CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 35

After the events of these days, what else could it be but poison?

"Yes. What kind?" Friar Laurence was testing my recall of the apothecary arts. I answered promptly. "The shriveled manroot that comes on the Venetian ships from the east. From the pagans."

"And?"

"Dead man bells from the meadows and creek sides."

"And?"

"Nutmeg."

"Good. Good. There are others but more obscure. How will we know what has been used?"

"By the scents, the actions, the dilation of the pupils . . . and how quickly death follows." I remembered Orlando, the dashing young man in the market, his charm, his misplaced gratitude to me. His brother's death had freed him from a prison of exile, and brought his parents back to the heady delights of Verona. "I hope we're in time."

"If it please God." Friar Laurence panted as we climbed to the top of the hill to Casa Creppa.

The servants must have been watching for us, for the door opened as we neared and one of the younger men, not part of the staff but possibly one of Orlando's friends, rushed out. He gave me and Nurse a dismissive glance and knelt before Friar Laurence to receive his blessing. "Friar Laurence, thank you for coming so quickly. We are sore afraid."

Friar Laurence gave it. "Tell me everything, Lartius."

"It started last night." Taking Friar Laurence's arm, he assisted him up the hill. "His parents arrived from the country and he cried for happiness. He took them to the master bedroom suite, and when they had warmed their skinny old bodies by the fire and eaten a good meal and climbed into bed, he kissed them and left them to sleep. We—"

"You and he?" Friar Laurence asked.

"Yes, the two of us. We descended the stairs to the dining room and there we found Fabian and Gertrude of the house of Brambilia waiting for us."

Nurse and I exchanged glances.

"What did they want?" Friar Laurence asked.

"Money," Lartius and I said at the same time.

He nodded at me in agreement. "They came to demand Orlando repay the chest of gold coins they'd given to Duke Stephano for Titania's upkeep. Of course, Orlando knew nothing of that, nor does he have that chest or those coins, and while he tried to remain pleasant and sympathetic to their loss, they grew more and more demanding, more quarrelsome, until at last he ordered two gold candlesticks be brought from the master's bedroom. He thrust it at the Brambilias and told them to be off." Lartius added reflectively, "They were hideous candlesticks with mermaids and fish. No one will mourn their loss, but Gertrude quite relished them."

"The Brambilias proclaimed themselves satisfied and left?" Friar Laurence asked.

"Gertrude was satisfied. Fabian looked greedily at the other furnishings in the dining room." Lartius grimaced in disgust. "He left only reluctantly. Orlando confessed he knew over the next few weeks he'll face debtors demanding payment and worse, for his father, Duke Pietro, begged him to assume his role as head of the family. The old man is very feeble after the long ordeal in exile."

"I'll send a healing tonic to Duke Pietro and his good wife, and pray for their good health and recovery," Friar Laurence promised.

I crossed myself and added them to my prayers, as well.

"Orlando and I ate well and drank deep, and in our friendly good cheer Orlando seemed to forget the ugly scene." Lartius smiled as if at good memories. "We went to our beds, and when I woke up with a candle shining close to my face"—he raised his hand as if to shield his eyes—"I saw Orlando. He was muttering, ‘They're coming. They're coming. Beware. They'll take us!' I thought he was sleepwalking, so I tried to wake him. I shook his shoulder and he shrieked like a ghoul, ‘They're here. Look at them. They're here.'"

Friar Laurence took Lartius's arm. "You've had no signs of the madness yourself?"

"None. I am myself." Lartius pressed his hand to his forehead as if checking to see what he said was the truth.

"What happened then?" I asked.

"He . . . he . . . he wandered away, down the hall, calling the names of Duke Stephano's dead wives, hands outstretched as if to catch them." We'd reached the open door marked with the Stephano crest, where Lartius turned to Friar Laurence and in a shaking voice declared, "He's possessed!"

"By whom?" I wasn't dismissing the possibility. Everyone knows that where cruel murder stains the floorboards with blood, the ghosts do walk and seek revenge for their passing, and with so many lost to one man's greed, the dead would rise.

Lartius looked at me in alarm and spoke in a chill whisper. "Duke Stephano's ghost, of course. He fears the wives which he so coldly killed."

"Let me examine Orlando and decide," Friar Laurence said. "Other forces could be at work." He entered the house.

Lartius followed, and Nurse and I behind, and in the dark entry we found the Creppa servants, clad in black and shades of red, kneeling in various attitudes of supplication.

Curan, the man who at the betrothal party had thanked me for killing Duke Stephano, spoke for them. "Friar Laurence, take pity on our souls. Those living beings in this house live on the cliffs above hell. Flames lick at us, and we are doomed."

