O, Juliet (26 page)

“I passed him on the stairs as I came up. I think I heard the front door close.” She looked hard at me. “
Tell me.
What is wrong?”

Trembling with fury, I told her of Jacopo’s threat of ravishment if I ignored his demands to rouse myself, and the appalling picture he painted of my married life under Allessandra Strozzi’s roof.

“I have no choice, Lucrezia. I must appear to recover entirely.”

She was still smiling. “But look at our accomplishments. Three days gone and you have yet to sign the contract. And Romeo will have our letter in two days. In another two you will have his answer—a happy plot to rescue you and begin your life together.”

I shook my head, worried.“How much longer can I delay signing the contract? Time is growing short before our wedding day.”

Lucrezia took my hand. “What has happened to your faith in Romeo? Your beloved is exceedingly clever and bold. He would change the very course of the Arno for you.”

She made me smile. “He would indeed,” I said, ashamed of my momentary doubt. “Change the color of the fishes, too.”

“And raise Lazarus from the dead,” she teased.

“Wait,” I said, leaning over the side of my bed. I probed the hole I had made in the mattress and found the satin pouch I’d hidden there. I placed the two braided gold bands on my fingers and proudly held out my hand to Lucrezia. “No one else has seen them.”

Lucrezia admired the rings for a moment, then took me into a warm embrace and held me there. “May God bless your marriage,” she said.

Suddenly there were voices close at the door.

We froze, knowing we had come to a critical moment. “Hide the rings,” she ordered.

I put them back into the pouch and stuffed it back into the mattress.

A look of determination hardening her features, Lucrezia dropped Dante’s book loudly on the floor and began to shout.

“Oh, oh, Juliet!! Someone, come quickly!” She gave me one last desperate look and whispered, “Lie down.”

The door flew open and my parents rushed in.

“She moved and tried to speak!” Lucrezia cried. “God in heaven, I think she is back with us!”

I opened my lids very slowly, in time to see Lucrezia stand away from the bed so that Mama and Papa could hover close.

“Capello . . . ,” my mother said, her face awash with emotion.

“Juliet, can you hear me?” my father demanded.

“Oh, husband . . . ,” Mama moaned.

“I hear you,” I said in my weakest voice, “but I am so tired. So weak. I feel as if all the blood has been drained out of me.”

“I told you we should never have allowed them—”

“Hush, woman. Juliet, listen to me. Move your foot.”

I did as I was told, using the smallest twitching of my toe.

“Now lift your hand,” he ordered me.

I clenched my fist weakly and lifted it off the covers.

With that, my mother fell on me with clutching embraces and copious tears.

Over her shoulder I saw Papa heave a deeply relieved sigh. The wedding could go on as planned. His partnership was intact.

Lucrezia was smiling as she quietly made her way from my room.

Our letter was on the way to Romeo.

T
he day dawned clear, though I waited for the night’s cover to see me back to my uncles’ house. They were both cheered, but worried to see me so soon. I told them the germ of my plan and gave them another letter for Juliet—brief, but reprising the promise of my love, asking that she procure men’s clothing and wait in good faith for her husband. I would return for her.

My uncles were worrying their chins, their brows furrowed.

“This plan of yours . . . ,” Vittorio began.

“It is still imperfect, I know.”

“We have been talking of it,” Vincenzo continued. “Romeo, in any form it cannot be allowed to happen.”

“What are you saying? Juliet is my lawful wife.”

“And you are the last male Monticecco of your generation. How in good conscience can you risk dying? Nothing can be allowed to happen to you. The family line. Our blood.”

“Nothing will happen, save me rescuing her.”

“Think of your father, your mother,” Vincenzo pleaded.

“I have! Had it been they thus obstructed, Papa would have turned the world inside out to have her. He would expect no less of me.”

My uncles remained unconvinced.

“Tell me, how can I think of my parents before Juliet?” I asked them. “She was promised, yet altogether unexpected. So much more than I had had reason to hope for. More than a beauty in face and form. More, even, than a tenderhearted girl, a virtuous lady. I tell you she is
remarkable
. Unique as a woman. Strong of mind. Almost manly in her courage. I have found in this soul a very goddess, though one intolerant of my simpering adoration. And she loves me! Right from the first she fearlessly, wholeheartedly loved me.”

I could see my words moved my uncles, though I was sure they had not felt the emotions of which I spoke.

“Never once did I falter in my campaign to win her,” I continued. “It was as though I had for my tutor the God of Love himself. I brought her to dance on the pages of
Vita Nuova
. I wooed her with every one of the senses on her bedroom balcony. When our families warred, I made peace. When Jacopo Strozzi urged a hasty wedding, I married her. Uncles, I tell you she is the woman my stars have foretold, and I will settle for nothing less!”

