O, Juliet (5 page)

Romeo fixed me with a blank gaze.

“
You
wrote that?”

“I did. What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why do you stand there like a stag just struck by an arrow?”

“Women . . . ,” he began, but could not finish.

“Women do not write poetry?” I finished for him. I bristled, insulted, and started turning away.

“No, please, Juliet!”

He grasped my hand in both of his, not unaware of his presumptuousness. I could not deny that despite my strong words, his touch had, alarmingly, turned me soft inside. Yielding.

“Forgive me. I have never known a woman poet. The verse was . . . brilliant. And the verse was
yours
.”

“Brilliant?”

“I thought it so. Dante, were he here in this garden, would agree.”

I gently released myself from his grip, aware that pulling away was what I wished least to do. “You teased me before,” I said, surprised to hear my voice grow low and husky. “You tease me again.”

He shook his head. “Who has read your poems?”

“Only my friend Lucrezia.”

“Others should read your work.”

“Oh no.That would cause a world of unhappiness.” I fell silent, suddenly miserable. “My future husband would never approve.”

Romeo’s features crumpled, and a certain light faded from his eyes. I understood his disappointment.

As much from my own anger at the Fates as his, I lashed out at him with as much sense as a hedgehog. “What, did you not expect a woman of my age to be betrothed? Do I look like a spinster to you? Am I so hideous?”

He was amused at my intemperance, refusing—like a stubborn fish—to take my bait.

“Ah, I see.You test me,” he said. “You wish me to versify on the subject of your beauty.”

“That was not my intention,” I insisted. He nevertheless said:

I smiled at the well-chosen lines of our favorite poet.

“Ah, she is mollified.”

“Not entirely,” I said, enjoying the game. “I require one of yours.”

“On the spur of the moment?”

“Well, certainly you’ve written of other ladies’ beauty.”

He was very quiet and displayed a look of bafflement.

“Come, a winsome young bachelor like yourself . . .”

“I am not a bachelor. I’m a scholar, only recently come from—”

“Padua, I know. But you have written of love—your heart ‘the size of the sun.’ Is beauty so hard?”

A slow smile bowed his lips and his eyes swept over my face.

“No, my lady, not when the beauty is that of an angel.”

I was growing keenly aware of the sensations this man’s near presence was having on my body. I strove to remain serene.

He continued slowly, as the words flowed into his head.

“I am more than satisfied,” I said, deeply impressed with his agility and flattered by the sentiment.

“But I am not.” He looked unhappy. “Who is your betrothed?”

“My ‘nearly betrothed’ is Jacopo Strozzi.”

Romeo’s face paled.

“Do you know him?”

“I know of him.”

“
What
do you know of him?”

My young courtier was growing more uneasy by the moment, the magic vapors surrounding us suddenly evaporating.

“What is it?” I asked.

He remained stubbornly silent.

“I have been honest with you, sir.You must do me the honor likewise. What do you know of Jacopo Strozzi?”

“That he will soon be partners with an enemy of my father.”

A sharp breath escaped me. “That enemy’s name is Capelletti,” I whispered.

“It is. How do you know this?”

“My father is Capello Capelletti.” I found myself anguished at speaking the next words. “Our families are at war with one another.”

He turned where he stood but did not walk away. I could see his body trembling. My own felt suddenly weak.

“What are you doing in this house?” My voice was urgent. “The Medici bear no more love for the Monticecco than do the Capelletti.”

“I came to change that,” Romeo said, turning back to me. “These are ancient rivalries, and Don Cosimo is a reasonable man. He claims to want peace in Florence. I sought an audience with him. I was too late to see him before the ball, but I will speak to him before the night is over.”

“Ah, Romeo . . .” Now it was I at a loss for words. I was a girl with knowledge of my father’s business with this family. I was not a traitor, yet I felt compelled to say: “Are you so sure this feud is ancient?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you know of a sunken cargo ship?”

“Nothing.”

I could say no more. “I must go.”

“No, wait.”

He took my arm in a desperate grip. I looked down at his hand, square and strong, and wished my poem alive—
Oh, that Romeo held my face tender in his palm
—but I pulled from his grasp, refusing to meet his eye.

Lifting my skirts, I ran from the garden. The palazzo vestibule felt small and stuffy, its pale green marble suddenly sinister in the torchlight. I hurried up the stairs to the ballroom, rearranging my face to hide the chaos of feeling and lies.

And not a moment too soon.

My father reared up before me like a jagged mountain peak.

“Where have you been!” he demanded, having to shout above the music and the mass of people dancing.

“I’m sorry, Papa, I felt ill. I went to the garden for a breath of air. I’m better now.”

His eyes were in line with the doorway and I thought suddenly that Romeo might enter just behind me—a dangerous coincidence. I took my father’s arm and brought him around, facing away from the door, then turned on my girlish charms, those he had always delighted in, in my younger years.

“Did you dance with Mama?” I asked, smiling up at him. “You know how she loves a
saltarello
.”

“No,” he growled, unamused, “I was too busy consoling Signor Strozzi, who was unable to find my daughter.”

“Well, he mustn’t have tried very hard,” I answered with a flash of peevishness. “Perhaps a single flight of stairs was too hard on his poor old bandy legs.”

“Juliet!” Papa swung me around to face him. His expression was as red and ragged as it had been while he’d talked of his sabotaged business. He did not seem to care that people were staring.

But then neither did I.

His voice was low and threatening. “I am taking you to speak with your betrothed.”

“He is not my betrothed
yet
,” was my rebellious retort.

I thought my father’s face might explode with his fury, but now he was aware of the scene he was creating in the Medici ballroom, and he reined himself in. His voice remained threatening.

