees. I opened the window, and in concern, I called his name. He looked up at me. Like a mad dog, he had white foam around his mouth.” His voice rose.
“He screamed at me to help him. He cursed me and everyone at our scholarly gathering. Peasants of Verona gathered around him. He crawled toward them, but they backed away in terror, and then he … he rolled over, dead and already stiff!”
At that unmatched dramatic pronouncement, the party/ quarrel/testimonial broke up.
Guests of both conflicted households as well as random spectators fled to their homes or their inns or even their rooms within Casa Montague, almost as if they believed they could escape the dire menace if they ran fast enough.
Nonno and Nonna Montague yawned and, with a slight wave to me and the other girls, entered their bedchamber, there to warm themselves before the wood-fire brazier and nestle into bed together. Oh, and piss one more time, as in the greatness of their years, that was what they did.
Our immediate family remained, huddled together for warmth and comfort.
Like a narrator in a theatrical production, Magno tapped his own chest and spoke in the third person. “Who has the motive to kill this learned man?”
Behind me, Imogene made a retching noise, and in her piercing childish tone, Emilia said, “Just about everyone.”
“One who will suffer for his presumption,” Cal said. With great ceremony, Marcellus and Dion placed a cushioned seat behind Prince Escalus, in his guise as the podestà of Verona.
He lowered himself onto it with such care, I thought that yes, he must at least have bruised himself in his furious leap into the tree.
I’d have to give him an ointment for the swelling.
When the opportunity presented itself, I’d rub it on slowly and gently, easing over his muscled thighs, his chiseled abs, his …
Cal made the simple chair look like a throne. He spoke in his most noble and judgy tones. “I will discover what in truth happened and by whose hand.”
He viewed me, and I understood without further explanation. For this matter of justice, he must put aside his wedding night, and I, his wife now by vow if not by deed, would assist him, for civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
I’ll also assist for less noble, although equally imperative, reasons, and may I state for the record that this egregious delay will not only leave me inflamed with increasing passion but will also harshen my choler toward all the world and, most of all, that “learned man,” Great-uncle Magno.
Gentle reader, I know you understand.