Queen Mab (13 page)

Mercutio drew Romeo and the nurse close together. "I shall leave you to your discourse.  Who am I to inhibit the unfolding of affection which burns so bright between you?  Romeo, shall I see you at your father's home for dinner?"

Romeo practically pushed him on his way.  "I shall see you later, my friend."

As Mercutio and Benvolio left the square, the nurse asked, "Who was that man?"

"A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month," replied Romeo.

Mab followed Mercutio and Benvolio and the nurse's prattle faded into the gentle hum of the city.  As they strolled, Mercutio yawned. 

Benvolio asked, "Tired yet, in the middle of the morning?  Did you not come home apace?  Or did you find some other cunning distraction which kept you out of bed?"

"Aye," said Mercutio.  "The sweetest distraction that a man can have, but I'm afraid it was all a dream."

"No lady fair scooped you up and asked you to make the dance?"

"When I left thee... it is strange that I cannot remember traveling home.  It was as if I found the doorway to another world..."

"The drink did play tricks with your mind."

"Indeed, indeed, there is no other reason or rhyme." He smile. "Yet, if such dreams were true, I would ask never to wake, and would enjoy swimming in the sweetness of their taste."

"And what did you dream upon?"

"A woman.  Who else?  But an otherworldly beauty, either an angel without wings or a devil sent to ensnare me.  Either case, she trapped me true."

"Ah, but to have such dreams."

"Indeed, especially when the waking brings no peace."

"No peace?  And here I brought such pleasant company."

"Benvolio, the clanging in your ears and turning of your stomach has turned your face green and not with envy for last night's sport. Still," said Mercutio, gripping his friend's arm, "it is good to have company.  I have a strange foreboding about this day, an unnatural disquiet, and I am glad of your friendship."

"Do you still fret over the letter from Tybalt?  Do you yearn for a love note from his courtly hand?"

"You have found me out, good Benvolio!  Too long has he looked longingly upon my friends with never a glance towards me.  I am jealous of his roving eye.  The depths of your perception do you justice, my man.  When you tire of the courts of Verona, we should set you up telling fortunes in a gypsy camp to blushing maids who know not their hearts.  Or perhaps as Ambassador to France!"

"Here, let me buy you a drink and toast to your broken heart."

"Much more like to your broken head."

"Head or heart, no matter, the drink will cure them both."

Benvolio motioned to a seller, but Mercutio stopped as if torn.  "We should go to my kinsman, Prince Escales, to make a report of Tybalt's threat.  If only we had knowledge, not conjecture, of the contents inside.  Such strangeness to this day!  You would not solicit more than an understanding 'Indeed' if you were to tell me the heavens had switched the hours and ghosts walked at noon and midnight was the most mundane portion of the day."

"Fie!  It is but the strangeness of some lingering dream, seeing enemies in the shadows when there are none.  Let me buy you that drink and see if your disquietude stays."

Mercutio stood, torn between actions and then smiled.  "I am a man of science, and if spirits may dispel this spirit, I am willing to put the hypothesis to the test."

"Come, my friend!  Let us go inside and see what bottled joys give us knowledge and insight to our days."

T
he afternoon heat had settled thickly, chasing away any cool happiness from the passing hours.  All that was left was to endure until the sun fell once more upon the west horizon and the air could move again.

Mab sat as silent sentry as time slipped by both Benvolio and Mercutio, now resting from their tavern trip and dipping their hands in the bubbling fountain in the center of the square.  She watched as observant as an artist who would later paint the scene from memory, capturing every movement with loving attention, the tilt of Mercutio's head, the turn of his cheek, etched as if an engraving in her mind.

So fixed was she, so enraptured with the life of her lover, that she did not see or hear the approach of cloven hooves.

"Why do you walk the day, you shade of evening's pleasure?" asked Faunus, looking at Mab as she clung to the shadows.

"I prithy, leave me be," she murmured.  "My business is none of yours."

"That is so strange," replied Faunus.  "For by the sun, I do believe that it is."