“We will speak of your unruliness later. But now you will begin comporting yourself like the noblewoman you seem to have forgotten you are, and you will make your apologies to Signor Strozzi for your absence. Then you will satisfy him that he has chosen for himself a proper Florentine wife and not some wild, willful child that will bring him nothing but ill fortune in his life. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Papa.”

As he pulled me around the dance floor’s perimeter, I heard him muttering, “This is your mother’s fault.... Too permissive . . . the price of educating a girl . . .”

I smiled to myself.
Too late. Knowledge is inside me. It cannot be unlearned.

Then I was standing before Jacopo Strozzi. He was not, as my father had indicated, waiting with bated breath to see me. Clearly he was straining to hear a conversation being carried on by two bankers nearby about the papal curia’s treasury deficit.

“She was dizzy,” my father told Jacopo. “Needed some air. Please excuse me.” He disappeared into the crowd.

“Good evening, signorina,” Jacopo said, hard-pressed to tear himself away from the financial gossip. He forced himself, however, and bowed to me with great formality.

“Good evening, signor,” I answered in kind, and curtsied perfunctorily.

“You’re looking lovely this evening.”

“Thank you.”

Suddenly he stiffened so sharply at the sight of something behind me that I turned to see what had alarmed him. It was his mother, her eyes fixed on the pair of us with such blatant interest that even I grew uncomfortable. I turned back to Jacopo, taking pity on the poor man.

“A beautiful evening,” I said, striving for levity. “The night air was cool. It cleared my head.”

“Why did it need clearing?” he asked, forcing himself to recover from the embarrassment.

“Three dances without stopping. I was overheated.” I looked down at my gown. “The brocade is a bit heavy.”

I caught him staring at my chest and imagined him enchanted with my bosom. But his next words disabused me of the thought.

“That is a rare weave,” he said of my dusty rose bodice. “The warp, I would say, is the pink, the woof a soft gray, or perhaps tawny.” He seemed to be warming to his subject, his mother forgotten. “Whichever, the effect is soft and elegant.” He fixed me with one of his ghastly smiles. “You wear it well, my lady.”

“How kind of you to say so,” I replied. I searched for any reasonable conversation. “Are brocades your specialty?” I seemed to remember my father had decided to bring the man into his textile business for some talent or another.

But Jacopo’s concentration had been drawn elsewhere, as the pair nearby who discussed the curia’s holdings mentioned an astonishingly large sum of money.

“And you were saying? Signor Strozzi,” I prodded him, annoyed at how tenuous was my hold on the attentions of my future husband.

“I was saying . . . ?” He became flustered with his complete lapse in memory of our conversation.

“Brocades are your specialty?” I prompted.

“Brocades and wool,” he said, composing himself. “Many find wool a dull cloth, but I find it exciting.” He spoke the last word with little conviction, but in fact a dull gleam had come into Jacopo’s eyes. “It is all in the sheep, you see. . . .”

Just then I saw Romeo enter the room. I struggled to hold my attention on Signor Strozzi, who was now droning on about the grazing habits of English ewes, while I followed the movements of my lithe and handsome young poet as he wove singlemindedly through the crowd toward Cosimo de’ Medici.

“Have you noticed that? Lady Juliet?”

“Oh, ah . . . so sorry. Have I noticed . . . ?”

“That English wool is softer, less scratchy on the skin?”

“You know, I have actually. I own a wine-colored wool gown that feels as smooth as silk.”

“My point exactly,” he said with what, in this gentleman, must pass for delight. “If you show me that dress, I will be able to tell you the very county in which those sheep grazed.”

“Really?” I coughed, covering my mouth, so I could turn away from Jacopo, for Romeo was now standing by Don Cosimo’s side, waiting patiently while he spoke to his wife, Contessina. Then she moved away. I coughed again. “Signor Strozzi,” I said in a weak voice, “would you be so kind as to pat me on the back?”

“Of course, of course,” he said, and complied, though I noticed he took the opportunity to lean in the direction of the two men discussing the pope’s finances.

Romeo had succeeded in gaining Don Cosimo’s attention. From the Medici’s expression I could see his young petitioner had wasted no time getting to his point. The older man’s look was grave, but he was nodding his head as Romeo spoke, passion animating his face, his hands—those beautiful hands—expressively slicing and chopping the air before him.

“A few more pats and I will be fine,” I said to Jacopo, who was as distracted as I.

Now Don Cosimo was speaking to Romeo, who listened with rapt attention to every syllable uttered. He looked as though he wished to reply, but Cosimo’s monologue had become a lecture—one that was, in fact, growing louder so that even across the room, with music still playing, I heard several fragments—“ancient hatreds” and “unlikely reconciliation.”

The two had attracted attention to themselves, and now I saw a group of young men pointing to Romeo. A snarling face. A fist raised. He had been recognized—Daniel in the lion’s den!

Commotion ensued and as the room erupted, I used the diversion to slip away from Jacopo’s ministrations. Romeo was making for the double doors, a gang of noble thugs gaining on him. I darted in from the other side, coming face-to-face with him for the briefest moment—long enough for him to revel in my need to see him.

His smile was brilliant. “The cathedral, noon on Wednesday,” he said, then darted away and down the marble stairs.

I planted myself square in the middle of the doorway with an innocent smile on my face. The toughs were forced to stop short to keep from knocking me down. I cried out, as if terrified by the sight of them bearing down on me. They moved to the right and I feinted right. They tried the left and I, with a girlish giggle, moved left, guileless and confused.

By now Romeo had certainly made the street. I curtsied prettily and let the frustrated ruffians pass, satisfied with my impromptu performance.

I sidestepped to a window overlooking the street to claim one more vision of this daring soul, but was greeted by nothing more than sight of his pursuers bursting from the front door and running out into the empty, torchlit street, with futile looks this way and that.