I Am Juliet (3 page)

Last summer, a troubadour sang to us of a maiden taming a unicorn. She braided her hair to make a rope and led it through the city.

I laughed at myself. Unicorns! My father would never allow a unicorn in his garden, nor would Tybalt when he became master here. And it would be uncomfortable to fight a dragon dressed in steel armour, and a unicorn would eat my roses.

It felt good to laugh. I remembered hearing laughter on the way to church last Sunday. I’d pushed aside the curtains of my chair to see. And there was a tavern wench, laughing, wearing a dun-coloured dress that showed her bosom, her hair straggly and undressed. It had seemed strange to me that a tavern wench could have more cause to laugh than Lord Capulet’s daughter.

Was she more free than me? I thought not. Servant, wife, mother, nun, or nurse — the waves carried every woman through her life, like they had carried Guigemar’s lady, who did not even have a name and was remembered only for her love.

What was love, except the dark-eyed shadow in my dream?

I felt the silk sheets on my skin. What did I want?

I did not know.

The Joans giggled as they carried in my breakfast the next morning: cherry bread today, and roast pigeons, and cold boar with sloe sauce that must have been left from my father’s dinner, and the first of the year’s peaches, their skin fuzzy, their cheeks flushed red, smelling of summer and sun.

I sat on my cushions and peeled a peach with a silver knife. ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked them.

‘A fight with the Montagues, my lady.’ That was Joan.

I tried to give her one of my mother’s stares. ‘A fight with our enemies is not a joke.’

She giggled again. ‘Oh, but this one was, my lady. Young Tybalt’s men came up against the Montagues in the marketplace yesterday.’

‘And how is that funny?’

‘The whole market joined in! The man who keeps the chickens bashed the man who keeps the ducks. There were feathers everywhere! And the sheep butcher took
a leg of mutton and laid into the pork butcher, who defended himself with a ham.’

‘Smashed eggs everywhere,’ said Janette. ‘And melons slit like they were heads, and then two baker’s boys took to fighting with long loaves, like they were swords.’

‘The whole marketplace!’ repeated Joan. ‘All taking sides with the Capulets or the Montagues.’

I thought of Tybalt covered in eggs and feathers, and tried not to grin. Guigemar would never have been covered in eggs. ‘I hope we won.’

Nurse pursed her lips. ‘Did we win? Is that a nice question for a girl? Of course we won. Go on, girl, tell us all. Tell us how the Capulets stoned them dirty Montagues. Tell us how Lord Tybalt crushed their faces in the muck.’

‘Well …’ said Janette slowly.

Surely we had not lost! I stared at the Joans. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘Lord Montague was in the market too,’ said Joan, the smile gone now. ‘And so was your father, and your lady mother. And your father drew his sword and rushed at Lord Montague.’

‘My father? Fighting!’ I put down my slice of peach. My father was an old man, nearly forty-five. I hardly knew him — between his warehouse and his mistress he had little time for a daughter — but he was the head of our house. ‘Was he hurt?’

‘Hurt? Your father! Oh, your father could stop a thousand Montagues!’ said Nurse.

‘Your lady mother held him back,’ said Joan. ‘And Lady Montague her husband too. And then the Prince’s men rode in, and then the Prince himself.’

Had the Prince and his men joined the fight on our side? Surely then it had become a proper battle, not a marketplace brawl.

‘And then?’ I demanded.

‘Then nothing, my lady. The Prince stopped the fight.’

‘He did not order the Montagues back to their kennels, with their dogs?’

‘No, my lady.’

I trembled as I wiped off the peach juice. How could the Prince not see what rats the Montagues were?

Joan added quietly, her eyes downcast, ‘The Prince says there are to be no more battles in his city.’

I tried to keep the anger from my voice. A nice girl never showed her anger. ‘Even the Prince’s word cannot chain Tybalt. Capulets and Montagues have always fought. They will not stop now.’

The Joans had lost their giggles.

‘They will have to,’ said Janette quietly. ‘The Prince ordered your lord father and Lord Montague to his castle to speak privately with them. There was a proclamation in the marketplace, and along the streets too. Any Montague or Capulet who fights will be put to death.’

