CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

Ihad been mourning in one direction. Gardener's words jerked my head around and focused my attention on what had happened the night before to Lysander. "Sabotaged. What do you mean?"

"Someone repeatedly climbed that tree and sawed through that branch, top and bottom, until it was connected to the tree with a slim plank, deliberately creating danger for the next person who sat on the branch."

My face felt funny: stiff and unyielding, as if anger and distress had wiped normal expression away and left me unable to do more than barely move my lips. "How do you know . . . ?"

He picked up the remnants of the branch and with one shaking, gnarled finger showed me metal shards and marks of rust that had rubbed off in the doing of the deed. "Done with an iron saw, it was."

"Your iron saw?"

"No, lady. For my years of dedication, your father, Lord Romeo, gifted me with a steel saw."

I knew that. I had suggested the gift to Papà.

Gardener continued. "Its strength is that of ten iron saws, and it doesn't shed its teeth like this. I keep it hidden in my room under my mattress. Although the young gardeners beg, no one touches it but me. When I saw this destruction, I did check to make sure it's still there and safe." He spoke slowly, as a man must who daily communed with plants and seldom with people. "It is. But for all that an iron saw isn't as good, it's still an expensive piece to use to harm a good tree that produces shade every summer and walnuts every autumn. It hurts my heart to imagine what confusion and pain the tree must feel. What dungshoe would do such a cruel thing, Lady Rosie? No one under this roof, I pray!"

"I pray, also." Thoughts whirled in my mind, assessments of risk for my siblings, my parents . . . and me. "Can you tell when this was done?"

"Day of the party."

"Yesterday."

"Yes. And a year ago."

"What?"

"And five years ago."

"Someone has been sawing on that branch for . . . years?" I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that one person—or was it many persons?—had sought to harm me and my siblings. Or were they merely destructive for the sake of being destructive? "Who would have wrought such ruin over so many years?"

"Could have been anybody. The Family Montague entertains guests from near and far, even from other cities!" Clearly he didn't approve. "Could have hurt anyone. Someone did fall out of that tree. I saw the marks. Not you?"

"No."

"Not one of the little ones?"

"No."

"Do you know who?"

"Yes." I looked away.

He had to think about that, and when he did, his withered mouth grew slack with horror. "My lady, you've always been the sensible one. You haven't . . . taken sick with the family fecklessness, have you?"

The grizzled old man stared at me beseechingly, and I tried to reassure him. "The fecklessness is not so strong in me. I still harbor some semblance of sense."

"I must tell your father the truth, all the truth!"

"Could you wait a day while I consider what this means?" With one finger, I touched the fresh wound of the walnut branch. "My father, as you know, is wont to draw his sword first and think after. In this case, let me think on all the things that have happened since the betrothal, and see if I can deduce—"

Too late. Romeo, my lord father, stormed down the path toward us, fury riding him like a snorting stallion. When he saw me, he shouted, "Do you know what they're saying?" He groped for his sword, a sword that Mamma always insisted he leave at the door. "I'll kill them all, one by one! Or take them as a group. No one can say those things about my daughter!"

I curtsied, as always, and in my stallion-soothing voice, I said, "Greetings, Papà. You're known as the greatest swordsman in Verona. Everyone would run before you rather than fight." I wasn't strictly lying. There were younger swordsmen, probably better, but my father was known for his sly skill and his love of battle. That dedication made him, even at the age of thirty-six, a power on the field. "How was the theater and the play?"

He waggled my finger in my face. "You shall not distract me."

"No, Papà." I lowered my gaze and folded my hands at my waist. "That's not my intent. I was speaking with Gardener about the walnut tree. Last night, as you can see, a branch broke."

"Not the walnut tree!" Papà put his hand to his chest and turned to Gardener. "Tell me at once, can you save the tree?"

I'd chosen incorrectly. Rather than ask about the play, I should have remembered Papà's adoration of torrone, a candy made of egg whites, honey, and walnuts. He loved walnuts wayyyy more than he loved theater.

I stared pleadingly at Gardener, waiting for him to sift through his mind and say what he thought was right.

He concentrated on me, then said, dragging each word out, "The tree's healthy, lord, but the branch outside Lady Rosie's bedchamber is no longer."

Romeo sighed in relief. "As long as it's merely a branch."

Gardener dipped his head, then trudged away, dragging the branch behind him, but in his backward glance I saw a promise; I had one day before my parents knew about the visitor outside my window.

Papà said, "You used to like to creep out and sit on that one, didn't you, Rosie?"

"I did, Papà." An unexpected wave of sadness swept me. "I'll miss it."

He hugged me to his side.

I rested my head on his chest. "Which play was it?" I asked.

"Two Gentlemen of Verona."

"Ah. Not one of my favorites. Silly men don't interest me."

"I would not expect that of you, but it's the playwright's early work, his poetry is lovely—"

I made a gagging noise.

"And it made your mother laugh."

I linked arms with him. "Then all is well in the world."

He remembered his earlier indignation, but as I'd hoped, the rage had been diffused. "No, it's not. Did you know Porcia has been poisoned?"

"I heard that."

"People are saying you work with Friar Laurence. You brew potions. You know poison."

"I'm not blind to the possibility of that gossip." Nor was Prince Escalus, obviously. "Are people gossiping about my meeting with Miranda, too?"

"Who's Miranda?" When Papà recognized the name, his eyes opened wide in consternation. "Not the singer who was Duke Stephano's mistress?"

Maybe that was one Pandora's box I should have left unopened.

"How . . . how . . . how . . ."

He was incoherent, so I took charge of the conversation and told him exactly what had happened at Friar Laurence's shop and after.

He cogitated before replying, "The prince sent you home in his sedan chair?"

"Yes."

"Afterward the princess arrived for a visit, and now that sedan chair sits outside our home and waits to carry her back to the palace?"

"Yes."

"I'm not saying this is good. Not by any means. But because of Prince Escalus's support, both last night and today, the slander will be . . . muted."

"One hopes. Does my mother know?"

"Not yet. Let's keep it from her as long as possible."

Mamma stepped around the hedge and stood, hands on hips, at the entrance of the alcove. "Keep what from me?"