Juliet

V.I

Siena , A.D. 1340

ON THE NIGHT OF THE FATAL PALIO, the body of young Tebaldo Tolomei was laid out in the church of San Cristoforo, across the piazza from Palazzo Tolomei. In a gesture of friendship, Messer Salimbeni had stopped by to drape the cencio over the dead hero and to promise the grieving father that the murderer would soon be found. After that, he had excused himself and left the Tolomei family to their grief, pausing only briefly on his way out to bow to the Lord and appreciate Giulietta’s slender form kneeling rather invitingly in prayer before the bier of her cousin.

All the women of the Tolomei family were gathered in the church of San Cristoforo that night, wailing and praying with Tebaldo’s mother, while the men ran back and forth between church and palazzo, wine on their breath, athirst to execute justice on Romeo Marescotti. Whenever Giulietta heard snippets of their hushed conversations, her throat tightened in fear, and her eyes welled up at the imagined sight of the man she loved, caught by his enemies and punished for a crime she was certain he had not committed.

It spoke in her favor that she was seen to grieve so profoundly over a cousin with whom she had never exchanged a single word; the tears Giulietta cried that night mingled with those of her cousins and aunts like rivers running into one and the same lake; they were so plentiful that no one cared to explore their true source.

“I suppose you are truly sorry,” her aunt had said, looking up briefly from her own grief to see Giulietta crying into the cencio that was draped over Tebaldo. “And you should be! Had it not been for you, that bastard Romeo would never have dared-” Before she could finish the sentence, Monna Antonia had once again collapsed in tears, and Giulietta had discreetly removed herself from the center of attention to sit down in a pew in one of the darker corners of the church.

As she sat there, lonely and miserable, she was sorely tempted to try her luck and escape from San Cristoforo on foot. She had no money, and no one to protect her, but, God willing, she might be able to find her way back to Maestro Ambrogio’s workshop. The city streets, however, were awash with soldiers searching for Romeo, and the entrance to the church was lined with guards. Only an angel-or a ghost-would be able to get past them unnoticed.

Sometime past midnight she looked up from her folded hands to see Friar Lorenzo making the rounds of the mourning party. The sight surprised her; she had heard the Tolomei guards talking about a Franciscan friar who had-allegedly-helped Romeo escape through the Bottini right after the Palio, and she had naturally assumed the man was Friar Lorenzo. Now, seeing him walking around the church so calmly, comforting the mourning women, her chest became heavy with disappointment. Whoever it was that had helped Romeo to escape, it was no one she knew or was ever likely to know.

When he eventually caught sight of her sitting alone in the corner, he joined her right away. Squeezing into the pew, Friar Lorenzo took the liberty of sharing her kneeler, and mumbled, “Forgive me for intruding on your grief.”

Giulietta replied softly, making sure no one overheard them. “You are my grief’s oldest friend.”

“Would it console you to know that the man for whom you are truly crying is on his way to foreign lands where his foes will never find him?”

Giulietta pressed a hand to her mouth to strangle her emotion. “If he is indeed safe, then I am the happiest creature on earth. But I am also”-her voice trembled-“the most pitiful. Oh, Lorenzo, how can we live like this… he there, I here? Would that I had gone with him! Would that I were a falcon on his arm and not a wanton bird in this putrid cage!”

Aware that she had spoken too loudly, and far too frankly, Giulietta looked around nervously to see if anyone had heard her. But fortunately, Monna Antonia was too absorbed in her own misery to notice much around her, and the other women were still flocking around the bier, busying themselves with flower arrangements.

Friar Lorenzo looked at her intently from behind his folded hands. “If you could follow him, would you go?”

“Of course!” Giulietta straightened up in spite of herself. “I would follow him throughout the world!” Realizing that, once again, she was being carried away, she sank lower on the kneeler, and added, in a solemn whisper, “I would follow him through the valley of the shadow of Death.”

“Then compose yourself,” whispered Friar Lorenzo, putting a warning hand on her arm, “for he is here, and-calm yourself! He would not leave Siena without you. Do not turn your head, for he is right-”

Giulietta could not help but twist around to catch a glimpse of the hooded monk crouched on the kneeler behind her, head bent in perfect concealment; if she was not mistaken, he was wearing the very same cowl Friar Lorenzo had made her wear when they once went together to Palazzo Marescotti.

