CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

As I had seen my industrious nurse do, I tucked the knife securely into my sleeve and stalked after Duke Stephano toward the garden.

I paid no attention when the young widow Porcia sought to waylay me. "Rosie!" When I didn't stop, she yelled "Rosie!" and rushed to block my path.

"I don't have time for a friendly conversation right now, Porcia. I have been summoned by my future lord to attend him." If Porcia had the wit of the gnat that haunted my wineglass, she would have taken note of the steely glint in my eyes and stepped aside.

Of course, she did not. She was my age, a simpering idiot who heartily, loudly, and repeatedly pitied me my single state while patronizing me for being a virgin and so frequently left at the altar.

She put her hand on my arm in a sisterly gesture that made me want to punch her between her plucked bald and badly redrawn eyebrows. She said, "One must make allowances for your pure state and how it affects the balances of the humors, but please take the advice of one who has joined the legion of womanhood—you should not pursue Duke Stephano to the garden. He could have nefarious designs upon your treasured virginity and after waiting so many years to wander among the pleasures of the marriage bed, it seems unwise to prematurely venture forth."

Bless her shriveled wit, Porcia could always use a hundred words to say what others could say in five. "Your matronly headdress proves the depth and breadth of your experience." I eyed the mammoth contraption askance.

She flushed; she'd always had extravagant and dreadful taste in fashion, and this one left her looking like a galleon in full sail. She threw back a blue curtain and indicated an alcove. "In here!"

It was easier to give in than to have her chase me across the ballroom and shout my business to the world. I entered. "Be brief."

She shut the curtain behind her and advanced on me. "On your wedding night, the pain is dreadful. There's blood!"

"Is that how your husband, Troilus, introduced you to the marriage bed? I feel sorry for you if that's true." It wasn't true, and well I knew it. Troilus had been the most gentle of men who was much missed in Veronese society.

Sourly she said, "Troilus was a courteous gentleman who graced my bed too seldom."

"Ah." The source of Porcia's discontent was revealed.

Her eyes lit up. "But I hear Duke Stephano is a heartless man who hurts all who come close, especially those he places beneath him and rides to a froth."

"Are you speaking of his horses or his wives?"

"He rides his horses cruelly?"

I did not grin. I did not. But it was a close thing to realize Porcia cared not a tweak about the women he had murdered, only about his livestock.

"As a virgin, I'd think you'd be terrified!"

"Since that is what you intend, perhaps?" She might have sensed my amusement, but before she could attack again, I said, "Titania loved him with a mania." A mania I had privately thought unnatural.

Porcia said petulantly, "She died so recently. She's barely cold. And what a miserable funeral. Barely anything to eat. Bad wine. Her parents fighting the whole time. No one mourning except—"

"Me." Not that funerals were ever festive, but Titania's had been epic for its haste and lack of lamentation. Although after her marriage our relationship had grown distant, I grieved for the years she'd spent playing in our garden. When we were mere children, Mamma had brought Titania home, explained to me in private that her parents knew not how to love, the little girl needed a friend, and she put her in my care. I took the charge seriously, and she became a friend who clung to me and pitifully appreciated every kindness. As she grew, so did the household's knowledge of her strange games and steadfast pretenses. Her memorial had not celebrated her life, but too clearly showed the bare ripple her passing made in Verona's quiet pond.

"And me. She was my friend, too." Porcia made a show of dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. "Although the things she knew about . . ."

"About what?"

"She was very like you, sometimes. Odd. Odd in the way she'd stare, as if she could see my thoughts." Porcia flinched.

A light thrown on Porcia's thoughts would probably illume a twisted pile of eels.

"Best not to speak ill of the dead." Briskly, Porcia returned to the subject nearest to her heart; since I wasn't dead, she didn't hesitate to speak ill of me. "I don't understand why Duke Stephano is rushing into this marriage. Why would that man want an untutored virgin who knows nothing of love?"

I contemplated a drinking game; a glass of wine every time Porcia used the word "virgin." I felt sure I could scarcely stagger to the garden should I indulge.

I may have smiled, for I could see the change come over her thin, cunning face. Her pretense of caring had ended. Her lace cuffs came off, and she was ready for battle. "A woman like me"—she smoothed her hands down her amply padded hips—"knows ways to satisfy and pacify a raging bull like Duke Stephano. If I were to be his wife, he'd be mellow with pleasure."

