Saving Juliet (16 page)

Troy waved the bowl away. "I'm not hungry," he moaned.

"What's this?" Friar Laurence set the soup aside and pressed his hand to Troy's forehead. "He is still feverish. Mimi, come and hold the candle while I check the wound." Troy didn't object this time, watching worriedly.

Clutching the candle, I almost gagged as the friar opened the tear in Troy's tights. The skin around the stitches blazed red. Pus oozed at the edges. I thought I might faint just looking at it. Some doctor I'd make.

"Oh my God!"
Troy exclaimed. "It's totally infected. I'm going to get gangrene."

I wouldn't wish gangrene on anyone, not even Troy. "Do you have any medicine?" I asked.

"The tainted blood should be cleansed. I'll fetch the leeches."

"No!" Troy cried. "Not the leeches!"

"My son, it is possible that the wound will heal and that your fever will pass. But without treatment there is also the possibility that your leg will blacken. The only remedy for a blackened leg is to cut it off."

Troy clenched his fists and his face turned beet red. A vein bulged in his neck. I thought he might stroke out at that very moment. "This is
all your
fault," he snarled. "You've infected me with your barbaric surgery. You're looking at a huge malpractice suit, buddy."

Threatening was not going to help. Something had to be done, but what? If we were in New York, we'd have antibiotic cream and sterile bandages. Then I thought about the cowboy movie where the old drunken doctor pours whiskey onto his patient's gunshot wound. "Friar, what's in that jug?" I pointed to the blue jug on his desk.

He looked sheepish.
"Just a bit of medicinal tea, for my aching knees."

I picked up the jug and smelled its contents. The alcohol fumes shot straight up my sinuses.
Some tea.
"Perfect," I said. "Troy, I think we can sterilize your wound. It's the only thing I can think of that might help."

"Sterilize?" the friar asked, rubbing his bald spot. "Is this something you do back in Manhattan?"

"Yes." My stomach turned queasy as I glanced at the glistening pus.

You can't even look at an accident scene,
my mother had said. You're
too sensitive.

I clenched my jaw. "I'm going to need boiling water. It must reach a full, rolling boil. Can you do that?"

The friar nodded. "I have a small oven and cooking pot out back. It will take some time, though, to get the fire started."

So we set to work. The wound was such a mess that I figured we should start all over and do it right. When the water was ready, I convinced the friar that we needed to wash our hands. I sterilized a knife and a tweezerlike tool. The friar was curious about the entire process and asked all sorts of questions. I told him about bacteria and he listened intently, fetching more water when I needed it. I cut the stitches. Then, using the sterilized tweezers, I pulled all twelve stitches free. Since there were no clean bandages, I cut the bottom half of my underskirt into strips. It was unbleached linen and since it had been stuffed under the velvet dress, it seemed fairly clean. I used these strips, soaked in hot water, to soften the scabs and clean away the pus, reopening the wound. Troy kept wincing but kept very still. This wasn't rocket science, obviously. Everyone knows how to clean a wound, though I had never cleaned one as deep as that. I became
very
focused. The friar watched my every move. It didn't seem disgusting as I got caught up in the process. "This is going to hurt," I told Troy when I picked up the jug. He nodded and clenched his entire body as I poured the alcohol onto the wound.

Having never stitched anything, I turned this part over to Friar Laurence, but only after sterilizing his needle and thread. Troy gulped down some of what was left in the jug, which I later learned is called grappa, an intense alcoholic drink made from grapes. He pressed his head into the pillow and groaned each time the needle pierced his tender skin. I took his hand and held it. He almost squeezed my fingers off.

Finally, it was over. I dried the wound and tied the rest of the linen strips over it. "Hopefully that will buy us some time," I told him.

"Thank you," he said, smiling weakly. "Have you ever considered becoming a doctor?"