Light-headed with excitement, Giulietta eyed her aunts and cousins with nervous calculation. If anyone discovered that Romeo was here, in this very church on this very night, surely neither he, nor she, nor even Friar Lorenzo would live to see the sun rise. It was too bold, too devilish for a presumed murderer to defile poor Tebaldo’s vigil in order to woo the dead hero’s cousin, and no Tolomei would ever tolerate the insult.

“Are you moonstruck?” she hissed over her shoulder. “If they discover you, they will kill you!”

“Your voice is sharper than their swords!” complained Romeo. “I beg you, be sweet; these may be the last words you ever speak to me.” Giulietta more felt than saw the sincerity in his eyes, gleaming at her from within the shade of the hood as he went on, “If you meant what you said just now, take this”-he pulled a ring off his finger and held it out for her to take-“here, I give you this ring-”

Giulietta gasped, but took the ring nonetheless. It was a golden signet ring with the Marescotti eagle, but through Romeo’s words, I give you this ring, it had become her wedding band.

“May God bless you both forever after!” whispered Friar Lorenzo, knowing full well that forever after might not extend beyond this night. “And may the holy saints in Heaven be the witnesses of your happy union. Now listen carefully. Tomorrow, the funeral will be held at the Tolomei sepulchre, outside the city walls-”

“Wait!” exclaimed Giulietta. “Surely, I am coming with you now?”

“Shh! It is impossible!” Friar Lorenzo laid another hand on her to calm her. “The guards at the door would stop you. And it is too dangerous inside the city tonight-”

The sound of someone hushing them across the room made the three of them jolt with fear. Glancing nervously at her aunts, Giulietta saw them grimacing at her to be quiet and not upset Monna Antonia any further. And so she ducked her head dutifully and held her tongue until they were no longer looking at her. Then, turning around once more, she looked pleadingly at Romeo.

“Do not marry me and leave me!” she begged. “Tonight is our wedding night!”

“Tomorrow,” he whispered, all but reaching out to touch her cheek, “we will look back on all this and laugh.”

“Tomorrow,” sobbed Giulietta, into the palm of her hand, “may never come!”

“Whatever happens,” Romeo assured her, “we will be together. As man and wife. I swear it to you. In this world… or the next.”

THE TOLOMEI SEPULCHRE was part of a vast cemetery outside Porta Tufi. Ever since antiquity, the people of Siena had buried their dead beyond the city walls, and every noble family had kept up-or usurped-an ancient vault containing a suitable quantity of deceased ancestors. The Tolomei sanctuary sat among them all like a marble castle in this city of death; most of the structure was subterranean, but it had a grandiose entrance above ground, much like the tombs of those august Roman statesmen with whom Messer Tolomei so liked to compare himself.

Scores of family members and close friends had come along to the cemetery on this sad day, to comfort Tolomei and his wife as their firstborn was laid to rest in the granite sarcophagus Tolomei had originally commissioned for himself. It was a sin and a shame to see such a healthy young man surrendered to the netherworld; no words could console the wailing mother or the young girl to whom Tebaldo had been betrothed since the day she was born, twelve years ago. Where was she to find another suitable husband now, so close to womanhood, and so used to thinking of herself as mistress of Palazzo Tolomei?

But Giulietta was too anxious about her own immediate future to wallow long in sympathy for her grieving family. She was also exhausted from lack of rest. The vigil had lasted all night, and now, far into the afternoon of the following day-with all hopes of resurrection proving idle-Monna Antonia looked as if she herself was likely to join her son in his untimely grave. Pale and drawn, she supported herself heavily on the arms of her brothers; only once did she turn towards Giulietta, her ghoulish face contorted in hatred.

“And there she is, the snake at my bosom!” she snarled, wanting everyone to hear her. “Had it not been for her shameless encouragement, Romeo Marescotti would never have dared lift a hand against this house! Look at her conniving face! Look at those traitorous tears! I wager they are not for my Tebaldo, but for his murderer, Romeo!” She spat on the ground twice to rid herself of the taste of the name. “It is time for you to act, brothers! Stand no more like frightened sheep! A foul crime has been committed against the house of Tolomei, and the murderer is prancing around town thinking himself above the law-” She withdrew a shiny stiletto from her shawl and waved it in the air. “If you are men, gut this town and find him, wherever he may be hiding, and let a grieving mother bury this blade in his black heart!”

After this outburst of emotion, Monna Antonia fell back into the arms of her brothers, and there she hung, limp and miserable, while the procession continued down the stone stairs into the underground sepulchre. Once everyone was gathered below, Tebaldo’s shrouded body was placed in the sarcophagus, and the last rites performed.

