CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

The prince's sedan chair came to a halt in front of Casa Montague. The bearers lowered it, opened the curtain, and set the steps to allow us to descend, me first, then my nurse.

Marcellus swept off his feathered cap. "My lady, we deliver you safe. I beg you forgive me for the interruption of your travels. I vow that woman will not bother you again."

I put my hand on his arm. "Sir, I beg you treat her kindly. She's far gone in grief for her lover."

"She made an attack on the sedan chair of Prince Escalus. He will render judgment, not me." He bowed again.

His chilly countenance struck an uneasy chord in me. He seemed to be a man without kindness, caring only for what was proper and judging each person by their rank. I wondered . . . would he use terror to enforce his opinion of propriety?

Would he kill?

He handed Nurse the basket. "We wait for you to safely enter your home."

I nodded. Glancing around the square, I could see curtains sway as neighbors observed the princely crest sewn on the curtains and carved onto the back of the wooden chair.

As Nurse twitched my cloak around me, she smiled in satisfaction. "That'll give 'em something to gossip about. Something besides the murder, anyway." She followed me toward the great wooden doors crowned with the Montague crest.

I lifted the great iron knocker and dropped it. The sound echoed through the spaces inside. "Couldn't we give them somebody besides me to be the object of their curiosity?"

"Porcia has done that in her death." Nurse lost her smile.

"Get inside quickly before Lady Luce loses all sense of propriety and dashes out to interrogate you about today's shocking news."

Nurse and I entered quietly, as was our wont when coming from Friar Laurence's, for all in the Montague household preferred to pretend they knew not what I was doing. Despite Friar Laurence's sanctified sponsorship, when a woman is already under suspicion of killing her betrothed and possibly a mouthy contemporary, it was best not to add to the disturbance.

I discarded my cloak into Nurse's arms, and a house girl bobbed a curtsy as she received the cloak to brush. Nurse herded me toward the stairs to change out of my work clothes and into a more appropriate attire for an evening with my family, and as we climbed the first steps, the bell on the street rang decisively and a man's voice cried out, "The Princess Isabella arrives!"

"What? Shit! Now? I just . . ." I turned and looked helplessly at Nurse. "I invited her a mere two hours ago!"

"She's a princess. She's here." Nurse was more used to aristocratic vagaries than me.

"Prince Escalus reads me an overbearing oratory about civil unrest in Verona and getting home unseen"—I flung my hand toward the entry—"and it's okay for her to be out?"

"For the moment, she's untouched by the taint of murder," Nurse said.

"I'm untouched, too!" I tapped my chest. "Innocent, remember? If he's so worried about fighting in the streets, isn't his sister someone to protect at all costs?"

"Mayhap she's a mule like someone else I know and didn't listen!" Nurse thrust the basket at me and hurried up the stairs. "I'll round up the children and get them tidied."

"I'm not a mule," I muttered.

"Meet us back in the grand hall," Nurse instructed.

As our man Tommaso hurried toward the door, I rushed down the stairs and grabbed his arm. "Slowly. Slowly," I cautioned. "Walk with a grand and solemn pace. Take her to the grand hall and offer a seat and refreshments. We'll be there as soon as we can get ourselves"—I made a mashing gesture with my hands—"together."

Tommaso got his breath. He was young, new to his position, and he didn't know all the maneuvers involved in welcoming unexpected guests. He bowed to me. "Yes, Lady Rosie, thank you for the instruction," and he started toward the door with less speed.

Mamma had found him, a boy on the street, fighting for his life, and brought him home, where he could learn to work in a noble household. He moved up steadily for he learned quickly; my mother's astute eye had seen what was hidden beneath the grime of the city.

I ran toward my mother's room, calling, "Mamma! Mamma!"

Her maid met me. "My lord Romeo took Lady Juliet to a play."

"Now? What was he thinking?" I snarled. Then, because it wasn't the maid's fault, I said, "Good, that should distract her." I pulled the cloth off my basket and handed her the tonic and the medicine. "You know what to do with these."

She took them gingerly. "I do."

"On Lady Juliet's arrival, tell her Princess Isabella has arrived on my invitation."

The maid's eyes grew round. "Princess Isabella? I caught a glimpse of her once from a distance. She's so . . . royal!"

Lips pressed together to quell my smile, I nodded. Yes, the house of Leonardi was Verona's answer to Florence's Medici family, and the young, beautiful, reclusive Isabella was the star in a celebrity hunter's firmament.

I rushed toward my sisters' bedroom and found Nurse directing traffic while they descended into a state of wild thrashing of clothes and shoes and cranky rebellion.

Their cries attacked me as I entered. "Rosie, why is she here now?" "How could she come without notice?" "What are we supposed to do with her?"

I held my hand to my lips and waited for silence. "I invited Princess Isabella to visit us."

Katherina dropped her hands and glared, "Rosie!"

"You know I would have given you notice. I didn't know she would come so soon. Please, my sorelle, listen. The prince reports that his sister is alone as she becomes a woman."

"Ohhh." Everyone understood that.

"We, all of us, support each other. Surely we can share that support with a princess even if she arrives too soon." I smiled a quirky smile.

Katherina, always generous, said, "I'm almost dressed, I'll go to her at once."

"Take her out to the garden, teach her how to play, talk to her . . . I must change from my work clothes into something older sister suitable."

Katherina touched my hand. "You are the ultimate older sister. Find us when you can." And she was gone toward the grand hall. The others followed, running and calling.

