ACT ONEBRIGHT SMOKE, COLD FIRE
1
The morning is cracked at the horizon as I come to the top of a rise in the lane, warm color just beginning to bleed into dark sky—a band of coral and gold that lifts gently humped clouds out of the deep gray like bits of driftwood. Ahead of me, the first threads of daylight are taking the measure of church towers, rooftops, and the crowns of cypress trees that bristle atop San Pietro Hill.
It’s breathtaking, to see my home this way—this quiet, this beautiful.
This distant.
There is no Verona without Montague, and no Montague without Verona, my father has said on more than one occasion, when he feels I need reminding. For centuries, our family has been synonymous with this city, my ancestors contributing their blood, gold, and labor to build and defend it; and, for good or ill, Verona is the anchor to which my own legacy is tied. From generation to generation, the Montagues have carried a destiny of status, leadership, and public, unflinching piety. My father makes it sound like an honor to bear the name, but more and more I find it a crushing weight. My future is one of two paths—knighthood or sainthood—and I must live up to both possibilities, at all times. Or else.
But if there’s no Montague without Verona, then why is it that I feel most like myself when I’m finally able to see it from afar? What cruel irony, that it’s only from such a remove that I can finally appreciate its beauty—the scattered glow of lanterns, like earthbound stars; the gentle warmth of terra-cotta tile and rosy marble; the spiking trees and looping ivy, so rich in green they’re almost black.
Out here, there are no rules or demands. There are no expectations I can’t live up to, no ironclad fate that I cannot escape, no future of empty gestures, tedious company, and strategic alliances. Out here, there is no Romeo Montague—there is only a boy and a vault of wild air filled with expanding color and flickering, dying stars.
Only from here, my feet in the dirt and the city’s lanterns burning against the rising sun, can I finally understand why my father always calls it “our fair Verona” in his many public speeches.
Even though, in my own experience, it is a deeply unfair place to live.
* * *
Church bells are ringing the hour as I finally reach the city gates, my legs weak from miles of walking on an empty stomach. I’ve no one to blame but myself for this suffering, of course, but still I curse the earth for the distance it forced me to travel. After all, as my father likes to say: If you can’t find someone else to blame, you are not trying hard enough.
But then, he never thinks I am “trying hard enough.” In fact, my journey from home this morning was prompted by something he’d said to me yesterday, after he let himself into my chambers and found me coloring in a sketch I’d made of some wildflowers.
“You are not a child anymore, Romeo,” he declared furiously, snatching the sheet of parchment out of my hands and tearing it in half. I was devastated; it was a piece I’d been working on for weeks. “You have seventeen years behind you now. One day, you will be the head of this family, and I expect you to behave accordingly! There will be no more of these … frivolous pursuits.” He shook the shreds of my artwork in my face. “Come the fall, you will either commit to an apprenticeship under me and learn to manage your future affairs, or else you will join the prince’s army and learn to be a man.”
Ever since I surpassed my sixteenth year, it seems I can make no choice that doesn’t result in a lecture by my parents, a litany of reminders about my duties and obligations—as if they could be forgotten. Already, the weight of them causes my heart to sink as I trudge up the winding lane that leads to the back of our villa, even though I just spent the better part of the last hour unburdening myself to the wisest man I know.
And, as always, his counsel was maddeningly obscure. At the end of every story is a new beginning. Whatever that means. But I suppose riddles are what I deserve for seeking advice from someone who talks to his plants.
My bedchamber is on the second story of our home, my windows overlooking the orchard and gardens that supply the kitchen, the stones ribbed with dense veins of creeping ivy. I’ve always loved the view I have, and in this season, it is especially lovely—a rich green sea blanketing the hillside, in which bob the pastel blossoms of coming fruit.
If I’m being honest, however, what I love most at the moment is that my chambers are on the opposite side of the grand staircase from my parents’—they won’t be able to hear me scaling the ladder of ivy to get back inside. Technically, I’ve done nothing specifically wrong; at my age, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be allowed to come and go as I please from my own home. But my parents rarely need anything as prosaic as a reason to make me feel that I have disappointed them.
