Still Star-Crossed (19 page)

“It
can’t
.”

Rosaline ground her teeth in frustration. Hours had passed since they’d left House Tirimo. The sun had set, her feet ached, the hem of her dress was thick with dust, and they had had this argument up and down Verona. “Why would my aunt deface her own granddaughter’s statue?” she demanded. “Use your wits.”

“That old termagant would do anything to be disagreeable,” Benvolio said darkly. “Besides, what say you of the black paint?”

“I say she had her wall painted,” Rosaline retorted. “A crime dozens in Verona are guilty of.”

“And ’twas thee who said she was hiding something.”

“Aye,
something
. I am not ready to accuse her of murder.”

Benvolio shook his head. “You take such pride in holding yourself loftily above our skirmishes. But you are just as quick to leap to the defense of a fellow Capulet as any of your eager-bladed cousins.”

“What do you suggest we do, then?”

“Go to the prince,” he said promptly. “Tell him what we’ve found.”

“Tell him what?” Rosaline laughed. “Your Grace, prithee, clap the matriarch of the Capulets in irons, she hath an impatient air and a black wall?”

Benvolio ducked his head, conceding her point. “To my uncle, then. We can gather the men of my house, return to the duchess, and find the proof we need, whether she will or no.”

Rosaline rolled her eyes. “If a throng of Montagues invades her house, no proof will be strong enough to calm the passions roused thereby. The city will be in flames within the day.”

“What, then?” He threw up his hands.

“We continue as we have been. Even if the duchess is somehow involved, she cannot have slain Orlino. If we can find the swordsman, we may unravel her secrets too.”

“We have visited half the passable swordsmen in the city today. None of them could have done it.”

“Then tomorrow we visit the other half.”

He shook his head. “Thou hast more patience than I, lady.”

“Not so much as you may think,” she snapped.

He looked up, startled at her waspish tone. They both began, reluctantly, to laugh. “You are right,” he admitted. “I just wish we could stop this. A murderer walks free; I hate to waste even a moment.”

“I know.”

He extended his arm in apology, and she took it. They walked on in silence through Verona’s lengthening shadows. Rosaline leaned gratefully upon him. She was unused to walking so much, but she had been loath to contradict his assumption that she could keep pace.

The moon hung over the eastern wall, huge and nearly full. As they walked on, Rosaline found herself staring at it, lost in its glow. “Romeo compared me to the moon,” she said suddenly.

The arm under hers grew tense. But Benvolio said only, “Oh?”

“Aye.” Rosaline found herself smiling. “I used to tell him he must mean to insult me, to call me after something so round and pockmarked.”

Benvolio chuckled. “He never heard a sonnet but he rewrote it ten times worse. Apparently execrable poetry was pleasing enough to Juliet, though.”

“No,” she said. “No, I doubt it. Romeo had wit aplenty. But ’twas not I who was destined to ignite it. I am sure whatever he told Juliet was beautiful.”

“He never spoke of her,” Benvolio said quietly. “Never confided in me.”

Rosaline sneaked a glance at him. He was lost in thought.
She rubbed a bit of his sleeve between her finger and thumb. “I truly thought ’twas for the best, you know,” she said hesitantly. “I knew he did not love me, for all his torrent of gifts and sonnets and declarations. Spurning him I thought a boon.”

He said nothing, but gave her arm a squeeze. Rosaline was almost ashamed of the warmth that burst through her. Had she been waiting so pathetically for his forgiveness?

He pulled away, and Rosaline looked around, startled to find they’d arrived at the door of her cottage. The sun had set now, and she suppressed a shiver, surprisingly cold without his warmth at her side.

Benvolio’s arm was still half extended toward her. “Well,” he said. “Until the morrow, then.” He started to say something else, then stopped. Staring at her, he swallowed hard.

“Aye, until tomorrow.” Seized by a sudden impulse, she raised herself on tiptoe to press a kiss against his cheek. She felt his breath hitch in surprise against her temple. Cheeks flaming, unable to meet his eyes, Rosaline whispered, “Good night,” and slipped inside her door.

“I swear, Your Grace, I know not who it was.”

Escalus rubbed a hand over his eyes. The darkness would hide his weariness from young Truchio’s earnest gaze.

The Palace Guard were not best pleased with his decision to take Venitio and ride the city streets. But he knew not what else to do. Yesterday, the betrothal ceremony, meant to
dampen the flames of the feud, had ended more disastrously than he could have imagined. Then young Orlino had been slain in the night. Tempers were higher than they had ever been. His city was about to explode, and if the sight of its stern-faced sovereign was enough to dissuade even one impetuous young man from drawing his sword, it was worth the danger to himself.

He was holding Verona together with all his might, but he did not know how long his grip could keep it from flying apart.

“I’m sure you know who scrawled insults on the Capulet wall today,” he said. “And I am sure ’tis no coincidence I found you lurking so near the house of the Duchess of Vitruvio. Come, Truchio, I tire of your kin’s false stupidity. Who but one of the Montague youths would do such a thing? Was it you? Young Marius? Marcellus? Tell me.”

Truchio raised his chin, remaining silent. Escalus sighed. In truth, he had expected nothing else. “Young knave, you help neither yourself nor your family by hiding treachery in your midst,” he said.

“I hide no treachery, I, upon my life,” Truchio whined. “Ask Benvolio. He’ll tell you.”

The prince followed his gaze and drew in a breath, drawing Venitio to a halt. Sure enough, Benvolio was there.

