CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 39

That was the question, wasn't it? The answer would solve all the mysteries, put our feet back on the path of normalcy, allow me to once more be a dutiful daughter, loving older sister, and surprised seeker of true love.

Although St. Zeno hadn't illuminated my mind, in his basilica events had unfolded that showed me the figure of my enemy, Duke Stephano's murderer, and a poisoner of impressive skill. I should be satisfied . . . yet when I thought of the fearful, vague, seemingly kind Miranda as she'd been when we spoke on the street, I was not.

I went to bed and should have slept the sleep of the relieved, but suspicion nudged my mind, a suspicion so absurd it made me want to laugh. What had Friar Laurence said? If thinking logically would have brought you to a conclusion, you'd already know what . . . has occurred.

The deaths and poisonings could not be denied.

Titania. Duke Stephano. A duo of deaths that echoed like shots fired from an iron cannon.

Then Porcia, her maid, Orlando, Agatha the Apothecary, and the attempt to kill me in my own church where my parents had wed.

Somehow, these events were united, and when my dreaming thoughts linked all my suspicions, I woke in the night convinced I had, in fact, been given enlightenment. I couldn't sleep again, but rested on my pillow and waited for the dawn and Nurse's wakening.

To her surprise, I rose with her. I insisted on checking the cut on her forehead; the whole eye was swollen shut, and red and purple filled the sags of her eyelids above and the bags below. A cold compress of arnica and comfrey gave her ease, so she said, and she insisted on fetching our breakfast.

Meanwhile I dressed in a dark serviceable mourning gown, and on my person I strapped all the weapons given me: Nurse's blade, Lysander's blade, and the small knife presented by the prince.

When Nurse returned with fruit, cheese, and bread, I sat and ate heartily, and said, "I must go to the cemetery to pay my respects at Duke Stephano's tomb."

"Why would you do that?" Nurse asked skeptically. "You don't grieve for him."

"Do you not think it would be wise for his betrothed to pay the proper respects over his passing? Such propriety might do much to ease the buzz of speculation over my possible guilt in his death." After yesterday's incident with the mob, I wished that to be so. During my life I'd freely wandered Verona's streets and no one waylaid me. I wanted that freedom again.

"It's dangerous out there for you." She worried honestly, and in light of events, justifiably so.

"So it is, and so I go early when I'll be seen by a few, and none are prepared to do more than scowl. But they will see."

Nurse stared at me while she pondered.

I knew she wouldn't come to any conclusions, for I was thinking the unthinkable.

"Call on Lysander for protection," she suggested.

How I wish I could! But if what I believed was true . . . was true . . . Lysander would hesitate where I would not. No, explanations must be given, action must be taken, and I must be the one to do it.

Also, let's face it, especially in the light of day, my hunch invited laughter. I cherished my dignity and feared being teased, especially by my One True Love. "Taking Lysander to visit my betrothed who was found stabbed through the heart seems a bad idea, a reminder that all men who hear the name of Rosie Montague will find love elsewhere . . . or die."

"Yes, but—"

I offered her my outstretched arm. "With me I take the blade you so kindly gifted to me, and the blade from Lysander, and the dagger from Prince Escalus. More, I take you, who even injured as you are, is worth more than any blade." I plucked my cloak off the hook. "Are you coming?"

"I know that stubborn expression," she muttered, and joined me wrapped in her cloak before I had reached the top of the stairway.

We walked the waking streets of Verona. The merchants were setting up their stalls. The morning bell rang the hours. I breathed the river, the livestock, the fruits of summer and the early grains. Curious eyes followed us; we were a lady and her maid out alone, on foot, when we should have been asleep in our beds.

I found my breath and my steps quickening.

Nurse hurried beside me, "Gods, femmina, are you in a race I know not of?"

I glanced at her, and around at the frowning citizens of Verona. Would the mob form again?

No, for when we turned up the road toward the cemetery, curiosity faded. All of Verona climbed this hill to mourn their dead; the ancient cemetery stood on the eastern slope of a high hill. The oldest burials were a thousand years old, so the priests said, and the noble houses of Verona had erected white marble tombs to shelter their honored dead forever. Inside, empty marble slabs awaited their occupants. Older marble slabs acted as beds for putrefying bodies wrapped in burial clothes, skeletons that warned of every person's final end, and all the reasons why one should do good in this life so one could pass with grace into the next.

The evidence of death existed before my eyes, before everyone's eyes, and when I thought deeply on my parents' ordeal in the Capulet tomb, I'm still amazed that they woke in that tomb of contagion and death and walked away without screaming nightmares. Maybe that's why they flailed and moaned so much in their lovemaking, to keep the ghosts at bay.

Nope. Don't think about that.

I walked briskly toward the Creppa tomb. Turning to my nurse, I said, "Please stand guard while I'm inside. I wish to suffer no surprises from the outer world while I pay my respects to Duke Stephano."

Nurse looked up and down the slope of the graveyard, at the tombstones with their decreasing shadows in the rising sun, and she seemed to find solace in the coming light. "None will surprise you while I guard the entrance. Although I wish . . ."

I lifted an eyebrow at her.

"I wish I'd insisted on Lysander and his sword."

In truth, so did I, but when I next walked with Lysander, I wanted it to be not on this grim journey, but along a garden path strewn with the fragrant petals of love.

I pushed the heavy door open—no one wants to make it easy for an uneasy spirit to escape—and looked around.

A vent in the roof allowed the odors of decay to escape, although in my considered opinion, not enough odors. The tomb smelled like rotting meat, and I readily attributed that to Duke Stephano and Titania. Light entered through the same chimney-like opening high above created to pull the gases upward and leave the air pure enough for mourners to visit. I was grateful for that, too; I left the door open behind me, but one never knew when a mischievous spirit might wish to toy with a living being who willingly visited the home of the dead.

I glanced first at Duke Stephano's slab; as promised by his brother, Duke Stephano's body had been placed there without care. He wore the same clothing he had worn the night he was killed. Dried blood made the cloth black and brittle, and he would wear that expression of shock and terror forever.

I didn't care. It was not here my suspicions were directed.

I placed my handkerchief over my face to shield myself from the worst of the odors and walked toward Titania's slab.

A lady's body rested there, draped in black from head to toe, her face gleaming faintly beneath the heavy black veil.

I could have cried with relief. My absurd suspicions were unfounded. Titania had not risen to walk the earth as a wraith, haunting and murdering; she rested here on her gloomy slab in her gloomy gown, and whatever fell horrors sought to destroy me were of this world, not the next.

I walked confidently toward the corpse of Duke Stephano's last wife, my friend, and looked down at the face beneath the veil . . . and registered a few important issues.

The strong-boned face in no way resembled Titania's; this was Duke Stephano's missing mistress, Miranda. She was sturdier and taller than Titania. Her throat had been slashed. Dried blood had drenched her face, throat, and bosom, and the look of terror on her face matched the expression Duke Stephano wore in death.

I swear to you, I stared no longer than a moment, digesting these truths and making sense of them—when the heavy metal door of the tomb clanged shut, and a mighty metal bar was wedged into place beneath the handle.

With that, only the light from above illuminated the tomb, and I knew my suspicion was not so much insanity as truth, and I was in danger as I had never been in my life.

Slowly I swiveled to face . . . my friend Titania.