Prince of Shadows

QUARTO 1

Two months later

It was hot in my grandmother’s rooms, as it always was, no matter the season. A fire blazed in the hearth, and from the heat it gave off it might have been kindled by the breath of Satan himself. I’d shed my half cloak before coming, but even so sweat soaked through my hose and created damp, uncomfortable patches under the heavy velvet doublet. As I waited and suffered, a chambermaid put another log on the flames, and I felt sweat run down my face like tears.

The summons to attend my grandmother had come unexpectedly, and now I only hoped to escape quickly. There was no real chance of managing it unscathed.

She gazed at me with her most typical expression of assessment and disdain. Those of any generation younger than her own would never find entire approval, but I, at least, escaped with only her mildest contempt. Her eyes were sharp, bitter, the faded color of an ice gray sky, and her face was the texture of weathered old oak. Family legend said she’d once been beautiful, but I couldn’t believe it. She looked as wrinkled as an apple left too long in a dark corner of the cellar.

“I summoned you near an hour past,” she announced in her high, brittle voice, and coughed. A chambermaid rushed forward to wipe her lips with a soft linen handkerchief, then artfully folded it to hide the telltale bloodstain.

“My apologies, Grandmother,” I said, and offered her a very deep bow. “I was with Master Silvio.” Master Silvio was our blademaster, charged with teaching the young men of Montague the skills necessary for survival in Verona. Grandmother sniffed and dismissed my excuse impatiently with a wave of her hand.

“I trust you’ve improved,” she said. “There’s no place for indifferent blades on the streets with Capulet’s bravos always prowling for trouble.”

I smiled, just a little. “I’m improving, I think.” Not from Master Silvio’s tutelage; Mercutio had been drilling me in the finer points that Master Silvio, for all his reputation, still lacked.

“Do you think I summoned you to discuss your progress at men’s silly games?” She gave me an ice-cold, stern look. “It may interest you to hear your cousin has gone mad.”

“Which one?” Madness was always to be feared, but Grandmother’s meaning had less to do with devils in one’s head than her own expectations of our behavior.

She slammed the point of her cane on the floor for emphasis. “Who do you think, boy? The important one. Romeo. And I blame you, Benvolio.”

I stiffened my spine and tried to think what it was that I might have done to deserve that comment. I was often the one who ended escapades; I rarely started them. Such censure seemed unfair.

“If I’ve offended, I will apologize,” I said, and managed to hold her gaze stoutly, if not fearlessly. “But I know not how I might be to blame.”

“You are the oldest of your cousins, and it is your responsibility to present a good moral example.” She said it as if she had the slightest idea of what a good moral example might be. That alone made me want to laugh, but it would be suicidal at best. The stories told of Grandmother’s misspent youth were legendary. It was miraculous she’d avoided the cloister, or worse.

“I do my best.” I tried to imagine myself with a glowing halo over my head, like one of the gilded angels on a church wall, but from the snap of anger in her, I fell short.

“Are you mocking me, boy?” she asked sharply, and leaned forward in her chair with a creak of old bones and older wood. Her voice dropped to a poisonous hiss. “Do you dare mock me?”

“No.” I truly meant that. No one sane offered her direct insult. No one living could claim to have survived it.

She sat back with a doubting grunt and a frown. “If not mockery, then that gleam in your callow face must be hate.”

Of course it was. I hated her. We all hated her, and we feared her, too. There was no one in our world more dangerous than my grandmother, the Iron Lady, La Signora di Ferro . . . no Capulet, no prince, no priest or bishop or pope could hope to aspire to such heights of loathing and fear.

But I’d never be stupid enough to admit it. “I am ever devoted to you, Grandmother, as are we all.” I was a good liar. It was a requirement for living in the palace.

She snorted, little misled. “So you should be, idiot. I sometimes think I am the only Montague still possessed of any sense at all. Weak men and foolish women, that’s what we have now.” She pierced me with that cold, alien stare again. “Your cousin is either mad or sinfully stupid, and it is your responsibility to stop him from making a mockery of his station and this house. He is the heir, and he must be kept in line. Is that plainly understood?”

This was the dangerous part of the interview, I realized; the old witch might overlook polite falsehoods, but she could smell an evasion like a vulture scenting rot. “With the greatest of respect, I am not sure such a thing is possible,” I said. “Romeo’s young. With youth comes folly; it’s to be expected.”

That drew a bitter bark of a laugh from her. “Oh, yes, you’re an entire year older than Romeo. Such a lofty perch from which to pass judgment, young man. But you’ve never been foolish; I’ll give you that much. You’ve got ice in your veins. I think you get it from your foreign mother.”

I’d have given my soul for ice in my veins just then. The overpowering heat of the room was like a hug from the devil. My doublet was soaked through, and I felt sweat running through my hair like blood. Sweet Jesu, the maid was putting another log on the fire. The room stank of hot flesh and the doggy odor of overheated wool, and the old woman’s sickly perfume.

And she should not have mentioned my mother.

“Romeo is not merely foolish; nonsense I can forgive,” she said after the long silence. “There are whispers that he writes poetry to an enemy’s wench. That is the very definition of insanity, and it threatens to make our house a laughingstock, and that is not acceptable.” Her aged, clawlike fingers tightened on the arms of her chair . . . no ordinary chair, that one, with its mismatched woods and heavy backing. She’d had it made when she was still a young Lady Montague, and legend said—I believed it—that she’d caused it to be built from the broken doors of her enemies’ palaces. Their villas lay empty now, inhabited only by shadows and shades, and she had made a trophy of their once-strong barricades on which to rest her backside.

We feared Grandmother for a reason.

Romeo, writing poetry. Knowing him, I could believe it, though he hadn’t told me he’d done something so foolhardy. “If such is true, he’s only fevered with infatuation. It will soon pass.”

“Pass, will it?” She shivered, snapped her fingers, and a maid rushed forward to place a fur-lined cloak over her knees as the fire sizzled on, melting me in misery. “And how if I told you that he was writing his scribbles to a Capulet?”

I couldn’t keep the surprise from my face. “What? Which?”

“Rosaline, I hear. The plain one.” She dismissed Rosaline with an impatient flick of her fingers; I did not. I’d met the girl that dark-drowned night months back. She was someone to be taken quite seriously. “If he’s fevered with love, his fever may well infect and sicken this entire house. I charge you to deliver him from this—you and the Ordelaffi boy, Mercutio. He’s sensible enough, and ever eager for a fight should it come to blades. One thing is certain: If there have been verses exchanged, you must get them back. It won’t do to have the heir of Montague made into a street joke.” She speared me with a significant, evil look. “I know of your nighttime ventures, boy, and I have allowed it because it suited me. Now you may run on my leash for a time. Get his letters from the girl. Quietly.”

Somehow, I found I was not surprised Grandmother knew of my secret career as the Prince of Shadows. “And if I don’t wish to be leashed?”

In the silence, I listened to logs sizzle and pop. The servants had all gone still and silent, their gazes fixed on me with avid interest. No one stood up to the old witch. I had no idea what had prompted me to, save the reference to my mother.

“Then, Benvolio Montague,” she said quietly, “you may yet come to the attention of Prince Escalus’s men. I hear they urgently seek a certain sneak thief.”

“You wouldn’t. It would humiliate our house, and my uncle.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps your uncle could use bringing to heel as well. But only do this for me, boy, and I’ll keep your secret. Your cousin protected, your own reputation unsullied—surely you can stretch yourself to the task.”

“Surely,” I said. She had me in a trap, and short of gnawing off my own limb I couldn’t hope for escape.

She took that as agreement, for which I was thankful. “And remember, from now on, you will be responsible for Romeo and any lapses in judgment. It’s been agreed.”

I did not want to be made responsible for Romeo’s misadventures. This week it was forbidden love for a cousin of our greatest enemies. The next fortnight might bring something wholly new and even more addled. I had no wish to be hovering at his shoulder like Grandmother’s notion of a guardian angel . . . but from the implacable look in her eyes, I had very little choice. Again.

I hoped that somewhere in the sweating shadows of this room lurked powerful angels of my very own, because disappointing La Signora di Ferro was a very dangerous game, even for a Montague of the blood. I was not the most favored child of the house—Romeo held that honor, as principal heir. I was the older one, the sane one, the stable one. The one born of a doubtful foreign mother.

The one to whom it fell to clear up Montague’s messes. Small wonder I took out my frustrations at night, in the dark, by stealing from those I hated. What other outlet could I have?

My grandmother sat back now on her throne of broken doors, and gave me what she must have fancied would be a reassuring smile. It would have made a demon shudder. “Then that’s done, and I’ll hear of no more nonsense about your cousin. Now, tell me, child, what gossip bring you today? What’s the talk of the square?”

My grandmother still lived for gossip, and we were all charged with providing it upon command. As a cousin, even a minor one, I had little to do but haunt the public spaces of Verona, seeing and being seen. Even though I had scant interest in market whispers, I could not help hearing them. “I’m told that the prince has a new mistress,” I said, and her eyes turned avid. “She’s said to be quite sophisticated. From Venezia, they say.”

“Pah, Venezia! The moral cesspit of Italy,” she said, but I knew she enjoyed that tidbit. “A woman no better than a whore, and he dares parade her before decent women! Have you met the baggage?”

