Chapter 46
The audience gasped in dismay, for not even the highest in the land could escape the Inquisition’s incendiary sentence of witchcraft or wizardry.
Well played, Great-uncle Magno.
Magno pointed a zealot’s finger at Fiametta. “Witchery runs in the family! That woman reads and writes and consorts with the devil!”
His accusations ended the spectators’ chanted demand.
But he wasn’t done yet. “Lady Rosaline is an acolyte of evil. If she can poison my goblet, when she’s your princess, she’ll poison your wells. She’ll summon the plague. Verona will be nothing but crumbling walls that enclose death and contagion!”
For a moment, I feared my fate hung in the balance. I pushed the rug off my lap and prepared to flee.
But Magno and I had failed to anticipate Nonna Ursula.
The elderly lady struggled to get to her feet, and when she toppled backward into her chair, Papà and Cal hurried to take her arms and support her.
Her almost sightless pale eyes stared right at Magno, she pointed her cane at him, and she yelled, “Magno, you’re a feeble, limp-cocked, hairy-bottomed beastie, a scholar maggot that dines at the tables of his betters while polluting the whole with his tainted drool.
I’m the one who held the séance that rightly predicted these events.
If you choose to accuse a woman, accuse me and see what I can do to lance you like the black pus–filled bubo that you are! ”
One voice spoke into the silence. Princess Isabella said, “You tell him, Nonna!”
Magno stood, gasping, as if he’d run a long race, and I waited to see what he would do when challenged by the venerable lady. Squaring his shoulders, he said, “Most honorable princess, the games you play to entertain your subjects cannot be compared to—”
Someone out there laughed derisively. It sounded like a man, yet I thought it was my little brother Cesario.
Lady Pulissena struggled to get to her feet. Only when Cal caught her arm and helped her could she stand and shout in a voice creaky with rage and pain, “Taste the wine!”
Nonna Ursula shook her cane at Magno. “Ignorant toad. Unworthy successor of greater ancestors. I do not play games. Taste it!”
The crowd was still unsure.
Magno seized the moment. “Good people of Veneto, lend me your ears! I am a professor from Padua University. I’m an ampelography specialist, and I tell you—”
Maybe he thought if he bored everyone into a stupor, he could escape, but knowing Magno, he thought to sway them to his favor.
Ah, but Friar Laurence stepped between Magno and his audience.
He became a bulwark between them, and for the first time, I wondered whether his sacred duty would ruin my chance for justice.
Yet when he spoke, he spoke with all the authority of a holy man addressing his congregation.
“I christened Lady Rosaline. I’ve taught her my trade. She is my apprentice. Am I the devil?”
Heads immediately shook in emphatic denial.
“Lady Fiametta has also worked with me, for she can translate texts from languages I know not, and each of you will gain benefit from the knowledge of medicines which we’ve noted and explored.” Friar Laurence repeated the question. “Am I the devil?”
In a turmoil, the audience shouted, “No! No, not you, Friar Laurence!”
Magno began gulping and sniffing, as if preparing for some ill-fated wine tasting in his dark future. Or maybe to start crying and begging for mercy.
Friar Laurence lifted his arms to encompass his congregation. “My good people, I stand before you and on my soul swear that Lady Rosaline Montague is a good Catholic woman, who tomorrow will wed your prince. Who do you believe? Lord Magno or me?”
Remind me never to slander any person whose spiritual life Friar Laurence has guided.
Also, remind me not to count out an adder like Magno before he’s had his fangs extracted. For swift as a dancer, Magno turned toward me, a blade glinting in his hand. “I’ll see you in hell, immodest female, cohort of the serpent!”
I flung myself backward, toppling my chair and me with it. It wasn’t graceful, and given the flurry of my petticoats, it was certainly not ladylike, but it gave me the momentum I needed to roll away, unhurt, and to remove the short, sharp dagger from the leather holster at my ankle.
At the same time, from my view under the table, I saw a man’s boots land on the stage.
The boards shook. The man jumped again, both feet in one bound.
With another thump, Lysander stood on Magno’s table, feet braced, sword pointed at Magno’s throat.
He bent his face toward Magno’s, and his voice, his beautiful voice, was deep and dark with rage.
“Lying jester of a wrinkled pizzle, drink the wine!”
Magno gripped his goblet, and before I could do more than shout, “No!” he threw the contents in Lysander’s face.