Chapter 32
Mamma and my sisters presented me with a birthing tray of exquisite polished walnut, with a painting of chuckling baby boys surrounding a peaceful woman who had given birth in a charmed world of motherhood.
For only a moment, I met Mamma’s gaze and remembered delivering her baby boys, her agony, my fear, the blood, sweat, and tears it took to bring new lives into the world.
Men thought they were so superior, but if they had to go through that torment, the earth would be a flat, empty surface occupied by nothing more than jellyfish that washed onto the beaches.
I lifted the birthing tray and kissed it, thanked my sisters and my family, and in my heart, I prayed fervently that I would have the glory of giving birth to a child …
or seven children or a dozen, as Cal intended.
The memory of the flagellants, and the kick I received during their attempted insurrection … frankly worried me.
I didn’t allow my concern to show as I exclaimed about more gifts of warm baby quilts, decorative swaddling for the baptism, craftsman-made mobiles of bobbing angels, christening gowns, baby socks, baby mittens, beaded baby crowns, rattles, little bitty capes. …
If you think there was a definite emphasis on baby gifts, you’re right.
According to the Church, the only reason for marriage was procreation, although Cal’s recent behavior came close to convincing me otherwise.
He seemed to cherish the recreational enjoyment, although Friar Laurence had much restricted our activities.
Lady Luce gave me a most unique gift, one she had obviously created especially for me, a scroll that unrolled into an embroidered panel to hang on my wall.
I know, not only because I’m a sensible woman but because everyone near and far feels obliged to tell me, I’m lucky that Prince Escalus chose me, especially at my advanced age.
(I’m twenty and Verona’s oldest non-nun virgin.) Yet even if my dearest Lysander wasn’t in the picture, I would still have mixed feelings.
Prince Escalus has proved to be passionate, a trait I never imagined when viewing his public persona.
And skilled, which I should be grateful for, except for his little stunt of tricking me into a betrothal, which resulted in an embarrassing scene and a lot of smirking neighbors, notably Lady Luce.
Gentle reader, I won’t subject you to the whole ridiculous list of advice for new brides, but present you with a few highlights:
1. When your lord and master, Prince Escalus, arrives in the palace after many hours of royal duties, be prepared with a variety of his favorite foods and wines, served by your own hands.
2. Listen while your lord and master, Prince Escalus, speaks of his day, being ever mindful that his exalted God-given tasks far exceed any lowly part you may provide as princess.
3. When your lord and master, Prince Escalus, indicates his intention to visit your private chambers, purify yourself by prayer and cleansing. To increase your appeal, pinch your cheeks and bite your lips, and smile as if enamored of his physical attentions. …
Being me, I badly wanted to ask if I should also pinch my nipples and bite my nether parts, but Nonna Ursula, Nonna Montague, and Lady Pulissena were guzzling their wines, and those fragile ladies might expire from passing it through their noses.
The demon on the side of cassone lifted his pitchfork in admiration of my restraint.
With a nod to him, I handed the long embroidered panel to Nurse, who read a few lines, met my eyes as if to say, She dares, then passed it around the circle. I summoned Nurse, and when she leaned close, I handed her one of the goblets. “To cleanse your palate,” I said.
She drank the wine rather than savoring it, for she served Lady Capulet, Mamma, and me in that order, and my other sisters as she could, and she had to eat and drink on a schedule.
She had no time for Magno’s rituals or, I suspect, the patience.
As the scroll moved briskly around the circle, she said, “The other ladies hand that off as if they fear their fingers will fester from that codswallop.”
She spoke none too quietly, and Lady Luce sat up straighter, ever more offended, and, with a hard look at me, waited for me to scold Nurse.
I should have. Nurse said what she wished, and took reprimands as her due.
But I had my hands free and instead accepted another goblet of wine, which I again inhaled with great appreciation. I loved berries, and not merely elderberries scented this wine. Another, lighter-colored fruit teased my nose, but the name eluded me. For a moment I almost grasped its essence. …
Lady Luce said, “On the hanging, you’ll see where I placed the stitches, then picked them out, for each of dear Lady Rosaline’s former betrotheds.
I pray the name of our dear Prince Escalus will remain, for the material grows thin.
” Her moue both smirked and puckered her mouth, the very one I wanted to smack.
