Page 25
G rimly, Papà and Cal loaded the frail females into two sedan chairs—Mamma, Imogene, and Nurse crowded into one chair; Katherina and I were in the other. Not that we were actually frail, but one could never convince the manly men of that.
Although in this case, I conceded they might have a point.
An unusual silence had settled over Verona, and what Nonna Ursula and I had considered a clever stratagem to force the hand of Elder’s assassin had turned into an after-dark excursion through the shadowy streets.
Our citizens huddled on street corners or peeked through windows.
It felt as if the world waited on indrawn breath for a battle to start.
With the armed accompaniment of the bodyguards, Marcellus, Holofernes, and Dion, and the prince’s most experienced bearers carrying us, and four outrunners carrying lit torches, we set out, brocade curtains drawn, to Casa Montague.
“Rosie, why . . . ?” Katherina huddled forward on her seat and whispered.
“It’s the disciplinati. ” I didn’t whisper, but I was very quiet.
“They march along in masks and whip themselves for their sins and ours, so they say, and perhaps some are true penitents, but because they cover their faces, it’s possible for trouble to lurk among them.
Many times, riots and unrest accompany them.
Prince Escalus has given them a specific route to travel through the streets. We will avoid those streets, but—”
Katherina jerked her head around. “Listen!”
I heard it, too. The shuffle of many feet, the slaps of whips, and the moans and prayers rising like a ghostly mist among the buildings.
Cal gave a command. The bearers picked up the pace.
I clutched Katherina’s hand and shushed her comfortingly. Only the torches gave us light within the sedan chair, and that flickered with the swaying of the curtains.
Katherina had her head down, her hands clasped in prayer.
I risked a glance between the gap.
The sounds of the disciplinati grew, a muttering magnified by the tall stone buildings and the narrow pavement, but I could see nothing of them.
Then!
We passed through an intersection and there they were, men dressed in grubby robes of blue and white, hoods up, shuffling toward us, their eyes lowered, their backs bared, their whips slapping their flesh.
They reeked of blood and sweat, and when I would have drawn back, one of them looked up and caught my gaze upon him.
Through the slit in the cloth over his face, I saw his eyes: black pools of anger, contempt, fanaticism.
With a gasp, I drew back.
Katherina whispered, “Rosie, are you witless?” She took the edges of the curtains and tied them together.
I sank back against the seat. “I am. That was unwise.”
I listened to see if that creature put up a cry against us.
Yet the bearers ran steadily on, the sounds of the disciplinati faded behind us, and Papà and Cal began to speak in normal tones.
The crisis was over, at least for this night, at least for us.
Surely, it was over for all, yet I . . . felt dirtied, and I feared.
Table of Contents
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- Page 25 (Reading here)
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