O, Juliet (22 page)

He sat at the head of the dining room table. Don Cosimo was given a seat at his right hand, Jacopo at his left. Men of rank filled the other chairs. Everyone else crowded around behind them. The room was overflowing, thick with the smell of wet wool.

Papa had nodded his permission for Mama and me to stay and listen to this council, but we stood well back, and Mama whispered to me that I must not, under any circumstances, speak. My defense of Romeo at the graveyard had been unconscionable, and no other outbursts would be tolerated.

When everyone quieted, my father spoke.

“Thank you for coming, beloved friends. We have been drawn, against our will, into a serious and dangerous circumstance. The hard-won peace of Florence has been broken with a violence that can only remind us of the warring Guelf and Ghibelline factions. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that if the Monticecco and the Medici”—he turned to acknowledge Cosimo—“and their
amici
were to align themselves accordingly today, Roberto and Romeo Monticecco would claim themselves Ghibellines—rural farmers—and I and my patron, Don Cosimo, would be city-bred Guelfs.”

“Are you saying this murder signals the resurgence of that ancient blood feud?” our neighbor asked, unable to mask the worry in his voice.

“Yes,” came the answer with calm assurance. But it was not Papa speaking.

Jacopo Strozzi continued. “Not two months ago we learned the true reason that Roberto Monticecco sank Capello’s cargo of silk. It was a case of the deepest family hatred, and pure revenge.”

There was outraged whispering among the listeners.

“To be fair, Jacopo,” my father said quietly, “it was Romeo who sought peace between our families. Roberto admitted the secret scandal that had pitted our families one against the other. And they did pay us reparations.”

“And you were forced to pay
equal
reparations,” Jacopo insisted with the voice of indignity.

“That is true,” Papa said.

“I tell you that it was a false peace, one that the Monticecco never meant to keep. Roberto’s sister was dishonored and disgraced, and no amount of money paid would ever make that right.”

“This is true,” the head silk weaver solemnly offered. “There is nothing worse than the loss of a family’s honor. Such a thing seethes inside a person till they die.”

My father was listening hard to everything said. I thought I saw more argument on the tip of his tongue—that there had arisen true warmth between the members of our family and the Monticecco. He could not have forgotten how well Mama loved Mona Sophia, and Roberto had sent generous, unexpected gifts and offered every goodwill.

But Papa said nothing.

“It is beyond all reason that Romeo goes unpunished for the killing,” Jacopo continued. “We know where he has gone. His uncles in Verona are harboring a violent murderer. I say we go there and wrest him away from that unholy sanctuary. Then we see justice served.”

“I will go,” the head silk weaver said.

“Let me come, too.” This was one of Papa’s merchant friends.

Others offered themselves up for the terrible journey to Verona. Jacopo could barely suppress his glee, but with every new volunteer, Papa looked more and more alarmed. I did not dare face my mother.

“We will leave in the morning,” Jacopo announced. “Arm yourselves well, as we have no idea how strongly the Monticecco uncles will defend their feckless nephew.”

“Just let them try,” a factory worker warned.

“If they take up arms, they might just find themselves without them,” another joked, and pretended slashing off his hand.

Everyone laughed.

“That is enough.”

The men startled at the sound of judicial authority. Then all eyes turned to attend Don Cosimo, whose face was a grim and threatening mask.

The listeners, including my father and Jacopo Strozzi, seemed to shrink back, as if they had been confronted by a coiled viper.

“What is this talk of revenge?” he demanded, his voice quavering with passion. “Do you propose to go, as a mob, to the city of Verona, drag a young man from his uncles’ house, and, without trial, put him to the sword?” He looked around for an answer, but everyone was silent. “A crime has been committed—we know that. But is it not a more heinous crime to plunge Florence back into that dreadful cauldron of vengeance from which it has so recently emerged? Do you think the violence would end with the death of Romeo? I, for one, cannot see it
ever
ending.”

He gazed around the room with apparent mildness and said in the softest tone imaginable, “I am neither a prince nor your king, so I have no say in what you choose to do. Do what you please. What your conscience dictates.” But when he sat back in his chair, I could see fear in the eyes of every man there.