Lady Capulet, who could be, when she chose, a great quasher of pretentions, saved me from any unfortunate impulse.
“Lady Luce, Prince Escalus made his choice, and as your future princess, Rosaline has made hers. I doubt you mean to indicate any doubt that the two rulers of Verona could fail in their intention to wed and rule as a wise and loving couple.”
Not that Nonna Montague and Nonna Capulet were friends or even admirers, but at Nonna Capulet’s words, Nonna Montague did pass a great snort of wine through her nose. To my joy and relief, she lived.
Lady Luce subsided, and I felt sorry enough for her to say in jocular, male-accented tones, “You must put your nose all the way into the glass. Sniff deeply. Draw the scents of the wine into your nostrils.” I demonstrated.
“Analyze the odors. Is there pepper? Oak? Browned butter? Do the scents make you want to make fun of men who take wine too seriously?”
Some of the ladies sniffed and laughed. Others lobbed bread chunks and grapes at me.
Pleased with myself for creating comedy out of a rotten egg as smelly as Magno, I picked up the next gift, a marvelously soft blanket woven of some featherweight yarn, large enough for Cal and me to cuddle in. A gift from Nonna Ursula and Lady Pulissena, and I bowed my head to them in appreciation.
Evella beamed at me, which made me think she’d spent hours fulfilling their wishes for the gift.
Nurse nudged me and leaned close to my ear. “The child is working out very well as a caretaker for the elderly women. Very well, indeed.”
I beamed, for Nurse was a stern taskmaster, and if she approved of Evella, then I had done well. I ordered our servers to pour her another goblet of wine.
The passing of gifts resumed. Again, most were baby gifts, and now and again I found myself pleased with a thoughtful plant that I knew Cal would adore or an array of herbal concoctions I’d enjoy exploring as an apprentice apothecary.
I slanted a glance at my dear sister Imogene, oh she who would take my place in Friar Laurence’s shop.
I would pass these gifts on to her and explain why they were of interest, and she could amaze and impress Friar Laurence with the knowledge she had gleaned. She’d like that.
An interruption to the feminine cooing occurred when Fiametta arrived, accompanied by the young woman I knew to be her stepdaughter, Chandrika.
I was expecting someone younger; Chandrika was easily in her thirties, a smiling, gentle, stunningly gorgeous creature wrapped in a swathe of silk so long it covered her from head to toe in colorful swirls that dazed the eyes.
She wore gold on her fingers and at her ears, and her shoes were woven with gold thread.
Clearly, she was of foreign birth, an exotic creature both unlike us in looks yet like us in her clear hope of acceptance.
Lady Luce muttered. Someone unfamiliar in this exalted gathering? How alarming! It seemed as if the prince’s palace would welcome all from the far lands. Who knew what calamity might occur! Or trade or wealth or an exchange of ideas or …
Before I could continue my sarcastic internal monologue, I rose to greet Chandrika.
Yet Mamma was closer and ever sensitive to newcomers, and at once she embraced Chandrika and proclaimed her delight in meeting Fiametta’s stepdaughter.
My sisters rearranged themselves so Chandrika could sit next to Mamma, and with a grin, Fiametta presented her gift to me.
Not surprisingly, Fiametta’s gift had nothing to do with birth and everything to do with conception. She gave me a white lace robe so beautiful and sheer, my skin would glow and beckon like a lantern.
“That’ll do it!” Nonna Ursula slammed down her cane tip with unusual vigor. “Remember, Rosie, a man is like this floor. Lay him right, and you can walk on him for the next forty years.”
The ladies in the room leaned on each others’ shoulders and wept with merriment, and as if on cue, four men carried in a giant pewter platter bearing five cooked rabbits, their ears reattached, their eyes made of glass beads, and flower crowns decorating their heads, joined genital to genital in a merry circular hump fest through a simulated pasture of grasses and flowers.
To drive home the point, so to speak, in the center, a giant ice phallus spewed fireworks in an unsubtle reminder of what I could expect on the wedding night.
During the hilarity and clapping that followed, Fiametta seated herself next to Lady Luce.
Obviously, Fiametta was here to enjoy herself, and if that included poking holes in the inflated importance of the ignorant, she was up for the challenge.
