O, Juliet Read online

  I had no knowledge of Romeo’s plan, indeed no promise of his coming. If he did come, would he find me? If found . . . what then? All I knew was a heart thumping insistently in my breast, my senses afire, and memory of a strong, warm hand clutching my own.

  Now came Friar Bartolomo before the altar, with tonsured head and humble in his rough brown robe. “Welcome, all,” he began with a broad smile.

  The crowd replied in kind with friendly, familiar ease. I thought it strange, a man of God in the Lord’s House, more kindly tutor than priest.

  “As I told you when we last met, we would today diverge from our usual travels.” He went on in a playfully tremulous voice.

  “We have spent many tortured weeks in all the circles of Dante’s hell.”

  This caused the audience to laugh with delight.

  “So we shall climb up from the bowels of the earth to the maestro’s other masterwork, Vita Nuova.”

  I think my jaw dropped then, for there was no doubt that Romeo had known this day’s agenda. Known it would please me no end.

  A perfect invitation.

  I chanced a look around for him but saw only a sea of faces smiling with anticipation. I craned my neck the other way and found myself caught in Lucrezia’s stare.

  “Looking for someone?” she said. That tone of suspicion again.

  “Before you settle into complacency,” the friar continued, saving me from another lie to my friend, “before you feel yourself freed entirely from darkness and pain, let me tell you the subject of our explorations this day.” He opened a small volume I took to be Vita Nuova, turning to a page marked with a ribbon. “The subject is death.”

  The jovial murmurings of the crowd were silenced as all attended the cleric’s words.

  “Have we not—every one of us—suffered at the cruel hand of the Reaper?”

  There were numerous utterings from the assembled, agreement and consensus.

  “Dante, himself, suffered a most wrenching loss with the death of his Beatrice. The poet wrote”—the friar read now—“‘So much grief had become the destroyer of my soul.’ He was a man who,” he quoted, “ ‘died a death of tears.’ ”

  The gentleman beside me nodded with deep understanding.

  “He was so bereft he became ‘jealous of whosoever dies,’” Bartolomo went on. “And yet, my friends, Dante Alighieri, torn apart by grief, gave us instruction in graceful acceptance of loss. In the depths of his misery he writes of seeing Beatrice’s ladies covering her head with a white veil and it seemed that his deceased lover’s face was—listen to these words—‘so filled with joyous acceptance that it said to me: I am contemplating the fountainhead of peace.’” Friar Bartolomo looked up and smiled beatifically at his students.“Death is a ‘fountainhead of peace.’ Can we not all take comfort in that image?”

  From everywhere I heard men calling, “Yes, yes.”

  The teacher found another ribboned page. “His Beatrice, he said, ‘has ascended to high heaven into a realm where angels live in peace.’”

  A long sigh was heard behind me.

  “ ‘Her tender soul, perfectly filled with grace, now lives with glory in a worthy place.”

  A man in front of me put his face in his hands and wept unabashedly.

  Bartolomo went on.

  The pleasure of her beauty,

  having removed itself from mortal sight,

  was transformed into beauty of the soul

  spreading throughout the heavens....

  He looked up. “ ‘This lady had become a citizen of eternal life.’”

  Suddenly a voice from the choir rail a few feet before me called out, “Good friar, why of all his subjects in a book Dante titled New Life do you choose to speak only of a lady’s death?”

  My heart leapt nearly from my chest.

  It was Romeo.

  That deep, melodious voice had come to be familiar to me in one short meeting. I twisted sharply to see him, but then many did the same, for they wished to know the face of the man who spoke out so boldly in the friar’s symposium.

  And there he was! My Romeo dressed in a short blue tunic with wide flowing sleeves.

  “Why not speak of love?” he persisted. “‘Joyous love.’ What our maestro called ‘the very summit of bliss.’ ”

  “Only because, young sir,” the friar answered mildly, “my chosen topic was death.”

  “But perhaps the good people of Florence have had enough of death. They might prefer a happier topic.” Romeo looked around at the assembled.

  Everyone was silent, unused—it appeared—to one of their ranks defying their teacher.

