Queen Mab (17 page)

No, the binding to Paris must be broken, Mab thought.  As protector of the House of Capulet, it must not be.  True, a marriage to Paris would keep the House of Capulet strong, but mortar made with blood left stains upon the foundation. Juliet was bound to Romeo, and if the world should end with such a joining, so be it.  So be it.  Far better than without.  Days spent in love were worth an eternity without.

Queen Mab looked at Juliet and allowed peace to radiate off her being.  "This is thy love?" she asked. 

"Yes," Juliet nodded, gazing upon her husband Romeo.  "But he must leave me for exile in Mantua, or else face execution by the prince's hand."

"This is of grave importance, my dear.  I have looked into the future and seen that to be parted from him will mean certain death."

"Death?" Juliet whispered.  The air became dark and the sky began churning with the darkness of a storm.

"Death, my child," Queen Mab confirmed.  "A domino of destruction will come if you are kept apart.  Go with him!  Though he his banished, leave not your husband's side.  There is nothing more here for you if he is not with you.  Travel with him to Mantua and live happily to the end of your days.  Listen to this dream and remember!"

"I shall remember," said Juliet.  "I shall."

Queen Mab waved her hand and once more the sky returned to turquoise blue.

"Do," Queen Mab whispered.  "For it is in the forgetting of dreams that your fate will meet a terrible end."

And with that, the wind began to howl and sweep its way around Queen Mab, wrapping itself about her like a tornado.  She shouted over the wind, "REMEMBER!"

Juliet sat up in bed, her heart pounding as Mab flew away to minister to the mind of another.  The sun was barely risen and its weak rays broke through Juliet's curtained balcony.  The birds outside were singing and their gentle music soothed and distracted her, reminding her that the terror that woke her was not real.

Still, Juliet was supposed to remember something... She tried to grasp the fading images.  They were like water between her fingers.  But then she remembered something about keeping her husband at her side. 

Romeo was up and already dressing.  He looked at her with such want and sadness, preparing for their long parting and his banishment.  Rather than going to him to say goodbye, she tried to call him back to the bed.  "Will you be gone already?  It is not yet near day.  It was the nightingale and not the lark that you heard.  She sings in the pomegranate tree.  Believe me, love, it was the nightingale..."

Q
ueen Mab was waiting in Lord Capulet's bedchambers when he awoke.  The sun upon her face should have filled Mab with astonishment and wonder.  After a century without the touch of morning, she should have felt overwhelming joy to not fade with the dawn.  To remain should have been a prized relished, and yet, there was no sense of victory.  Instead, she tasted the bitter cost. 

"Lord Capulet," she began as he stirred.  "The day of your daughter's rebellion is upon us."

He looked at her like she was mad, a thief within his house, but she would not be silenced.  She stepped forward, trying to will him to see the urgency of the matter.  "Do not marry her to the County Paris.  Your entire House lies upon the brink of destruction."

"Who are you?" he asked, clutching his coverlet with fear.

"I am Queen Mab, the protector of this House," she said with some confusion.  "You saw me not but a few days ago at your masque.  Is the human mind so forgetful and frail?"

"Nay, you do not have the face of the witch I know and Queen Mab could never leave her palace beyond the dawn."

"Nevertheless, I am she," Queen Mab went on, "And I come to you with words of dire warning.  The prophesy I gave you over fifteen years ago is coming now to fruition.  I beg you to heed my caution, no matter how discordant it may ring in your ears."

"Bah," said Lord Capulet, rising and getting his dressing gown.  "Even if you are Queen Mab, why should I listen to a woman such as you?  Protector of our House and yet you did not warn me against the death of my nephew."

"Tybalt's future was shielded from my eyes, but that does not prevent me from seeing what is to come.  I am charged with preventing your House from fall.  You must stop this wedding of your daughter to County Paris!"

"Shielded?  You have failed, Queen Mab, and do not pretend it is otherwise.  You warned me of my child's betrayal, yet abandoned my kinsman to a terrible end.  Tybalt is dead and such sadness fills my House, it were better that my House
was
destroyed.  This is your doing.  I lay the blame squarely at your feet!  You broke the promise you gave my forefathers and are a traitor to my kith and kin.  I will not seek the guidance of one who can barely see the horizon.  I have spoken with one wiser than you, one who has shown me the secrets of the future.  By all that is precious to me, I swear that it shall be by the stars he sees, and not you, that I shall guide my barque."

