Page 88 of Thus with a Kiss I Die

“I beg you, Your Grace, forgive me for that wicked assault.” I was wretched with guilt.

“I’m already far gone. You hardly made matters worse.” Duke Yago smiled wanly. “I wish you luck in your forthcoming marriage. Not that you’ll need it. You’ll make Cal a good wife and be an excellent princess. May God bless you with long life and many children . . . and now I go to take my farewell of my mother.”

“Will you tell her it’s the final farewell?”

“She pretends to be psychic, you know. She isn’t, but she’s a sharp old lady. I suspect she’ll know.” Yago leaned a hand against the wall and walked sideways like a crab back to Nonna’s suite.

With one of those disconcerting pops, Elder appeared at my elbow. “Poor sap! Lugrezia commands him his whole life and now he dies a miserable death. At least he goes on without her.”

“I can smell it on him. He’s infected all the way to the bone.”

We stood together, staring after Yago.

Friar Laurence returned from his consultation with Duchess Lugrezia, shaking his head sadly. He lifted my face to examine it. “Is it painful?”

Aware of the prince’s men who had suffered so many worse wounds, I made light of my discomfort. “I come from my mother’s childbed. This pain fades by significance.”

“Good answer,” I heard a soldier say somewhere behind me.

“Are you hurt elsewhere?” Friar Laurence asked quietly.

“A kick.” I gestured to my gut. “It aches.”

He stroked his chin. “That is more concerning. Let me know, Rosie, if you need a potion.”

“I will.” I was still spotting, but less and less all the time.

“Now I must go, or Friar Camillo will take my place as the palace apothecary.” He chuckled.

“Does he wish for the post?” A question of more than usual interest to me.

Friar Laurence shook his head. “He hasn’t the knowledge yet. Like you, he’s an apprentice. But he’s a good man, brave and upright, and he’s learning quickly.” He blessed me, then returned to the examination room, having answered again my questions about Friar Camillo.

Marcellus, Holofernes, and Barnadine walked past us. Marcellus and Barnadine scowled. Holofernes called out, “Nice shiner, Montague!”

I waved and said to Elder, “I’ve never had a black eye. Is commenting on it a ritual?”

“An acknowledgment of your newfound status,” Elder confirmed. He examined my face. “You took a solid hit.”

“I did.” I shuddered. I expected a lecture about going out, because men seemed to receive the same dialogue over and over, no matter which character they played.

Instead Elder said, “I’ve made a grisly discovery.” He sounded almost conversational, as if he feared I’d dissolve into a wet, weeping blob of female sorrow. “Pasqueta’s in the herb garden, half-buried under the rosemary hedge, with Yorick’s skull atop the mound. Whoever did it was in a rage.” Unnecessarily, he added, “She’s dead.”

CHAPTER48

Cal walked into the palace with Dion in time to see me cover my face with my crooked arm and do as Elder feared—I wept. Poor Pasqueta! Wrong place, wrong time. Seen too much and now she paid with the price of bloody death.

Cal hurried to me, enfolded me, lifted my face, and scrutinized me. “You were hurt. You should have stayed in bed.”

“It’s not that. I’m better. Truly.”

“What evil tidings break your womanly heart? Tell me, Rosie.”

New tears welling up, I said, “Pasqueta’s under the rosemary hedge. Dead.”

Shocked, Cal asked, “How did you find her?”

“Your father did.” Cal froze, and I saw the remnants of disbelief in his face. “Cal, I haven’t been out there, but I don’t doubt your father.”