"I do not reflect your light today, Faunus.  I come not for politics or pandering.  Let me alone.  I have no power.  None can see me save you.  I kindly ask that you let me remain here, invisible, to rest in these visions of day."

"Kindly ask?  When have you not demanded and railed?  It is as if the world has stopped spinning upon its axis.  Tell me true and I shall consider your request — what inspired this change?"

She held no power here.  Faunus need only grab her arm and yank her into the sun to banish her away.  And so she confessed, "I orbit another star in the heavens."

"It is written in the sky that you and I shall spin around each other until time itself falls from exhaustion."

"No more," Mab replied, staring at the man whose gravitational pull had lifted her to another sun. "No more shall I play the part of moon to your heavenly body.  I shall not be your balance of dark to light."

"This is quite a different tune to come from the throat of such a familiar nightingale."

"I have learned a new song from a morning lark who chose to sing to me."

"I should like to meet this bird and see if we are of the same feather."

"I do swear his plumage is quite different from your own."

"Think he more handsome than I?"

"Indeed, without compare."

"Think he more witty than I?"

"His tongue has no match."

"Think he more clever than I?"

"His mind knows no equal."

"Unfortunately, yours is not on par," said Faunus.  "If so, you would know to hold your tongue, to whisper sweet flatteries to soothe my ego, bruised and injured.  Instead, you hurl stones to make the wounds deeper, and deeply wounded, I must return them to you in kind."

"There is no insult you can hurl at me, no crime you might commit against my person that would cause me harm," she said dismissively.  "You do not frighten me, old friend."

Faunus looked at the men now resting upon the steps.  "But I know what you want.  I know what you desire.  And I know that there is something afoot.  Whatever it is that you seek to create and defend, I shall dismantle piece by piece until nothing but rubble remains."

Mab stilled as he spoke, his words bringing back the chill to her heart which was once so warm.  "This does not concern you, Faunus."

"I am afraid if some creature is causing your eye to seek the politics of day, to roam the streets, lurking in the shadows where the sun cannot touch, it is indeed my duty to thwart your efforts.  You would return the kindness, I am sure, if I were to visit you at midnight and take a hand in the dreams you have spun."

"There are no dreams here, Faunus.  Only lives that must be lived."

"Life itself is but a dream."

"Dreams can sometimes seem more real than this existence of flesh and blood, but these in this square seek out the night for their dreams and spend their days in human toil.  None of which you see bears my touch.  I stand only as silent witness and am no more threat to your domain than the passing breeze."

"But the breeze may become a wind and tear up an orchard before the harvest fruit brought in.  The dreams that I create when their eyes are open, when they ruminate and spin on wealth and love are stronger than those images you lovingly plant when their eyes are closed and promise them the same gift," Faunus needled.  "Do you long for this power to rule in the day?"

"Nay, Faunus, for how often do those same people tire of the world you give them and yearn for the gentleness of my embrace, turning to me to heal their wounds and soothe away their worries so that each morning they awake feeling lighter and without care?" asked Mab.  "What more could I desire?  I come not today to challenge thee."

"Since when have you been interested in the effects your night visitations have on these mortals?  You and I both know you only draw them dreams to give your existence purpose."

"No, Faunus," she said, shaking her head, "that is no longer true.  It might have been when I was a young thing in the world, but no more.  My eyes have aged, I have aged, and no longer do I serve the master of self.  I see that love is a force and from the lowest child to the highest lady, they both cry themselves to sleep at its breaking until my darkness overcomes them.  It is only I who can heal their heart.  I have seen this now, and I shall do my duty to see it through to the end.  No more."