Throughout the funeral, Giulietta looked stealthily around at every nook and cranny of the tenebrous receptacle, trying to decide on a convenient hiding place. For Friar Lorenzo’s plan demanded that she stay behind in the burial chamber after the ceremony, undetected by all the people leaving, and that she wait there in solitude until nightfall, when it would be safe for Romeo to come and retrieve her. It was, the monk had explained, the only place where the Tolomei guards would not be vigilant in herding the family members, and because the cemetery was outside the city walls, Romeo’s movements would not be constrained by constant fear of discovery and arrest.

Once delivered from the sepulchre, Giulietta would accompany Romeo into banishment, and as soon as they were safely settled in foreign lands, they would write a secret letter to Friar Lorenzo, telling him a long tale of health and happiness and encouraging him to join them at his earliest convenience.

Such was the plan on which they had all hastily agreed in San Cristoforo the night before, and it did not occur to Giulietta to question its particulars until the very moment when she herself had to act. Sickness rising in her throat, she eyed the sealed sarcophagi surrounding her to all sides-giant vessels of death that they were-wondering how she could possibly steal away and hide among them unseen and unheard.

Not until the very end of the ceremony, when the priest gathered everyone in head-bent prayer, did Giulietta see her chance to silently back away from her oblivious family and crouch down behind the nearest sarcophagus. And when the priest engaged them in a long-drawn, melodious amen to end the ceremony, she seized the opportunity to crawl farther into the shadows on her hands and knees, her arms already trembling from the contact with the cool, damp earth.

As she sat there, leaning against the rough stone of a coffin and trying not to breathe, the members of the funeral party left the burial chamber one by one, placed their candles on the small altar beneath the feet of Christ Crucified, and embarked upon the long, tearful walk home. Few had slept since the Palio on the previous day, and-as Friar Lorenzo had anticipated-no one had the presence of mind to ascertain that the number of people leaving the sepulchre was equal to the number originally entering. After all, what living person would choose to stay behind in a vault of terror and loathsome smells, trapped behind a heavy door that could not be opened from the inside?

When they had all left, the door to the sepulchre fell shut with a hollow thud. Although the candles were still flickering on the altar by the entrance, the darkness that now enfolded Giulietta as she sat panting between the tombs of her ancestors seemed, in every way, complete.

SITTING THERE, WITH NO sense of time, Giulietta slowly began to comprehend that death was, more than anything, a matter of waiting. Here they lay, all her illustrious forebears, patiently anticipating that divine tap on the lid of their coffins that would rouse their spirits once again to an existence they could never have imagined when they were still alive.

Some would come out wearing a knight’s armor, perhaps missing an eye or a limb, and others would appear in their nightclothes, looking sickly and full of boils; some would be mere wailing infants, and others would be their young mothers, drenched in blood and gore…

While Giulietta did not doubt that, one day, there would be such a tap on the lid for everyone deserving, the sight of all these ancient sarcophagi and the thought of all those dormant centuries filled her with horror. But shame on her, she thought, for being afraid and restless while waiting for Romeo amongst the immovable stone coffins; what were a few anxious hours in the face of such eternity?

When the door to the sepulchre finally opened, most of the candles on the altar had burned out, and the few that were still going cast frightful, contorted shadows that were almost worse than darkness. Not even pausing to see if it might be someone other than Romeo who had arrived, Giulietta ran eagerly towards her savior, hungry for his living touch and thirsty for a breath of wholesome air.

“Romeo!” she cried, only now giving in to weakness. “Thank Heaven-!”

But it was not Romeo who stood in the door, torch in hand, regarding her with a cryptic smile; it was Messer Salimbeni.

“It would seem,” he said, his strained voice at odds with his mirthful air, “you weep immoderately for your cousin’s death, staying behind at his grave like this. But then, I see no sign of tears on those rosy cheeks. Could it be”-he took a few steps down the stairs, but stopped in disgust at the smell of rot-“that my honey bride has gone distracted? I fear it is the case. I fear I shall have to look for you in graveyards, my dear, and find you playing madly with bones and hollow skulls. But”-he made a lewd grimace-“I am no stranger to such games. In truth, I believe we shall fit well together, you and I.”

Standing frozen at the sight of him, Giulietta did not know how to reply; she had barely understood his meaning. The only thing on her mind was Romeo, and why it was not he, but the odious Salimbeni, who had come to deliver her from the grave. But that was, of course, a question she did not dare to ask.

