O, Juliet (29 page)

Now I saw that the house had been ransacked—tapestries torn from the walls, furniture toppled, my uncles’ prized Venetian urn in a hundred pieces on the floor.

It took no time to discover my father’s brothers. The attack had come as they sat eating their midday meal, the assassins rushing in so quickly and unexpectedly in broad daylight that Vittorio still sat at the table, the napkin at his neck caked brownish red, and his soup bowl overflowing with the blood that had gushed from his slashed throat.

Uncle Vincenzo, it seemed, had put up a fight, as his hands and arms were covered in deep gashes. He lay on his back near the table. I fell to my knees beside him and covered his body with mine, tears beginning to well, howls of rage forming in my throat.

But then I heard a sound from beneath me. I took Vincenzo’s hand and found that while it lacked warmth, it did not have the feel of icy death. I put my face close to his and felt the softest rush of air on my cheek, and heard an unnatural hiss from his chest.

“Uncle,” I whispered. “I am here.”

“Romeo ...”

It was hard for him to speak. I saw now that his doublet front was heavy with blood.

“I did not tell them where you were . . . even as they held the knife at Vittorio’s throat.”

“Strozzi’s men?” I uttered, horrified at my own words.

“Who else?” Now he groaned and I held him closer, tears falling.

“Nephew . . . ,” he managed, blood trickling from his mouth, “. . . a confession.”

“I am no priest, Uncle.” I was agonized by my helplessness.

“No priest . . .” His words were more difficult to hear. “Confession to you ...”

“Me? What?” I pulled back to see his face more clearly. “You have done nothing but love and protect me.”

“The letters . . .”

I shook my head uncomprehendingly.

“... letters to your wife . . . unsent.”

“Unsent?”

“Too dangerous for you.”

Now it was dawning—the reason for Juliet’s silence.

“She never received my letters?”

“Forgive us, Romeo. . . . The family . . . our blood . . . our blood.” I groaned at the irony of his choking on the blood he had wished so fiercely to protect.

“You do forgive us?”

“Forgive you? You must forgive
me
! I am the cause of this. I am the cause!”

I hugged him again and kissed his face, but then the long final rasping breath was expelled and settled him into death’s ease.

I sat numb by his side for a space of time, then took my uncle Vittorio under his arms and lowered him to the floor, dragging him with regrettable gracelessness to his brother’s side. I laid them out in as dignified a fashion as was possible in this circumstance. I steeled myself to find the cook and their body servants in the house, who were all most certainly dead, but as I stood, I heard a sound at the door . . . footsteps.

I rose and reached for my dagger, but before I could spring into action, the figure of a man appeared in the dining room doorway. He was unarmed and held a torch that illuminated his face. He was young, wearing the simple garb of a messenger, and he expressed in his features a look of abject horror at what he had seen, and now fright at the sight of me, covered in blood, standing over the mutilated bodies of my uncles, enraged, and clutching a dagger.

He turned to bolt but I shouted at him, “Stay, stay! I am Romeo. My uncles have been murdered. I thought you were their killer, come to finish me!”

He turned back, trembling and openmouthed with shock. “You are Romeo?”

I nodded. “And you are . . . ?”

“A page in the house of Medici.”

Word from Juliet! A glimmer of light in this ghastly scene around me.

“Tell me,” I said, going to him. I grabbed him with such force he recoiled.

“I am come to say . . .” He stopped as though to refresh himself of the words he was meant to recite. His face hardened and his eyes went cold, avoiding my gaze entirely.

A chill rattled through me in the moment before he said, “Lady Juliet Capelletti is dead, having succumbed on the eve of her wedding to Jacopo Strozzi.”

The rest I do not remember well. I moved slowly, as though ice were in my veins. Disorder and bewilderment reigned inside my head. My uncles and their servants needed burial—of that I was sure—but the thought of remaining at the villa, overseeing their funerals, was untenable as long as their murderers were at large.

And Juliet. How was it possible she was dead? Dead, and “on the eve of her wedding to Jacopo Strozzi”? The Medici courier was useless for any further facts than those that he had been sent to deliver, all but that the planned marriage of Lucrezia and Piero de’ Medici had taken place, though without celebration—a mere formality, the exchange of rings and the dowry given, everyone dressed in mourning black.