I’d seen the fabled mistress at a distance; she had been carried through the streets in a sedan chair to mass, where no doubt she’d confessed all her sins and been forgiven. A pity that such forgiveness never extended beyond church walls. “No, Grandmother, I have not met her.”

“Good! It isn’t healthy for a strapping young man to be introduced to whores at your age, before you’ve even settled on a wife. Speaking of that, has your useless mother seen no progress on making you a match?”

My mother ignored insults aimed at her and shrugged them off, and I tried to as well, though on some very deep and quiet level I still felt the sting. I think La Signora thrust in the needle once more to see whether I would react.

I had not in years. Outwardly.

“She continues to review the candidates presented,” I said. She’d paraded several girls in front of me over the past few months, none of whom I wished to see again; the interesting ones, it seemed, were all tainted by virtue of being interesting. “I expect I’ll be married off and thoroughly bored within the year.”

“Good, good. All men’s blood runs too hot, and the apostle said that it is better to marry than to burn.”

Faith, I wished she wouldn’t talk of burning; the heat was killing me faster than a sword in the guts. When I bowed this time, sweat ran in a drip from my nose to the carpets underfoot. I half imagined I could hear the stone sizzling underneath as it soaked up the moisture. “I’m expected elsewhere, Grandmother. If I may have your leave?”

“Off to carouse with your useless friends, are you? Go, then. Go keep an eye on your bibbling cousin before he does something dramatic concerning the Capulet wench. Do you think she’s stupid enough to respond to him? I’ve heard she’s odd.”

I shrugged. “I hear she’s bound for the convent—overschooled. Belike she thinks it very flattering.”

“Until her father beats the nonsense out of her,” said my grandmother. “Of course, if he finds the letters, he may well dispense with the beating and just wall her up in the cellars, the way old Pietro Capulet did her great-aunt Sophia.” It was a favorite bedtime story of hers . . . the gruesome horror of being bricked up in a lavishly appointed room, with only a pitcher of water and a dagger for company. Once the water had gone, Sophia most likely would have sought the dagger’s point for her final comfort, but as a boy I had imagined her wasting to skin and bones as she clawed at the ice-cold walls of her prison. The dreams still haunted me.

I should not have cared if it happened to any Capulet; most of Montague would jeer and rejoice. But I remembered the brave, quiet girl Rosaline, bathed in candlelight, facing down the Prince of Shadows, and I found, to my shame, that I did care.

My grandmother was waiting for some response, but I gave none. She finally flicked her fingers at me in weary contempt. “Go on, then. Be off with you.”

“Yes, Grandmother.” I knew better than to ignore an invitation to flee, and so I did, bowing deeply on my way out. I escaped through the thick, ancient doors, which boomed shut behind me as servants muscled them into place.

Freedom.

I leaned against the stone wall to suck in the clean, cool air. I imagined I could see steam curling up from my sweat-soaked clothes, as if I’d escaped like Shadrach from the fire.

“Hsst!”

I looked in the direction of the low sound, and saw a shadow lurking near the conjunction of the walls. A stray bit of sunlight from a high, barred window picked out skirts too rich for a servant’s, and a gleam of a jewel on a headpiece.

It seemed my fair younger sister wanted speech with me. The day wasn’t yet trying enough.

“Honest women don’t hide in shadows, Veronica.” I let my head drop back hard against the stone. The ache of the impact temporarily drove away my sweaty discomfort, but not my sister . . . almost fifteen, vaguely pretty, and as deadly as a snake.

“I’m hiding from her, of course. She wishes to instruct me on the nature of wifely duties.” Veronica grabbed me by the collar of my doublet and pulled me around the corner, into the shadows. She let go with a sound of disgust. “Ugh, are you poxed? You’re as sweaty as a laborer!”

“Shall I go tell her that you need no instruction on wifely duties? I imagine you could write a philosopher’s pamphlet on the subject already.”

“Pig!” She tried to slap me, but I caught her hand an inch from my face.

“I won’t pretend you are pure as the Virgin if you won’t pretend to care. If you are set on avoiding Grandmother, why come here at all?”

“Mother was concerned. She sent for you an hour ago, and bade me find you.”

“As did Grandmother. Which would you obey first?”

Ronnie snapped open a feather fan and batted it with great energy. “Did the old witch talk about me?”

“Why would she? She’s made you a fine match. You’re no longer of interest.”

“She’s marrying me off to an old man!”

“A wealthy old man,” I said. “In ill health. You’ll be a fortune-heavy widow before twenty, with a long future of dalliance before you.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ll not be the one he’ll paw in the marriage bed.” She eyed me over the fan with wicked intensity. “Or perhaps you’d prefer that, Ben. Given the company you keep—”

I pushed her against the wall in a flash, and she hardly had time for a startled squawk before I sealed her mouth with my palm. I put my lips very close to her ear and said, “Before you run your clever tongue about my friends, remember the boy they hanged last winter. Claiming someone a sodomite is no joking matter, Ronnie. Say it again, and I’ll swear to teach you better manners.”

She shoved me back with sudden, furious strength. There were spots of red high in her cheeks, and her eyes glittered, but she lowered her voice just the same. “It’s the same penalty for me if they hear you jesting about how expert I am in wifely duties! Or perhaps they’ll take pity on me and put me in a convent’s cell, where I shall never see the sun again. Or did you forget?”

“No,” I said. “Neither should you.”

“You are my brother! How is it that you don’t protect me with as much passion as your companions? They say women may fall when there’s no strength in men, you know! Perhaps my lack of moral quality is your fault.”

I walked away. Sister though she was, I didn’t much care for Veronica; girls were raised far differently, and separately, and what I knew of her I didn’t savor. The sooner she was married off, the better for us all.

I heard a rustle of fabric, and looked back to find Veronica hurrying to follow me. Her stiff skirts brushed the walls in a constant hiss. “Wait!”

“For what? I’ve nothing else to say to you.”

She raised her voice to a carrying, malicious volume. “That’s not what you whispered in my ear last night, brother. Why, the things you said . . .”

I swung around on her, and she quickly danced back out of reach, eyes bright and malicious. “Well,” she purred. “That begged your attention, didn’t it?”

“I’m warning you, Ronnie, sharpen your claws on another.” Despite the urge to strike her, I didn’t. Engaging with Veronica was a hazardous business when there were no witnesses to prove my case, especially should she make some outrageous accusation. I’d seen her make malicious sport of others, to their ruin; she’d never yet done it to family, but it took little to taint a man’s reputation, or a woman’s, and I would not take the risk.

She was terrifying, and she was not even fifteen.

I walked away, well aware she was still scurrying after me.

I slowed as I took a sharp right turn, and the hall vaulted upward into an open atrium, with the sun pouring down to spark sparse, precious flowers into bursts of color against the marble flagging. There was not so much risk here, as Romeo’s own father, the head of Montague and most often simply known by the family’s name, limped restlessly at the other end of the garden; from the look of him, his gout was bothering him yet again. I took a seat on a marble bench commemorating the death of some long-dead uncle or other.

Veronica drew to a stop, staring at me as her corseted breasts heaved for air. “You lack the grace of a gentleman,” she said. “Sprawling like a boy when a lady should be seated.”

“I would offer my place if a lady presented herself,” I said, but grudgingly moved over to make room for her huge skirts. She was wearing a dress too hot-tempered for the day, but my sister wished always to be noticed. Vanity before comfort. “You’ll be punished for avoiding La Signora’s summons. She enjoys her little lectures on morality, and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Veronica made use of her feather fan again, as if her hasty pursuit had made her faint with effort. “I’ll give a female excuse,” she said. “She dotes on them. It makes a girl seem pleasingly fragile.”

I cut her a glance. “You’re as fragile as a barbarian’s broadsword.”

She gave me a knife-sharp smile from a flutter of peacock tails. “I’ve yet to see a barbarian close enough to examine his broadsword.”

I was hard-pressed not to smile. Veronica could be occasionally—very occasionally—amusing.

“Did Grandmother summon you about Romeo?”

I frowned at her this time. “And if you avoided her apartments, how could you possibly know that?”

“Oh, her ladies gossip,” Veronica said. “Romeo claims to be perishing for love of the fair Rosaline, you know.” She added to that an overdone pantomime of swooning, so realistic that I had to resist the urge to grab her to keep her from slipping from the bench. Since I did resist, Veronica was forced to pull herself back upright with an ungraceful flailing of arms and legs.

My annoying sister might be worth something, after all. “You know Rosaline, do you not?”

Veronica looked cross, and the fan beat faster. “She’s a cow, that one. Fancies herself above us. She dresses as badly as a servant and pretends it to be some sort of virtue. She spends her hours reading, of all things. Even nuns don’t read. It isn’t decent!”

“Is she beautiful?” I knew the answer, but it was a question a man might ask who stood in ignorance. And I knew it would bait more information from my vain sister.

“I suppose she’s regular enough of feature, but she doesn’t bother to flatter it at all. One can’t be beautiful if one works so hard at being plain. Reading gives her wrinkles, you know, around the eyes.” Veronica loved to rain scorn upon a girl’s hair, or eyes, or skin, or stature, or figure . . . but seemed to have little to say about Rosaline at all. In her own terms, it was something akin to praise.

“But you’d say she’s pretty enough to keep Romeo spinning.”