Mab paused.  "And who gave you these comforting prophecies of which you speak?"

"A musician outside the Prince's palace who plays the pipes most cunningly."

Mab's blood froze in her veins realizing that Faunus was already playing his game so many steps ahead.  She tried to warn, "I know this man and he cares not for your tender keep.  He seeks instead prizes of adoration and greatness."

"Which I am happy to give if he keeps us more tenderly than we have been at your hand!"

"Do you not see!  You must stop this marriage and reconcile with the Montagues!  Welcome back this boy, Romeo!  That is the only way you may both survive!"

And that was where Mab realized her error.  Lord Capulet walked towards her, his cunning ways catching the unfortunate truth of her words.

"You say that heeding your words shall let us both live?  What if I would happily sacrifice all to see that the House of Montague is forever shamed?"

"Be careful what you say you would happily sacrifice, for I think you do not know the sorrow you are welcoming to your door."

"Perhaps I am not welcoming sorrow at all, but the joy of a marriage well made and the male grandchildren my daughter will bear."

"Your daughter will rebel, and in doing so, she spells your ruin," Mab pleaded.

"Then I will make certain that she has not the spirit or the strength to stand against my resolve."

Lord Capulet stormed out of the room towards Juliet's chambers, where shouts of anger already echoed down the hall.

Mab closed her eyes and willed that she might disappear from human view and become invisible to any gaze.  Her cloud of smoke obeyed her and she faded soon to nothing.  How strange to spend one hundred years longing to be in the flesh, and then her first day upon the earth, use her power to vanish once more.  She followed Lord Capulet as he tore open the door to his daughter's room and strode inside.  His daughter tearfully sat upon the bed as her mother and nurse looked upon her aghast.

"How now, Juliet?  Are you still in tears?  Still mourning for your cousin Tybalt?  One would think your body has not the room for the sea of salt pouring from your eyes."  He turned to Lady Capulet.  "Wife?  Have you delivered to her our decree and her happy betrothal to the County Paris?"

Lady Capulet replied bitterly, "Aye, sir.  She gives you thanks, but will have no talk of marriage.  I would the fool were married to her grave!"

Lord Capulet became deadly still. "Let me follow your meaning, wife.  Does she not give us thanks?  Is she so proud?  Does she not consider herself blessed, unworthy as she is, that we have secured her a gentleman such as Paris to be her groom?  Tell me again, wife, that I imagine these rebellions in a girl who should count herself lucky for the future we have brokered for her."

Juliet reached out to soothe him, to calm him with her words.  "I am thankful and proud to have such parents who would seek to secure their daughter such security, but I am not thankful for what you have done.  This marriage, no matter how good the intent is a hateful thing, even if when I know it was done with love.  And so I thank you, but I must thank you not, and beg that you pardon me."

Lord Capulet raged, grabbing Juliet by the arm and throwing her to the floor. "You and your twisted words!  How now!  What is this?  I thank you and I thank you not.  Thank me no thankings nor proud me no prouds, but go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church on Thursday or I will drag you there myself!"

He pulled her up again and made for the door as if to take her to church that moment.

"Fie, fie! Are you mad?" asked Lady Capulet as she tried to pull her husband away.  He raised his hand as if to strike her, then turned to the cowering Juliet.

His daughter begged, "Good father, I beseech you on my knees! Hear me with patience!"

But Lord Capulet, all kindness stolen from his heart and Mab's warning of this rebellion still fresh in his ears, would not listen her pleas.  "Hang thee! Disobedient wretch! I tell thee what.  Get thee to church on Thursday or never after look me in the face.  Speak not, reply not, do not answer me! Wife, we thought ourselves blessed that God had given us but this only child, but now I see this one is one too much and that we have been cursed.  Out on her!"

Her nurse tried to pull him away as he made to throw Juliet from their house. "God in heaven bless her!  You are to blame, my lord!"