I returned the smile. Maybe Dissection 101 wouldn't be so bad after all. "It's the least I could do," I said. "I'd probably be dead if you hadn't saved me from Tybalt." Candlelight reflected in his green eyes. Reddish stubble sandpapered his square jaw. I sighed. "You wouldn't even be in this mess if I had just handed my mother the necklace."

Troy drifted back to sleep.
Friar Laurence and I shared the rest of the bread. It was chewy, with seeds sprinkled throughout. My letter lay on the desk. "Friar, I wrote a letter for Juliet Capulet. If anything happens to me, or if I suddenly disappear, will you make certain that she gets it?"

"Of course, my child.
But why would you disappear?"

"That charm I mentioned, I think it brought me here. I think it's magic. Do you believe in magic?"

"What you call magic, I call divine intervention. So yes, I believe." He wiped crumbs from the front of his robe. "I am a man of faith, Mimi. I struggle with the impossible every day. When I first saw you standing in the square, I knew you had come from someplace else. And all your talk about medicine convinced me further." He chuckled. "And I listen to confession every Sunday. You'd be amazed by some of the
impossible
things I hear."

I decided to make my own confession. "Friar, Juliet is supposed to fall in love with Romeo. They are part of a story that a man named William Shakespeare wrote, but their love is doomed from the start because of the feud."

"Ah, the feud."
He frowned and shook his head. "It is a plague on this city."

"Why are they feuding?" I asked. Shakespeare never explains that in his play.

Friar Laurence stroked his cross. "It's no secret, so I shall tell you the tale." He sat back in his chair and rested his hands on his belly. "Lady Capulet was born Veronique Valdiza, a member of a wealthy, merchant-class family. But they were not nobles and her father desired a title of nobility more than anything else. Just before Veronique turned thirteen, she attended her first formal ball, where she met a bachelor by the name of Alfonso Montague, heir to a titled Verona family. He was none other than Romeo's future father. And, as you may have guessed, she fell passionately in love with him."

Lady Capulet, in love with a Montague?
This was just like my second cousin Greg's soap opera.

Friar Laurence continued. "Though Alfonso Montague was beyond her class, Veronique wanted to be his wife and her father wanted his daughter titled.
So Valdiza tried to entice a proposal of marriage by offering half his Venetian fleet to the Montagues, but only if Alfonso married his daughter.
The Montagues would not agree to marry their only son to a merchant's daughter. They made this proclamation while standing on the church steps, for all the eavesdroppers and gossips to hear.

"The Valdiza family was shamed and Veronique was heartbroken. People whispered when she passed by and pointed fingers at her in church. They said she did not deserve a titled marriage. They said that she should never have dared to rise above her station. She refused to eat, refused to leave her house. She began to waste away. Her father almost went crazy with worry because he truly loved his only daughter. Fortunately, word of the generous offer spread so it wasn't long before other suitors came calling and one of them had a noble title
--
a Capulet title. Hoping to save his daughter's reputation, Valdiza agreed to the marriage on one condition: For Veronique's hand and access to half of Valdiza's fleet, this man would seek revenge, forever more, on the Montagues. All was agreed and Veronique married Lord Capulet."

"Did she want to marry him?" I asked.

"I cannot say. Her father arranged the marriage. Initially, Alfonso Montague felt no hatred toward the Capulet family, but as the years passed and the Capulets continued to attack his men and vilify his name, his heart began to rage and he, in turn, vowed to seek revenge on all Capulets. While the feud thrives, many have forgotten the cause. But Lady Capulet has not forgotten."

Even those who appear evil and wretched have feelings hidden beneath their powdered skin. Lady Capulet had loved and had lost, badly. She had been humiliated and her desire for revenge had blinded her.

"Who goes there?" Friar Laurence called out. Troy's eyes flew open and he sat up. Someone was coming up the stairs.

I turned toward the doorway as a small, robed figure entered. Troy hurled himself from the cot, grabbing the surgical knife from the bedside table.

