CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 41

Titania shrugged. "Why shouldn't I?"

I had to swallow revulsion before I could speak. "Because she was a pleasant woman who mitigated the worst of his—"

"He was tired of her anyway."

I was sinking into a stinking quicksand of suspicion, and all my flailing couldn't give me footing. "And . . . and the wife after?"

"I wanted him." Titania said it as if that was sufficient reason for murdering two women whose only mistake was to wed Duke Stephano. As if they had a choice—both were arranged marriages.

As I gathered my words, my thoughts, I realized Nurse had given up. Not really given up; that woman would never tamely surrender me to this horror. But she no longer pounded or shouted. She'd run for help, I presumed, and God grant she bring it quickly for the silence of this grave made a fearful noise in my head. "You got him. Duke Stephano. You married him. You had him. It didn't matter that he complained you were smothering him—"

"I didn't say smothering. How did you know he said I was smothering him?"

"I didn't know. But sounds to me as if—"

"Did he tell you I did that?"

"At our betrothal celebration, he barely spoke of you. I expect he was used to having a recently deceased wife, a situation to which you trained him"—knowing full well I should keep my tongue between my teeth, still I felt I had to point that out—"that he thought little of you."

"Not true. He did think of me."

"I recall now, he did speak of you." I was starting to relish my role as provocateur. "To your parents."

"What? They spoke to him? I commanded them to never approach him again. They were unworthy to wash Leir's feet." Titania's face spasmed again, and I didn't know if she suffered pains in her gut or pangs of fury. "Why did they presume to speak to my lord and love?"

"They paid him a yearly fee to keep you. They wanted their money back."

"They dared try to steal from my husband. I'll kill them next."

Yes, I had wished for Fabian and Gertrude Brambilia's deaths. But not quite like this. No matter how justifiably, not at the hands of their daughter. "Don't concern yourself, Titania. Orlando gave them a pair of gold candlesticks. Apparently they were from the master's bedroom and decorated with mermaids and fish, but your mother liked them and the debt is paid."

Titania so swelled with indignation, I feared she might burst and spread corruption all over the tomb. "Orlando gave my parents my candlesticks? He threw my beloved's belongings out the window, and he put my candlesticks into the hands of my parents? I'm glad I killed him."

She had answered that question. "Orlando's not dead," I informed her. Not that I knew, anyway.

"Then he'll die horribly, more horribly than anyone!"

"More horribly than you? You're a fearsome sight, Titania." She intended to kill me; why not provoke her? "Where did you buy the potion that put you in the sleep of death? Not from Friar Laurence, I trow."

"Friar Laurence wouldn't sell me the potion. He said . . . he said no. I did ask him."

"Why did he say no?" I thought of Nurse running to town, screeching that someone needed to come and rescue her baby from the Stephano tomb. Then I looked at the door, built strong enough to withstand an army from without—or perhaps to keep the dead within. The bar Titania had wedged against it gave her added security. Nurse might lead the charge to free me, but unless I figured out a way to eliminate Titania and remove the bar, my liberators stood no chance—nor did I.

"When I knew I loved Duke Stephano, I went to confession and told of my sin and my intention to have him at any cost. Instead of understanding, Friar Laurence lectured me about the sin of adultery and coveting my neighbor's husband. He gave me penance!" Titania was clearly indignant. "I stopped going to confession."

Which explained Friar Laurence's distress. He knew something, suspected more, and because of his holy obligation as confessor, when questioned he could admit nothing.

"You stopped going to Friar Laurence to confess. You instead went to a different confessor." I wanted that clarified, for to abandon confession was a fast road to hell.

Clarification: a faster road to hell.

"Why would I? No confessor would understand me and the depth of my devotion." Titania spoke with scorn and disdain. "No confessor would give me absolution, and I feel no shame or sorrow. I did what I had to do to get what I want."

I could almost smell the brimstone as it prepared to engulf her—and no almost about it, I definitely could smell the stench of unwashed woman compounded by decay. Orlando had warned of death's odor; it was of Titania he spoke. Titania, who was dying . . . but too slowly to save me. "Who then sold you the poisons you gave to those you killed? Who sold the potion you yourself took?"

"Curan has contacts."

"Now we come to it. It was Curan." Nunziatina was right, although she didn't understand the woman who hid in the shadows and manipulated him. "He's your creature, and he'll burn for this."

"Too late. He burns now." She waved her hand toward the farthest corner of the tomb.

Dimly I saw a crumpled form with a red stockinged leg sticking out at an awkward angle. "You, um, killed him? For what reason?" I thought that was polite enough.

"Curan was supposed to poison Orlando . . . yet you tell me Orlando lived!"

"If you didn't know of Curan's failure until I told you, why eliminate him?"

"Because I knelt among the servants and heard Curan tell you to leave the city and hide in a nunnery . . . before I could kill you!"