Lord Capulet turned towards her.  "Hold your tongue!"

"May not one speak?"

Lady Capulet tried to calm him, warning.  "You are too hot!"

"It makes me mad!  Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play, alone, in company, all this to have her matched, and now giving her a gentleman of noble parentage, youthful, with honorable parts, proportioned as any maiden would wish a man, and then have my daughter cry, 'I'll not wed!  I cannot love!  I am too young!  I pray you, pardon me.'  Go where you will Juliet, you shall not house with me.  I do not jest.  Thursday is near.  You are mine and I give you to my friend.  And if you spurn his friendly hand, you may hang, beg, starve, and die in the streets, for I will never acknowledge thee.  Think on it."

Lord Capulet left, storming out of the room, leaving the tornado of his chaos in his wake.

Juliet cried, "Is there no pity that sees into the bottom of my grief?"

Mab heard and longed to reveal herself, to call upon her full might as the Queen of Dreams to demand that this marriage be put to an end, but she stopped, remembering Lord Capulet's anger and that she no longer held any power here.  She thought of Juliet and how she used cunning to secure that which her heart desired.  Perhaps in such strategy wisdom lay.  Mab whispered in Juliet's ear to beg just for more time.

The young woman listened, for she turned to her mother and said, "O, my sweet mother, cast me not away!  Delay this marriage for a month, a week!  Or if you do not, make the bridal bed in that tomb where Tybalt lies."

Mab whispered to her mother to heed her daughter's words, but her mother would not be swayed.

"Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word," said Lady Capulet, throwing up her hands and exiting.  "Do as thou will, for I am done with thee."

Nothing was left but Juliet and her nurse.  Juliet wept, "O God!  O nurse, how shall this be prevented?  My husband is here on earth.  Counsel me!  Have you not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse?"

Her nurse gathered her in her arms, wiping the tears from her cheeks so wet. "Here it is, my girl.  Romeo is banished and no one else knows how you are bound.  He dares not come back to challenge for your hand, for it would mean his death.  As things do stand, I think it best you marry this County Paris.  Oh, he is a lovely gentleman to whom Romeo cannot compare.  I think you shall be very happy in this second match, for it excels your first.  You must think of Romeo as dead, for it is as good as if he were."

Leaning against her nurse's shoulder, Juliet's voice was muffled. "Do you speak from your heart?"

"And from my soul, too," the nurse replied.

Juliet let the words linger in the air until the harsh vibration of their reality ceased.  She took the emotions she had so freely shared and folded them quietly, tucking them into the corners of her soul so that she alone knew they were there.  In that moment, Mab saw her turn from girl to woman. 

Juliet rose coldly.

She turned away and spoke. "You have comforted me greatly and I see the path with which it is best I walk upon.  Go in and tell my mother I am gone.  Having displeased my father, I am to Friar Laurence's cell, to make confession and to be absolved."

"Marry, I will; and this is wisely done!" said the nurse.  She toddled over and planted a kiss upon Juliet's temple, pleased her charge had come around.  With a light heart, she left to do as she was bid.

Mab, however, watched and waited unseen.

Juliet looked after her nurse and waited until the door was closed before unleashing her storm. "O most wicked fiend!  Praise for Paris with the same tongue which praised my Romeo above compare so many thousands of times? Go, counselor.  You and my bosom henceforth shall be twain."

Juliet took down her cloak and placed it over her shoulders, hiding her face deep in its hood in case any passers might see the resolve in her eyes.  She crept softly down the stairs, pausing by her father's study.  Seeing he was not there, she went inside and opened the drawer of a chest.  She removed a dagger and stared at it in her hand. 

Mab grew chilled.  The vision from fifteen years ago of this child with this naked blade plunged into her heart came back as if a conversation held only hours before.  Surely a temporary separation was not worthy of such a permanent end.  If only Juliet had heeded her warning and escaped to Mantua with her love.  Mab looked at all the pieces of these hundred years, from the moment that bull was stolen to standing here in this study.  It was as if every blunder, as if every tripping step moved them like a river towards this fate, and now the currents were almost too strong to fight against.  But Mab vowed she would try.  She whispered to Juliet that she have patience, that a solution was near if she only trust.