She accepted a goblet of wine and consumed it in long gulps and without a smidgeon of interest in Great-uncle Magno’s strictures about absorbing the scent of the wine.
Briefly, I considered that Fiametta acted with the same abandon as those of us who had been consuming this simply lovely wine … and that seemed odd.
Then Lady Pulissena announced, “Rosie, no matter what … when Prince Escalus removes his codpiece, look impressed!”
In the burst of laughter that followed, every one of the male servers fled the chamber.
“Cowards!” I found myself calling after them.
As he shut the door on us, Tommaso looked at me as if … as if I worried him.
Typical man. Seeing trouble in a woman enjoying a moment of freedom.
I caught a glimpse of Evella’s expression, too, and that caused a moment of reflection, for she appeared to be surveying the whole room as if we made her uneasy. …
Nurse sipped at her goblet and also watched, head tilted, as if something seemed out of place.
In her first humorous moment since she’d arrived at Casa Montague sans her husband, my sister Vittoria proclaimed, “Prince Escalus believes Rosie has two admirable attributes, and they both support her bodice.”
That cut a little too close to the truth for my enjoyment, but I clapped my hands to support her. She had been so unhappy since her arrival. …
Evella still stood there, watching Nonna Ursula, Lady Pulissena, Nonna Montague, Mamma, my sisters, me. … Why? What was she seeing?
I glanced at my friend, the pitchfork demon, appealing to him for an answer, but he shrugged, as if confused. Did his eyes move shiftily from side to side? Was he not telling me everything he knew?
Princess Isabella said, “Marriages are made in heaven …” Beat, beat, beat. “But so are towering storm clouds that flash and boom and sink a ship and all aboard.”
Among the general laughter, Lady Luce quivered with ever more outrage.
Nonna Montague added her bit. “Nonno and I have been married forty-two years …” Beat, beat, beat. “Thirty-seven of them happily.”
My demon laughed, his mouth wide, and for a moment, his forked tongue transfixed me. Something was wrong. Something grave and terrible.
Nurse looked down at her goblet, then put it aside and said to me some kind of question that required concentration.
When I tried to comprehend, Mamma spoke, and it took all my mind to follow her thought. …
“A successful marriage means you fall in love many times … always with the same person.” When Mamma gave her advice, everyone listened, nodded, and applauded.
Beaming—she was as susceptible to approval as anyone—she leaped to her feet, pulled Chandrika to hers, and began to dance exuberantly around and inside the circle of women.
As if that was the signal they’d been waiting for, others joined them, laughing, prancing, and waving their arms. I’d been to many a maiden revel, but never had I seen such a bacchanal, and again, a tremor of alarm jiggled through my nerves.
Then … oh God, then … Lady Luce grabbed Nurse’s hand and pulled her into the dance.
Lady Luce … with Nurse? Madness! I stood up to protest, to exclaim, to try to make sense of this wrongness, but I swayed when I stood, and had to hold on to the furniture, which pitched as if on the wildest sea.
Fiametta leaped onto her chair and gave a shout. “Stop! Everyone, stop! A rat skulks nearby, and I will expose him.” Like a magnificent long-legged beast, she jumped from empty chair to empty chair, heading toward a tall cabinet set against the wall.
The door burst open, and a young man, Sir Christofolo of Cittadella, he of the flashing brown eyes, dashed out and toward the door.
He had been watching my maiden revel for his own lewd pleasures. He had been spying on us!
The women screamed, loud and shrill, and Fiametta tackled him in one flying move. At the same time, Evella opened the door, and Tommaso charged in, followed by Cal, his bodyguards, and many, many of our able-bodied staff, men and women drawn by the sounds of panic and dismay.
Amid the pandemonium, I caught a glimpse of Nonna Ursula and Lady Pulissena slumped in their chairs.
I tried to rush to their sides, but my knees collapsed.
Head swimming, I fell to the floor and discovered the demon on the cassone was poking his pitchfork at my slippered feet with flames that broiled and blistered my toes.
“Poison,” I croaked. “A poison that rises in a miasma to the nose and carries madness in its wake.”
The demon cackled, “Smart girl,” and he ignited my skin with his fire.
“Open the windows!” I didn’t even know if my mouth formed the words. “Open them all!”