As nimbly as I can, I begin the short but treacherous journey up the outside wall of my home. The ivy is probably older than I am, its roots growing sturdier every year. But then, I’ve been growing every year as well, and ominous cracking sounds underscore my progress. By the time I finally reach the ledge of the sill, I’m sweating under my cloak, and I cannot push the shutters open and dive through the darkened window fast enough.
My sense of relief is abruptly cut short as I collide headfirst with something warm and alive and angry. There comes a startled yowl, a fistful of tiny claws ripping at my collar, missing the skin of my face by a hair’s breadth; and then we’re crashing to the ground, a jumble of awkward limbs, tangled fabric, and frantic hissing.
As pain acquaints itself with each one of my tender bones, a ball of furious orange fluff leaps across my chest, streaking for the shadows beneath my raised bed. Sucking air through my teeth, I sit up, growling, “Curse you, Hecate! You don’t even live here!”
To my profound shock, I actually receive an answer.
“I’ll say this for Montague men: You love a dramatic entrance.” There comes a movement in the darkness, a figure stretched across my bed drawing languorously upright, and the waxing pool of dawn light brings features into focus: ginger hair, freckles, a strong chin, and an upturned nose. The sight is simultaneously familiar and annoying.
“Benvolio?”
“Good morrow, Cousin.” He smiles sweetly, but there’s a wicked glint in his eyes. “I do hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”
Disconnected thoughts run through my aching head and then scatter like pigeons. My mother’s kin by blood, Ben lives on the other side of Verona, and I’m certain we had no rendezvous planned for these early hours. “W-what are you doing here?”
“All right, I suppose we can start with that,” Benvolio allows with a patient shrug. “As it happens, I was … visiting with a lady friend who keeps house in San Pietro, and on my way home I chanced to cut through your orchard.” He smiles, showing the devilish points of his eyeteeth. “Imagine my shock when I spotted someone climbing down the wall from my dear cousin’s window and then skulking off into the night like a thief, as quietly as possible and without so much as a lit match to see the way.”
The smug way he grins at me makes my stomach roll with nerves. I have no desire to explain where I’ve been. Even though he would understand some of the distress I feel over my father’s ultimatum, it was not the only matter I sought counsel on—and I absolutely cannot tell him the whole story. Flustered, I delay addressing it altogether. “Ben, that was practically an hour ago.”
“It was more than an hour ago,” he returns easily, stretching his arms above his head. “And I’ve been waiting here ever since, so I might find out where my prim-and-proper cousin is spiriting himself off to under the cover of night.”
It’s both question and accusation, and again I deflect. “Please at least tell me that, this time, the ‘lady friend’ you were visiting wasn’t one of our chambermaids.”
“That only happened once!” His cheeks go pink, leaving me both guilty and satisfied. “And, I’d like to note, it was her idea.”
“So then, who is the lucky girl who lives across our orchard?”
“Erm.” Benvolio coughs, looking away. “She’s somewhat reluctant to let our … association become known about publicly, and I gave her my word I would keep it a secret—hence our predawn rendezvous. It would be ungentlemanly of me to betray her confidence.” With an airy gesture, he concludes, “I’m sure you understand.”
“I believe I do,” I answer. “You’re telling me she has a husband.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well, of course it sounds terrible when you say it in that tone of voice! But it’s not as though they’re happy, Romeo. He’s twice her age and treats her like an exotic pet. They don’t even like each other!”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me.” Most marriages in Verona are arranged, and the picture Ben paints is not at all uncommon. “I’m not your keeper, and what your lady friends do, married or otherwise, is no business of mine to judge.”
Frankly, I’m hoping he’ll take this philosophy to heart before he gets to the point of his creeping into my bedchamber; but, of course, my hopes are in vain.
“I should say not.” He folds his arms. “There are only so many reasons the son of Bernabó and Elisabetta Montague would be sneaking out his window by moonlight like a common alley cat, and I am tired of waiting for an explanation.”
Thinking fast, my fingers worrying the strap of the leather bag slung across my back, I try, “I was making sketches. Of the countryside.”
Benvolio’s smug expression collapses into one of disappointment. And suspicion. “You crept out of your bedchamber to go sketching? In the dark?”