Thus was the sway of the Medici, whose disavowal of influence was more powerful than a threat.

“What should we do, then, Don Cosimo?” Papa asked, as a child would ask a father. “Surely you do not mean for Romeo to go altogether unpunished?”

Don Cosimo placed his fingertips together and bowed his head. “Let the Signoria write a Decree of Banishment,” he answered.

My heart began pounding in my throat. That word evoked thoughts of Dante Alighieri, who had, himself, been unjustly banished from Florence and who’d died exiled from his beloved home.

Was that now to be Romeo’s fate?

“For a Florentine,” Don Cosimo went on in a provoking tone, “is banishment not the same thing as death?”

Several men muttered their agreement with the sentiment. My father nodded thoughtfully.

Then Jacopo spoke. “With due respect, Don Cosimo, a cold-blooded murder has been committed. Who knows if Romeo might not steal back into the city and wreak more havoc than he has already done?”

The Medici patron considered this question with closed eyes and tight lips that worked and twisted. In the awful silence I cursed Jacopo Strozzi to high heaven. I had for some time thought him contemptible, but now I saw that he was an evil man, one who had accomplished great harm to the innocent, with no apparent twinge of conscience. I saw that if Don Cosimo’s mind could be further swayed against Romeo, he was a dead man.

And I would be a widow.

Don Cosimo opened his eyes. “I have had several opportunities to speak to the young Monticecco, and it is my considered opinion that he will be of no further harm to any of us.”

I saw my father’s shoulders sink with relief. Jacopo bristled, but did not dare contradict the most powerful man in Italy.

“I beg you to consider our fine city,” Don Cosimo continued, “one that has become renowned the world over for its cathedral dome and Baptistery doors, its works of art, and its rich heritage of commerce. We are a people who dare stand toe-to-toe with the pope and to welcome through our gates the great philosophers of the East. Should we allow ourselves to sink so low as to revenge a single killing, no matter how tragic, and throw our populace back into the turmoil of violence that we have finally put in our past?” He looked around at the faces of his fellow Florentines, defying them with his quiet authority. “So, are we decided?” Don Cosimo asked, a touch of levity having crept into his voice.

There was muttered assent all around. Several men at the table rose to their feet.

My mother sighed so audibly that she quickly shrank back with mortification.

My own knees went weak and I braced myself against the wall, forcing an emotionless expression.

Then Jacopo stood in his place. A thrill of unnamed fear clutched at my throat. And when the man smiled that long-toothed yellow smile, every sense in me cried out, “Run! Leave your father’s house, for disaster is at hand!” But then he placed his spidery fingers on Papa’s shoulder and began to speak. His nasal drone had never sounded more repulsive to my ear.

“While our decision does not please me, it was properly made and I, a loyal citizen of the Republic, shall abide by it. But as my own interests have been diminished by the foul murder of my future partner’s nephew—a young man who would have, in the course of time, become my partner as well, and a pillar of Capelletti and Strozzi Silks and Wool—I seek a closer tie to this illustrious family.”

Then to my horror, Jacopo’s eyes found me where I stood trembling. Though I looked straight ahead, I could feel Mama’s eyes boring into me.

“There has been for some months,” he went on, “talk with Capello of a betrothal between myself and his daughter, the Lady Juliet.”

Contented and congratulatory sounds suddenly replaced the dark grumbling, and a slow smile began lifting Papa’s features.

“I therefore propose that our betrothal be announced here and now....”

Mama clutched my arm and whispered, “Joy is born amidst sorrow! Oh, Juliet, you are to be a bride!”

I am a bride,
I thought miserably.
This is not possible.

Papa made to stand, but Jacopo again stayed him with a hand on his shoulder.

“If I may beg one thing more of the girl’s father . . . ,” he said, addressing the crowd. Now he looked straight at me, holding my eyes with unabashed possessiveness. “I wish that the betrothal be short and that the banns of marriage be spoken with all good haste. In a week or two, perhaps. Once that is done, the partnership papers should be signed and our business arrangements formalized.”

I could not withhold my groan of desperation, but it was masked by noises of approbation, some of which were so enthusiastic as to sound lewd to my ear.