Before he rode back to Florence, he asked if there was any message I wished to send back to Lucrezia. I had none.

I had not a single coherent thought in my head.

I did find that though the stable hands had been killed, the horses put out to pasture in the afternoon had been overlooked. I took one and must have saddled and bridled it, for I rode it back to the crone’s house, low branches scratching at my face, though I felt nothing. I did not hear the birds, the sounds of the forest. I did not smell the moist ferns or moss as I crossed the stream. Was blind to the sight of sun-dappled ground that had always cheered me so. My senses were altogether absent. Those joyful perceptions in which I had reveled my whole life and with which I had courted my wife were far beyond muted.

They were lost. As dead as she was.

I gathered what little I owned from the cottage and began my journey home.

 

I rode like the Devil was chasing me, though in truth he was before me—in the city of Florence. Jacopo Strozzi. Evil incarnate. I spurred my horse faster.

What is the hurry, Romeo?
a cold voice whispered in the wind at my ear.
Juliet is dead. There is nothing can be done.

Nothing but revenge her death. And the others,
I answered.
Tearing Strozzi limb from limb, watching him writhe with agony in an ever-widening pool of his own blood.

Here on the road from Verona to Florence, farmers with their carts full of onions and cages of squawking chickens jammed the track, forcing me time after time to gallop around them, kicking up clods of dirt and clouds of dust, causing all manner of cursing at so rude a traveler.

Farther on a coach had broken down and a distressed family, their small children squalling, gestured for me to stop and help. I did not. Even a monk who knelt by the side of a fallen horse shrieking with the pain of a badly broken leg moved me not at all.

Instead I spurred my mount unmercifully. For I had no mercy left in my soul, and no love either, save that of revenge and the sight of Jacopo Strozzi’s heart, still beating, impaled on the tip of my dagger.

My first sight of Florence, one that I’d believed would soothe my soul, did nothing but anger me. Here was the seat of all my sorrow, all my pain, all my loss.

It was midday, midweek, and I knew where I was most bound to find the object of my loathing. But when I dismounted round the corner from Capelletti Silks, I came upon a scene most unexpected. No one was working. The street in front of the factory—much rehabilitated since the fire—was crowded with Florentines. An entire bolt’s worth of twisted silk, black—in honor, I assumed, of the recent deaths in the family—was draped the whole length of the building.

It was a strange gathering, ceremonial in nature, though all those in attendance were, too, in black. Among the throng I found Capello and Simonetta Capelletti, grim and shrunk by their loss.The weavers, dyers, and spinners employed within were there, looking uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to another. Don Cosimo and Piero de’ Medici, and Piero’s new bride, Lucrezia, were just descending from a coach with Poggio Bracciolini.

Coming to greet them, oozing with deference and gratitude, was Jacopo Strozzi.

My first sight of him roused a fury in me, but I held myself steady, certain that for the ending I desired for him, my own cool head was necessary. I further assessed the scene before me.

On a table was displayed an official-looking contract, an inkpot and a quill, and a pair of giant-bladed scissors meant to cut the thick ribbon, signifying, I assumed, the legal commencement of the partnership of Capelletti and Strozzi.

With everyone of importance now in attendance, an obsequious Jacopo led Don Cosimo and Poggio forward and beckoned to Capello. Joylessly, he kissed his wife and joined the three men at the table.

Don Cosimo gazed at the assembled but was silent for a long moment. He was never a man at a loss for words, but this day it appeared he could not find a sentiment that pleased him.

“What a happy day this would have been,” he began in a sorrowful voice, “had our sister, daughter, friend”—he fixed Jacopo in his sight—“wife, Juliet, been here to celebrate with us. The joining of two families in commerce and matrimony is a wondrous thing.”

I saw Lucrezia’s expression, mournful to begin with, twist tight into fury.

“Some counseled against this occasion so soon after Juliet’s loss . . .”

Simonetta’s face revealed that she had been one of those counselors.

“... but Jacopo believed that his bride-to-be would have wished for the contract to be promptly signed and the partnership legally sealed. Therefore, with heavy heart I stand as witness, and Poggio Bracciolini—Notary of the Republic—will officiate the joining of Capello Capelletti and Jacopo Strozzi in their mercantile enterprise.”

