Chapter 45
The audience gasped.
Magno made a lunge for the cup he’d chosen.
With a theatrical flourish, I pointed at the “pretty” chalice before him and projected my voice to the far reaches of the audience.
“Great-uncle Magno, you said you were happy to have me use whatever cup I choose. That jeweled chalice is now yours. Unless there’s a reason why you don’t want to drink from that particular goblet? ”
He did his I swallowed a live frog impersonation.
With an assumed calm, I faced the audience.
I swirled and sniffed the wine. Swirled and sniffed, swirled and really, really breathed in the aromas, breathed them so deeply even Magno the Professor couldn’t complain I’d been slipshod.
After lifting my nose out of the cup, I projected to the crowd that stood at the fringes of the garden.
“This wine is rich in earthy aromas like briar.”
The spectators fell completely silent. I was supposed to write down my notes and give them to Friar Laurence, but I spoke loudly and clearly, and everyone wondered why. Why I’d switched cups, why I’d changed the script, why Magno sat white, still, motionless.
The tension between the two of us had not gone unnoticed. How could it? He’d been so free with his insults, an ass of a human with long, twitching ears, and I’d been so at ease, impervious, entertaining.
That tension transferred itself the audience, and they leaned forward as if to better hear me, and their attention never wavered.
I swirled again and sipped. One sip, and the only tasting note I registered was, I was not dead.
For although I’d inhaled for all I was worth and I’d noted no scents out of place, I could have been wrong.
When Magno had poisoned Papà, Papà had failed to note the symptomatic odor, and he was a Montague in the prime of his power.
All the plans and steps and intrigues Fiametta and Chandrika and I had labored over had sounded brilliant in the planning stages, but what if we were wrong?
What if Fiametta and Chandrika had misread Magno’s character?
What if he was craftier than even we gave him credit for? Who then would die?
Only me, and although my death would betray Magno to his, what difference would it make if I woke to discover he had made worms’ meat out of me?
Yet no doubt about it, not only was I alive, but I also had a sense, a strong sense, that this strong, upright, personable wine would punish the supercilious professor who had adulterated its purity.
I tasted again, because with the first sip, my mouth had been so dry with fear I had tasted nothing.
This time I allowed the flavors to spread into all the corners of my mouth.
“On the tongue, I taste a hint of the animalist essence of leather, a subtle hint of nutmeg and, most of all, rich dried fruit.” I held up one finger and sipped again.
I looked out at the audience, which had grown with the addition of every palace servant, messenger, and merchant who could push their way in and now stood at the back, straining to listen.
The palace guards no longer seemed to be guarding; mostly they watched the action on the stage, drawn by the spectacle, by the knowledge that the mystery would be solved and the play’s climax would astonish them all.
I spoke to those spectators, projecting to reach their ears.
“Yes, dried fruit like plum, filling the mouth with ripe fruit, then fig, which lingers on the tongue. Ah, this is a fine wine, one of the best. A Veneto amarone of the finest quality.” I inched my chair around to face the killer.
After all, I had the brazier behind me. If I needed to make a fast move, I’d prefer not to knock it over, spread coals across the stage, and start a genuine fire. “Great-uncle Magno, do you agree?”
As we stared at each other, two opponents caught in a tournament that could end only in death, the silence that gripped the audience was broken by a single, slight whimper, followed by a swift shushing.
I flicked my gaze across the rows of chairs.
My family, Papà, Mamma, Katherina and Isabella, Vittoria and Susanna, Imogene, Emilia, and Cesario, all sat still, with lifted chins and calm expressions, projecting confidence in me.
Nonna Montague shivered and indicated I should hurry things along, and Nonno and Lady Capulet both looked casual, so casual, almost to the point of boredom.
Nonna Ursula and Lady Pulissena watched avidly, as if this was a play staged for their entertainment and they couldn’t wait to discover the outcome.
There, at the back … It was Nurse. My dear Nurse, who guarded me, chided me, who, even as she demanded I conform to as many of society’s strictures as she could enforce, protected me and loved me dearly—she still stood, feet braced, but now she held her eating knife in both hands, prepared to charge the stage. Subtle, as always.
I reassured her with a nod, then turned back to Magno.
Magno, who dropped his gaze away from mine.
He stared into the depths of the goblet, his personal goblet, into which he’d released the poison to kill me, his great-niece, with a single press on the jeweled latch.
With a trembling hand, he lifted the death-trap wine half the distance to his lips, then hastily placed it back on the table and looked at the spectators with the expression of a fox with its foot caught in an iron snare.
Did he imagine he would find sympathy there?
A murmur swept the audience, the kind that, at a play, happened when the villain was revealed. I had no doubt that if he had fled, in their shock and surprise, they would gladly have grabbed their butcher knives and any available pitchfork to track him down and kill him.
Because I faced my great-uncle, my line of view included Lysander, on the far corner of the stage.
He stood immobile, sword drawn, observing Magno as he would the asp who would destroy Cleopatra.
Did Lysander imagine I had neglected to slide my faithful blade into my ankle holster?
Did he not see my hand down at my side, ready to grasp the hilt? Did he not know me better than that?
For a moment, his gaze brushed mine, and I recognized that he did know. But Lysander would rather utilize his blade than risk me in a battle against a man of both superior strength and treachery.
A slow, cautious turn of my head showed me Cal, sword also drawn, but he observed not only Magno but also me, and the audience, his men, and the whole of the garden, too, as if seeking every traitor who would set aside his laws and harm his people.
He was more than a husband and lover; he was also a prince.
A revelation on this day, this night? Or a confirmation of the truth I’d already acknowledged …
that as prince, Cal would protect what was his, and that was Verona … and me.
Mostly he trusted me to care for myself. He’d given me that message before the contest started. I’d promised to meet him on the church steps.
So I would. I nodded at him.
He nodded back.
Someone in the audience, I thought later it was Lady Capulet, stood and in an authoritative voice said, “Taste it.”
My little sister Emilia leaped to her feet and yelled, “Taste it!”
Nonna Montague, then Nonno Montague, then Susanna and Vittoria and Princess Isabella all stood and shouted, “Taste it!”
The command became a chant, rippling around the garden like a song sung in a church choir. Taste it! Taste it! Taste it!
Yet nothing could be so simple. Magno had achieved his position in life by thinking ahead like the brain behind a chess piece.
Drawing himself up to his full height (which wasn’t that impressive), he pointed an accusing finger down at me.
“I dare not drink. Lady Rosaline hexed my wine. She turned it to poison. She’s a witch! ”