Still Star-Crossed (28 page)

“What is this?” she demanded.

“Our rebirth,” he answered, his handsome face lit with calm joy.

“What? Whose?”

He nodded to the captain. “Lock the Montague away. I will dine with Lady Rosaline.” Benvolio groaned softly as Paris’s men hauled him none too gently off his horse. Rosaline
stifled a cry as they bore him away. His head was still bleeding and he had not completely woken since they’d struck him. Paris watched the proceedings, head cocked.

“Good Sir Paris,” she said, “I pray you do not hurt him. Upon my honor, whatever Verona told you of him is a lie. There are traitors about—”

“Pray do not unbind my lady until she is safe in my tent,” Paris said to the captain. “I fear her sojourn in the clutches of that villain has addled her wits.”

The two men who seized her arms and pulled her from her horse were gentler than those who’d borne Benvolio away, but their grip was still iron, and did not give way when she struggled. Eventually she gave up, allowing herself to be marched toward a large tent at the center of the camp. Once there, Paris nodded to her captors, who withdrew, closing the tent flap behind them.

“Do not take their absence as an invitation to run,” he told her, a teasing glint in his eyes, for all the world as though he was admonishing her for treading on his toes at one of the prince’s feasts. “They stand guard just outside.”

Rosaline shook her head. “I know well ’tis folly to flee straight into a strange army that could be friends or foes.”

“Friends, dear lady, friends.” Gently, he took her hands in his, then drew a little dagger from his belt and cut her bonds. “I mean thee no harm.”

She pulled her hands from his grasp. “Then let us go.”

He sounded genuinely regretful when he said, “Would that I could.” Two manservants entered bearing steaming trays, and Paris, with a nod, directed them to lay out the
repast on the table. Rosaline’s stomach, after days of travel rations and nunnery gruel, betrayed her with a growl, and Paris gave a polite wave. “Please, eat. A poor repast compared to what we might enjoy in Verona, I am afraid, but thou art welcome to it, good Rosaline.”

Why not? If these last days had taught her anything, it was not to count on her next meal. She took a plate and began piling it high. “Why are you so familiar, sir? In Verona we scarcely knew each other.”

He gave her that gentle, inscrutable smile again. “No, but ’twas thy sister’s faithful care saved my life, so she and hers are as dear to me as kin.”

Rosaline nearly dropped the plate. “Livia?” she whispered. “How is my sister a part of this?”

“Sit thee down peacefully and I shall tell thee all.”

“Naught can be peaceful between us so long as Benvolio is in danger.”

Paris gave an indulgent sigh. “Thou hast my word, the scoundrel’s person shall be safe at least for the length of the meal thou and I share.”

In the face of this frighteningly paltry promise, Rosaline sat. “How is it that you live?” she demanded. “What confederacy have you bound up Livia in? What do you want with me and Benvolio? I promise you, he is as innocent as—”

Paris held up a hand. “My tale is long, as I imagine thine is. Prithee, hold thy peace awhile, and then may’st thou explain how thou cam’st to wander so with that Montague. Let me start with my death.” He dipped his head with a smile, acknowledging the absurdity of this. “The night my love Juliet
died, I believed, as did we all, that she was already in heaven. While I kept vigil at her tomb, another mourner appeared.” Finally, a shadow crossed his face, marring at last that strange, charming calm he had developed.

She knew who he meant. All Verona knew. “Romeo,” she said.

“Aye.” Paris’s hand drifted to his ribs. “Had I not been so weakened by grief, so Juliet-mad—but I was, and the fellow ran me through. And then I lay there, and I bled. By and by there were others come—the friar, my cousin Prince Escalus, Montagues, Capulets—some stepped over my very feet, others stopped to minister to me, but I was so near death they thought my soul was fled indeed. But I lived. I could feel everything.”

His gaze was distant and unseeing, and Rosaline shivered. She could imagine no horror worse than to spend endless minutes and hours painfully bleeding one’s life away, drop by drop. It was enough to make one run mad.

“How were you saved?” she asked.

That smile again. “I met an angel,” he said.

The nurse could not believe the sight she saw.

“My lady?” she asked.

Lady Capulet looked up sharply. “Nurse? Thou shouldst not be here.”

The nurse’s heart pounded in her ears. Her lady was right. She ought to turn around this instant and wipe the scene
before her from her mind. Whatever strange doings went on betwixt Verona’s nobles, they were not for the likes of her. But her feet carried her into the room of their own accord.
No more secrets
. “My lady, is that County Paris’s doublet?”

Lady Capulet snatched the doublet and the mask, whipping them out of sight into a sack. “ ’Tis no concern of thine.”

“They say ’twas one in such a mask who slew young Gramio,” she said. “And the young Montague men too.”

“Very like it, I suppose,” her mistress said, with that sweet, winning smile. “But well you know that Paris was lying ill all that time. ’Twas young Benvolio slew Gramio of Capulet.”

But the nurse shook her head. “My lady, I may be an old and simple servant, but pray do not undervalue my wit. Paris was recovered by then, and he was gone from his bed that night. Methinks we have given unwitting shelter to a murderer. We must to the Crown. The prince must know of this.”