Veronica snapped the fan together and batted me on the shoulder with it. “It’s Romeo. He’d swoon over a dancing bear if it wore a skirt. If you wish to protect him, tell his father to see him safely married off before some scandal of his bursts like a boil.”

“You sound much like Grandmother,” I said, which earned me another, more forceful blow of the closed fan.

“That is very cruel, Benvolio.”

“Kind!” I responded.

“Kind as the very devil.” She rose and stalked away, skirts brushing the servants out of her way as she went like dust before a broom.

A sister like Veronica, and a cousin like Romeo.

What had I done to deserve so much trouble?

• • •

Romeo failed to show his face at dinner, and his absence was noted, with chill precision, by his mother, Lady Montague. She asked me, rather too loudly, whether I had news of him. I responded truthfully that I did not.

My dinner was not made any more savory by the looks given me by my own mother, who seemed to feel that I should leave the table and go in immediate search of my cousin.

I kept my seat. No one specifically ordered me to the search, and I was well aware it was a fool’s errand. Romeo would appear if and when he wished. I’d been charged with his moral reformation only in late afternoon, after all. I could hardly be blamed if he went straying the same evening.

The nuts had been placed on the table, and my uncle Montague was well into his fourth cup of wine and loudly declaiming on politics when Romeo at last stumbled into the hall. I say stumbled as an accurate description; he tripped on a rug, skidded, and grabbed onto a servant to stay upright. The servant noisily dropped a tray containing the sticky remains of roast pork, and Romeo immediately pushed away, heading with speed but not precision toward the table. As always, he left damage in his wake.

“You’re not Veronica,” he said to me as he poured himself into his usual chair. “Ronnie usually sits there, and she’s far prettier company.”

“She’s out of favor with Grandmother,” I said.

“For what?”

“Ignoring her summons.”

He laughed with wine-fueled good humor. “Good for Ronnie. If we didn’t bow and scrape so much to the old witch, life would be infinitely sweeter.” Romeo balanced his chair up on two wavering legs, and spotted Veronica sitting at the far end of the table with our youngest and most disfavored country cousins. She looked mutinous and flushed, and Romeo gave her a drunken little wave, which she ignored with a lift of her chin.

I kicked the side of his chair, which made it wobble even more unsteadily; Romeo thumped it back down to four legs with more alarm than grace. “Attend me, fool. It’s not just Ronnie who’s in disfavor. Grandmother’s not well pleased with you, either.”

“She’s never well pleased with any of us, save perhaps for you, O perfect one,” he said, and waved a servant over. The servant in question had a strained, long-suffering look as he bent to listen. “Where lurks dinner?”

“It has been served, master,” the servant said. I didn’t know this one by name; he was new, I supposed, though he seemed flawlessly well trained. “Shall I bring you soup?”

“Soup and bread. And wine—”

“Water,” I interrupted. “Bring him water, for God’s sake and his own.”

“A traitor at my side,” my cousin said. The servant left, looking relieved.

“Where were you?” I asked Romeo.

He let his head drop against the high back of the chair. We looked similar, but I was taller, broader, and not as handsome. My nose had once been just as fine and straight, but a street brawl with the Capulets had done for that decisively. At least one maid had claimed it granted me character, as did the faint scar that cut through my eyebrow, so there was some benefit to my adventures. And, of course, my eyes. My eyes always betrayed my half-foreign ancestry.

“Hmmm. Where was I?” Romeo echoed dreamily as his eyelids drooped. “Ah, coz, I was in contemplation of peerless beauty, but it is a beauty that saddens. She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, since she refuses to hear my suit.”

He was very drunk, and coming dangerously near declaiming his wretched poetry. “Who inspires you to such heights of nonsense?”

“I shall not cheapen her name in such company, but in sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.”

“We’ve all loved women, and almost always sadly.” Well, I reflected, almost all of us had done so. But that was another subject that needed no expression here. “We’ve survived the harrowing.”

Romeo, even drunk, was sensible enough to know that uttering a Capulet’s name at a Montague dinner table wasn’t sane. He left it to me to read between his lines. “Not I,” he said. “She cannot return my love; she’s vowed elsewhere. I live dead, Benvolio. I am shattered and ruined with love.”

The servant returned with a bowl of hot soup, which he deposited in front of Romeo, along with a plate of fresh bread. The soup steamed gently in the cool air, and I smelled pork and onion in the mix, along with sage. Romeo picked up the bread and sopped a piece in the broth.

“I see death hasn’t dimmed your appetite,” I observed. “Do you think to change the girl’s mind?”

“I must, or sicken and wither.” He said it with unlikely confidence, and took a bite of the bread. “Already my words are in her hands tonight. They’ll add to the chorus proclaiming my faithfulness. She will favor me soon.”

“Chorus . . . How many of these missives have you sent to her?”

“Six. No, seven.”

I stared at him as he spooned up the soup. I was hard-pressed to bring myself to ask the question, but I knew I must. “And did you . . . sign them?”

“Of course,” said the idiot, and missed his mouth with the spoon, spilling hot liquid all over his chin. “Ouch.” He wiped at it with the back of his hand, frowned at the bowl, and raised it to his mouth to take a blistering gulp. “I could not let her ascribe them to some other suitor. I’m not a fool, Ben; I know it was unwise, but love is often unwise. Your own father took a wife from England. What wisdom is that?”

I narrowly resisted the urge to cut his throat with a conveniently placed carving knife left on the tray in front of me. I took a deep breath and tried to blink away the reddish tinge across my vision. “Leave my mother out of it,” I said. Insults from Grandmother were one thing, but Romeo using my parentage to justify his own folly . . . “If the girl’s relatives don’t slaughter you in the streets, I’m certain that La Signora will order you manacled to a damp wall somewhere very deep, and have your madness exorcised with whips and hot irons. I’ll wager you won’t look fondly on your ladylove then.”

He was smart enough to realize that I was serious, and his drunken grin vanished, replaced by something that was much more acceptable: worry. “She’s just a girl,” he said. “No one takes it seriously.”

“Grandmother does, and so do many others. No doubt your fairest love has whispered it about the square as well.”

He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me closer, and his voice dropped to an intense whisper. “Ben, Rosaline wouldn’t betray me! Someone else, perhaps, but not Rosaline!”

I remembered her gilded in candlelight, watching me very levelly as I stole from her brother. She could have betrayed me. Should have, perhaps.

And she hadn’t.

“It doesn’t matter whose tongue wags,” I said. “She has servants paid to be sure she does nothing to dirty her family’s name . . . such as accepting poems from you. If her uncle hasn’t yet been told, it’s only a matter of time. It’s nothing to do with her. It’s how the world works.” I felt a little sorry for him. I couldn’t remember being that young, that ignorant of the consequences, but then, I was the son of a Montague who’d died on the end of a Capulet’s sword before I’d known him. I’d been raised knowing how seriously we played our war games of honor. “I pray you haven’t met her in secret.”

“She refused to come,” he said. “The verses were my voice in her ear. It was safer so.”

Safer. It seemed impossible for a man to be so innocent at the age of sixteen, but Romeo had indulgent parents, and a dreamer’s hazy view of responsibility.

“Your voice must go silent, then,” I said. “I’ll retrieve your love letters by any means necessary. Grandmother has given me orders.”

“But why would she send you to—” Drunk, it took a second more than necessary for the clue to dawn on him, and Romeo did a foolish imitation of shushing himself before he said, still too loudly, “I suppose the Prince of Shadows must go after them, being so well practiced in the art.”

“Oh, for the love of heaven, shut up!”

Not so far away, Montague and his wife were standing from table, as was my lady mother; we all rose to bow them off. As soon as they had achieved their exit, Romeo snapped back upright from his bow, turned to me, and took me fast by the shoulders. “Have I put Rosaline in danger?” He seemed earnestly concerned by it, an attitude that surely would not earn him praise from any other Montague . . . except, perhaps, from me. “Tell me true, coz; if they find my verses in her possession—”

“Sit,” I said, and shoved him. He collapsed into his chair with the boneless grace of someone well the worse for drink. “Eat your soup and clear your head. I’ll send for Mercutio. If risks must be taken, it’s better they’re shared.”

He spooned up soup, and gave me a loose, charming smile. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me, coz.”

• • •

Mercutio was a strong ally of Montague, but much more than that: He was my best friend, and Romeo’s as well. Mercutio had once refused to race off with my cousin, calling it a wild-goose chase, and Romeo had—rightly—declared that Mercutio was never there for us without also being there for the goose. In short, he was a brawler, a jester, and one other thing . . . the keeper of a great many secrets.

He kept mine, as the Prince of Shadows, and had for years, but his own secret was far more dire. He was in love, but his love, if discovered, would be more disastrous than Romeo’s failed flirtation. It was not simply unwise, but reckoned unnatural by Church and law alike.

I had never met the young man Mercutio adored, and hoped I never would; secrets of such magnitude were far easier to hold in ignorance. Romeo and I regularly sent notes to Mercutio’s family’s villa explaining his absences, pretended to be carousing with him while he slipped away in secret to a rendezvous. Upon occasion, when Mercutio was fully in his cups, we listened to his torment in never seeing his lover’s face in the light of day.

But those bouts of passionate longing were rare in him, and the Mercutio the world knew was a bright, sharp, hotly burning star of a man. He was widely admired for his willingness—nay, eagerness—to take risks others might call insane. Romeo and I knew where the roots of that dark impulse grew, but it never made us love him less.