Friar Laurence blessed them and spoke words of comfort to them, assuring them he would move heaven and earth to protect them. He then asked that they show us where Orlando had gone.

Curan laboriously rose. "Lord Orlando was stumbling so much, we feared he would fall, so with the permission of his parents we shut him in his bedroom."

"Good, Curan. Confining him is exactly the right thing," Friar Laurence said.

Curan now faced me and in a low, urgent voice said, "My Lady Rosaline, before you enter further, forgive me, I must speak. You were betrothed to Duke Stephano, and you—"

"I did not kill him!" My denial had become automatic.

"As you say, Lady Rosaline." Curan bowed.

Lartius gasped and crossed himself. "You're Lady Rosaline of the house of Montague? You're the maiden he intended to wed?"

"She is." Curan turned back to me. "Each of Duke Stephano's wives have died. Also the young woman at the party, and Duke Stephano himself, and now his brother is possessed or driven mad. You should flee this house, flee Verona, take shelter in a convent and pray that you've outrun your fate."

Twice now he had made me the cynosure of all eyes. I thought he meant well, but what the actual Erebus did he think he would accomplish? Obviously I was here, well chaperoned, and ready to take part in this investigation, and he was announcing dire warnings that made people edge away like I carried the stain of the great pestilence on my brow.

"These women are with me and carry the protection of heaven." Friar Laurence was such a rotund, cheerful, kind and concerned man, it always surprised people—me—when he used the Voice of the Monk to chide and crush pretensions.

Certainly it worked on Curan, who cringed back like a demon faced by a crucifix.

Lartius was not so easily crushed, or perhaps he felt as if he must speak. "Please, good friar, does not Curan speak the truth? Duke Stephano acted like a rock thrown into a still pond, sending ripples and surges that overwhelmed the unwary and sent them to their dooms. Even in death he brings disaster on his family. Is it not possible for his cruel spirit to accomplish what he couldn't in life? To destroy another young woman he attached to him with the bonds of betrothal?"

Curan nodded emphatically, then cringed when Friar Laurence pointed a finger at him.

The Creppa servants murmured and cried out and prayed.

This house felt like a leper colony, a place to shun and be shunned.

"I trow it's not a spirit that brought madness to Orlando, nor a bewitching," Friar Laurence said.

"How do you know that?" Lartius asked.

"When I see him, I'll know for sure." To Curan, Friar Laurence said, "Take me to your master."

Curan hopped along, his skinny legs in their dark red tights speeding up the stairs and along the corridors to an open door . . . where Orlando's elderly parents stood in their night clothes, crying and wringing their hands. Orlando's mother turned to Friar Laurence. "He's gone. My baby's gone. My sweet boy is mad. Do something!"

I ran down the corridor in the direction of her pointing finger, Friar Laurence and Nurse puffing behind me, and I found Orlando in a large, shadowy gallery, staring at a closed curtain and talking, using his hands to make his point, whatever that point might be. "I didn't do it," he said. "He was my brother. I hated him and he deserved to die every day, but I didn't kill him. I didn't kill his wives. Why am I punished? Why?" Sweat soaked his hair, and his nightshirt stuck to his back. When Friar Laurence spoke his name, he turned his head slowly, creakily, as if his neck had developed rigor mortis, and when he saw the wooden cross that hung around the good monk's neck, he screamed in high-pitched terror and fell to his knees.

Friar Laurence hastily retreated into the shadows and gestured me forward. I knelt beside Orlando's crumbled figure. I spoke his name in gentle tones. He lifted his face to me and something shifted in his countenance, a progress away from insanity and to hopeful wonder. "Lady Rosaline, are you alive?"

I touched his hand. "I am."

He snatched it in his and lifted it to his lips. He lowered his voice to the barest whisper. "Listen to me." His gaze shifted from side to side as if he saw danger lurking in the shadows. "When Leir chose you, the demons of hell escaped and drew breath on God's good earth. They're after us all. All of us who let the abomination that was Leir Stephano draw breath. Take care. When the stench of decay fills your nose, you'll know that death draws near. Lady Rosaline, take care! And God save you." He collapsed on the floor, unconscious.

Nurse dragged me backward.

Friar Laurence leaped to Orlando, pressed his finger to his throat, lifted his eyelid, and said to Lartius, "He's alive. Take him to his bed and let's see if we can give Godly help to save his life." To me, he gave the monk's gimlet eye. "Rosie, get out of this house. Go to my shop. Do not linger. Lock the door behind you. Wait there for me!"

I started for the door, realized Nurse wasn't behind me, turned and saw Friar Laurence admonishing her, also. He was afraid for me, as afraid as Orlando, and my mind returned to that moment when we heard about Porcia's death and Friar Laurence had fainted. What knowledge did he possess that he dare not speak, and why?