I sat silent. Death for fighting in the streets? Men had always fought. They always would. The Montagues deserved to die! And yet … A battle with a leg of lamb against a leg of pork was not a brave knight’s quest. I stared out at the garden while the Joans and Nurse finished my breakfast.

Nurse was chewing the last pigeon when a footman pushed aside the door curtains. He bowed. ‘Master Scholar is come.’

‘What, already!’ Nurse said. The Joans bustled away the cloth and dishes.

Master Scholar made me a stiff bow, looking down his nose like a grey peacock, all thin shanks and long nose and dusty black clothes from fifty years ago. He even wore a codpiece. I had giggled when I first saw it, till Nurse frowned at me.

‘Good morrow, Lady Juliet. How goes your French translation?’

My French translation? It was under the cushion where I had shoved it.

I looked innocently at Nurse. ‘Have you seen my French translation?’

Nurse clicked her fingers at Master Scholar. ‘French? Who would speak French?’

He glared. ‘The French, and anyone who would call herself a lady.’

Nurse snorted. ‘Is my chicken not a lady born? The
whole world knows that if you fill a lady’s head with too much learning you will send her mad. And besides, she was translating like a lark for us just yesterday, like she was French born, or better, for I am sure they have no Capulets in France.’

Master Scholar ignored her. ‘Your pages of translation, Lady Juliet.’

I sighed. Master Scholar did his duty to my father, and I must do mine. I reached under the cushion as the footman pushed through the curtains again.

‘Her ladyship would have her daughter come.’

It had been weeks since my mother had called for me. Last time, we had made sugar sweetmeats in her still room, mixing almonds and white sugar into marzipan coloured with spinach juice to make small trees, and moulding small sugar cups that looked like tiny roses. It was a lesson only a mother could give her daughter, for sugar is too expensive to trust to servants, even in a house as rich as ours. Perhaps today we’d preserve cherries …

I tried not to grin. ‘Your pardon, Master Scholar.’

‘No, your mother’s will be done.’

He looked as relieved as I did. Poor Master Scholar. I hoped his other students were more eager.

Nurse wiped the pigeon grease off her chin and gestured to the Joans. ‘Straighten your lady’s coif. See that her hands are clean.’

I lifted them to show her I had not got ink on them yet. I had not even lifted up my quill. You would think ink loved me more than any in the land, it stuck to my fingers so.

Nurse fussed at my hair as we followed the footman along the portrait gallery under the gazes of my grandfathers and uncles and great-uncles: the one who went on a crusade, the one stabbed by a Montague, the one who was a bishop, and the one who had first sent our ships as far as the Spice Islands. The Montagues had never dared to venture there until we Capulets had led the way.

Down the stairs, Nurse lifting my skirts, along the hall with its tall stained-glass windows, then out to the stone terrace above the rose garden. My mother stood there, pointing out the blooms she wanted cut. Her fair hair showed a few threads of grey on either side of her coif.

Nurse curtseyed. ‘Madam, she is here.’

My mother turned and assessed me in the way I supposed all mothers did. My dress and posture I could correct, but nothing could make me tall or fair like her. My mother seemed always to judge me by what I was not, not what I was. I was not a son. Nor was I a beauty, as she had been, with hair a field of gold.

I gave her my best curtsey, a swift sweep down then up. To my surprise she smiled at me, then looked at Nurse. ‘Nurse, you know my daughter’s of a pretty age …’

Nurse curtseyed and talked at the same time. ‘She was born on the same night as our Susan, God rest her soul …’

Nurse’s own baby had died, which had left her with milk for me. I concentrated on smiling politely. Down at the end of the garden servants carried chairs into the banquet hall. Cooks lugged linen-covered trays. My parents must be holding a banquet this afternoon.

‘… she was the prettiest babe ever I nursed and I might live to see her married …’

My mother held up her hand. ‘Marry, that marry is the very theme I came to talk of.’ She turned to me and smiled again. ‘Tell me, daughter Juliet, how comes your disposition to be married?’

Married? At thirteen! Tybalt must be in debt, I thought. He needs my dowry to pay his bills.

‘It is an honour I dream not of,’ I told my mother.

I lied. Of course I lied. I had dreamed of marriage every night since I was four years old. Marriage to a knight like Guigemar; to the dark shadow in my dream, who would love me till the sun crumbled like yellow cheese, a love so strong that poets wrote of it.