Our home was alive with voices, song, laughter, family. I hoped we would bring Isabella comfort in her loneliness. Nurse followed me to my bedroom, stripped me out of my street clothes, and removed the scabbard and blade she'd strapped to my arm. She set that aside, then stuffed me into a gown of green velvet with embroidered gold sleeves and cuffs, elegant yet modest, simple and suitable for a quiet day at home. As she worked, she gloated. "Two sedan chairs from the podestà's household in one day. Two! Lady Luce and her haughty maid will be beside themselves with envy and curiosity!"

I shared a grin with her. "Maintain an air of mystery and drive them wild."

Nurse pushed me out the door. "You're a wicked one. I will."

I rushed down the corridors, guided by our servants' pointing fingers, past the great hall, and out to the garden tree swing, where my sisters and my brother had brought Isabella to entertain her. I stood in the shadows and observed, much as I imagined her brother would do in these circumstances.

Isabella was a slim, pale lady with blond hair and a still face that declared feelings were too much trouble to express, or perhaps even to have. She was the female embodiment of her brother, an untouchable impression of royalty, a portrait posed and waiting to be painted.

Yet my siblings saw no reason to respect that royalty. They argued that she should try the tree swing.

She refused.

They called her a whimpering goose, treated her as if she were one of our own. I thought for a few moments she would retreat, leave our home, never to be seen again, but without warning, she sat on the swing's wooden seat and with a defiant glare, pushed herself with her feet. At first it was only a slight swaying. Cesario heckled her, and she pushed higher and higher until she was reaching for the sky, then the ground, then the sky, then . . .

I took a moment to appreciate the absolute joy of her movements, her freedom, her first sensation of flying. In that moment, Princess Isabella was a child, untroubled by earthbound concerns, about the changes in her body, about the trials of the past and the tribulations to come. How lovely to see that transformation.

Until Cesario shouted, "It's my turn. My turn!"

My sisters picked up the call.

At first Isabella paid them no heed. She had not been trained to take turns. But she turned her head and heard Cesario bellowing at the top of his lungs, and observed my sisters' indignation. She dragged her feet and came to a stop.

Katherina stepped forth and explained, "Cesario is six. He gets to swing next. Then Emilia, then Imogene, then me. We all get our turns. Then you again."

Isabella stared as if Katherina was speaking a foreign language, and for a moment I feared I would have to provide mediation.

But Isabella stood. "I comprehend." She watched Katherina help Cesario onto the swing and give him a push. "You help him?"

"He's my little brother." Katherina clearly thought that was obvious.

"I try to help my brother, too," Isabella confessed, "but he's older and he doesn't think I can help."

"He's a boy," Katherina said with disdain. "They think they are sooo smart."

Isabella laughed, a startled explosion of sound.

A good time for me to introduce myself. I stepped forward and curtsied. "Princess Isabella, I'm Lady Rosaline. Welcome to the Montague home. I hope you're finding joy in the company of my sisters and brother."

The princess immediately reverted to her royal personage. She curtsied stiffly, inclined her head, and offered her hand. I wasn't sure if she expected me to kiss it. Instead I took it and held it between my own. "I'm glad your brother the prince extended my invitation to you, and that you came swiftly."

"He insisted I come immediately. I tried to tell him proper warning should be courteous, but he . . ."

"Thinks he's sooo smart." Deliberately I echoed Katherina's words.

Isabella smiled shyly. "Yes. Do we always have to let them think they know more than us?"

Katherina and I heaved identical sighs.

"I'm afraid so," I said.

Katherina reprovingly shook her head at me. "Rosie, you don't."

"I do!" Honesty led me to add, "As much as I'm able."

"Katherina, it's your turn!" the other children called.

Katherina hurried to the swing and hopped on. Imogene gave her a push, and soon she wore the same expression of joy Isabella had worn.

The princess looked around our lush expanse of walled garden. "You have many trees. Why doesn't your gardener put in a swing for each of you?"

"Because my mother wants us to learn to play together."

"Does she always get her way?"

"Yes."

"Is she cruel?"

"My mother?" I gave a peal of laughter. "She's the dearest woman in the world. As soon as she returns, she'll be out to greet you. You'll stay for dinner? I'll have the servants set a setting for you."

"I don't know if Escalus will approve."

"I'll send him a note." I hurried along toward the house and met my mother coming down the stone and gravel path.

She caught my arm. "The princess?"

"She's eleven. Prince Escalus is worried about her as she crosses into womanhood. I offered and he sent her . . . at once."

"He is her support? He's a cold man without understanding."

I remembered his earnest concern, and said, "Not so. He cares for her very much."

"So you say, but does he know how to show her? I think not. Poor child." Mamma hurried around me and toward the swing. "We'll show her a refuge where she may come to be surrounded by family."

I stood there, silent, alone and smiling.

"Mistress?" Gardener stood off the path in the shade of a cypress tree. He was old enough to be my grandfather and a solitary man, unused to speaking, relating more to plants than to people. He had come to know me when I was a child and now he listened politely when I directed him, allowed me to think myself in charge of the gardens, and did whatever he liked.

It was a good arrangement.

Still intoxicated with the feeling that my family would be an excellent balm for Princess Isabella's woes, I moved off the path to join him. In a small shaded alcove surrounded by tall, trimmed boxwood hedges, I asked, "What is it, Gardener?"

His shaggy eyebrows waggled ominously at me. "Mistress, I looked at the branch on the walnut tree. I have bad news. Such bad news."

"Oh no," I breathed.

The tree. The mighty walnut tree that every child in my family climbed and loved and dreamed in . . . was rotten. It would have to be taken down, and all the traditions and joy that the tree created would finish among tears and lamentation.

"The branch that broke outside your window . . . sabotage has been its untimely end."