The front of the figure's robe bore a golden Capulet crest.

***

"
The miserable have no other medicine but only hope."

F
riar, i need your help." The visitor lowered her hood.
L
"Juliet," I said, overjoyed to see her.

The friar eased the knife from Troy's outstretched hand. "You won't need that, my son. She is a friend."

Juliet's mask of desperation melted into a smile. "Mimi!" She rushed to me and squeezed the air out of me with an ecstatic hug. A hint of onion still lingered on her skin. "Tybalt returned this morning and said that you were still in Verona, cavorting with Montagues. Mother ordered Tybalt to find you and to arrest you for disobeying the exile and for stealing a dress. I am so sorry. I fear this is all my doing."

"It's not your doing," I assured her, trying not to focus on the fact that I was a fugitive. Did they put up wanted posters in the sixteenth century? "How are you? What happened after I left? Did your father beat you?" I was happy to see that there was no sign of her mother's slaps. Except for dark circles beneath her eyes, her face looked as cute as ever.

She shook her head. "He told me that he would not mar my body since the wedding night was fast approaching. He was afraid that Paris would refuse me if I had whipping scars." That statement sickened me. Her body was a mere possession to be handed over to a new owner. "But he locked me in my room. No one but Nurse is allowed to see me until tomorrow. I told Nurse that I was taking to bed early. Then I climbed down the balcony and ran here to seek the friar's help."

"My child," the friar said. "Disobeying your father is a sin."

"Is it not a sin to sell your daughter to the highest bidder?" Juliet
asked,
her voice desperate. "I overheard them. Father is almost bankrupt and my marriage is his way out of debt. And Paris has promised Tybalt a titled position in the royal guard once we are married. I am to finance my family's future with my body and soul. Is that God's
will, that
I should marry a man I despise?"

Friar Laurence wrung his hands and frowned. "The Fourth Commandment is to honor thy father and mother.
That
is God's will." He scratched his overgrown ears. "Yet I have sat in the confessional with your future husband on many occasions. While I can't divulge the confessions themselves, I can say that they were of a most
inappropriate nature.
It is clear, in my heart, that the two of you are not a good match. But your parents ..."

"Forget them," Troy said, returning to the cot. "If you don't want to marry the guy, then don't marry him."

"It's not that simple," Friar Laurence explained. "If Juliet were to refuse a marriage that her parents had arranged, the Capulet name would suffer. Great shame would befall the family."

"I do not wish to bring dishonor to my family," Juliet said.

"And, if Juliet refused the marriage," the friar added, "she would be breaking the law of Verona."

"So?" Troy said.

"So, my son, she would be imprisoned, perhaps even put to death."

"Put to death?" Troy folded his arms. "That's the stupidest law I've ever heard of. What kind of people would put a girl to death? In my country, we barely even put murderers to death, and I'm talking about those scum-of-the-earth serial killers who slaughter prostitutes and drug addicts. Most of them get to spend the rest of their lives in a comfortable cell with free health care and television. What kind of place is this anyway where girls get put to death?"

Juliet took a hesitant step toward Troy, looking at him the way a child looks at a new toy. "I've never heard a man speak in such a manner. Who are you?"

"I'm ..."

"That's Troy," I said, stepping between them. The less Golden Boy said the better. "He's from Manhattan, just like me. And yes, he's a Montague, but we don't have the whole feud thing in Manhattan."

She stepped around me. "Do you really believe it's a stupid law?"

"Of course."

Juliet smiled,
then
sighed.
Then smiled again.
Uh oh.
I knew that dazed expression. And Troy knew it, too, because women bestowed it upon him constantly. "You're so nice," Juliet said, stepping closer. "Did you get that wound in bat-tie? Does it hurt much? Are you an actor, too?" She moved closer still. "Do you have any interest in marriage?"

Troy raised an eyebrow and stepped away. "Mimi?" he said between clenched teeth.