This night, he might have knocked and cried friend at the palazzo doors and been granted an easy entry, but that was not exciting enough.

Instead, he climbed our wall.

The first I knew of his arrival was the sound of a fist pounding the shutters of my room. The noise not only made my servant Balthasar bolt to his feet in fright, it pushed me and Romeo to stand and draw swords. Romeo might be innocent, but he wasn’t stupid. Assassinations were as common in Verona as brawls.

I went to the window and lifted the catch, and then gazed for a moment in silence.

Mercutio laughed breathlessly as he dangled precariously over a three-story fall to hard stone. “Well?” he gasped out. “Stab me or let me in, fool; I’m seconds from testing my wings!”

I held out my left hand and took his, and pulled him over the sill. He turned his slithering entrance into a tumbler’s roll and bounced to his feet. There was a sense of trembling joy about Mercutio; I climbed walls purely as a matter of necessity, but he seemed to delight in tempting death. His cat-sharp face was alight, dark eyes wickedly gleaming, and he tossed his loose curls back from his face and saluted Romeo with casual elegance. “I hear there is dire trouble afoot,” Mercutio said, and took a seat at the table with us. He held up his hand without looking, and Balthasar—well versed in the ways of my friends—placed a full wine cup into it. “How unexpected that is!”

“How did you do that?” Romeo asked. He went to the open window and leaned out, examining the sheer stone wall. “Maybe you really can fly.”

“I had an excellent teacher,” Mercutio said, and winked at me. “Ben, did you know your too-sly servant is plying me with your best vintage?”

“Hardly the best. He knows better than to serve the best to the worst,” I said. “Montague has a front door; were you aware?”

He shrugged and drank deeply. “Boring,” he said. “Did you know that by my climbing walls in public view, half the city believes I’m the legendary Prince of Shadows? It greatly enhances my legend.” He sent me a sideways glance, acknowledging the irony. “And besides, how am I to keep in practice for these small intrigues if I simply walk up and announce myself?”

“By all means, use my family walls at any time to hone your skills. Should the hired bravos see you, you’ll also get practice in dodging arrows.”

“A benefit I will treasure. Now, whom are we here to conspire against?”

“Poetry,” I said. “Namely, Romeo’s poetry.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Inadvisably sent, at the least.”

“Oh, my,” Mercutio said, and smiled slowly, full of delight. “These verses must be scandalous. Stuffed with humiliating details, I presume.”

“Worse. They’re signed.”

He whistled. “Well. I salute you, Romeo. You don’t go halves when you plunge into the maelstrom. What else?”

“They’re inside the Capulet palace.”

Mercutio stopped whistling at that. Stopped laughing, too. He went as quiet as he ever did, although there was still a faint vibration in him; he was never completely still. “Surely retrieving them is not on your mind.” I’d burgled the Capulet house only a few months ago; there were unbreakable rules to my secret life, and one was to never visit the same enemy again after they’d been so badly embarrassed. Their smugness would have turned to rank suspicion. I would triple my risks.

“My grandmother says we must have them back,” Romeo said. “If they’re discovered, my name and the lady’s will be filthy jokes in the square. Worse, she’ll be punished. Badly punished.”

“A Capulet? Why do we vex ourselves with that? Never a Capulet born who didn’t deserve to suffer; I’ve heard all of Montague say it often enough.”

“Not Rosaline,” said Romeo. “She is kind, and good, and beautiful. You’ve seen her, Mercutio. Is she not wonderful fair?”

“Wonderful,” Mercutio said without enthusiasm. “Her eyes are two of the brightest-shining stars in all the heavens, et cetera. . . . Ben, good or bad, the girl’s a Capulet, and her danger is her own affair.”

“True,” I said—also without enthusiasm. “But there is Romeo’s reputation to consider.”

“Ah, me. How many of these florid declarations did he pen?”

“Six,” I said.

“Perhaps seven,” Romeo amended. He sounded properly abashed about it, as the night wore on and his wine did not. “It was not wise, but she is beautiful. I love her entirely.”

Mercutio gave me a look. “Stab me and save the Capulets the trouble. Isn’t Rosaline the bookish one?”

“Yes. It’s possible she never even read his scrawlings, only burned them.”

“That would have been eminently sensible,” my friend agreed. “But I suppose we have to be sure, if your grandmother requires it.”

“If m’lord Capulet discovers them, he’ll make a mockery of our family, even as he punishes his own.” I loaded the title with all the scorn it deserved. Capulet was no lord; not a drop of noble blood flowed in his veins. To be fair, none coursed through Montague veins, either . . . but in Verona, the merchants counted for more than the merely wellborn.

Mercutio traced the fine silver decoration on his goblet with a fingertip as he considered the issue. “She was destined for the convent anyway. It might be enough to dispatch her there immediately before her disgrace is common market gossip.”

“Capulets are not known for their restraint. Remember the lady Sophia? Better for all if these damning letters are put to the fire. To be sure of that, we must find them.”

We fell silent. Mercutio reached for the pitcher on the table and splashed more wine into his cup.

“Her rooms face the garden,” Romeo said. “There are two balconies. Hers is on the right, as you face it from the wall.”

We both looked at him with identical expressions of surprise, and to cover his sudden embarrassment, Romeo held up his hand for a cup. Balthasar handed him one. When I started to protest, he showed me a water jug.

Good man. I didn’t need Romeo’s wits wandering tonight. “And how would you know?” I asked. “You swore you were not alone with her.”

“I can climb as well as you.”

Mercutio batted him on the back of the head. “A Capulet wall? And when did you perform this miracle?”

“Last week.”

I was sickened that Romeo had performed this little folly after my theft from the palace—which meant he’d done it in triple the danger. It had been sheerest luck he’d escaped.

“And if they’d caught you?” I drew my thumb across my throat. “Capulets have a great many bravos employed who’d take delight in carving your skin away slowly. There’d have been a bonus for them if they delivered it as a single pelt. Capulet might have it made into a carpet, and sent it to warm our grandmother’s feet.”

“I love Rosaline,” Romeo said. “One risks anything for love.”

Mercutio gave him a disbelieving stare, then turned to me. “You actually let this infant out in the streets, Ben? On his own?”

“He’s an innocent, not a child.”

“Yes, you’re right. I’ve known toddlers with better sense.”

Romeo’s cheeks were ruddy now, but he managed to keep his tone steady. “Are you going with us or not?”

“It’s better than another evening of watching my sisters embroider.” Mercutio finished his cup and tossed it to Balthasar, who caught it out of the air with the ease of long practice. “Well? The hour’s late; any decent woman will be abed by now. The moon’s in your favor tonight; since Romeo fancies himself so expert in wall scaling, he should see how the expert does it.”

Romeo had chanced on my identity as Prince of Shadows last year, after the theft of an expensive golden chalice from the vaults of the Utteri palace. It had been bad timing and worse luck that he’d been slinking back from a disreputable night, and run directly across my path as I limped through the door with a badly sprained ankle, and my prize. He’d wrapped my ankle, hidden the chalice, and lied about my late return when asked—all without a trace of shame or guilt. But he’d asked no questions, and I’d told him nothing about other adventures.

There were times—though not many—when my cousin was worth his trouble.

“Get ready,” I told Mercutio and Romeo. I’d already donned a muted dark blue tunic and hose, plain and unmarked with any family emblems; the boots I’d chosen were likewise of average quality. I could have passed for a visiting merchant easily enough, so long as no one looked too closely at my face. A muffling cloak and my silk mask would take care of that.

Mercutio had also come prepared for nighttime skulking; there was no trace of his usual bright golds and greens, and he looked oddly subdued in plain brown. He pulled a cap from his pocket and pushed it down to cover his hair.

That left Romeo, who still wore Montague colors. We both gazed at him for long enough that he finally scowled. “What?”

“We are about to do something astonishingly dangerous and quite possibly foolish,” Mercutio said. “It might be best if they couldn’t identify you from the distance of, say, the far end of a crossbow.”

Romeo fairly blushed at that, and I was reminded that he wasn’t yet so much a man as still a boy—man in the eyes of the law, yes, but it would take time to teach him the responsibilities of that right. He ducked his head and nodded, then turned away to rummage in my chest for something else to wear. We weren’t much of a size, but the plain shirt and vest he chose were close enough. Balthasar brought another cloak, this one of coarse black fabric, with liberal stains. It was good enough to disguise a multitude of shortcomings.

“You shouldn’t do this,” Balthasar muttered to me under his breath. He wasn’t much older than I, and although it was rare for master and servant to be friends, I counted him as close as Mercutio. He kept my secrets. Mercutio’s, too, for that matter. “Stealing’s not a job for a group of half-drunken young fools. You know that.”

“They won’t be with me,” I said. “Mercutio and Romeo make fine distractions.”

Balthasar took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “Sir, I know you’re one for risks, but this—in the house of Capulet, again . . .”

“The Prince of Shadows has always stolen from the best houses in Verona,” I said. “He’s taken earrings off a sleeping duchess. What difference? It’s all risk.”

“The other times were for revenge, and profit,” he said. “This is for family. And it’s different. They’ll be watching for you.”