Cosimo stood aside as one and then the other man took up the quill and signed the document, followed by Poggio adding his signature below theirs.

Jacopo held out the great scissors to Don Cosimo, gesturing for him to cut the silk draping, but the Medici had come to his limit of celebration, and demurred. So, too, did Capello, who went back to stand with Simonetta and hold her hand.

But this important moment was not one that Jacopo was willing to sacrifice. With no hesitation he took up the shears himself, and with the long blades cut the twisted fabric in two.

The pieces fell fluttering away, revealing the office’s revitalized facade and Maestro Donatello’s grand new sign proclaiming CAPELLETTI AND STROZZI SILKS AND WOOLS. There was modest applause, befitting the somber occasion, but from where I stood, I—and only I—could see the expression on Jacopo’s face.

It lacked any shred of sadness for Juliet’s death, remorse for the cold-blooded murder of Marco or the butchery of my uncles’ entire household. Indeed, it was triumphant, even joyful.

I could stand no more.

I flew from my hiding place into the center of the gathering like a well-aimed arrow, shot straight and true at Jacopo Strozzi.

We collided and fell to the ground together, rolling over and over on the cobbles, I pummeling him with my fists and he repelling my blows, landing several of his own. But my rage empowered me to such an extent that in moments my fingers had tightened around his throat, and his face had begun bulging a purplish blue.

A sharp knee to my groin sent shards of pain ripping through me, and I sprawled backward. Jacopo skittered away like a crab, calling hoarsely to the dumbfounded onlookers, “Will you not help me?! This is Marco’s murderer, Romeo! Exiled on pain of death! Will someone come to my aid?!”

All at once the brawniest of the weavers and dyers came rushing at me, grabbing me, several holding my arms outstretched, another gripping my head in an elbow vise. Blows began to rain upon my face and chest and back till taking a breath was hardly possible.

Jacopo regained his feet and some semblance of dignity, and now, brandishing his stiletto, he came forward to where I stood. If I did not speak and speak quickly, my life would soon end in the place, and by the same method and man that Marco’s had.

Remembering the sights of my uncles’ dining room, I found strength within me and shouted, “Good, kill me, Jacopo! That is what you wished to do from the first moment you saw me!”

Capello strode forward, confounded by my words. The knife was poised inches from my eye.

“The Devil speaks through him,” Jacopo snarled. “Let me put an end to it.”

“Like your henchmen put an end to my uncles in Verona? And their servants? And their dogs?”

Now Don Cosimo moved to my side and, with him, Lucrezia, her eyes flashing angrily.

“What does he mean, Jacopo?” Don Cosimo demanded.

“Tell them,” I said. “Tell them whose blood it is I wear on my doublet.”

“He lies,” said Jacopo. “He’ll say whatever he will to save himself.”

“No.”

The word was simply spoken, but everyone turned to attend Lucrezia.

“He does not lie,” she said quietly, but with great authority. “He does not murder.” She paused, to great effect, and said, “Jacopo Strozzi does. He set fire to your factory, Signor Capelletti. And he pushed Marco onto Romeo’s blade.”

Jacopo’s laugh was high and shrill. “What is this?” He glared at Lucrezia. “How dare you speak to me so?”

She remained composed and held his eye with unnerving calm. “I speak it as the whole truth.You are a despicable creature, Jacopo Strozzi. My dearest friend, Juliet, risked a suicide’s hell rather than a marriage to you.”

I saw Simonetta’s knees buckle at these words. Nothing drew more shame to a family than suicide.

Jacopo faced Don Cosimo. “I say again, would you take the word of any woman over that of a man—and a pillar of Florentine society at that?”

“Perhaps not,” said Don Cosimo mildly. He paused, as if to consider the choice.

Jacopo’s lips bowed into a slow smile.

“But,” Don Cosimo continued, choosing his words carefully, “Lucrezia is not ‘any’ woman.” Now his face hardened and he glared at Strozzi. “She is a Medici, and her word is her honor.” Don Cosimo gestured to the factory workers. “Disarm him and take him away—the Signoria Prison. They will deal with him presently.”