I never dreamed of marriage to Tybalt. I knew it was necessary, but I was in no hurry for it to happen. Tybalt was … Suddenly I had the word. A peacock, parading his honour to the world, all feathers with little meat behind.

But why was my mother talking of marriage now? She could lend Tybalt money if he needed it. A daughter could be five and twenty and still not wed, especially if the marriage was a settled thing. But a nice girl does not ask her mother questions. I bit my lip.

My mother waited just long enough to make sure I would not ask. ‘The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.’

Who was Paris? Had there been a miracle? Had a knight spied me in church? That was the only place I ever showed my face beyond these walls. Was Paris my shadow lover, come to claim me?

My mother watched me, still smiling. For a moment it was as though she was truly happy for me — me, a person, not just the girl who was her daughter.

‘Verona’s summer hath not such a flower,’ she said softly. ‘The Earl of Paris is cousin to the Prince.’

So that was why she smiled. The Prince’s cousin wanted to marry me! An earl, not just a wealthy trader like the Capulets. For the first time I had done something that made my mother proud. Our family joined to the Prince’s? I put up my chin. Let the Montagues match that!

Nurse clapped her hands. ‘Cousin to the Prince! He’s a flower, in faith, a very flower!’

My mother took a rose from the footman and smelled it thoughtfully. ‘What say you? Can you love the gentleman? Today you shall behold him at our feast.’

So this was the cause of the banquet. The Earl of Paris had come to woo me! I would have a household of my own, a grand one. I would wear the household keys. No Master Scholar. No French translation ever again. A husband who was cousin to the Prince …

My mother went on and on, talking of Paris’s virtues, which gave me time to work out a polite way to answer. My tongue would never have the poetry of my mother’s. Though as the wife of the Earl of Paris I would try to learn. A lady must speak in poetry, especially in the royal family.

Royal! A banquet today! What would I wear? I had never even appeared in company before.

At last my mother came to a halt, just as I had worked out something proper to say.

‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly.’

A good speech, dutiful, poetic. It even rhymed.

My mother smiled, the best smile she had ever given me, and gave me her hand to kiss.

I danced back along the corridor. Well, no, I didn’t. Young ladies only danced when the minstrel played, and never along a corridor. I walked behind Nurse, eyes downwards, till a pair of red velvet shoes made me look up.

Red shoes, red stockings, red breeches, and above them Tybalt’s face, with a black eye and an expression that was hard to read. His wolfhound gave a faint whine beside him.

‘Fair cousin, a flower soon to bloom, I hear.’

Tybalt bent down and gave me a kiss of greeting on the lips. I could taste his anger, bitter as old rye bread. My mother must have told him about the marriage before she had told me. Tybalt had lost the whole House of Capulet today, and must pretend it didn’t matter. The Earl of Paris would be my father’s heir now.

I looked at him nervously. His anger glittered, but he had it in check. Tybalt needed my mother’s goodwill
more than ever now. He would even need mine, I thought, when I was married to the Earl of Paris. My husband would hold the keys to the House of Capulet after my father’s death.

Tybalt forced a smile. I felt sorry for him; sorry for the whole world who wasn’t Juliet Capulet today. ‘I wish you hadn’t had to hear this news, cousin.’

‘Sorry enough to say “nay” to a noble husband?’ I could see the effort behind his gallantry. ‘No need to frown, my gentle cousin. You are the gift of your good father.’

The wolfhound barked sharply, as though he knew that something wasn’t right. Tybalt ignored him and kissed my hand.

‘There,’ he said, ‘if I have not your hand in marriage, at least I have kissed it. Will you dance with me at the banquet this afternoon, kind cousin?’

‘Yes, sir, I’ll gladly dance with you.’ I tried to make him smile. ‘I like the new adornment for your eye, cousin.’

He almost managed a grin. ‘A gift from the Montagues.’

‘I hope you gave them presents in return.’

He laughed. ‘I did. So did your father! Your mother had to hold him back. In truth, it were more a brawl than a fight for gentlemen. I even saw one of the Montague rats felled by a well-thrown cabbage.’ His grin was real now, as he touched his eye. ‘That may be how I got this.’