Again and again, Titania had hidden in plain sight. "He didn't exactly say that."

"He did. As usual, you didn't listen. You thought that you knew better, and I can always depend on you to be your usual I'm smarter than anyone else self."

She might be saying things about my personality to which it would behoove me to pay attention.

She said, "You didn't hear him, but I did. Then there was the matter of my potion."

"Your potion? The, er, sleeping potion?"

"Don't play stupid, Rosie. Of course the sleeping potion! I sent him to procure it from the witches at the Toil and Trouble apothecary, and when I realized what it had done to me, I paid them a visit. Agatha said the potion should have worked. She inspected me and insisted he'd doctored the potion, probably with a dose of dragon dung, and I should be suspicious of him. She saved my life, because when he came here to bring me food and wine, he'd hidden a knife in his garments." Titania looked down and then up, and rage gave her eyes a tinge of red. "He was afraid of being caught by the Veronese authorities. He intended to betray his allegiance to me. He came to kill, and the surprise on his face when I struck first gave me great pleasure."

"You've enjoyed a lot of pleasure lately." I feared what her next pleasure would be. "If the apothecary Agatha saved your life, why did you kill her?"

Titania tsked as if I was being simple. "After I confronted Agatha, she knew for whom Curan had been buying the poisons and the potion. She could identify me. It was too bad, but she had to die." She barely breathed, she squinted as if seeing me through a fog.

A thought occurred to me—she was dying, the potion had made sure of that. If I managed to drag this out long enough, might she be easier to kill?

Two women had been trapped by their knowledge of herbal medicines, and one of them had died. Very well. Revenge should be taken.

I said, "She cut your face. The wound gapes."

"Not true. I stitched it." She pointed to the gash that didn't cover the blood and the bone of her face, and purple edges like sun-dried plums that could never be repaired.

"So you did." I cherished the hope that if I stalled long enough, Nurse would bring help, and another hope that Titania's strength and stamina would weaken to match her appearance. She was death in progress. Maybe she'd expire without any help from me?

But I had a question that I wanted answered, and if I wanted to be sure of getting a reply, I didn't dare wait on either of those events. I lifted a finger and pretended like I wasn't slowly, completely losing my temper. "One thing. The tree branch outside my bedroom where once you and I sat and talked . . . was sabotaged. Over many years, a saw was used to almost sever it. That can't have been you, can it?"

She smiled that dreadful yellow smile. "Oh yes. That was me."

"But why?" I burst forth incredulously. "It was only a few weeks ago that Duke Stephano told you he wanted to marry me. You had no previous reason to try and kill me."

"Your father . . . your father . . ."

Oh. Of course. "He didn't want you."

"He bragged about rejecting me to you?"

That was enough to make me mad. "He didn't reject you. Romeo loves Juliet. Everyone in Verona knows that as an eternal truth. Even you called it true love!"

"He bragged about rejecting me to you?" she repeated, so stuck in the cycle of past misery she couldn't hear anything but herself.

"No, he didn't. My lord father would never brag about such an embarrassment. I knew because"—my mother told me—"because it was obvious. All women commonly love him, and you've proved you're common."

She breathed heavily, deeply, and for the first time I saw blots of red color creep into those withered cheeks.

"You're common like your parents." In case I hadn't made it clear in the first place.

Beneath the skin, Titania bled and it made me wonder what else was happening internally. Whatever that potion had been, it behaved like a slow-acting poison. Could I make Titania talk long enough to die from a slow seepage of blood from all the parts of her body?

She gave me the side-eye; I think she saw through my machinations and wanted to make me bleed beneath the skin, also.

She said, "I stole a saw and starting cutting on the tree. Years it took me, and no accidents occurred, but finally, finally that night of your betrothal to my husband, I made it happen. I took it through far enough that it broke underneath your lover."

She could have killed Lysander.

"Your lover." She spat the words in a spray of red spittle. "The man for whom you betrayed my husband."

Lysander, mi amante! I had hoped to see you again.The sorrowful pang that struck me caught me by surprise: no future, no love, no husband, no family . . . No time for that now. Concentrate! "Wait. I'm confused. You wanted me to be loyal to your husband? To Duke Stephano? I didn't want him, and I thought you didn't want me to have him!"

"You stupid whore. Any woman he chose had to die. Any woman who wanted him had to die. Any brother who hated him had to die." The red blots of color exploded in red stars on her cheeks. "Leir Stephano is mine."

"Forever. Not much longer now until you join him." My words slithered through the silence of the tomb.

"I know . . ." Her faded eyes, so large in her face, stared fixedly at me. "Do you know why I cut that tree outside your window? Because your father loved you. Because your brother and sisters climbed the tree. Because I hoped one of you would fall and break your neck and your father and mother would—"

Enraged, I attacked.