She turned to go, but Lady Capulet’s hand gripped her arm, nails digging into her flesh. “Verona’s prince already knows all,” she said. “Verona’s rightful prince. Prince Paris.”

Rosaline soon realized he was mad.

Paris was pacing the length of the tent, his eyes lit with a vision only he could see. His face was flushed with an almost holy joy; his body, lean and strong, moved with grace. He would have been beautiful if he were not so frightening.

“At first I knew not that my savior was Juliet’s mother,”
he said. “I lay in pain-racked delirium for weeks as I hovered between life and death. She was nothing to me but a cool hand at my temple, a soothing voice. Her face was so like my beloved’s that I believed she was an angel, Juliet come back to guide me to heaven.

“But then my fever abated, and I knew her for who she was. No earthly love, but an angel indeed—a heaven-sent mother to restore me and set me on my path. I would have left then, but in her wisdom she persuaded me to remain hidden in House Capulet.”

“Why?”

He paused, fingering the crest at his shoulder. “What knowest thou of Verona’s succession?”

“What is there to know? The crown passed from Escalus’s grandfather, to his father, to him, and thence to his future son.”

He shook his head. “My father and Escalus’s were brothers. My claim to the crown is as great as his. The crown of Verona is rightfully mine.”

Rosaline’s eyes went wide. It seemed she had greatly underestimated her grief-racked aunt. They all had. “Paris, your father was
younger
brother to the old prince. He never made any claim to the throne. Is this the poison she poured in your ear?”

“Not poison. Salvation. Ah, canst thou not see? Escalus has been a blight on fair Verona—his reign has brought naught but strife and pain and destruction. Providence intends I should rule. Surely canst thou see that, from what thine own family has endured.”

Rosaline shook her head slowly. “I have said it a thousand times: The Capulets are neither cursed nor persecuted. None can end the feud but the feuders. The prince is not to blame. ’Twould be easier for a ruler to stop the tide than to prevent Montagues and Capulets from brawling.”

Paris gave her a pitying look, as though she were a child who insisted that two and two made five. “I love my cousin well, but if he is allowed to continue, Verona will not stand. Your aunt did but show me the truth of this, and helped me to prepare Verona to welcome my succor as it should.”

Rosaline narrowed her eyes. “And how did you accomplish that?”

“I’ll trouble not the mind of an innocent maiden with the ways of warriors,” he said soothingly. “Thy sister, dear to me as she is, knows none of this, and nor shalt thou.”

“But my aunt knows. Have you no care for her gentle womanish heart? Tell me, Paris. My maiden’s mind is stronger than you think.” Paris remained closed-mouthed, but Rosaline’s eyes went wide. There was no need to hear it from Paris’s own lips—she knew what he had done. “ ’Twas you who killed Gramio.”

Paris’s smile was sad. He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I shall say prayers for his misguided young soul forevermore,” he said. “And for Truchio, and for Orlino. I take comfort in knowing that their young lives would soon have been swallowed up by the feud, even had it not been my hand that slew them. I gave their deaths a purpose.” He turned and dug through a small chest, emerging with a black mask. “ ’Tis strange, is it not, that such a small scrap of cloth
should strike fear into an entire city? Thine aunt sewed it for me with her own hand. There’s another in my room back in Verona, but I brought this one to remind me of all I have done.”

“And my aunt, I suppose, defaced her own daughter’s statue.” The thought made her feel as ill as that of Paris slaying those poor boys.

“My lady was very brave, to make her way through Verona by night and write those things. But she knew this seeming slander was the only way to truly honor Juliet’s memory.”

“But why? What can your aim be? Why did you two slay young Montagues and Capulets alike?”

“Because I had no choice. Verona must be pushed to the brink of civil war so that I can seize my rightful crown.”

Rosaline was numb. “Our houses must be in open war on the streets, so no one will be on guard against your army’s approach. ’Tis why you falsely implicated Benvolio.”

Paris put a compassionate hand on her shoulder. “Aye. And I am sorry, but ’tis why he must die.”

Oh God, oh God, her mistress had run mad.

“Lady,” the nurse said, her voice taking the even, low tone that had never failed to soothe Jule from a nightmare. “Lady, Paris is no prince.”

Lady Capulet shook her head. “Thou art wrong, nurse. No rightful sovereign could have allowed all that has passed. Dost thou mind the night Tybalt was slain?”

The nurse nodded, shivering. Brave Tybalt, who had toddled hand in hand with her lady Juliet as a babe, lying bloody and rent in the street as Lady Capulet screamed over his body was a sight that haunted her nightmares. After that, she thought her mistress’s rage spent, collapsed into all-encompassing grief. It seemed her fury had but been hidden.

“I was as trusting as a child then,” her mistress said, her gaze far away. “I looked to the prince over Tybalt’s body and asked—
begged
—for justice.” She gave a bitter chuckle. “Can you imagine? I, mistress of the ancient house of Capulets, daughter to a duke, begging for the justice that was owed me—and our so-called prince looked at me and offered only to send Romeo into exile.
I
knew, when Romeo slew my dear kinsman and escaped with his life, that vile Escalus would never have my fealty again. When I found Paris, I understood Providence had sent him to me to bring Verona on the right path at last. When he takes his crown, he will crush the Montagues under his righteous fist.”