‘A cabbage is a fit weapon to slay a Montague. I hope my father gets to wield his sword next time.’

Tybalt shook his head. ‘The Prince has ordered torture and death to any Capulet or Montague who fights again.’

So the Joans had been right. ‘Does the Prince wish peace so much?’

Tybalt’s hand fondled the head of his rapier. ‘A peaceful city means prosperous trade. Prosperous trade means more riches.’

It sounded sensible, not romantic. But a battle with cabbages wasn’t romance either. And a prince must always be right. For the first time I wondered if the Prince saw our families as squabbling children, quarrelling together as my brother and I had about who would ride the rocking horse. I am grown up today, I thought, and Tybalt is still a boy.

‘Will the Prince really put anyone who fights to death?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ Tybalt lifted his rapier from its scabbard. It shone in the sun from the window. He lunged, so suddenly his dog barked, then laughed as he put the rapier back. It was not a pleasant laugh. ‘I must exercise with shadow Montagues instead of their rat-like hides.’

I smiled, as he had meant me to. It was easy to smile this morning. The Prince was right. Peace was better than battles with cabbages, than severed heads thrown into gardens. I would be nobility, above squabbles in the alleys and marketplace. My son would be an earl one day, as well as head of the House of Capulet,
far above any Montague! But I hoped my father had promised Tybalt that he would always be a valued member of our house. Today I hoped the whole world could be happy.

Nurse pulled my hand. ‘Come on, my dearie. It will take two hours to get you ready, though indeed I’ve had your betrothal dress ready these two years … The flies will get the banquet first if we don’t hurry.’

Tybalt bowed. I walked away with Nurse, then stopped. My lovebird lay in the corridor, its neck snapped.

Nurse whistled for a footman, who carried the small corpse away. He said nothing. Nor did Nurse, or not about the bird.

I stood while the Joans stripped my clothes off me and washed me again. The new shift they slipped over my head was silk, not linen. Over it went a corset to nip in my waist, then a hoop skirt of arched whalebone, and a yellow silk petticoat. The Joans sewed on the yellow sleeves, then fastened a jewelled stomacher on an overgown of red velvet and scarlet lace. More stitching now, for slashed oversleeves to show the yellow underneath, and then still more sleeves, slashed even more and embroidered with pearls, and a half-ruff of white, sewn about my neck.

My feet ached from standing still while they worked on me. I had never seen these clothes before. My mother must have ordered them for just such a day.

Nurse arranged my mother’s pearls in three strands around my neck and bosom; then pearl rings and earrings and another strand about my waist. It took hours to dress as a lady should for company, and at least five hundred pins and stitches. Today it seemed there were two thousand.

Now they worked on my hair, brushing it with rose oil to make it shine, curling tongs at the front, and then a French net, with pearls too. Then they began on my face: red wax on my lips, kohl about my eyes, making a Juliet fit to be the Earl of Paris’s bride.

The Earl of Paris! Could I love him, as my mother had asked? Had the Earl of Paris fallen in love with me, like Guigemar had with the Queen?

I shook my head. What was love, except the duty one owed one’s parents and one’s husband? Dreams were just that: shadows of the night.

No, I would have a noble husband, and a household of my own. My father would not choose a cruel man for me, nor a stupid one to inherit his estates. I would be well contented with his choice. To be mistress of my own home! My mother would find me a trustworthy steward; I would have my household running like oiled silk. Nurse would come with me, of course, and the Joans. I glanced at them. They were as flushed as if my good fortune was theirs too — which in many ways it was.

‘There you are,’ said Nurse, ‘as fair as a singing bird. Though to be sure a singing bird is not always fair. I saw one once that had lost quite half his feathers …’

I kissed her to shut her up, then lifted my skirts to run along the gallery, not wanting to be late. Nurse followed me to the terrace, then stopped.

I turned to her. I had never in my life gone anywhere without my nurse. She smiled at me, and brushed at a tear. For once her flood of words had vanished.

‘Go on, my little lamb,’ she whispered. ‘You will be a woman now.’

I lifted up my skirts again and crossed the terrace, my head high, feeling the pebbles of the path under my slippers. I walked alone along the gravel path through the rose bushes, towards the banquet hall.