“When the sky is clear, the effect of moonlight on the river is really striking,” I tell him earnestly, and honestly. “My father doesn’t exactly approve of my hobby, so I’ve had to pursue it covertly.”
“Of course he doesn’t approve.” Ben frowns, and my heart sinks further. “It’s a womanly pursuit, Romeo. It’s fine to admire a painting or a statue, but drawing little pictures of flowers and trees and things … it’s what girls do to pass the time and make their homes pretty. It’s not a respectable hobby for a gentleman.”
My cheeks burning, I lift my chin. “I suppose you’re saying that Giotto di Bondone is not respectable, despite designing the campanile for the cathedral in Florence—which has been hailed as a masterpiece.”
“You are not Giotto di Bondone,” he points out with no hesitation. “You are Romeo Montague, and your destiny is not to design campaniles.” Scrubbing his hands through his ginger hair, he sighs. “Great things are waiting for you, Cousin—greater things than most of us could ever dream of—and this is the sort of thing that could hurt your reputation.”
“You sound like my father.” I cannot keep the bitterness from my tone. A part of me is sorely tempted to reveal the true reason for my moonlit expedition: how I was visiting a monk, because I needed someone to understand me, for once—to take me seriously. Someone I could be wholly honest with, knowing his vows require him to keep my secrets.
The orange tabby that foiled my entrance chooses this moment to reappear, leaping into my cousin’s lap and rubbing her treacherous face against his chest. She purrs, as loud as a millstone crushing chestnuts into flour, and Benvolio scratches between her ears.
“You gingers always stick together,” I grumble, weary from my lack of sleep, yet grateful for a chance to change the subject.
“Of course we do.” Ben’s voice drops into a maudlin coo as he pets the little beast, her back arching with every luxurious stroke. “She’s a little angel. Isn’t that right? Who’s a little angel? Who’s my little whiskered angel? You are.”
He blubbers nonsense at her in a truly embarrassing way, and Hecate purrs louder. I look heavenward. “I’ll have you know that your ‘whiskered angel’ there eats her own vomit and bites my fingers while I’m sleeping.”
“Well, she’s a cat.” Ben snorts. “Why do you even keep her if you don’t like cats?”
“I don’t keep her!” I exclaim. “Hecate doesn’t live here; she just … showed up one day, honing her claws on my bedding and trying to flay me alive—and now she won’t leave! I have been appointed my own personal demon.”
“Well, perhaps if you were nicer to her, you might get along.” Ben makes a face at me, relinquishing Hecate to the floor. Then, standing, he begins fastening the buttons on his doublet. “Now get up, wash your face, and shake off some of that road dust. You look like a plow horse, and I shall be embarrassed to have you seen with me.”
“Seen with you?” My thoughts are murky with fatigue, but I’m certain he’s just started a conversation in the middle. “Ben, what are you talking about?”
“I have some important business in the city today, for which I require a chaperone.” He smiles at me deviously. “As you’re aware, my father is to be married in six weeks’ time, and he has instructed me to have some ‘suitable attire’ made for the occasion. To that end…” With a flourish and a grin, he produces a bulging coin purse from his belt, swinging it like a pendulum. “He has bestowed upon me a rather obscene amount of money!”
“Oh no.” It is all I can think to say.
“He expects me to hire one of Verona’s finest tailors and commission a whole new costume to wear on his blessed day; but I, smart thinker that I am, have found a man willing to do the same work for less than half the price—leaving us a more than ample sum to spend on a day of good food and better ale!”
“You plan to swindle your father by entrusting a cut-rate clothier not to swindle you in turn?” When Ben replies only with an eager nod, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Listen, as much as I’d love to be involved in this doomed conspiracy, I really—”
“Did I mention that Mercutio might join us?”
I freeze in the middle of my sentence. “Oh. He … he might?”
“I thought that would get your attention.” His tone is dry, but I read a dozen or more meanings into his statement before he continues, “Yes, really. You know, he’s not a celebrity, Romeo, no matter how much you worship him. He’s just an ordinary person, like the rest of us. Only with much worse table manners.”
“I do not ‘worship’ him!” I protest, heat flooding into my face.