Balthasar had been in on the secret from the beginning. My first thefts had been vengeful boyish fun, nothing more—a dare, when I was only ten, from the troublemaking Mercutio. I’d stolen a pendant from one of his aunts who had beaten him for impertinence. I’d been happy to scale the wall, sneak into her rooms, make off with the pendant, and sell it in the markets. Mercutio had pocketed the money. Compensation for his humiliations.

My thieving had expanded over time to right many, many wrongs, and Balthasar had known all.

Over time, I had developed a taste for stealing. It was an art that took nerve, skill, agility, and strength; it also took instincts, good ones, to know when something was possible, and when it was not.

Now Balthasar was voicing the warning that rang in the back of my mind.

“They say things about this girl,” he told me. “This Rosaline. She has the eye of a witch.”

“I’ve seen her. She’s no evil eye in her.”

Balthasar snorted, which conveyed better than words what he thought of my judgment of women. “Only witches have so much to do with irreligious books.”

I cuffed him on the back of the head, but lightly. “Even so, you don’t think I can sneak past a woman? Don’t be stupid. I’ve done it a hundred times.”

“Not with this one,” he said. “Not a Capulet witch. I don’t like it, sir. I don’t like it at all.”

In truth, I could understand, but it pricked me hard to think that any servant of mine feared a Capulet. “Well,” I said, “the Prince of Shadows has his tender amorous heart set on acquiring stirring love poems this evening. And possibly a jewel or two.”

He shook his head and gave me a look of disgust. “You’re going to swing one of these days,” he told me. “If you’re lucky. Maybe tonight, the Prince of Cats will get his claws around your throat instead.”

Tybalt Capulet, Prince of Cats, had been named so by Mercutio in a jest that had less to do with his grace and cruelty than it did a ribald play on words. If Tybalt caught me, my ravaged corpse would be found nailed to the same tavern door where I’d skewered his reputation.

I felt a breath of chill, and shook it off as I pulled my cloak tighter. “Perhaps,” I said. “He must catch me first.”

• • •

Mercutio was, of course, my partner in crime. . . . He was an expert in distractions, but having the clumsy, still half-drunken Romeo along was even better. The narrow, uneven streets of Verona were dangerous in full daylight, where footpads and knock-heads lurked in shadows and blind archways. In moonlight, the villains were ever bolder, but even they hesitated to tangle with armed groups. We made sure they saw and heard us as we sauntered over the streets. It helped that Mercutio had a donkey’s singing voice, and used it to bray the bawdiest drinking song he knew; Romeo and I bawled out choruses as we strode up the hill.

There was a dizzying sameness to the streets of my fair city, even to natives—all the walls were cut from the same stone, faced with marble, broken only by frescoes and the faded colors of mosaics in the half-ruined ancient walls. Verona was not a lush place; the verdant gardens of the rich were walled up from prying peasant eyes. Even from the bell tower of the basilica, it was hard to spot any sign of trees, or even bushes . . . just pale stone, marble, and clay tile roofs.

Crossing the Piazza delle Erbe, we saw another group of armed young men, these very obviously wearing the colors of Capulet, but they gave us no trouble. Had we been in Montague colors, we’d have brewed a fight, but they only shouted recommendation of the nearest wine shop and continued around the fountain. One of them bared his pockmarked backside at the placid face of the marble statue—ancient, though known as the Madonna because of her great beauty—until a shout from the watch guards sent them running and hooting on their way. By this time we had gone quiet, slipping like ghosts through the shadows.

A short journey brought us to the back wall of the Capulet palazzo.

Again.

There was no longer any chance of an easy entrance to the house. . . . I knew well enough that they would be checking the faces of any man entering or leaving. No, this would require extraordinary stealth and effort.

At least the wall didn’t look especially difficult.

Mercutio gave me a sharp, knowing smile, and threw his arm around Romeo’s shoulder to steer him down the Via Cappello. “Go to the Via Mazzini,” I told them. “Right past the front gates. Go buy some wine and enjoy it, loudly, in the street.”

“We who are about to drink, salute you,” Mercutio said, with a flamboyant, cloak-rippling bow. He grabbed my cousin in a headlock when Romeo tried to break free. “You too, poet. Let’s be off about our business of making trouble, and leave Benvolio to his.”

Romeo struggled, but Mercutio held him until he signaled his surrender.

“Don’t hurt her,” he told me, so earnestly that I had to again hold back an impulse to cuff him for his assumptions. I was a thief, not a monster. “Please, Ben, promise that you will do nothing but take the verses. If you must punish someone, then let it be me. She bears no guilt in this.”

He was a bit of a fool, my cousin, but he had a good heart, even while he assumed mine to be blackened. “I will try to restrain all temptations,” I said. “Now go. Hurry.”

Romeo nodded to me, and Mercutio led him off to a riotous drink and—very likely—trouble of their own.

I reached into my bag and took out the black silk scarf, which I settled over my head and pulled low over my eyes; I adjusted the eye holes carefully to be sure I had a full range of vision before tying it securely in place. I took a deep breath, looked up at the wall, and allowed my gaze to wander, seeking out the telltale shadows, uneven patches, cracks—everything that would allow my fingers and toes a purchase. I disliked the ivy; it wouldn’t hold my weight, and no matter how careful I might be, the plants would betray marks of passage, and leave their signs on clothing.

But there was more, a subtle change to the wall itself. I’d come over it two months past, and now there was an addition, half-hidden in shadow at the top.

Knives. Blackened ones, deliberately hard to spot. If I had climbed to the top and put my hand out, the flesh would have been shredded and sliced. A dangerously clever trick, especially if, as I thought likely, they had poisoned the blades as well.

I needed another entrance—and the small gate set around the corner, in the shadows, was a perfect choice. It was meant for tradesmen and servants, and fitted with a well-oiled lock. I had packed my tools in a small padded bag, and it was the work of only a few labored breaths to pull back the metal tongue from its groove. No dogs patrolled within—the Capulets did not favor them, fortunately—but I knew I would face the prospect of roaming guards who had absolute authority and the will to do murder.

It was probably not good that I enjoyed the challenge of that.

I slipped inside the darkened gardens; I had not noticed on my last, hurried passage here, but the bushes were fragrant now with roses, and the blooms sagged heavy and fresh. The steady hushed fountain still played its peaceful melody. I kept to the shadows and moved over the polished marble walk to the darkness below the balconies. Rosaline’s was the one to my right as I faced it, and I began to study my chances.

I heard the scrape of boot on stone, and stepped back in a smooth, unhurried glide just as one of the expected roaming guards chanced to check the gardens. I credit my ability to stand stock-still to my grandmother’s long and endless lecturing; however I came by it, it allowed me to become part of the shadows, and the guard passed me by without a glance. He stank of bad garlic and even worse wine, but his stride was steady, and I had no doubt he was alert enough. I waited until he’d taken a turn behind a large flowering tree before I stepped out again. I’d run out of time. His wouldn’t be the only vigilant eyes here.

I leaped half my height up on the wall. The ivy was wet and slippery, but there was a hard trellis beneath, and I swarmed up it with only a slight rustling of leaves. I was grateful that the moon had buried itself in a pillow of cloud, as it made my ascent less immediately obvious. My gloves and rough clothes absorbed the splinters from the wooden framework I climbed, though I felt one or two bite deeply enough to penetrate. I paused in the shadow cast by the square edges of the balcony itself as I breathed hard, and listened.

The room was silent as the grave. This time the girl would be sleeping deeply.

I swung my legs up and over the balcony’s edge, and narrowly avoided tipping over a large vase full of cut roses; the thorns caught at my cloak and made my would-have-been-smooth arrival more comical than a troupe of mimes. I dropped below the level of the balcony’s lip as the moon emerged from its clouds, and carefully untangled myself before crawling through the billowing curtains and into the room.

It was reassuringly dark. The table where I’d last seen her was empty, though I smelled the smoke and hot beeswax from a candle but recently extinguished. Rosaline’s bed was large, but plain; it was shrouded with heavy tapestries of scenes of women doing moral things, and they were all drawn down. No attendant slept within the chamber. Against the far wall stood an entire wall of shelves, and more books than I thought existed in the city of Verona. I stood for a moment to marvel at them—that was a great deal of expense and indulgence, for a girl—and that moment was my downfall.

I hadn’t heard her move. Not at all. Yet on my next indrawn breath, I felt the ice-cold prickle of a blade on the back of my neck, and a lovely, calm, no-nonsense voice said, “The Prince of Shadows, yet again. I let you have one visit, my prince, but two casts grave doubt upon my honor. I think this time I will summon my brother, Tybalt.”

“Don’t,” I said, very quietly. “I come peacefully enough, on a mission to aid you.”

“Aid me?” She seemed amused, and no little mocking. “I’ve heard bravos boasting in the streets of making free with Capulet women. Have you come to prove yourself as bold?”

“It is not how I fight my battles, threatening women. Though I have heard your own house’s hired killers say they would take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s. What wall do you think they meant, for the maids?”

She was silent for a moment. I thought of telling her what had started this misadventure, of Tybalt and the Montague girl in the alley, but it seemed cruel. He was a brother to her, as much as he was a vile serpent to me.

“Turn,” she said. “Turn and face me.” A candle sparked to life in a rush of gold.