This was not the first time today that the prince’s wanderings had carried him to Rosaline’s house. The duchess’s estate was near the outskirts of town, but Venitio’s steps seemed to point that way without Escalus’s direction. He had seen no one there before. Now Benvolio stood before the
gate, looking up at the cottage. After a moment, light was kindled within. Benvolio, the prince realized, had been seeing his betrothed home.

He ought to be pleased, if Benvolio’s feelings for Rosaline were growing warmer. He was requiring them to marry, after all. But telling himself that did nothing to soothe the urge to seize Benvolio and drag him away from her.

Rosaline was within. Rosaline, who loved him. She had told him so. Escalus had only to go inside, to tell her that she need not wed the young Montague on her threshold, and she could be his.

By God, he wanted to do just that.

He drew in a sharp breath as it washed over him. Finally, he admitted to himself what Isabella had tried to tell him. Renting Rosaline’s house, arranging her marriage, even the drunken evening he’d spent with her—she’d captured his attentions not because she was a Capulet useful to the Crown, but because he desired her.

And it mattered not a jot. This marriage was more essential than ever. He could not disrupt it for the yearnings of his own foolish heart. Damn these two houses. They would never know what they had stolen from him.

Venitio snorted and stamped, drawing Benvolio’s attention. His eyes widened when he saw his sovereign staring at him silently. He made him a bow. Escalus nodded but said nothing, nor did he approach.

He wheeled Venitio about, pointing him back toward the palace. “Hie you home, Truchio,” he muttered. “Get back to the streets where the Montagues live. Here’s no place for
you.” But he did not wait to see if the boy complied before he rode for home himself.

On the morrow, he would wonder if he had sealed the boy’s doom.

Once more, night’s torches lit Benvolio’s steps.

It was becoming a habit, he acknowledged wryly to himself. This time, at least, his sleepless wanderings through Verona’s streets had less to do with grief than confusion. Rosaline’s keen green eyes haunted his thoughts.

The idea of marrying her had grown no less absurd. If Benvolio married a Capulet lady, he’d never have a moment’s peace, from her or from anyone else. The prince and his uncle were foolish to think otherwise. And yet, what if they succeeded in breaking the betrothal? The thought of her vanishing from his life caused a strange pain in his breast.

Benvolio had never been in love, and he was certain that he was not now. When he compared the turmoil Rosaline provoked in him to Romeo’s sighing, poetical ardor, he found they had little in common. He felt no urge to write sonnets, nor to moan her name and weep.
That
was love. This was—irritating.

No less so because it seemed to have displeased his sovereign too. What had been the meaning of that encounter by Rosaline’s door? Why had the prince looked at him so coldly? How could he be displeased if they were together? He had betrothed them, after all. Did he think he meant Rosaline
some dishonor? He thought perhaps he ought to go to the palace, to explain, but he could not explain his feelings even to himself.

And so he wandered, for hour upon hour, as the night grew deep and the streets empty. He hoped Rosaline’s sleep was peaceful, for he’d be little use tomorrow if, as he thought likely, he walked till sunup.

“Yahh! Halt, Montague! Your house’s defeat is at hand!”

Benvolio drew up short when he suddenly found the tip of a sword wavering before his nose. Following it down to its owner, he found a young man in Capulet garb, wavering excitedly before him, scowling and fierce as a terrier.

Benvolio sighed. “You were in the graveyard three weeks ago when Rosaline was attacked. Hail, fellow.”

“Aye. Gramio is my name, and I shall be your doom!”

“Will you?” Benvolio inquired, stepping out of reach of the erratic blade. “I defeated you and two of your fellows together that night. Have you grown a better sword arm since?”

“Capulet fortunes have changed since then,” the Capulet blustered proudly. “Thy cousin Truchio was as arrogant as thee, till he met our guardian spirit’s blade. Draw thy blade and give me satisfaction!”

Benvolio had been struggling not to laugh at this fierce little fowl. Now he grew sober, his hand drifting toward his sword. Unlike Orlino, Truchio was a good-hearted lad and had stayed out of trouble since that night in the graveyard. “What mean you?” he said. “Where is Truchio?”

“Dead,” Gramio laughed. “The spirit clad in black, the guardian of the Capulets, ran him through on the Eastern
road, two hours after sundown. ’Tis the ghost of Tybalt come again to restore our house’s honor.” He brandished something—a bit of cloth—and Benvolio grew cold. It was a Montague sash.

His sword was in his hand before he knew what had happened. “Give me that,” he said quietly.

Gramio grinned fiercely. “So thou art no coward after all. Have at it.”

“What,” Benvolio growled. “Art thou a savage, taking trophies from the dead? I said give it to me!”

The first hint of fear showed in Gramio’s face. “Montague—”

Benvolio brought his sword crashing down against Gramio’s. There was a fierce rushing in his ears, drowning out everything else. The street, the torches, the night air—all of it ceased to exist. He could have been fighting atop the church altar on Sunday, for all he cared. He would get back Truchio’s sash, or one or both of them would die in the attempt.

Slash
. He opened a cut in the Capulet’s left shoulder.
Slash
. He nicked his sword arm.
Clang
. He parried Gramio’s attempt at an attack so fiercely that the scoundrel cried out in pain, clutching his wrist. Gramio was dodging left and right, employing every paltry trick he knew to stay out of Benvolio’s reach, but none of it would be enough. Benvolio was sick of bowing and scraping in the face of Capulet insults while his family died around him. Tonight it ended.

Coldly, he evaluated the series of maneuvers Gramio had begun, parrying them almost lazily as he waited for the mistake he knew was coming. Gramio was panicked and sloppy;
in just a moment he would fall slightly off balance, forcing him to step back and leave his left side open—right—now.