Chapter 36
Like the virginal bride I was (despite my best efforts), I followed Nurse, eyes downcast, gloved hands folded at my waist, down the stairs to the atrium.
My arrival incited a great cheer. Thus I deduced the wine had already been freely flowing, and with the death of Sir Christofolo, no one feared any further cruel mischief.
Papà appeared at my side and offered his arm.
I smiled and waved modestly and seated myself on the elevated chair, which was well above any heat source.
Nurse arranged my blankets over my lap and tucked me in.
Wool blankets were not fur. My own body without a flush of passion could not contribute enough heat.
Thus I was still freezing. And still a virgin.
Oh, would this trial of chastity never end?
The kitchen staff passed platters of fruits and cheeses along the lines of chairs. The footmen gathered around, holding burning torches overhead to light the late afternoon’s fading sun.
Cesario and Princess Isabella stepped onto the stage first, dragging a garden bench.
I knew what that meant. I moaned softly and slipped a quick glance at Lysander.
He was staring at that bench so hard, his beautiful eyeballs were bloodshot. Or maybe it was the goblet of wine that he had swallowed, as if it would dull his pain at knowing the scene he would view.
Cesario wore Katherina’s best and outgrown dress, and Isabella wore a too-large outfit, which she must have filched from her brother.
Together they performed a grand mockery of the circumstances of my entrapment by the devious and inscrutable Prince Escalus.
The scene created gales of laughter as Isabella/Cal pretended to grope Cesario/Rosie and he made high-pitched, girlish noises of pleasure …
until the footmen ran onstage with their torches and pantomimed shock as the deception was revealed.
Cesario/Rosie screamed and kicked Isabella/Cal in the hairy hangers, which was what had actually happened, but even now viewing a replay of the trick made me want to kick him, the real prince, again.
Luckily for him, he was probably still skulking in the garden.
I snuggled deeper under my blankets. I hoped he was cold.
The scene changed to the events leading up to the wedding: Katherina performed an uproarious imitation of Nonna Ursula leading the séance and coming up with absurd predictions, which had come true.
Nonna Ursula and Lady Pulissena cackled and slapped their knees.
A quick vignette of Cal and me groping each other followed.
I hid my irritation. Although the family who sat close muffled their laughter, so perhaps it wasn’t so well hidden as I imagined.
Next Emilia, Cesario (dressed as Great-uncle Magno), and Imogene (dressed as me) sat at a table, tasting wines.
Cesario/Magno scowled and whined as his nieces identified the wines better than he did.
Then Nurse appeared, holding our baby Adino, or maybe it was Efron, and someone backstage imitated a baby voice, announcing he could do better than Cesario/Magno. Then in the play, he did.
Everyone loved that scene, even me, and one of our twins had his acting debut, which he celebrated by spitting up on Cesario/ Magno.
The kid brought down the house.
Nonna Ursula, again played by Katherina, appeared and threw out a few more absurd predictions, while Princess Isabella, played by Cesario, tiptoed across the background of the stage, holding one of our cats dressed up like a lion.
“See?” Lady Pulissena spoke in her “I can’t hear well” voice. “Everyone knows it wasn’t me who stole the Leonardi lion.”
“What about one of your henchmen?” Nonna Ursula asked her, again in an extra-loud tone.
“By the time the lion disappeared, we’d been in exile for years, and none of the Acquasassos were brave enough to venture back into Verona on any mission, much less one that involved infiltrating the palace.”
Everybody stared at Lady Pulissena in something resembling awe and horror.
“What?” she shouted at the assemblage. “They were my husband’s family, and he was a limp dick. I’m not related to any of them by blood!”
Laughter fluttered across the room, and the rising tension diffused.
I began to feel eyes on the back of my head and adjusted in my seat to see who watched me.
Cal, of course. He had come in from the garden and stood at the back, arms crossed, brooding expression in place, surveying the scene and listening intently. When one of the maids approached and gestured to a seat, he shook his head, but he did take the mulled wine to hold and sip.
Another quick vignette of Cal and me groping each other brought more and louder merriment and quite a few encouraging quips (apparently, we were less discreet than we had imagined).
Then a mock fight between the Montagues and the Capulets over who picks their noses more elegantly. The conclusion: The Capulets and their large noses and flaring nostrils held an advantage over the Montagues, even though the Montagues utilized the flourishes that made them such famous swordsmen.
Best of all, that whole scene was done in iambic pentameter.
We’re an exceptionally poetic family. Not me, but the rest of them …
Imogene played Papà whacking everybody with a sword, while Mamma (Katherina) rocked, did needlework, and offered casual commentary. (“Romeo, it’s so messy when you stab your foe in the heart and blood spurts. Cut off his codpiece. Count Prospero will never miss it!”)
That caused a roar of laughter and got an actual grin from Cal, for Count Prospero was a villainous character who routinely visited Verona to terrify and corrupt. Word had flown around the city that on his recent visit, he’d been soundly defeated by Prince Escalus.
I knew more about that than I was willing to say.
Cesario played Nonno Montague, who offered wine to divert the fight, and when that didn’t work, he drank it all and staggered off.
Nonna poked Nonno with her elbow, and the two laughed together like people who, even after so many years of marriage, were best friends.
There was another quick vignette of Cal and me groping each other (I—the real me, seated in the audience—dabbed my forehead with my blanket, which made the audience chuckle) while Mamma rocked, did needlework, and offered another scathing commentary, this time on our lack of imagination.
That made the Cal and Rosie actors almost stand on their heads, trying to be ingenuously passionate.
When they/we finally achieved Mamma’s approval, Friar Laurence (Emilia, who had been well padded) appeared and berated us.
If ever I needed proof that in a small city like Verona, it was almost impossible to keep a secret, this was it.
In the audience Friar Laurence laughed so hard, he held his ample girth as if it ached.
Then he meaningfully met my gaze, and his message was clear.
Thankfully, our covert wedding in the crypt of the Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore remained, in fact, our skeleton in the closet.
Finally, as the curtains closed, Cesario, again dressed as Great-uncle Magno, wandered by at the back of the stage, whimpering that someone wanted to kill him, and Katherina, dressed as Nonna Ursula, followed, brandishing her cane and proclaiming her excellence in reading the future.
Then she said Cesario/ Magno was wrong. She said everyone wanted to kill him, and someone soon would.
The curtains thumped shut.
The audience came to their feet, shouting, laughing, and clapping, even I, even Cal, even everyone who had been in good nature pilloried, for the frivolity relieved all the tensions and united the families, however briefly.
The actors fought their way through the curtains to the front of the stage and bowed and bowed and grinned and bowed.
The audience began to file out. Some came over to me to kiss my hand and renew their good wishes for my marriage.
Some went to Cal for undoubtedly the same reasons.
Debate had raged, I knew, about whether Prince Escalus would actually marry me, Lady Rosaline Montague, of a solidly mercantile family with little claim to nobility.
That was a bold move, to be so unconcerned about a political alliance with a great family.
As were all intelligent women, I was decreed to be difficult, and in popular opinion, he could do so much better with a younger, wealthier, and more socially elevated girl. Yet as our marriage date grew ever closer, the surety of it growing, this element of tribute had been building.
Then, oh then, with a dramatic swirl of his great crimson cape, Great-uncle Magno stepped into the atrium. In accusatory tones, he announced, “I heard everything!”