I did turn, because I wanted to see her face as well. Just to remind myself of what she was like. She was still wearing a nightgown, but this time she had donned a heavy mantle as well. A little disappointing, perhaps. I remembered how luminous she’d been, glowing through that fabric.

I bowed silently to her.

“Masked as always,” she said, and I thought she almost smiled. Almost.

“Will you ask me to remove it?” I asked.

“Perhaps. What do you want here?”

“Nothing too dear,” I said. “Love poems.”

She was far too intelligent for her own good, because that was all I had to say: Two words, and she knew. “From your height and shoulders, you’re not Romeo; nor would you be some hired sword sent for something so indelicate. You’d be the cousin, then. Benvolio. Did you come to rob from me, or kill? Surely killing would be simpler, to ensure I didn’t speak of it later.”

The mask might as well have been made of air. I felt utterly at a loss now. . . . What was there to do? Beat her? Threaten her? Already, I knew that Rosaline was not a woman to be intimidated, though she was no older than I was. Killing her was out of the question. I’d not kill a woman in any case, but it was a moot point; she held the dagger. Competently.

“As a formal introduction, I suppose it must serve,” I finally said, and bowed again. “Lady Rosaline.”

“Forgive me if I don’t offer my hand to be kissed,” she said. “Poetry? That awful drivel that Romeo has been sending me, I assume. I was hoping someone would have the sense to stop him.”

“As bad as that?”

“Your cousin reads by rote and cannot spell,” she said. “But his enthusiasm, at least, seems genuine.”

“Then there is no cause to keep it,” I said. “Give me the papers and I’ll be on my way.”

“I burned them,” she said, and tossed her loose dark hair over her shoulders as I frowned. “Do you think me a blockhead? Had anyone discovered I had made such nonsense a home, I’d have been punished, and poor love-struck Romeo hunted down and cut to pieces by my brother. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s just a foolish boy.”

I wasn’t used to women like this—unsentimental, brisk, brilliantly foresighted. I’d thought that a bookish aging virgin would have hoarded love poems to greedily warm her in the cold, but Rosaline clearly held her own source of heat. She radiated it like a bonfire, and beside it I felt very, very cold.

I cleared my throat, because I realized that I was staring like a boy in a brothel. “Your word on it?”

She smiled, just a little. “I am a Capulet, sir. Why would you believe my word?”

“Why indeed, but I think I would. If you gave it.”

“Then you have it.”

“Thank you,” I said. My voice was not quite steady, but her hand on the dagger was. “I believe our business is done, lady.”

“As done as may be,” she agreed. “Can you exit the grounds in safety?”

“I’m the Prince of Shadows,” I said, and smiled. “I can exit hell itself without a twitch of the devil’s tail.”

“You’re very close to meeting him.” She was not smiling, not even a hint of it now. Her eyes held shadows. “There is a racket of singing out in the street on the other side of the house. Take advantage of your distraction while you still may. The guards will be back patrolling in force soon enough, and I cannot risk myself to save you. You understand this.”

I nodded thanks to her, and slowly backed away toward the balcony window. Next to my left hand was the bookcase, and at the last instant, I pulled a book from it—the slender volume she had been reading when first I’d seen her. Rosaline gave a surprised gasp and lunged forward, but she was too late.

“Something to remember you by,” I said, and held it up as I backed onto the balcony. She might scream now, betray me to my death; I couldn’t tell her intentions, and I didn’t care to guess. I jammed the small volume into my doublet and swung out onto the trellis, climbing down with as much silence and speed as might be into the shadows cast by the balcony, then paused to take stock of the garden below.

Rosaline ventured onto the balcony in pursuit, and she leaned over, looking directly down at me. She said nothing, and neither did I, but there was . . . something exchanged, after all.

On a sudden and probably stupid impulse, I reached up and pulled up the mask. I needed her to see my face.

And she smiled fully this time. It was wary and cool, but I felt an odd, heated jump in my veins even so.

“A fair exchange,” she whispered. “Now you should go. Quickly.”

I could hear Mercutio and Romeo shouting drunkenly out in the street; they’d have drawn all the attention of the guards, but it wouldn’t last long. I kicked away from the wall, mindful of the flower bed below, and dropped the last ten feet into the soft garden grass. Gaining my feet, I sprinted for the door through which I’d entered.

At the last moment, I spotted the guard there, examining the locks, and veered sharply away behind a bush’s thorny protection. Upon her balcony, Rosaline was watching with tense interest, hands gripping the stone hard. I could almost believe she was afraid for me.

Almost.

Only one way out, then: up. I had seconds, at most, before the guard left the door and began a more aggressive search of the grounds, so I launched myself onto the wall and climbed fast. I fought for handholds as I swarmed up the wall, and achieved the sticky ivy-covered top.

Knives. I remembered at the last possible second as I reached out, and snatched my fingers back from the sharp edges. I was pinned on the wall, unable to go forward.

No, there was a way after all. The craftsmen who had embedded these deadly traps in the top of the wall had cheated the Capulets, just a little—they had left off where the ivy flourished near the corner. It was impossible to spot from the ground, but here at eye level I clearly saw the opening.

I rolled into it, gasping for breath, and balanced there as I looked back.

Rosaline was still there, watching me. I raised my hand to her, and she nodded.

And then a shadow grabbed her and dragged her back, off balance, into her room. A tall, male shadow. I saw the flash of an upraised fist, heard the smack of its landing, and her surprised cry, and then Tybalt Capulet came out to lean over the balcony’s railing. He gripped the balustrade with both hands, and gazed down tensely into the garden. “Guards!” he snapped. “Idiots, pay attention; someone’s been here! I heard my sister talking to him, and I want him found! Immediately!” He spun, slapping the curtains aside with such force they caught on an edge of the doorway, leaving me a clear view into the room.

A clear view of Tybalt advancing on Rosaline, grabbing her arm and twisting it until she cried out. “Was it him?” he shouted, and raised his fist. “Was it that damned thief?” She said nothing, which earned her an openhanded slap hard enough to leave a bloodred imprint on her fair skin. “I found his boot prints below your balcony last time, you jade. You helped him stain the Capulet name. What’s he here to steal this time, your maidenhead? Are you fallen so low?”

She had been implicated in my last robbery. I felt stunned and stupid for not realizing she would be, when I’d left such obvious trace beneath her balcony, and I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter, that she was a Capulet by birth, and the sworn enemy of my house. The blood that ran through her veins was the same as in Tybalt’s. Her father had killed mine, long ago.

It didn’t sound as convincing as it should have done.

I saw her looking over Tybalt’s shoulder, and her eyes grew wider as she realized I was foolishly lingering atop the wall. I could almost read the angry message in them. Go, fool. And she was right.

I sucked in a deep breath, tucked the book tighter into my doublet, and rolled off the edge, into the shadows.

I landed on my feet, knees flexed, and hardly paused to wince at the impact before I was running fast and light to the street that curved around the palace. I caught sight of Mercutio and Romeo running toward me, chased by a group of Capulet bravos no longer entertained by their antics, and darted the other way, slowing to allow them to catch up. Romeo, no great lover of exertion, was already out of breath, but laughing all the same in hitching gasps. “Did you . . . get the—”

“They are destroyed,” I said tersely, saving my breath for the run. My mind was not, as I’d expected, full of triumph and elation; it was replaying the determined, grim expression on Rosaline’s face. That was the look of a woman who knew pain was coming, or worse. “I swear if you write more I will break your arm.”

He sent me a sideways look, clearly shocked; I was not joking, and he knew it. This was no lark now, no May Day jaunt that we would laugh about later. This was deadly earnest.

“Lead them away,” I ordered him and Mercutio. “Go toward Ponte della Vittoria; you should be able to lose them and turn back toward the palace. On no account let them take Romeo.”

He nodded, grabbed Romeo’s sleeve, and hauled him off in that direction.

I veered in the other. “Where is he going?” I heard my cousin ask plaintively, though Mercutio would have little idea of my destination. I had only just decided on it, and poured on speed through darkened, narrow streets, lit here and there by glancing blows of moonlight. I could hear pursuit’s baying cries behind, but it seemed Mercutio and Romeo were drawing them away. That was good. I needed time.

The avenues took on menacing edges at night, and twice I narrowly avoided the grasp of cutthroats lurking in shadows for victims; the watch did a lazy business at this time of night, and the assassins knew it. I avoided one ambling set of guards, ducked down a narrow, fetid alleyway, and came out next to the Chiesa di San Fermo, where I knew I would find a friendly ear, and a safe harbor.

I slipped through the open doors, suddenly aware of the sweat soaking my body, of the pounding of my heart, and the heavy, silken silence within the thick walls. Only a few candles glowed, painting the arches overhead as I stopped at the font to pay respects. I bent knee to the altar and hurried as fast as propriety would allow to the front of the church, where a plump, tonsured monk was praying, or perhaps pretending while resting his eyes and snoring.

I leaned close to him and whispered, “Rise up, dear friar; I call you to glory.”

His eyes flew open, blinked, and widened in what I suppose might be taken for religious ecstasy—or, more likely, horror. He scrambled awkwardly to his sandaled feet, staring at the silent altar and the crucified savior, and then turned and saw me.