  “Are there none here that are”—and Romeo quoted—“‘utterly consumed for the sake of a lady’? Who ‘travel on the road of love’?”

  I felt a gush of words unbidden, yet unstoppable, burst from my throat. “Here is one ‘on the road of sighs’ who is calling, ‘Love, help your faithful one’! ”

  Romeo turned to find me. He was beaming and triumphant. Our eyes met and held.

  A horrified Lucrezia whispered, “Juliet . . .”

  But now the congregation, shocked that a young, unmarried lady was here and, even more so, that the lady had spoken and knew Dante so well, was all agog. Excitement rippled the room. And grumbling, too.

  But I had grown very bold and asked the friar, “Did not Dante write in the vernacular so his words might be understood by ladies who found Latin verses difficult to comprehend?”

  “Yes, that is true,” Bartolomo said.

  But this audience of men was not at all happy. They began to talk loudly among themselves.

  “Let her speak!” Romeo cried.

  The place reluctantly quieted.

  My mouth was dry cotton, but I rose to the occasion. “‘I have a vision of love . . . ,’” I recited, my voice echoing grandly in the cavernous chamber, “‘ . . . a miracle too rich and strange to behold.’”

  “ ‘Here in my unbearable bliss . . . ,’” Romeo shouted in exultant reply, “ ‘ . . . all my thoughts are telling me of love!’ ”

  Someone cried, “Go on, go on!”

  “ ‘Whenever and wherever she appears,’ ” he spoke in a voice filled with wonder, “ ‘in anticipation of her marvelous greeting, I hold no man my enemy.’ ”

  The place rumbled with agreement of that sentiment. Love did make a heart more peaceful.

  All fear fled my soul and now in the midst of hundreds I spoke with Dante’s words, but only to Romeo. “‘Love’s power is insane’!”

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “Brava! Bravo!” someone called. Then other voices of approbation joined them.

  “Good people,” called the friar. “Good people, attend me!”

  Everyone quieted.

  “I can see that the topic of love makes many hearts race. But take pity on a poor old man who has prepared his lecture on a somewhat more grim note, but one most worthy of discussion. Perhaps next week we will take up the subject of Dante and Beatrice’s romance. But for now . . .”

  We did return to Friar Bartolomo’s chosen theme, and for the rest of the afternoon Romeo and I remained silent and respectful. As the talk was of Vita Nuova, it was infinitely pleasurable, and I learned many things that I had not, in my solitary study of it, observed before.

  So engrossed had I become that when the session ended, I had not noticed Romeo’s departure from his place at the choir rail. I looked all around for him as we made for the cathedral door, but found no one but my cousin Marco.

  He fixed me with an impish grin. “You kept your love of Dante, and Dante’s love, very quiet, cousin. I never knew.”

  I kissed him on both cheeks.

  “But did you know your sparring partner was that interloper we chased from Don Cosimo’s ball? A Monticecco?”

  “Was he?” I said, pretending ignorance. “You must not have caught him, for he seemed unscathed.”

  “If he comes close to any of us again, I promise you he will be ver
y scathed.” He eyed my high-necked gown. “Who is dressing you these days? The Sisters of Mercy? My aunt must believe you’re in danger of becoming a fallen woman.”

  Marco was too close to the truth for comfort.

  “I have to find Lucrezia,” I said, and left him. Making my way through the crush, I was suddenly, delightfully confronted by Romeo, his gaze warm and enveloping.

  “You are magnificent,” he said, and without flourish slipped something into my hand. I briefly looked down, only to find, when I had lifted my eyes again, that he had disappeared into the crowd.

  It was a rolled paper I now held in my hand, which I surreptitiously and quickly unfurled. Its written title was “Dante’s God of Love,” and the well-drawn sketch of colored chalks above it showed the virile, handsome God of Love holding in his arms a woman, naked except for a filmy red robe trailing to the ground.

  I quickly rerolled it and tucked this most subversive drawing into my sleeve before hurrying after Lucrezia, all the while my heart threatening to burst the confines of my breast.