"You speak too much, again, Queen Mab," spoke Faunus.  "You may believe your actions are nothing but duty, nothing but tidying up the unpleasant day.  What I am afraid you do deny is that this is the beginning and only the fall will bring the end.  Even if you do not wish to see the events that shall soon unfold, it does not matter, for I shall hold your face and pry your eyes so that you may not look away.  You have shown me that you do not have the feet to march in this battle, so I shall out step you and see this tragedy to its end.  Whether 'tis the House of Montague or Capulet that shall emerge the victor matters not.  It is the game that keeps the days from growing too long.  It is the change of mortal players that gives flavor to our feast.  If you have lost the taste... why, it matters not to me, for I shall eat your helping in addition to my fill.  I shall sup upon the delicacies of passion and bloodshed.  I shall not rest until I have cracked the bones and sucked the marrow of their life."

Mab became very still as Faunus's words landed, the madness in his eyes filling her with dread.  "This does not have to be."

Faunus reached down and poured his energy into the square until the air around Mercutio shimmered hot and unbearable.  "We made a wager.  Two champions fueled with kindness to lead to the end of our bitter feud.  House-to-House and hand-to-hand, they shall.  And from this, you may rest happy in your victory, for I believe I shall let the House of Montague fall.  Losing this game to you, Mab, already tastes sweeter than even the dreams you plant."

"Willingly lose to me?  What sort of trick is this?" asked Mab in desperation. "It is no longer a wager when one decides not to play, for upon its breaking such promises become the wind and nothing more than words scattered into the silence."

"Nay, you are mistaken, Mab.  A wager is a contract, and no amount of protest may break its binding.  The House of Montague will fall just as you have always wanted, and the devastation of victory shall show you the error of your ways."

"I shall not play, Faunus!"

"A simple death, a brawl in the streets, that is how it all begins," said Faunus smiling and looking towards her love.  "Did you not see this in your basin?  I warned you to stay away.  By your very involvement, a careless word or two, you have played your part well, becoming the catalyst which shall cause all the death that you have just now grown to abhor."

"Forget the binding, Faunus.  Let them live."

"And why should I do that?" he asked.

"Because I am commanding you."

"That is not reason enough not to start."

"Because I am asking you."

"We are far beyond asking, my queen."

"Because I am begging," she whispered.

"Nay, queen, it is quite too late for that, too."

"Why are you doing this?"

"For sport," Faunus replied without a trace of a smile upon his face.

Oh, that her heart would harden into ice once more, she thought.  Oh, that she could forget the warmth that she had felt, that she could close her eyes to the light and love which she found upon the face of a simple human.  But there sat Mercutio beside his friend, relaxed in blissful ignorance.  The nearness of him was now was a chasm of a thousand leagues and he was so far beyond her warning touch.

"The summer sun is warm, enough to make the tempers of young men rise," said Faunus.  "So it begins."

Benvolio leaned over the fountain and dipped his kerchief in the water, dabbing it on the back of his neck.  "Good Mercutio, let us retire.  The day is hot, the Capulets are in the streets and if we meet, we shall not escape a brawl; for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."

Mab willed that good Mercutio might hear and heed Benvolio's words, that they might remind him of a promise made in her bed.  This tragedy might be sidestepped.  But Faunus smiled and with a wave of his hand, the heat of the day became even more oppressive.

Mercutio shook his head at Benvolio.  "You are like one of those fellows who enters a tavern and throws down his sword, swearing, 'I have no need of this!' and by the time he drinks his second cup, pulls his sword on the barkeeper for no reason at all."

"Am I like such a fellow?"

"Come, come, you are as hot a fellow in your moods as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved."

"And what to?"

"You will quarrel with a man who has a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard than you have.  You will quarrel with a man for cracking nuts for no other reason than because he has hazel eyes.  You have quarreled with a man for coughing in the street because he has awoken a dog who slept in the sun.  Did you not have a falling out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another for tying his new shoes with old ribbon? And yet you will tutor me to keep from quarrelling?  Ha!"

But their toothless spat was interrupted as the Capulet kinsman, Tybalt, came into the square.  His singular purpose made clear with his hand upon the hilt of his sword and the armed friends at his side.

"By my head, here come the Capulets," said Benvolio.

Mercutio leaned back and closed his eyes to the sun.  "By my heel, I care not."