“Rogue!” he roared, and then remembered he was in the house of the Lord, and amended it to a hoarse whisper as he clapped me on the side of the head hard enough to make me see a glimpse of angels. “Villain! Sly-tongued devil of infamy— Oh. Forgive me, sir.” He’d realized who I was, after his first outburst, and cleared his throat to try to restore himself some dignity. “What is this, young master? You come into the house of God with such nonsense? You stand before the holy presence and—”

“Have you been into the sacramental wine again, Friar Lawrence?” I asked. He had been; it was obvious indeed from the eloquence of his breath. “Is that not a greater sin than a shoddy trick on an old man?”

He shook a fist at me, but kept his voice to a hissing whisper. “Old man, am I? Not so old that I cannot teach you manners again, as I did when you were just a tender child! What mean you, coming here at this hour?”

“I come in earnest,” I said. “Forgive me, but one of your flock is in danger, and I can only think you as shepherd must rush to the rescue.”

“Flock? Have I sheep to tend now, at this hour when the devil stalks?”

“Rosaline Capulet,” I said. “Her brother means to beat her, perhaps worse. If you might visit tonight, perhaps seeking after her well-being . . .”

“I have misheard,” he said, and cupped his ear toward me. “Did you say Capulet? Surely not, with such worry in your tone. What would stir you to such instincts, to betray your own?”

“I betray nothing,” I said, and now there was an edge to my tone, not the worry he’d claimed. “It’s none of my affair. Should it be any of yours, a timely visit might save the girl’s looks, if not her life.”

“She’s bound for cloister, my boy; looks are no great asset for her.” Still, he pursed his lips, and then sighed. “I go, then, but what shall be my excuse? How heard I her cries from here?”

“Why, good friar, surely God came to you in a dream,” I said. “And wished you to deliver his good tidings to his would-be bride of Christ.”

“If you prove to be God, young blasphemer, I shall need a great deal more sacramental wine than exists in Verona,” he said, but nodded. “Leave it to me, then.”

“So you may slip back into your wine-drenched prayers? No, Friar, I will come with you.”

He barked out a sharp, harsh laugh that ran around the empty church like a too-bold child. “I scarce think a Montague would be welcome,” he said.

“Monks have no family but that of Christ,” I said, and attempted to look saintly. “And a hooded robe conceals all else, so long as I keep my face humbly lowered.”

“Humble is not a word I think of when I consider you,” the friar said, but he was not objecting. One thing I knew of him: He liked his little intrigues. “But you, Benvolio, you have a cold eye. Swear you will not betray yourself once we are within!”

“What profit would it be if I did?” I asked him. “Trapped within the jaws of those who’d delight in my bloody slaughter? No. I seek only to see the thing done. I’ll take no risk. See you take none either.”

The friar was only a few moments rummaging for a spare, poorly patched habit; it fit me very badly, which was all to the good, as novice monks frequently were handed the rags. Belted soundly with rope, it swaddled me in heavy, smothering folds that smelled of incense and ripened sweat.

“The sword,” Fra Lawrence said. “You must leave it here. Even beneath the robe, it is too easily seen. You must exchange your boots for plain sandals.”

I did these things without complaint, though shedding my weapon caused me to feel more naked than removing any amount of garb. I had worn steel since I was old enough to be allowed out in a pack with my cousins to roam the streets. Tonight I was defenseless.

I am but a humble monk, I reminded myself. God is my defense.

That, and the reeking tent of robes I wore as disguise.

Fra Lawrence examined his handiwork and pronounced that I would do, if I remembered to keep my head decently downturned. “And never, never look up,” he lectured me sternly, or as could a monk who weaved side to side from the effects of stout wine. “You are simply there to look devout. Any hint of arrogance and I will be embarrassed, but you will be beyond any such concerns.”

I tucked my chin down, folded my hands in the voluminous sleeves, and tried to forget a lifetime of training to be a ruler of men. It was, I found, surprisingly restful.

We walked through the streets unmolested. One cutpurse slid greasily from the shadows, only to look us over in disappointment. Fra Lawrence made the sign of the cross to him with great good humor, and we padded on our way without further offense being offered. The robes seemed to weigh on me like armor, though it would undoubtedly be far less useful to turn a Capulet sword. I began to wonder whether perhaps I was being a bit too bold, but the chance to tweak Tybalt’s nose yet again was irresistible . . . and I needed to see that Rosaline had not suffered overmuch for my failings.

Though I would not admit that, to her or—God forbid—anyone else. I could only hope that Friar Lawrence would keep his silence—which, considering that his earthly family owed mine a debt, seemed safe enough. No one wished to risk the wrath of the Montagues, and particularly La Signora di Ferro. The thought of my grandmother descending from her chair like a decaying, shrieking devil was enough to lock anyone’s throat to silence . . . even a gossiping, ever-lecturing busybody like the friar.

Or so I had to hope, for the sake of my life. My grandmother would likely hiss and remind me that even a churchman might suffer a drunken tumble down narrow stairs, for the safety of the family. I was not quite so ready to resort to such tactics. I just knew they existed.

The walk was made in hurried silence; I had managed to impress urgency upon the good friar, at least. But it still seemed to take far too long, even at the rapid pace, and by the time he had rung the bell to summon a servant, it seemed sure that we were far, far too late to be of any help at all.

Friar Lawrence’s self-important godly bluster was enough to win us the courtyard, where a more senior servant confronted us with the peculiar mix of arrogance and deference that those who serve the rich always seem to have. He was hardly a hair’s difference from any of ten who haunted the halls of the Montague palace, waiting for any opportunity to impress their betters and oppress their lessers. I had never before seen the sneer leveled upon me, though. It wakened anger in me, but unlike most of my friends and cousins (Romeo in particular), I was not one to draw blood. I was the peacemaker, the reasonable calm in the storm.

I would take my vengeance later, coolly and anonymously, if it rankled me, but for now, my anger was fueled by the fact that the man was wasting our very valuable time, and I could see the temptation in Romeo’s tendency to wet his steel with those standing in his way.

Friar Lawrence sent me an alarmed glance, and I quickly looked down, hiding in the shadow of the church’s hood. My shoulders were stiff, and I rounded them, and folded my hands together into a penitent clasp within the sleeves.

Merciful saints, it was almost as stifling within these fragrant robes as in Grandmother’s evil lair.

It seemed to take forever for the friar to persuade our entry, by virtue of invoking many visions of saints and threatening the ire of the bishop, but we were finally shown into the darkened grand hall, where an even more senior servant waited stiffly in her severe gown. She looked as if she had been born in it, and would die in it, but only after she’d destroyed the last of her enemies from sheer spite.

In short, she much resembled a younger version of my grandmother, and after a quick, cautious glance I kept my gaze fixed on the shadow-muted carpet underfoot.

“What is this?” she demanded. “You seek to intrude on the peace of the young lady for what reason at this unchristian hour, Friar? And prate me no nonsense about visions and saintly motives; I know well the venal thoughts of men, no matter what robes they wear.”

“What unkindness you have in your heart, signora! I shall remember you in my prayers as often as possible, that you should know peace from some terrible suspicion. Why, I am a man of God! And I come on a holy errand for the lady Rosaline, who is soon to be my sister in Christ and therefore as dear to me as any sister of my blood. Surely you do not stand in the way of angels!”

She made a very unladylike sound of derision. “Fallen angels, belike.”

He crossed himself. Twice. “You cut me, dear signora. Yet I stand before you with the patience of a martyr, begging the gift of the presence of the lady—”

Friar Lawrence’s indignation was cut off by a wine-harshened, familiar voice. “Get out. You’re not needed here.” I risked a quick glance upward, toward the staircase, where Tybalt Capulet was charging down toward us. His face was flushed and livid, and his dark eyes sparked with rage. “Out, I say! If I need a lecture from the Church, we’ll get it from the cathedral, not from some threadbare friar! We’ve had thieves here, and worse; the last we need is you!”

Friar Lawrence straightened, and I remembered my submissive role just as Tybalt’s gaze sheared over me. “Thieves, you say? But this is proof! My vision showed me that the lady Rosaline needed counsel and guidance in this matter, the better to practice the holy virtues of forgiveness! Why, I felt the touch of the saints stirring me from my rest, kind sir, and one cannot argue with saints; I shall get no rest from them until I ease my mind that the lady is well and secure in her faith after such a shock.”

“Her family serves her well enough,” Tybalt replied, and I felt the prick of alarm at the wintry cast of his words. “Begone.”

“Tybalt!” The name was said in whip-crack command, and from the corner of my eye I saw him react sharply, turning toward the balcony overlooking the hall. Since his attention was elsewhere, I too risked a glance, and found Lady Capulet herself regarding us all with annoyance and distaste. “Such disrespect to the Church will not be tolerated. My sincerest apologies, brothers. You may address your concerns to me, and not my nephew.”

Friar Lawrence did not hesitate to exploit the opening. “I come in haste, afire with purpose sent from heaven,” he said. “I must urgently see the lady Rosaline on matters of a spiritual nature. I would of course be glad of your attendance, my lady Capulet.”

She hesitated for so long that I could feel the balance shifting beneath my unsteady feet, back toward Tybalt and his simmering violence, but then she gave one single, sharp nod. “Come with me.” Tybalt must have made to protest, because I heard her give an ice-cold hiss, and then say, “Nothing more from you this eve. Your uncle will hear of your misbehaviors. Your manners are no better than those of a drudge.”