“You do.” My cousin shrugs into his coat and gives me a stubborn look. “You always have! Even when we were little, it was always, ‘Mercutio this’ and ‘Mercutio that.’ As if he was the friend you actually wanted and I was the one you had to tolerate.”
My heartbeat slows back down as I realize that we are talking more about my cousin’s ego than we are about me. “Don’t be silly, Ben. Of course I admire Mercutio—despite his bad table manners—but you are my favorite relation, and always will be.”
“I’m your only relation within a two-days’ journey that isn’t either ten years older or ten years younger than you,” he points out in a surly grumble, “but I accept your apology. Now change into something less filthy than those rags. We have a lot of establishments to visit today, and my tailor won’t remain sober for very long.”
With a self-pitying groan, I turn to my armoire. “Oh, all right, fine. Maybe if I’m lucky, your drunken tailor will sew your mouth shut.”
“If you were lucky, you’d have been the one born with my devastating good looks.”
As I shake out my cloak and change my admittedly grubby hose, we trade a few more barbs in the perpetual battle of wits neither of us is ever going to win; and by the time we leave my chambers, I have gotten him to forget the reason he sneaked into them in the first place.
2
Any optimism I feel, however, does not even last the trip to the front door of my home. We’re only halfway across the central courtyard when my frighteningly stealthy mother appears without warning, bursting from the shadowed loggia that leads to the parlor. I actually yelp a little.
“Romeo? Where are you off to so early?” She frowns, staring at me like she expects to find some guilty confession written across my face. I’m twice as glad now that I risked life and limb on those ivy vines, because it feels almost as if she’s been lying in wait for me. “You’re not going hunting, are you? That would last all day, and I need you to carry some letters into the city for me. They’re terribly important, and these new servants can’t be—”
“Good morrow, Aunt Elisabetta,” Ben interrupts her with a dazzling grin, making me twice as grateful that he’s here. He’s always been my mother’s favorite nephew. “How wonderful that you’re up! I was afraid I wouldn’t see you.”
“Benvolio!” My mother’s pinched expression smooths instantly into a delighted smile. “I didn’t even notice you at first. What brings you out this way before the bells have even struck Prime? And, Romeo, why didn’t you tell me we were to expect—”
“I’m afraid I rather surprised him with my company,” Ben says, taking her hand and bowing over it in an exaggerated show of grace. “My father is set to remarry at the end of next month, and I’m afraid I need help having the proper vestments made, so I thought of Romeo. Who knows fabric and clothing better than a Montague?”
“Oh yes.” And just like that, my mother’s expression pinches again. “I forgot about your father’s upcoming venture. I do hope it’s a success.”
Her smile is tart enough to make my own mouth pucker. She didn’t like Ben’s father—a fact she does not bother to keep secret—never believing him quite good enough for her youngest sister, Caterina. And even though her sister died in childbirth, some seventeen years ago, she still sees this new marriage as an act of infidelity.
“I’ll be sure to pass along your sentiments,” my cousin says, taking me by the arm and maneuvering past her. “But we had better be going. The day awaits!”
“How long do you think you’ll be?” Mother regains her composure instantly, falling into step behind us as we hurry over the paving stones. “It’s vital that my correspondence goes to the city today, and—”
“Unfortunately, I suspect it will take some time,” Ben interrupts again, moving faster. “There are so many decisions to be made, and I’m such a dunce about these things. Besides, my father is insisting that I attend some awful ceremony today at the courthouse, and I absolutely cannot go alone.” With a sigh of tremendous long-suffering, he continues, “These ridiculous fetes are invariably swarming with highborn girls on the hunt for a husband, and I will need someone to help keep me out of trouble!”
If he knows nothing else, Ben at least knows how to speak to his audience; in a heartbeat, my mother’s attitude shifts. “Well. I suppose I can spare Romeo for the afternoon. Heaven knows it would do him some good to attend a party once in a while with some of the eligible young ladies of our fair city. You know, when I was your age, I was already two years married and—”
“—and heavy with your first child, yes, we know.” I try to temper my impatience. “But I’m still younger than Father was when he first met you. Perhaps I take after him.”
