Page 48

G entle reader, you and everyone in Verona is well informed about the pristine state of my virginity, and while I made the gesture in all innocence, and because there is something so tactile about honey on the tongue . . . I was perfectly able to comprehend what intimacy Cal had envisioned.

Placing my hands on my trencher, I kept them absolutely still and said again, “Your uncle, Duke Yago?”

Cal leaped up and walked toward the door onto my balcony and threw it open to the fresh air. “Uncle Yago! Yes. I do suspect him. But he seems so . . . limp.”

I had no answer to that unfortunate choice of words.

Silence reigned.

Many minutes later, Cal turned to face me, but couldn’t seem to quite look at me. “Yet Yago’s my father’s brother! How is it possible that he should be so . . . ineffective? Is he really ill, or is it all an act to disguise his treachery?”

“Has anyone examined this supposed wound of his?”

“Not that I know.” He cautiously glanced toward me.

Still, I didn’t move. “I wonder if he could be coaxed to show it to Friar Laurence.”

Cal seemed to be returning to a less excitable state. “Not if it doesn’t exist!”

Point taken. “Lugrezia?”

He dismissed her. “She’s a woman.”

“And you’re a fool.”

He looked fully into my face.

Yes, I was a fool, too, for what I’d done, and for my continued provocation, regardless how inadvertent, but I plowed ahead with my argument.

“She’s ambitious, wife to a man whom you previously described as, er, limp.

The events that have unfolded—Elder’s assassination, the attack on Nonna Ursula, the flash fire of violence and unrest in the city—all could have been hired and encouraged by one person.

One woman. She is a power, is she not?” I asked.

“A power, yes. Unlikeable, but a power.”

“And never a suspect, because she’s a woman.”

He nodded, conceding the point.

“Friar Camillo,” I suggested.

Cal sputtered, which was kind of fun. “A monk? What reason have you for such an accusation?”

I had to think how to phrase my answer. “He is young, handsome, clean, helpful.”

“Suspicious!” Ah. Under the right provocation, Cal could indulge in sarcasm.

“He plucked the herbs and flowers for Nonna Ursula. He assisted Friar Laurence with your wounded. He prayed at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin in your garden. My point is, Friar Laurence is always hurrying to and fro, busy at all times. Friar Camillo seems to linger in the palace.”

Cal moved to allow the light full into my chamber. “It’s not unknown for a monk to be lazy.”

“Or for a monk to have ambitions to be valuable to the prince’s household.”

“Or for a monk to fall in love with a beautiful woman,” Cal observed darkly.

“Me?” I touched my bruised face. “If that’s the case, he’s in for a rude surprise.”

Cal paced toward me. “A temporary bruise and, so I tell all my warriors, a badge of courage.”

I liked knowing Cal considered me warrior enough to claim a badge of courage. I smiled at him. “Actually, men have fallen in love with me before. I recognize the symptoms.”

“Do you?” He had that neutral tone in his voice again.

“Yes, and I don’t believe that’s the case with Friar Camillo.” Articulating my uneasiness made this sound foolish to me. “I’m not really sure why he bothers me, Friar Laurence has borne witness to his excellence, yet . . . Friar Camillo feels artificial. As if he’s hiding something.”

“I hold great respect for your instincts—”

A comfort to a woman who knew what it was to have her words undervalued based on her gender.

“—and I’ll suggest to my head footman that Friar Camillo be kept in sight while visiting the palace.” His suggestion satisfied me and apparently him, for he moved on. “You haven’t mentioned the other possibility for, at least, the attack on Nonna Ursula. My bodyguards.”

From previous conversations and a knowledge of the Acquasasso rebellion, I know the history of his men. “Holofernes is your longtime friend and suffered with you in the dungeon.”

“That’s true.” Slowly he returned to my bedside and seated himself, drank the whole goblet of wine, filled it again, and held it out for me to take.

I reached for it and realized my fingers trembled from the impact of his voice, his presence, his seduction.

I didn’t attempt to drink, but held the goblet close to my chest. “As with you, the Acquasasso tortured Holofernes, and you said when your father released you, you were fourteen and still overcome by pain and darkness. I assume Holofernes was the same age and had like issues, therefore would be unlikely to be able to act as your father’s assassin. ”

“The Acquasasso demanded a ransom from Holofernes’s family. They had little to give, and other sons to take his place, so he had been treated with more cruelty than me.”

“He has a handsome and joyous spirit.”

“I still sometimes see the dark of the dungeon. He sees only the light that came after, and is joyful.”