In true noble fashion, she was less concerned with the state of her soul—or anyone’s—than with the appearance of rudeness to an institution more powerful on earth—never mind heaven—than the prince himself. Tybalt stood back to allow Friar Lawrence to ascend the steps, closely followed by me; I admit, I took some satisfaction in passing so near an enemy in perfect silence, hidden in plain sight. If only I’d been able to lift a trinket or two, the moment might have been perfection, but the risk was too great. Better to steal on the way out than the way in.

We followed the drifting skirts of Lady Capulet—attended now by a covey of ladies-in-waiting, including the sour-faced woman who’d first braced us—down the candlelit hall toward the room I knew to be Rosaline’s. She did not bother to announce herself. One of the servants opened the way, and the party swept like a storm inside.

I did not see Rosaline right away, only heard the intake of breath from Friar Lawrence. One of the ladies gave a faint cry—distressed, but hardly surprised.

I caught sight of Lady Capulet’s expression. It did not change by so much as a flicker.

I eased a few inches to the right, keeping my face as shadowed as possible as I risked a direct look at the scene ahead of us, and for a frozen moment all I could see was blood. Blood in drips and dribbles, staining the floor.

Rosaline was wedged into a cold corner, knees drawn up, nightgown bloodied from her split lip and the open cut on her forehead. It would take time for the bruises to form, but her left eye was already swollen, and the right side of her jaw distorted from the beating she’d received. She held her right arm tenderly, and I saw the bloody scrapes on her knuckles.

What sort of woman was she, to fight back? She’d lost, of course, and badly, but it was the sight of those wounded hands that made me feel as if I had lost my breath entire.

That, and the fact that she recognized me.

I saw her raise her head, and she met my gaze with her own, or at least half of it, and I saw the barely perceptible reaction that ran through her. There was an emotion there I could not fully understand—fear, of course; who would not be afraid? But something more.

I thought it might—impossibly—be gratitude.

“A fortunate thing that she is to be a bride of Christ,” her aunt said, “since His love transcends such earthly considerations as beauty. As you can see, the girl is inclined to be unbiddable at times, Friar.”

“Is such violent correction necessary?” he asked, and I heard a sharp edge to the question. “The girl is, after all, promised to the Church.”

“And it is our duty to ensure that she reflects well upon the house of Capulet,” her aunt said, with an imperious jut of her chin. She did not like being questioned so. “The scriptures tell us that a disobedient child should be corrected; is that not so? I thought you were summoned to tend to her spiritual needs, not her bodily ones.”

“Sometimes one entwines with the other,” Friar Lawrence said cheerfully, and moved forward to kneel next to the girl. He took the voluminous wool of his sleeve and wiped carefully at the cut on her head. “How fare you, my lady?”

“Well,” she whispered, and closed her eyes for a moment. “Well enough, I thank you.”

“Well enough to understand that you have been summoned to the glorious service of Our Lord?”

“At this hour?” Lady Capulet cut in, sharp as a blade. “Surely not. She’ll need at least a week to be presentable for the journey.”

Friar Lawrence stood, pulling himself to his full height, and bulk, with his hands folded in his bloodied sleeve. “A week, you say? To do God’s bidding?”

“God’s, or yours?” I risked a quick glance upward. Lady Capulet’s ale-colored eyes were far too sharp, her lips far too thin. She was suspicious of nature, and this miraculous visit had waked howls within her. It remained to be seen whether we would survive the Capulet hounds, if they had been set hard on the hunt. “I shall send to the abbess to confirm that this . . . vision of yours is inspired of God, and not from some lower place. You shall hear from me within the week. If your message proves true, you may have the honor of escorting the girl to the cloister. If not, you may be sure that we will speak to the bishop and request his instruction.” The bishop, of course, was a Capulet born. Friar Lawrence had placed himself squarely in danger for my sake, but looking at Rosaline—who had suffered for my sake, as well—I could see no alternative. Her life hung in the balance of Tybalt’s temper and her aunt’s indifference. I did not want to leave her here, risking more, but I caught a tiny movement from her. She had gently moved her scraped hand in a way that I knew was meant to warn me off.

So I bit my tongue hard enough to taste the metal of my blood, and kept my head bowed, my hands folded, as Friar Lawrence cooed his social graces to Lady Capulet, whose pursed mouth never loosened, and after exacting a promise that Rosaline’s wounds would be tended, he led me out and down the stairs.

Tybalt still lounged there, spineless as a cat, and we were forced to edge by him toward the landing. I passed close enough to smell Rosaline’s blood on him, and the heavy, angry stink of his sweat.

I felt a blind, red urge to let fly all the violence within me. My hand twisted and ached with the need to draw the concealed dagger at my waist and plunge it deep into his heart, but the cold, calm part of me reminded me that Rosaline Capulet was no kin of mine.

No kin and never kind, she’d said.

The taste in my mouth changed from blood to ashes as we left the Capulet house, and the doors slammed and bolted behind us.

I was suffocating in the folds of my disguise, and wished desperately to free myself of it, but Friar Lawrence’s hand closed hard on my arm as I tugged at the ropes holding it closed. “Not here,” he said. “You were right to fear for her, but with God’s grace we may have saved her life. Her lady aunt will not wish to have Rosaline murdered this night; they might be within their rights to so dispose of a rebellious girl-child, but they have not the liver for questions the Church might bring. She’s safe enough, for now. But our pressing concern must be intercepting the message she will send on to the abbess.”

“I will see to that,” I said. At least it was something to which my skills were well suited, unlike miming a biddable young postulant. “But what reply should we send in its place?”

“If you don’t wish to damage my newly minted reputation as a prophet, I would suggest it say that I am selected to be the one to escort the lady Rosaline to her joyous union with Christ. You might mention a saint and a vision or two, as well.”

I did not want Rosaline to be sent within the walls of a cloister, and I never to see her again, but perhaps it was the best for her; it was undoubtedly the safest. Here, in Verona, she risked her brother’s wrath, which might lead to worse than we’d seen tonight.

Jesu, I wanted him dead.

But I nodded beneath the suffocating weight of the robes, rounded my shoulders in submission I did not feel, and followed Friar Lawrence across the silent, dangerous city.

FROM THE PEN OF ROSALINE CAPULET, WRITTEN AND BURNED IN THE SAME NIGHT.

I have lied not only once, but many times now.

On the morning following the first visit from the strange and legendary Prince of Shadows, when he took my brother’s sword, I faced the question like all who slept beneath the Capulet roof: What did we know of the robber? There is secret power in being thought weak, and a fool, as women are so often seen; when I lied, I did so without a quiver, and no one looked more closely—save my wretched brother, who found the footprints below my balcony, and the broken flowers that showed someone had jumped there.

I had managed to convince him—or so I had thought—of my innocence then, and the punishment had been vicious, but brief.

Not so last evening, when the Prince arrived, silent as a black angel, and demanded the wretched verses I had already burned, as I will this account when I am done. I had already guessed his name, but the sight of his face, of the burning, foreign green eyes . . . of the teasing, testing look in them! I have always been practical, where my younger cousin Juliet dreams of amour; how then to explain the sudden rush of feeling to my skin, the blush in my cheek, the ice-cold fear that clutched me when I realized the risk he had taken in returning?

That last glance of Benvolio Montague had shown me too much of what feeling was within him, too. The stark, stunned horror told me that he’d seen my brother, Tybalt, come fast upon me, and that he knew what would come.

But what he could not know was how often it had come to this before. My brother was—in the parlance of our honey-mouthed aunt—of a high blood, and he often drew it from others—namely, from me. Of late I had begun to fight back, since I had come into a height where it was possible—though strictly forbidden—to do so. I had scored him with my nails more than once, and even bruised him, but never did I hurt him enough to matter.

I had thought, from the look on Benvolio’s face, that he might risk all to defend me, and it struck me with a deep horror, and also with a traitorous yearning. I had never known anyone to feel overmuch for me, since my father’s death. I had scarce known my mother. I had been exiled from our father’s home with Tybalt, passed from one uncaring set of hands to another until we had come to the chilly splendor of Verona, and this palace built of bones and memories.

I wished we had never come, and yet I am glad of it, because he came back. Benvolio Montague, wearing not his Prince of Shadows mask, but the robe of a postulant brother, trailing like a pet dog behind the sweaty bulk of Friar Lawrence (who is a kind man, for all his many faults). I know not what possessed the good friar to rush here to witness my shame, save that it must have been done at the urging of Benvolio.

I recognized him even before I spied out those cool green eyes within the hood’s shadow. I think now that I might well recognize him in any disguise he could attempt. And once again, I saw the dark, dangerous impulse in him to help me—an impulse that here in the heart of my violent and blood-soaked family could lead only to his painful death. Thank God and the Virgin that he left meekly, looking at least a little as a penitent young man should, though what might have passed between him and Tybalt, had things gone otherwise, does not bear thinking.

I write this by the well-banked light of a single candle, in haste, and the paper is smeared with my blood, for the cut in my forehead continues to seep despite the bandage provided by Juliet’s old nurse; I thank the saints that Juliet did not wake to see this.

I write the words because I know I can never speak them, for my own sake and for that of the Prince of Shadows.

But I feel no good can come of any of this, however delicious it may seem to keep such a secret.

And now I burn this paper, and hope—in pagan belief, perhaps—that somehow he will know.