  Romeo

  Indeed, Juliet had been magnificent. Like no other woman I had ever had chance to know. I stood, invisible at the cathedral door, rendered still and stunned by the memory of this great lady’s being.

  She had proven bold at the Medici ball, conversing unabashedly and alone in the garden for far longer than was seemly, and then cleverly held off those ruffians at the door. As I’d ridden away, my pursuers shouting curses after me, the clatter of furious hooves on empty cobble streets, the cool wind stinging my flushed cheeks, the feel of racing blood and tensed sinews that had powered my dangerous escape, all fell away. Sounds grew muted.Vision blurred. My mind stilled even as I crossed the river and my mount took us up into the southern hills.

  This girl I had met, this woman, daughter of my enemy—Juliet—it was memory of her in the Medici courtyard that had silenced the city sounds, disappeared the world around me, rendered me empty, yet filled to overflowing. Blissful and terror-struck all at once.

  Juliet. Those eyes that had steady held my gaze, never shy, never downcast. Unflinching. The curve of her rosy lips as she spoke, no bantered—audacious as a university boy. Her throat, long and pale in the moonlight. The round pillows of her breasts that heaved so gently as she laughed.

  I had known girls before. Some beautiful. Some plain. But all ordinary. They simpered. They giggled. They failed to excite. But this Juliet, standing there so bold in that garden, was infinitely thrilling, brighter than the brightest star in the blackness of heaven.

  Then I remembered my own stars. The woman they’d foretold for me. Is it possible? This, my family’s enemy, my wife-to-be? All of a sudden like a dam bursting, blood came rushing through my veins in a great torrent, roaring in my ears. Juliet, my fated one.

  Then in a mysterious passage of time I was home, my horse groomed and stabled for the night. I had walked through the door, my mother smiling a welcome, her long hair loose about the shoulders of her night shift. The sight of her shocked me. She was the only woman I had, in my life, ever loved.

  “Mama,” I’d whispered and kissed her cheeks, blushing behind her sight, strangely mortified. Am I worthy of Juliet, I wondered, worthy as my father was of my mother?

  Now as I stood in the shadow of the cathedral door I recalled the sight of Juliet Capelletti under the great dome amid all of Dante’s devotees, so brave she would shout aloud, replying to my plaintive calls. She shocked me. Truly rocked the ground beneath my feet. Made the air shimmer with her power and grace. This woman had slipped free the prison of rules that governed us all and met me halfway to paradise.

  I am in love, I thought. For the first time, in love!

  Then I saw him—Jacopo Strozzi—exiting the church with the last of the Dante crowd. He moved within it, but his eyes said he was unmoved—that our poet had made no mark on his soul. Why was he here? Surely he could not have known of Juliet’s unplanned attendance. Had he come to win her affection? Perhaps he knew of her love for Dante and wished to make his bride happy by teaching himself the words of love.

  Then I grew cold. He had not expected her to be at the symposium.Yet she was there. And she had proven herself a public shame, exchanging loving barbs with a stranger. Had he also seen me running like a fugitive from the ball? Certainly he must have heard later that the fleeing man had been a Monticecco. His partner’s enemy.

  And yes, now I saw his eyes were black with fury. He did know. What a danger to Juliet! The Strozzi claimed nearly the strength and riches of the Medici but unlike Don Cosimo’s family, it was infamous for its ruthlessness, even brutality. Now I could see in this Strozzi’s face a terrible choler, one that my beloved lady and I had, by our actions, unknowingly provoked.

  Then all of a sudden that expression changed—anger to fear, almost cowering. And I saw its cause.

  A matron in the finest somber brown silk, her face shades lighter but still muddy, approaching him.

  “Mama,” Jacopo said, and kissed her hand. “Coming to confession?”

  I hid myself half behind the great door with one ear to the conversation.

  “What is wrong with you, Jacopo?” Allessandra Strozzi demanded. Her voice lacked any of what I knew to be maternal warmth. “You look as though you’ve swallowed a melon whole.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “I saw your ‘bride’ leaving.” She said the word with unaccountable disdain. “With the Tornabuoni girl. Now, that one would have been a wife worth having.”