Papa was nodding and smiling at Jacopo.

Then the final blow.

Don Cosimo stood in place and, looking out across the room, found me and fixed me in his gaze.

“You are a dear girl, Juliet, one who is held in the deepest affection by my son’s wife-to-be. This has proven to be a painful day for us all ... except for this proposal of marriage.”

Mama stepped up close to me, hoping, I thought, to be seen by Don Cosimo. “Therefore I wish to bestow my full blessing on this happy coupling . . .”

No,
I thought,
I do not want your blessing on this marriage!

“... one that will restore the peace to Florence. So with my son’s permission, I suggest a double wedding—Piero and Lucrezia, Jacopo and Juliet!”

Piero de’ Medici nodded his enthusiastic approval of the plan, and the place exploded with celebration and cheering.

I burst into tears.

Mama laughed and clapped me to her, believing, as all but Jacopo Strozzi must have believed, that mine were tears of joy. What girl, after all, would not feel fortunate in the extreme to be marrying into one of the wealthiest families in Florence, and so beloved by the Medici that they would share with her the wedding day of its heir?

Mama wiped my tearful face with her sleeve and led me through the congregation of men to the head of the table. A numbness had crept over me, and though I knew my legs were carrying me, it was dreamlike, very dark. I felt as though I was walking to my doom.

Papa, Don Cosimo, and Jacopo were beaming. As though preordained, my father nodded at his patron, and in the next moment, Don Cosimo took up my hand and Jacopo’s and, placing one on top of the other, held them clasped between his own.

“I do hereby announce the betrothal of Jacopo Strozzi and Juliet Capelletti,” he said, smiling. “May God bless your happy union.”

The deed was done. The nightmare real.

I was to be the wife of two men.

H
ow could it have come to this?
I thought.
I, Romeo of the proud house of Monticecco, slinking out of Florence into exile in a monk’s disguise on the back of a broken-down beast of burden
.

Stolen, at that.

My manhood had been stripped from me as I trembled before Juliet in her room, she cutting off my hair to make me safe from capture. She consoling me with promises that we’d meet again. Then tearful and disgraced, I had abandoned her, left her standing on the balcony—the same stones upon which I had first wooed her so tenderly that I’d wholly won her heart—and accepted my banishment.

On this plodding journey, the most terrible of my life, I mourned my losses—my mother and father, whom I treasured and adored. The olive orchard that was my blessed childhood and would have been—but for the jealousy of one vile man—my bright future with Juliet and our brood. And I cursed the loss of Florence, the greatest city in the world, my home.

I had on that dreary ride a hundred times tried to console myself with the belief that Marco, delightful clown and faithful friend, had felt the first shove from behind. Had known it was Jacopo’s death embrace pushing him farther onto the shaft of my dagger. Had heard, in the moments before he passed out of life, Strozzi’s confession, “I set the fire.”

If no one else believed me
,
I thought, at least Marco had
.

It was all the solace I’d allowed myself. That, and my scheme for righting all the wrongs that had been perpetrated against me and my wife—my beautiful, heaven-sent Juliet.

But here, bumping along the exile’s road toward Verona, I knew my “scheme” to be no more than a seedling, one that had yet to break through its thin shell to reach damp earth and push up and up, seeking sunlight and fruition. My mind was yet muddled with anger and sadness and mad scenes of revenge. How could a man keep a cool head and plan a clean and measured rescue of his wife from her father’s home in a city that had banished him, on pain of death, for his return?

Time would be my friend, I told myself. In the coming days, ensconced in my uncles’ safe and tranquil villa, I would cool the fires in my brain, compose my wild thoughts into some coherent design.Yet time, I knew even then, was my enemy. Jacopo Strozzi was capable of anything. I had to work quickly, cleverly . . . or all would be lost.

I arrived under cover of darkness at the Monticecco Vineyard outside Verona. As I had always remembered it, the gates of the high stone wall surrounding it were lit by four large lanterns, attended by a gatekeeper. But I, cowering under my white friar’s cowl, was unrecognized by this man, one I had well known in my growing up here.