“Come here!” Salimbeni gestured for her to leave the burial chamber, and Giulietta had no choice but to obey. And so she emerged from the sepulchre by his side to find herself in black night, encircled by a ring of torches held by liveried Salimbeni guards.

Looking around at the faces of the men, Giulietta thought she saw pity and indifference in equal measures, but what was most unsettling was the impression that they knew something she did not.

“Are you not desirous,” asked Salimbeni, relishing her confusion, “to know how I was able to rescue you from death’s festering embrace?”

Giulietta could barely bring herself to nod, but then, she did not really have to, for Salimbeni was quite happy to continue his monologue without her consent.

“Fortunately for you,” he went on, “I had an excellent guide. My men saw him wandering about, and instead of skewering him right away-as their orders would have them do-they wisely asked themselves what manner of treasure could tempt a banished man to return to his forbidden city and risk detection and violent death? His path, as you have already guessed, led us straight to this monument, and since it is well known that you cannot murder the same man twice, I easily divined that his motive for descending into your cousin’s tomb must be something other than blood-thirst.”

Seeing that Giulietta had turned sufficiently pale during his speech, Salimbeni now finally gestured for his men to produce the person in question, and they did so by tossing the body into their circle the way butchers toss aside a sickly carcass for the grinder.

Giulietta screamed when she saw him lying there, her own Romeo, bloody and broken, and if Salimbeni had not restrained her, she would have thrown herself at him to stroke his grimy hair and kiss the blood from his lips while there was still breath left in his body.

“You devil incarnate!” she roared at Salimbeni, struggling like an animal to rid herself of his grip, “God will punish you for this! Let me to his side, you fiend, that I may die with my husband! For I carry his ring on my finger, and I swear by all the angels in Heaven that I shall never, ever be yours!”

Now at last, Salimbeni frowned. Grabbing Giulietta’s wrist, he nearly broke the bone to inspect the ring on her finger. When he had seen enough, he shoved her into the arms of a guard and stepped forward to kick Romeo hard in the stomach. “You slithering thief!” he sneered, spitting in disgust. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you? Well, know this: It was your embrace that killed your lady! I was going to kill you alone, but now I see she is as worthless as you!”

“I beg you,” coughed Romeo, struggling to lift his head off the ground and see Giulietta one last time, “let her live! It was only a vow! I never lay with her! Please! I swear it by my soul!”

“How touching,” observed Salimbeni, looking from one to the other, not convinced. “What say you, girl”-he took Giulietta by the chin-“is he telling the truth?”

“Damn you!” she spat, trying to shake off his fist. “We are man and wife, and you had better kill me, for just as I lay with him on our wedding bed, so will I lie with him in our grave!”

Salimbeni’s grip tightened. “Is that so? And will you, too, swear on his soul? Mind you, if you lie, he will go straight to Hell on this very night.”

Giulietta looked down at Romeo, so miserable on the ground before her, and the desperation of it all strangled the words in her throat and made her unable to speak-and lie-any further.

“Ha!” Salimbeni towered over them both triumphantly. “So, here is one flower you did not pick, you dog.” He kicked Romeo once more, indulging in the moans of his victim and the sobs of the woman begging him to stop. “Let us make sure”-reaching into his cotehardie, he pulled out Romeo’s dagger and unsheathed it-“you pick no more.”

With one slow, indulgent motion, Salimbeni sank the eagle dagger into its owner’s abdomen and pulled it back out, leaving the youth in breathless agony, his whole body contorted around the gruesome wound.

“No!” screamed Giulietta and sprang forward, her panic so strong that the men could not hold her. Throwing herself down by Romeo’s side, she wrapped her arms around him, desperate to go where he was going, and not be left behind.

But Salimbeni had had enough of her theatrics, and pulled her back up by the hair. “Quiet!” he barked, slapping her across the face until she obeyed. “This howling will not help anyone. Compose yourself, and remember that you are a Tolomei.” Then, before she understood what he was doing, he pulled the signet ring from her finger and tossed it on the ground, where Romeo lay. “There go your vows with him. Be glad they are so easily undone!”

Through the veil of her bloody hair, Giulietta saw the guards pick up Romeo’s body and fling it down the stairs to the Tolomei sepulchre as if it was no more than a sack of grain thrown into storage. But she did not see them slamming the door after him, nor making sure the handle was securely locked. In her horror she had forgotten how to breathe, and now, at last, a merciful angel closed her eyes and let her fall into the embrace of soothing oblivion.