Page 31

I whirled and ran to my betrothed. “Nonna Ursula? Is she . . . awake?” As if by strength of will, I would bring her back.

He looked down at me oddly, as if that wasn’t the response he’d expected. “She’s unconscious. Unchanged from the morning, Friar Laurence tells me.”

I sagged in relief that she still lived, and frustration that there’d been no improvement. “Inside her head, wherever she is, she must want to shout at us to return her to life.”

“Friar Laurence told me she moves not, nor does she show signs of sleep. She’s still as death, but he says . . . he says that’s what she needs now to heal the damage to her mind.” His voice, usually so deep, still and enduring, developed a rasp of pain.

“I know. I know. I’m impatient, and the results of this violence cannot be borne.”

Lysander, who had been standing silent and still at the railing, appeared beside us. “Prince Escalus, may I express my horror at the attack on Princess Ursula, and the distress of the Marcketti family at her suffering?” He bowed, his hand over his heart.

Cal gazed at Lysander, then at me, then at Lysander, then at me, and I realized what he’d seen when he reached the top of the stairs and stepped onto the floor of the tower. We’d been together, alone, talking easily, like friends . . . or lovers. And I’d held Lysander’s hand.

I started to explain.

But why? Anything I said would sound defensive. Anyway, since when had Cal become the Rosie Montague vice squad? Sooner or later, he had to learn to trust me, and it had better be sooner.

Before I could cross my arms and tap my toe, Cal replied to Lysander. “Your horror and the distress of your family help ease my saddened heart, as well as the hearts of my sister, Princess Isabella, and my betrothed, Lady Rosaline.”

That response soundly put Lysander in his place—and me in mine. I was now part of the ruling family, and Lysander should not forget it. Nor should I.

Lysander bowed again, and backed away, returning to his work on the lights.

“Cal, that was unnecessary. We have enough crises to handle without adding one filled with imaginary emotions.”

“Your emotions for Lysander of the Marcketti are imaginary?” Cal asked in a neutral tone.

Lysander could hear him, and both could hear me; and what I had to say, they had both better heed.

“My feelings are my own, and not for display or discussion, and in this time of anguish for Princess Ursula’s suffering, I indulge in no flagrant madness of passion for anyone.

” Now I gazed from Cal to Lysander, Lysander to Cal, and any passion expressed in my eyes could only be called icy.

Before they could react with the proper groveling and apologies (I know—obviously, my weariness and anxiety had unhinged me, for they were men and incapable of either), Elder, who’d been surprisingly absent, appeared with a pop and a hiss of irritation. “My mother’s been attacked? Who would dare?”

I wanted to snarl at him, demand he explain himself. Where had he been at the time of the attack? Why couldn’t he do one little thing right? What did he have to say for himself? Instead I spared him a glare, then said, “What use is a ghost when he’s not around to witness the crime?”

“Indeed,” Cal said, “when I learned of the attack on my grandmother, I thought of your ghost.”

“He’s not my ghost.” I didn’t want to own Elder, and I most definitely didn’t want to be like him. I enjoyed my earthly state very well—indeed, even with all the murders and misunderstandings—and I would do my best to remain among the living.

Probably that explained Elder’s constant state of crabbiness. He’d enjoyed his earthly state, too, and left it too soon.

“What did he witness?” Cal asked.

I gestured to Elder to explain himself.

Elder spoke directly to his son. “When Lady Rosaline is not within the palace, I’m not . . . anywhere. Somehow her presence brings me to a semblance of life.”

“You jest!” I said.

Now he spoke to me. “Last night when you left, I faded.”

Turning back to Cal, we both realized he hadn’t heard a word Elder had spoken. He merely stared at the space Elder occupied because there I spoke. “He can’t move beyond these walls, and he’s not present unless I’m in the palace. Somehow I animate him.”

“What is the purpose of his appearance if he can’t help?” It was the cry of a grandson in distress.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t know. He said he wasn’t given a list of rules. He said that there wasn’t a ‘Welcome to the Other Realm Dinner Party and Ball.’ ”

Cal’s strong white teeth snapped together. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

“You’d have to ask him,” I snapped back, and moved to the next earthly crisis. “Cal, what about Papà? And you? And your men? What happened with the disciplinati ?”

“Your papà is unharmed, and a good man to have in a fight. He’s returned home to rest. The rest of us are fine. Unharmed.”

I snapped, “Except?”

Lysander gasped, I assume at my brusque manner, then hurriedly returned to tinkering with his lamp.

Elder said, “Testy, are we?”

Maybe I wasn’t diplomatic, but I recognized Cal’s tone from Papà’s use of it to Mamma, and it meant Verona had overnight become an unweeded garden gone to seed, given over to wicked thorny thistles that pierced the hand and heart and hurt all who dared fight them.

In other words, la merda had been flung and the flagellants had flung it.

Cal’s expression mixed guilt, exasperation, and a touch of accusation. “Marcellus took a blow to the face; his eye is swollen shut. Holofernes received a knife in the back—not deep, but long—and Barnadine caught a blade under his chin.”

“As long as everything’s fine, if by ‘fine,’ you mean—not dead.”

