It took me a moment to grasp what he meant. After love came separation, and after separation death… according to my friend, Mr. Shakespeare. But before I could remind Alessandro that we were in the process of writing our own happy end-were we not?-Eva Maria came flapping towards us like a magnificent golden swan, her dress ablaze in the torchlight.
“Sandro! Giulietta! Grazie a Dio!” She waved for us both to follow her. “Come! Come quickly!”
There was nothing else to do but obey, and we walked back to the house in Eva Maria’s shimmering wake, neither of us bothering to ask her what could possibly be so urgent. Or perhaps Alessandro already knew where we were headed and why; judging by his glower we were once again at the mercy of the Bard, or fickle fortune, or whichever other power commandeered our destinies tonight.
Back in the great hall, Eva Maria led us straight through the crowd, out a side door, down a corridor, and into a smaller, formal dining room that was remarkarbly dark and quiet considering the party going on right around the corner. Only now, crossing the threshold, did she briefly pause and make a face at us-her eyes wide with agitation-to make sure we stayed right behind her and remained quiet.
At first glance, the room had seemed empty, but Eva Maria’s theatrics made me look again. And now I saw them. Two candelabra with burning candles stood at either end of the long table, and in each of the twelve tall dining room chairs sat a man wearing the monochrome garb of the clergy. Off to a side, veiled in shadows, stood a younger man in a cowl, discreetly swinging a bowl of incense.
My pulse quickened when I saw these men, and I was suddenly reminded of Janice’s warning from the day before. Eva Maria, she had said-bursting with sensational headlines after talking to cousin Peppo-was a mobster queen rumored to dabble in the occult, and out here, at her remote castle, a secret society supposedly met to perform gory blood rituals to conjure the spirits of the dead.
Even in my woozy state, I would have stepped right back out the door, had not Alessandro put a possessive arm around my waist.
“These men,” whispered Eva Maria, her voice trembling slightly, “are members of the Lorenzo Brotherhood. They have come all the way from Viterbo to meet you.”
“Me?” I looked at the stern dozen. “But why?”
“Shh!” She escorted me up to the head of the table with great circumstance, in order to introduce me to the elderly monk slumped in the thronelike chair at the table end. “He does not speak English, so I will translate.” She curtsied before the monk, whose eyes were fixed on me, or, more accurately, on the crucifix hanging around my neck. “Giulietta, this is a very special moment. I would like you to meet Friar Lorenzo.”
VIII.II
O blessed blessed night, I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial
“GIULIETTA TOLOMEI!” THE OLD MONK rose from the chair to frame my head with his hands and look deeply into my eyes. Only then did he touch the crucifix hanging around my neck, not with suspicion, but with reverence. When he had seen enough, he leaned forward to kiss my forehead with lips as dry as wood.
“Friar Lorenzo,” explained Eva Maria, “is the leader of the Lorenzo Brotherhood. The leader always assumes the name of Lorenzo in remembrance of your ancestor’s friend. It is a great honor that these men have agreed to be here tonight and give you something that belongs to you. For many hundreds of years, the men of the Lorenzo Brotherhood have been looking forward to this moment!”
When Eva Maria stopped talking, Friar Lorenzo gestured for the other monks to rise, too, and they all did so, without a word. One of them leaned forward to take a small box that had been sitting in the middle of the dining room table, and it was passed from hand to hand with great ceremony until it finally reached Friar Lorenzo.
As soon as I recognized the box as the one I had found in Alessandro’s trunk earlier that day, I took a step back, but when she felt me moving, Eva Maria dug her fingers into my shoulder to make me stay where I was. And when Friar Lorenzo embarked upon a lengthy explanation in Italian, she translated every word he said with breathless urgency. “This is a treasure that has been guarded by the Virgin Mary for many centuries, and only you must wear it. For many years, it was buried under a floor with the original Friar Lorenzo, but when his body was moved from Palazzo Salimbeni in Siena to holy ground in Viterbo, the monks discovered it within his remains. They believe he must have kept it hidden somewhere on his body to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Since then, it disappeared for many, many years, but finally it is here, and it can be blessed again.”
Now, at last, Friar Lorenzo opened the box to reveal Romeo’s signet ring that was nested inside in royal blue velvet, and we all-even I-leaned forward to look.
“Dio!” whispered Eva Maria, admiring the wonder. “This is Giulietta’s wedding band. It is a miracle that Friar Lorenzo was able to save it.”
I stole a glance at Alessandro, expecting him to look at least slightly guilty about driving around with the damned thing in the trunk all day and only telling me part of the story. But his expression was perfectly serene; either he felt no guilt at all, or he was frighteningly good at masking it. Meanwhile, Friar Lorenzo gave the ring an elaborate blessing before taking it out of the box with trembling fingers and handing it not to me, but to Alessandro. “Romeo Marescotti… per favore.”
Alessandro hesitated before taking the ring, and when I looked up at his face I saw him exchanging a stare with Eva Maria, a dark, unsmiling stare that marked some symbolic point of no return between the two of them and went on to close around my heart like the grip of a butcher before the blow.
Just then-perhaps understandably-a second wave of oblivion blurred my vision, and I swayed briefly as the room took a turn about me and never came to a complete halt. Grabbing Alessandro’s arm for support, I blinked a few times, struggling to recover; amazingly, neither he nor Eva Maria allowed my sudden discomposure to interrupt the moment.
“In the Middle Ages,” said Alessandro, translating what Friar Lorenzo was telling him, “it was very simple. The groom would say, ‘I give you this ring,’ and that was it. That was the wedding.” He took my hand and let the ring slide onto my finger. “No diamonds. Just the eagle.”
It was fortunate for the two of them that I was too groggy to voice my opinion about having an evil ring from a dead man’s coffin forced onto my finger without my consent. As it was, some foreign element-not wine, but something else-kept jiggling my consciousness, and all my rational faculties were by now buried under a mudslide of tipsy fatalism. And so I simply stood there, docile as a cow, while Friar Lorenzo sent up a prayer to the powers above and went on to demand yet another object from the table.
It was Romeo’s dagger.
“This dagger is polluted,” explained Alessandro, his voice low, “but Friar Lorenzo will take care of it and make sure it does not cause any more harm-”
Even in my haze I was able to think, How nice of him! And how nice of you to ask before you gave this guy an heirloom that my parents left for me! But I did not say it.
“Shh!” Eva Maria evidently did not care whether I understood what was going on. “Your right hands!”
Both Alessandro and I looked at her, puzzled, as she reached out and placed her own right hand on top of the dagger, which Friar Lorenzo was holding towards us. “Come!” she urged me. “Put your hand on top of mine.”
And so I did. I put my hand on top of hers like a child playing a game, and after I had done that, Alessandro put his right hand on top of mine. To close the circle, Friar Lorenzo put his free hand on top of Alessandro’s, while he mumbled a prayer that sounded like an invocation to the powers below.