"You could be his wife. Your husband has left this mortal coil and you are a wealthy widow." I suspected Troilus couldn't stand that shrill voice one more day and had instead chosen to contract the plague.

She didn't appreciate my unspoken sentiment; that Duke Stephano had ignored her and instead made the offer for me. "When he's killed you as he killed his other wives, I'll take up the challenge and teach Duke Stephano to be gentle and tame." She tossed her head.

With a headdress that size, I was surprised she didn't wrench her neck. "He won't kill me tonight, for I assure you, I do not go alone to the garden." I pulled the knife from my sleeve and showed her. "My chaperone."

Dear reader, let me pause to assure you I had no intention of using the knife on Duke Stephano in a deadly way. I merely wanted to pointedly make it clear to him that I was not a woman who would put up with his abuse.

Pointedly. Heh.

Obviously Porcia could never grasp the subtlety, and even more obviously showing her the knife was the act of a fool and a clear sign the stress of this event had worn away my good sense, for at the sight of the shining blade, Porcia gasped so loud the cardinals in the Vatican in Rome turned to see from whence such a gust of ill wind had been generated.

I slipped the knife back into its hiding place . . . and nicked myself.

That sharp pain was a wakeup call. Calm down, Rosie, use your vaunted intelligence. Wiliness must win the day.

She put her hand to her skinny bosom and said, "It's against the laws of man and God for a woman to deny her husband!"

"He's not my husband yet, so neither the law nor God could be offended." I tried again to stalk away.

She grabbed my arm, which drove the knifepoint into me again, and demanded, "How much did your father have to pay Duke Stephano to relieve the Montagues of the burden of keeping you?"

I should have said, I'm not privy to that information, that is the province of men. Or even, Ask my father, bitch. But Porcia had seen the knife and knew squeezing my arm could result in an injury; she enjoyed that, and she wearied me with her constant harping. In pain and disgust, I took my revenge. "My face and figure are payment enough. Duke Stephano takes me without a dowry."

"You jest!" she said incredulously.

Payback!

"Do I?" I smiled a Mona Lisa smile, swept the curtain aside—and knocked one of the fragile old widows off her feet.

So much for my grand exit.

The elderly woman was no more than a small pile of black silk and veiling on the floor. Remorseful, I helped her to her feet and said, "Lady, I beg your pardon. May I help you find a seat where you can recover yourself and have a servant bring you a plate?" For although her veil hid her face, through its deep folds I could see how gaunt she looked; I suspected she was one of the widows of a wealthy Veronese family who perhaps neglected their lesser relatives and left them to the charity of the street.

"That would be lovely, dear."

Her voice quavered so much, I feared I'd done her an injury. Although she smelled of unwashed woman and the faint odor of decay, I put my arm around her scrawny waist. "Are you hurt? May I send my nurse to care for you?"

"How kind. No, I thank you." Her pale linen gloves had once been expensive, with colorfully embroidered gauntlets, but now they sported dark damp blotches that looked as if she'd fallen hands first into a pile of rotting garbage.

Porcia surveyed her and me, pointed her little nose in the air, gave a disdainful sniff, and pushed past us.

The old lady's dark, shadowed eyes followed her, then returned to me. She covered my face with her gloved hand as if she were blind and reading my features. "A seat, a plate of food, and a glass of wine will restore me. What a lovely child you are."

I signaled one of the Montagues' faithful servants and gave him instruction, then returned to her. "I must be away, but I leave you in Giotto's hands. All you have to do is ask, and he'll see to your needs."

Giotto made an elegant bow. "I'm honored to do as you wish, lady."

I again offered my wishes that she be well, and hurried toward the garden, toward the confrontation with my betrothed. As I swept through the ballroom, the whispering behind fans, murmuring behind handkerchiefs, and knowing stares clearly indicated that the tale of my interlude with Lysander was now the subject of malicious gossip. One of Galileo's cannon balls dropped off the Tower of Pisa could not have caused such a shock, and for what? Lysander was even now slipping into an alcove with the fair Lady Blanche.

A pox on them both!

My heart, so recently given, was now broken, but I had no time to weep and wail as a proper daughter of Romeo and Juliet should do. Instead I prepared to meet Duke Stephano. I needed to be wary. I needed to be on guard. I needed to be shrewd.

He had said he wanted me for power and revenge.

Power over me, I assume, but revenge? On whom?