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D own the stairs I went, too fast for my still-wobbly knees, but always with a desperate urgency. Would I be too late to stop Cal from making his announcement? Halfway down the great walk, I saw Princess Isabella, skirts in hand, running toward me. “Rosie! Rosie! You’ve got to stop him!”

“Where is he?”

“On the balcony!”

The balcony where the podestà traditionally made his pronouncements, the balcony that was inset into the palace walls and provided protection for the prince from weather and attack.

“Come with me!” She ran through some door and up another flight of stairs, one I had never climbed—broad, shiny with wood, and on the landing a collection of noble marble busts of great antiquity.

Fittingly, I was on my way to the family’s private chambers.

At the top, I had to stop a moment, to gasp and hold my ribs, but Princess Isabella would have none of that.

She grabbed my arm and dragged me. “Hurry! He’s already speaking!

” She stopped in front of a set of bronze doors of glorious workings, where Dion stood guard. “Open for us!”

I’d never heard her use such an imperious voice.

He blinked as if a kitten had slapped him with its claws, and obeyed.

I paused in my rush. “A sedan chair must at once go for Friar Laurence. Go you with it, and bid him bring herbs, potions, and tools for a bleeding wound. Hurry. Your master has need.”

“Come on!” Princess Isabella grabbed my hand and tugged me through the large, luxurious, gloomy room, with its massive fireplace, massive bed, and massive wooden table scattered with maps, rolled parchments, and scribbled papers.

From the open door at the far corner of the room, I could hear Cal speaking.

Were we too late?

In a low, rushed voice, Princess Isabella said, “Holofernes guards the door to the balcony. Marcellus guards my brother. I’ll create a diversion and you make Cal see sense!” Without pause, she ran around the corner and shrieked, “Holofernes, I declare my love for you now and in front of the world!”

Well, I hadn’t expected that! As I ran past the wide-eyed, white-faced Holofernes, I knew he hadn’t, either.

Still in the shadow of the room, I paused. Marcellus, indeed, stood at Cal’s shoulder in the middle of the balcony, where he could survey the citizenry for any threat, but now the threat came from within. He looked toward the door with a face like thunder personified.

Cal continued speaking, as if nothing untoward had occurred, and his intent expression made me think he hadn’t heard or didn’t care. He would finish his pronouncement regardless of the clamor behind.

Marcellus stalked toward me and, in a menacing tone, said, “You cannot stop him.”

I viewed him coolly, calmly, and for the first time cleanly asserted my authority over this man loyal to Cal. “I go to converse with my prince. Now get out of my way.”

Marcellus lifted his chest, straightened his spine, broadened his shoulders, showed all the signs of forming a barrier between Cal and me.

His opinion of me was of a light-minded woman, manipulative and unsuited to the high office to which Cal was raising me, and if he was being generous, a competent cook.

He couldn’t comprehend the force majeure it took for me to run the Montague household from a young age, nor did he understand that I easily supervised my young, strong-minded siblings.

So when I used the decisive whiplash of my next words—“Marcellus, move out of my way now ”—Cal’s bodyguard fell back under the power of my personality.

I didn’t rush. Not now. The unimportant obstacles had been overcome, and there remained only Cal, clad in shadow, baptized in blood, alone as no man had ever yet been before on this earth.

In that deep, warm, masterful voice, he spoke, commanding the fascinated attention of the crowd gathered on the street.

His thrilling description of Barnadine’s assassination of Elder, his ongoing treachery in the years since, and his attempt on dear Nonna Ursula’s life brought a cacophony of booing and hissing.

When Cal described Barnadine’s act of luring Verona’s most loved Lady Rosaline Montague to the tower with evil intentions, the battle she fought courageously, and the horror of her near plunge to the ground, his words grew in volume and speed, and every man and woman gasped and moaned, feeling the terror he described.

He mesmerized, an improv actor who knew how to project an emotion: humor, revulsion, outrage. And then he began again. “When Lady Rosaline stood once more at my side, brave, strong, and true, I realized—”

It was time for my first step onstage as Prince Escalus’s wife. I took a fortifying breath and charged out the door.

Startled, Cal turned at the sound of my footsteps on the balcony and looked even more startled when I projected my voice toward him—and the crowd gathered below.

“Beloved betrothed, I thank you for your constant kind assurance to my soul’s well-being and your heated defense of my vulnerable woman’s body, taking such a wound to your chest deep enough to kill a lesser man!

” I faced the crowd and touched my chest. “After your battle with the hated villain Barnadine”—the people booed at Barnadine’s name, which heartened me—“you embraced me in triumph and thanksgiving, and this bloody mark you left as a brand of your courage.”

Men and women gasped as I turned from side to side to show them the smeared stain on my skin; and when I pressed my palm to the growing spot of blood on Cal’s chest, I showed them that, too.

Cal flinched and, in a low voice, said, “Rosaline, don’t.”

I paid him no heed. “With your brave action, witnessed by so many of our citizenry, you have avenged your father’s restless ghost. Even now, you bleed as you take the time to assure your people of my safety as your future wife, the assurance of your dynasty, and their own safety.

Your nobility is Verona’s essence, and thus I must beg our people, our citizens, to allow me to take you from them so that I may bind your wound and you will live another day, to the gratitude of your people and the delight of your multitude of friends. ”

Cal’s citizens shouted instructions to him, to go and be well; and to me, giving advice on how to salve and bandage him, and exhorting me to be a healer and wife.

I waved acknowledgment, took Cal firmly by the arm; and when he didn’t move, I shoved him toward the door.

It was going to get ugly if he refused to move.

To my surprise, Marcellus joined me, took Cal’s other arm, and Cal, recognizing defeat, walked with us into his bedroom.

Cheers and shouted blessings followed us inside.

Princess Isabella unwound her arms from the red-faced Holofernes’s neck, and he shut the door behind us.

Cal looked between his sister and his bodyguard. “What are you . . . ?”

Princess Isabella grinned at him. “All’s well. Rosie stopped you!”

I spared a moment for Holofernes’s embarrassment, but she’d reminded Cal of his main concern.

Cal gestured indignantly toward the balcony. “Rosie. What the hell was that?”