“Perhaps my poison,” said Romeo, turning her head towards him and not letting go, “has lost its power.”
“I really must-”
As a bird swoops down on its prey and assumes this land-bound wretch into heaven, so did Romeo steal her lips before they fled him again. Suspended somewhere between cherubs and devils his quarry ceased to buck, and he spread his wings wide and let the rising wind carry them off across the sky, until even the predator himself had lost every hope of returning home.
Within that one embrace, Romeo became aware of a feeling of certainty he had not thought possible for anyone, even the virtuous. Whatever his erstwhile intentions after learning that the girl in the coffin was alive-obscure even then to himself-he now knew that the words he had spoken to Maestro Ambrogio had been prophetic; with Giulietta in his arms, all other women-past, present, and future-simply ceased to exist.
WHEN GIULIETTA RETURNED to Palazzo Tolomei later that morning, she was received with a very unpleasant barrage of questions and accusations, peppered with comments about her country manners. “Perhaps it is custom among peasants,” her aunt had sneered, pulling her niece along by the arm, “but here in town, unmarried women of good breeding do not flit off to confession and return several hours later, their eyes glowing and”-Monna Antonia had glared at Giulietta to detect other signs of mischief-“their hair in disarray! From now on there will be no more such outings, and if you really must converse with your precious Friar Lorenzo, you will please do so under this roof. Hanging about outside, at the mercy of every gossip and rapist in town,” she had concluded, pulling her niece up the stairs and shoving her back into her bedchamber, “is no longer permissible!”
“Oh, Lorenzo!” cried Giulietta, when the monk finally came to visit her in her gilded prison, “I am not allowed to go out! I believe I am going distracted! Oh!” She walked up and down the floor of her chamber, pulling her hair. “What must he think of me? I said we would meet-I promised!”
“Hush, my dear,” said Friar Lorenzo, trying to sit her down on a chair, “and calm yourself. The gentleman of whom you speak is aware of your distress, and if anything, it has only deepened his affection. He bade me tell you-”
“You spoke with him?” Giulietta grabbed the monk by the shoulders. “Oh, blessed, blessed Lorenzo! What did he say? Tell me, quickly!”
“He said”-the monk reached underneath his cowl and withdrew a roll of parchment sealed with wax-“to give you this letter. Here, take it. It is for you.”
Giulietta took the letter reverently, and held it for a moment before breaking the eagle seal. Her eyes wide, she unrolled the missive and looked at the dense pattern of brown ink. “It is beautiful! I never saw anything this elegant in my life.” Turning her back to Friar Lorenzo, she stood for a moment, engrossed in her treasure. “He is a poet! How beautifully he writes! Such art, such… perfection. He must have labored all night.”
“I believe he labored for several nights,” said Friar Lorenzo, a drop of cynicism in his voice. “This letter, I assure you, is the work of much parchment and many quills.”
“But I do not understand this part-” Giulietta spun around to show him a passage in the letter. “Why would he say that my eyes do not belong in my head, but in the night sky? I suppose it could be construed as a compliment, but surely it would suffice to say that my eyes have a celestial hue. I cannot follow this argument.”
“It is not an argument,” Friar Lorenzo pointed out, taking the letter, “it is poetry and thus irrational. Its purpose is not to persuade, but to please. I assume you are pleased?”
She gasped. “But of course!”
“Then the letter,” said the monk primly, “has served its purpose. And now I propose we forget all about it.”
“Wait!” Giulietta snapped the document out of his hands before he could do violence to it. “I must write a reply.”
“That,” the monk pointed out, “is somewhat complicated by the fact that you have neither quill nor ink nor parchment. Is it not?”
“Yes,” said Giulietta, not the least bit discouraged, “but you will get all that for me. Secretly. I meant to ask you anyway, so I may at last write to my poor sister-” She looked eagerly at Friar Lorenzo, expecting him to be standing at attention, eager to fulfill her order. When instead she saw his frown of dissent, she threw up her hands. “What is wrong now?”
“I do not support this endeavor,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “An unmarried lady ought not reply to a clandestine letter. Especially…”
“But a married one may?”
“… especially considering the sender. As an old and trusted friend I must warn you against the likes of Romeo Marescotti, and-wait!” Friar Lorenzo held up a hand to prevent Giulietta from interrupting him. “Yes, I agree. He has a certain charming way about him, but in God’s eyes, I am sure, he is hideous.”
Giulietta sighed. “He is not hideous. You are just jealous.”
“Jealous?” The monk snorted. “I care nothing for looks, for they are merely of the flesh and live only between the womb and the tomb. What I meant was, his soul is hideous.”
“How can you speak so,” retorted Giulietta, “about the man who saved our lives! A man you had never met before that very moment. A man about whom you know nothing.”
Friar Lorenzo held up a warning finger. “I know enough to prophesy his doom. There are some plants and creatures in this world that serve no purpose but to inflict pain and misery on everything with which they come into contact. Look at you! Already you are suffering from this connection.”
“Surely”-Giulietta paused to steady her voice-“surely his kind actions towards us have erased whatever vice he may previously have possessed?” Seeing that the monk was still hostile, she very calmly added, “Surely, Heaven would not have chosen Romeo as the instrument of our deliverance had not God himself desired his redemption.”
Friar Lorenzo held up a warning finger. “God is a divine being, and as such does not have desires.”
“No, but I do. I desire to be happy.” Giulietta pressed the letter against her heart. “I know what you are thinking. You wish to protect me, as an old and trusted friend. And you think Romeo will cause me pain. Great love, you believe, carries the seeds of great sorrow. Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps the wise spurn one to remain safe from the other, but I should rather choose to have my eyes burnt in their sockets than to have been born without.”
MANY WEEKS AND many letters were to pass before Giulietta and Romeo met again. In the meantime, the tone of their correspondence rose in a fervent crescendo, culminating-despite Friar Lorenzo’s best efforts at calming the sentiments-in a mutual declaration of eternal love.
The only other person who was privy to Giulietta’s emotions was her twin sister Giannozza-the only sibling Giulietta had left in the world after the Salimbeni raid on her home. Giannozza had been married the year before, and had moved away to her husband’s estate in the south, but the two girls had always been close and had remained in frequent contact through letters. Reading and writing were unusual skills for young women to have, but their father had been an unusual man, who hated bookkeeping, and who was happy to leave such indoor tasks to his wife and daughters, seeing that they had little else to do.
However constant their writing to each other, the delivery of Giannozza’s letters was infrequent at best, and Giulietta suspected that her own letters going the other way were just as late in arriving-if they ever made it at all. In fact, after her arrival in Siena she had not received a single missive from Giannozza, even though she had sent several reports about the horrendous raid on their home and her own unhappy refuge-and lately imprisonment-in their uncle’s house, Palazzo Tolomei.