I had suspected that truth about Cal; that he felt comfortable enough to share that glimpse of himself caused my trembling to ease, and I felt as if I could once again breathe easily.

Cal continued, “No, it’s not possible for Holofernes to have killed my father. The following year, Dion came to me from my wife’s family, a cousin to her, and a young but skilled warrior. He was in the nature of a gift and not in place for the assassination. Which leaves us Marcellus.”

I sipped the wine and handed it back to him, and ate some of the bread crust with cheese—I wasn’t going anywhere near sexual apples or sticky, sweet honey—and when it was clear that Cal waited for my words, I said, “Some months ago, you told me that the very day Elder released you from the dungeon, Marcellus appeared in Verona with the sworn intent of serving the house of Leonardi. Your father recognized his fighting skills, and the need to have protection for you, who was not yet recovered, and hired him.”

“Now Marcellus commands my guard and the respect of all.”

“So you have said. Yet he was in place. He could have murdered your father, and now attacked Nonna Ursula.”

In an unspoken admission that yes, Marcellus was in place for Elder’s assassination, Cal said, “He was fighting at my side during the attack on Nonna Ursula.”

“You had him within view at all times? Because he could have obtained the tools and the accomplice to tear the grate off the wall outside her room, while he, within, slinked through the corridors and battered an old woman almost to the door of heaven.”

“The combat with the flagellants was all around us.” A concession that Marcellus had fought apart from him.

“If I understand correctly, the battle was pointed tooth and naked claw, a mêlée of unmatched viciousness.”

“You don’t like Marcellus.”

I tried to decide how to explain the relationship between Marcellus and me, and finally settled on the time-honored “He started it.”

Cal gave his brief burst of laughter, and the unused sound of it made me want to laugh, too. But the food and wine had begun to work its magic, my gut ached and my face hurt, and I grew weary.

Cal took the trencher out of my hands and placed it on the tray. “I would trust Marcellus with my life, and more important, with my sister’s life, my grandmother’s life, and your life.” He leaned over me as if to kiss me.

I couldn’t quite decide how to handle this. Say no? Say yes? Say nothing and let him do what he would, knowing my family was nearby?

But his face passed my face, and he picked up the icy cloth and placed it on my swollen cheek. “Now I go and leave you to sleep, and when you wake, your family will be around you, sunshine will beam through the windows, and Nonna Ursula will be awake to tell us who our villain is.”

“I do so pray.”

He eased a pillow out from underneath my shoulders, leaned close—

I heard giggling, and the chant I’d heard so many times about my sisters as I arranged their marriages: “Cal and Rosie, sitting in a tree, k-i-ss-i-n-g. ”

I wanted to throw something at my darling siblings.

Cal gave a dry chuckle and straightened up. “Emilia and Cesario, I leave your sister in your capable hands. Adio, Rosie, and let our palms do what lips do. They pray.” He offered the flat of his hand to me, and I pressed my palm against his.

A nice twist on Romeo and Juliet’s meeting.

Cal walked past my family and into the corridor. He met Lysander, put a hand on his shoulder, then spoke earnestly to him. He gestured up, holding an imaginary lamp. Lysander nodded to him, then to me, and they walked away together.

Oh, good. They were bonding over lamps.

I glared at the two smirking children peering in my door . . . no, the four smirking children, and Papà holding the babies, and I halfway raised up on my elbows. “When I can stand, I’m going to make you all sorry!”

With wild shrieks, the children fled down the corridor.

I laughed. Little snots.

Papà lingered in the doorway, a big snot holding two potential little snots. “Mamma sends her love, and wishes she could come to you, but she needs more time.”

“I know, Papà. Kiss her and give her my love. I’ll be better tomorrow.

I’ll come to her tomorrow.” My smiling lips straightened and became a determined line, and I held up one finger—not that finger—in defiance.

“Then I’ll go to the palace and I will find the one who has brought this trouble on us all.

I will end this terror, if it’s the last thing I do. ”

The babies’ tiny faces screwed up and they began to wail.

“Rosaline, have I not taught you better than that?” In a rare fury, Papà advanced on me.

I cringed. “Sorry, Papà!”

“Are you trying to turn this into a Greek tragedy?”

“No, Papà.”

To dispel the evil eye, he spit lightly on my head, then for good measure on the babies’ heads, and walked out muttering, “Challenge the Fates . . . Used to think she was the brightest of my children . . . No more!”

I used the blanket to wipe the spit out of my hair, and took a moment to contemplate my biggest fault: my inability to keep my mouth shut.

Some things never change.