  Jacopo sighed, then set his face in a stony grimace.

  “I hear the dowry is enormous. Oh, if I had just moved more quickly, more cleverly . . .”

  “Mama, please . . .”

  “Your brothers wish you to attend them at their office this afternoon.”

  “I cannot. I meet with Capello within the hour.”

  This time her look was closer to disgust. She sighed dramatically. “I fear you have chosen your new partner as badly as you’ve chosen your wife. But who am I to say?” She turned to the cathedral doors. “Your brothers will be disappointed.”

  She disappeared into the church, leaving Jacopo shaken, and I thought near tears. Humiliated twice in the space of an hour, he managed to compose himself, and his trembling reasserted itself into bitter black.

  “Women,” he cursed, and strode away.

  Danger, Juliet! I silently cried. This man is poison.

  Then I cringed, thinking of my family’s hatred of hers. Was I any less lethal to her well-being than Jacopo?

  Emerging from behind the door, I let the sun beat down on my head, praying for its power to gift me with intelligence, a way to win Juliet and live with her in the light, blessed by all, cursed by none.

  I would find a way. I would.

  Chapter Five

  “Have you any idea what a spectacle you made of yourself?” Lucrezia was bristling as we put distance between ourselves and our chaperone, walking down to the Arno as our bearers set a simple picnic on the riverbank. On a normal day my friend and I would be strolling arm in arm, our heads together, sharing a story or a laugh. But this was no ordinary day.

  And I was in no ordinary state of mind.

  “What harm have I done?” I replied, more a retort than a question. “I spoke with intelligence of Dante in a Dante symposium.”

  “No, Juliet. Before a huge crowd of Florentines, you engaged quite passionately in a dialogue with a stranger . . . about love.”

  To this I had neither answer nor retort, for it was altogether true.

  “He was a stranger, was he not?” Lucrezia asked, prescient distrust creeping into her voice.

  The moment of truth had arrived.

  “No, not precisely.”

  “O, sweet Jesu.” She turned me to face her. “Friend, what have you done?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Honestly, Lucrezia, there have been no improprieties.” I couldn’t help smiling to myself. “At least not yet.”

  “Juliet
!”

  “You asked for the truth. Now you have it.”

  “Who is he?”

  I was rendered silent again, anticipating a further explosion at my answer, but there was no avoiding it. Lucrezia was searing me with her eyes.

  “His name is Romeo.”

  “I know no Romeos. Is he Florentine?”

  “His family is. He’s been away at university. In Padua. Before that, he lived in Verona with his uncles.”

  “I cannot believe this. Next you will be telling me the size of his foot. How do you know this man?”

  I swallowed hard. “I met him at your betrothal ball.We spoke for a time in the garden.”

  “Unchaperoned?”

  “Yes, unchaperoned. But all we did was talk. Nothing untoward happened.”

  “How could ‘nothing untoward’ have happened that night if its consequence was your outrageous display this afternoon?”

  “There is something . . . ,” I said very softly.

  “What?”

  “There is something you should know about Romeo.” Then I went quiet, paralyzed with trepidation.

  “Tell me, Juliet.”

  “He is Romeo Monticecco.”

  Lucrezia grew suddenly flushed. She said nothing, but I knew her mind was working furiously. Then she said, “That disturbance at the ball. I heard it was a Monticecco whom our kinsman chased from the house.”

  “That was he.”

  “After you and he spent time alone, unchaperoned, in the Medici garden ‘simply talking’!”

  Defiance suddenly flared in me. “If you want the whole truth . . . something more did happen.” I held Lucrezia’s searching gaze. “Love happened.”

  My friend turned away then, confused and overcome. I gathered my thoughts, for I knew there must be further explanation.

  “Oh, Lucrezia, I did not go seeking for this. It found me.” I went around to face her. She looked ill with worry.

  “You laid yourself open for this disaster,” she said, “refusing to be satisfied with the marriage your family arranged. Seeking private conversation with a stranger in a dark garden . . .”