“Yes, well. Perhaps.” She huffs out a discontented breath. “It’s different for men, of course. There’s no hourglass waiting to run out on you, and you may take all the time you like to grow up and settle down.”
“Growing up is a waste of time,” Ben interjects flatly, “and our bones shall have an eternity to settle after they’re laid to rest. Men like Romeo and I are meant to lead exciting lives, Aunt Elisabetta! Besides, who shall keep me from gambling away my money and fighting in taverns if my cousin abandons me for a wife?”
“You jest far too much, Nephew!” My mother wags a finger at him. “There is more to an exciting life than just games of chance and broken ribs, and you can’t remain a young bachelor forever.” To me, she adds, “And are such cheap thrills truly more rewarding than giving your poor mother a grandchild before she dies?”
“You are going to outlive us all, and you know it,” I reply, eager to cut off that thought. “Besides, I’ve yet to meet a girl who can hold my interest for more than a season, let alone one I wish to be the mother of my children!”
“It can happen faster than you imagine, my darling,” she says, almost fondly. “And better that it happens now, with a young lady of appropriate standing, than if your father elects to make the decision for you.”
This is not advice but a warning, and a quick, clammy wave of panic rolls through me. Yet another aspect of my future that I won’t be consulted on, a looming choice that won’t really be my choice at all. I’ve always known I would be married someday, and always envisioned that stage of my future as an oil portrait: me, looking distinguished, standing with an elegant bride, surrounded by our children. But that future has always felt a long way off, and the woman in my imagining was always hazy and indistinct.
Now the future is coming at me a little faster with every passing day, and I still cannot make the bride in that imaginary portrait take on recognizable features. There are plenty of ladies in Verona whose company I enjoy well enough, but not one with whom I can imagine sharing the sort of life, the sort of confidences, my parents share with each other. Their own marriage was arranged—they were practically strangers when they wed—and what affection they share today was bought with years of mutual negotiation.
But what if I’m not built for the same sort of work?
Benvolio talks about girls the way I try to talk to him about sunlight—how magical it is, how undefinable, how exquisitely beautiful in all its permutations; at any given time, he is pursuing multiple paramours, and each one is uniquely alluring, uniquely irresistible. But I have never felt that way about any girl. Why have I never felt that way?
“Fear not, Aunt Elisabetta,” Ben says, shoving me ahead of him into the grand entrance hall. His manner is still just as suave as ever, but I know him well enough to sense his growing impatience. “There will be heaps of delightful and appropriate young ladies at the courthouse, and I shall see to it that Romeo is buried beneath them all.”
When we’re outside again, the morning sky painted bright and decorated with birds, I draw as much fresh air into my lungs as I can. Heat is already gathering in these early hours, warming the golden dust under our feet and drawing a heady, resinous scent from the cypress trees that line the road. I try to let it fill me, to chase away my worries. But there is a sour feeling in my gut, a grim underside to all my thoughts, and it won’t be washed clean that easily.
“If Aunt Elisabetta has her way,” Benvolio murmurs under his breath as we trudge down the lane, “you will be strapped to your marriage bed for the convenience of producing grandchildren.”
“If she had her way, I’d have been married for some three years already.” A dull ache has begun to form in my head. “The instant my fourteenth year began, she was pestering my father to seek a match for me.”
“This world is terribly unfair.” Ben shakes his head in frustration. “Your mother is practically begging you to woo as many beautiful girls as you possibly can, while my father has all but threatened to castrate me if I don’t stop! There is no justice.”
“My mother does not care if they are beautiful, or if I have any interest in them; she cares only if they are eligible and of a proper station,” I point out wearily. “She wants me to find a wife, not pleasure. If I carried on with girls the way you do, she would be just as tyrannical about it as your father.”
“She has given you license to be licentious, and you are sulking about it.” He shakes his head again. “Honestly, Romeo, sometimes it is nearly impossible to understand you.”
I swallow any answer I might give to this, and feel that grim underside expanding. Although Benvolio is possibly my closest friend, there are still so many ways in which we seem to talk and think at cross-purposes—and, lately, those instances have become more and more frequent.