I searched their troubled faces. Clearly, they still had their doubts.

“I have been falsely accused of murder, and exiled from Florence!” I cried. “Where is the honor in letting that stand?”

“There is no honor,” Vittorio relented.

I sensed Vincenzo was unmoved.

“Go back to the woods and stay there for now,” Vittorio said. “Refine your plan of rescue and revenge. We will think of something.”

“Thank you!” I hugged them both, and made my way back to the forest.

Now in the long nights I wrote to my father and mother asking their assistance in whatever way they could afford. It pained me to think of Papa selling either the orchard or the vineyard, and in the end I tore up the letter and put it in the fire.

I tried writing another poem, but all that came was a single line:

I cursed the Muses, at the same time praying they had not deserted me forever, and found solace in writing to my wife.

I
was never so happy to see my maid, nor she me, as when Viola came to give me a bath. She took confident charge, ordering the male servants to bring up the copper tub, and pail after pail of steaming water. She sprinkled the chamomile and lavender she had chosen with care onto the surface and stirred them in, humming a mindless tune. Only once I was covered to my neck in the fragrant water and Viola was scrubbing my back with a rough cloth did she speak to me in a low, conspiratorial tone.

“My husband is gone to Verona. With your letter. We were all so worried about you, my lady. But you were pretending!” Viola laughed, and the sound echoed across the surface of the water. “Shhh!” she scolded herself.

I had to smile. This serving girl had become a faithful friend. I took her wrist. “Viola, thank you. I would have no hope at all of escaping this dreadful marriage without you and Massimo.”

“I would like something in return,” she said, lowering her eyes shyly.

“Anything.”

“When you and Signor Monticecco have found a home and settled there, you must send for Massimo and me, and we will come serve you. Otherwise, this good deed that we’ve done will take you from me forever.” She handed me the cloth so I could scrub the soles of my feet. “Is that awfully selfish?”

“A bit.” I saw her smile collapse. “But it’s a wonderful idea. Two marriages for love under one roof.”

The smile returned. “I did overhear your parents talking to Jacopo Strozzi.”

“And?”

“They intend to keep you here in this house until your wedding day.”

This was unhappy news.

“But why?”

“Signor Strozzi has convinced them that it was his visit that brought you around, how he spoke to you of the happiness of your future life together. The many children you would have. So they listen very carefully to his advice now. ‘Heaven knows what befell poor Juliet when she was out in the world the other day . . . with Lucrezia Tornabuoni,’ I heard him say.”

“Does he speak ill of her to my parents?”

“How can he? She is marrying a Medici.” Viola thought before she said, “It is more what he does
not
say about her. And the look on his face when he mentions her name. I think if you did marry that man, you would see very little of your friend.”

“Well, never fear,Viola. I am not marrying ‘that man.’ ”

“No, you are not. Now tip your head back into the water. I’m going to wash your hair.”

Viola had been right. I was altogether prohibited from leaving my father’s house. Indeed, I was hardly allowed out of my room. The days would have gone slowly waiting for Romeo’s return letter if not for the constant flurry of wedding plans that were carried out in my private chamber.

Mama buzzed in and out a hundred times a day like a bee at the hive. All manner of decisions were at hand—whether to serve eel cooked in bay leaves, or cuttlefish in their ink, as a third course at the feast. Whether we should add to the wine that the Strozzi were supplying, so that wine flowed like water. Whether our gold and silver platters were grand enough, or she should urge Papa to buy new and more extravagant ones. After all, we were celebrating at the Medici palazzo. We could not afford to look stingy.

Allessandra Strozzi came to see my “miraculous recovery” with her own eyes. Her smile was brittle and her voice sharp when she told me how very relieved she was that I had regained my senses. The thought that she knew of my deception made the skin on my arms crawl, and it was only knowledge that I would never spend one day as a daughter-in-law in her prison of a house that allowed me to smile sweetly at her and pretend innocence. That smile enraged her even more, and this was very pleasing to me.

The silkwomen came with my wedding gown, which they had created in less than a week. It was a splendid design of thick white-on-white velvet cutwork, one that lifted my bosom high and fell in grand flares from just under my breasts. The sleeves were silk damask embroidered in membrane gold with birds and palmettes.

As it was fitted on me, tight as a glove, the older seamstress who had questioned me at Papa’s factory remained silent as she worked. If she was still suspicious of my cheerful patter—that most appropriate for a happy bride—she did not say. But once, as she held my hand to help me turn, she squeezed my fingers tight, in a secret signal, I was sure of it.

Once Mama had given her approval, the gown was taken off. In the next week the women would work night and day sewing the pearls and gems in place. They warned me proudly that so many jewels would decorate this dress that its weight would multiply ten times. I would be lucky to make it down the cathedral aisle, one said with a laugh. There would be no way to dance.