“How I wish I could hold a blade!” Elder exclaimed.

I started toward the stairway, rolling up my sleeves. “Friar Laurence requires me for the stitching and the bandaging? How many lesser men of your guard were injured?”

My forthright action must have taken Cal by surprise, for it was a moment before he caught up with me.

“Eight. Mostly bruises and broken bones. The flagellants were for the most part armed only with their whips, but a few held weapons, some crude, some so well-honed . . .” He shook his head.

“I should never have let them in the city.”

I turned on the stair and faced him. “Was there a good choice, Cal?”

“No. To exclude them would have fomented unrest in the country. To allow them in took the viper to my bosom.”

“To be the prince is to carry a burden too heavy for most to bear, to make decisions when all decisions are terrible. It gives comfort to Verona’s citizens to know their podestà protects them. I admire you, my prince.” A truthful tribute and one I didn’t hesitate to give.

He stood above me, two steps up, and looked down at my face as if weighing my honesty. I must have landed on the side of sincerity, for he offered, “You may call me Cal.”

My mouth twitched. I curtsied. “You are very kind.”

Elder played dumb. “Weren’t you already calling him that?”

“You’re not helping,” I answered. Then to Cal, “Let’s go.”

He caught up with me at the bottom of the stairs. He was alone; Elder had vanished again, and I was glad for that. I didn’t need his point of view in this scene!

At once, I heard moans and saw the bodies stretched out on rugs and cushions and sitting on chairs.

A weary-looking Friar Laurence grunted as he finished smearing ointment on Barnadine’s stitched chin.

“Rosie, there you are,” he said in relief.

“That boy won’t let me examine him, and he’s crying.

Can you coax him to tell you what’s wrong? ”

“Of course.” I started toward the young soldier sitting on the floor, knees bent, arms on top, sobbing into his sleeves.

Cal caught my arm and brought me to a halt. “This is my personal guard, the men who surround their leader, and they faced the worst of the fighting and took the worst of the injuries. The others sleep and eat. I don’t want you here.”

“Do you want Friar Laurence to work alone? For in the case of wounds, time is of the essence.”

“There are other apothecaries in the city.”

“Busy, no doubt. And of more consequence, they’re not present.” I placed my hand on his arm. “Cal, I know what I’m doing. Your men are safe with me.”

He reacted with irritation. “I know that! But you are my lady and such bloody work should not be your lot.”

“The care of your men is surely the duty of your lady.” I had no time for such debate. I indicated the young guard. “What’s his name?”

“Biasio.”

“Did you see what happened to him?”

“I saw no injury to him. He fought well.”

I viewed Cal’s smooth face and knew something hung in his mind. “Why do you think he’s crying?”

“He’s a young warrior who made his first kill.” Sorrow touched him as he watched Biasio. “For most of us, the first time the steel slides into a man and separates him from life . . . it is an unexpected horror and a loss.”

“I comprehend.” Indeed, I did, for I’d experienced the same thing after my adventure in the spring.

“I know you do.” Cal cupped my cheek. “I’ll talk to him.”

“He’ll be ashamed in front of his podestà.

Friar Laurence is about to set that man’s arm.

Assist, and I’ll speak to Biasio.” I did, and found Cal’s intuition was correct.

The lad was unharmed, but sick at heart and ashamed of the violence of his reaction.

To warm him, I put a rug around his shoulders, called for mulled wine dressed with honey, and assured him Prince Escalus had praised him for his proficiency.

I dared not linger too long; others needed my skills.

As I had hoped, Cal was now fully involved with helping his men, but when I left him, Biasio leaned his head against the wall and listened with respect to Marcellus, who held cloth-wrapped chips of ice to his eye.

It seemed the palace had access to an icehouse stocked with winter ice cut on Lake Garda. Classy!

Friar Laurence examined the injuries, each man in his turn, and I followed, speaking easily, observing each warrior as I asked about the fighting in the streets, what they’d faced, and so slyly uncovered the news of a thrust to Dion’s gut.

He believed it to be nothing, but when I quietly told Friar Laurence, he examined Dion and, over Dion’s protestations, ordered ice compresses and bedrest.

Barnadine’s usually overly florid complexion was pale and his eyes bloodshot, so I demanded another look at his chin.

Which was fine, but when I had him lift his chin, he wasn’t able.

When I gently tried to help, he cried out in pain.

A second examination by Friar Laurence proved Barnadine had been clubbed at the back of the neck, and he confessed to searing pain down his arm and numbness in his hand.

Yet his eyes brimmed as he begged to be allowed to fight again; Elder’s bodyguard feared for his young prince’s safety.

When told, Cal looked grave. “The ways of the worthy could not be easily abandoned, and I have no doubt that if I left him, he’d find his way into the thick of battle. Better keep him by me. It’s safer for us both.”

When Friar Laurence gave Barnadine the news, he sighed in relief.

“I’ll survive,” he told the good friar. “I know tricks in battle these whipped peasants can’t imagine.

” His gaze shifted back and forth between us.

“If I may presume—Princess Ursula had been good to me regardless of my merits. Has she recovered consciousness?”