We were seven the first time Ben fell in love, with a girl who got mad at him for chasing pigeons in the piazza. For weeks, she was the only thing he could talk about. Her shiny hair, the way her eyes flashed when she’d shouted at him—he was infatuated.
By the time he was thirteen, he had a new infatuation every week, one girl after another capturing his attention. At first, I assumed his perpetual frenzy of desire was the result of some overactive glands, but then the same syndrome began to spread through all our friends. It was an epidemic of girl-madness, and somehow I seemed to be the only one who was immune.
But at the same time, I was starting to have a lot of feelings—confusing, intense, and unignorable feelings—that I didn’t completely understand.
And most of them had to do with our good friend Mercutio.
Two years older than me, and the son of a distinguished judge, he was the most remarkable boy I knew. Taller and stronger than the rest of us, smarter and more daring, funnier and more charming, more interesting, more present, somehow. Certainly, he was the most handsome of us. There wasn’t another person in Verona, boy or man or otherwise, who seemed as good-looking as Mercutio.
I was desperate to impress him, to be his favorite, to gain his respect. I wanted to be him, and I used to practice all his familiar gestures and expressions at home in the mirror. In my fantasies, I would wake up to find myself transformed—not into a copy of Mercutio, exactly, but maybe into someone he would recognize as his equal.
And then one night I dreamed that Mercutio kissed me.
I had awoken with a start, hot and cold all over at once. What I had conjured in my sleep was no casual press of lip to cheek, either; it was a true kiss, performed with the same passion Mercutio often spoke of when telling us about his romantic exploits with girls. The dream throbbed in my memory, frightening and exciting all at once, and every time I let myself revisit it, warmth would flood my stomach and pressure would build in my groin.
It was the moment I began to realize that something about me was different.
My condition is not unheard of. For example, it’s an open secret that the prince’s brother spends considerably less time with his wife than he does with the captain of his personal guard. But what a relative of Prince Escalus does in private is no one’s business—not even his wife’s. People will only speak of it obliquely, or in hushed whispers, and always, always, with a patina of scandal.
No matter how badly I wanted to know more about why I felt these things, and what they meant, and how I was supposed to make any sense of them, I was also instinctively aware that I should never ask about it directly. To seek information would be seen as a confession—and the prince is no brother of mine. Surely, there was a reason the truth had to be so hidden?
My parents expected me to marry and produce heirs; my friends expected me to chase girls and brag about my successes. And yet no girl made me half so weak in the knees as Mercutio did. And I had no idea what that truly meant—for me or about me.
“I hope you don’t intend to be this quiet and broody all day long,” Ben comments abruptly, and I glance up, realizing that we’ve already walked quite a distance while I was lost in thought. “Otherwise, I shall regret choosing you to share my ill-gotten gains. At least your mother was hungry for conversation.”
“Sorry.” Fighting back my thoughts, I yawn. “I’m a bit tired. I was meant to be taking a nap just now, but someone pestered me into going without it.”
“The only thing I’ve pestered you into is an afternoon of delight and debauchery—and at my father’s expense, no less.” Gripping my shoulder, he shakes me a bit. “Romeo, you are my best friend, and I love you dearly, but sometimes I think you hate to enjoy yourself!”
I grumble my response, hoping he’ll take it for a bit of good-natured complaining—but the truth is that I’m not at all sure how to reply. You are my best friend. I’ve always felt the same way about him … but what would he say if he knew the reason I do not care to chase girls the way he does?
He’s almost more interested in my romantic notions than my mother is, and every time he presses me about it—about whether I prefer blondes to brunettes, or tall girls to short ones, or this sister to that one—I have to dodge or deflect or lie. It has gradually created a distance between us that seems to spread wider each day.
“I will enjoy myself when you finally say something amusing,” I retort, burying my troubled thoughts behind a cheeky facade—an act I’ve grown quite good at. “Or when this cut-rate tailor of yours gives you lockjaw from a rusty pin.”
Ben smiles wickedly. “That will be a price well worth paying, so long as he also gives me the wool I need to fleece my father. Now stop dragging your feet! The longer it takes for us to get there, the less time we’ll have for drinking.”
With that, he takes off at a sprint up the lane, leaving me to scramble after him. ...
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