O, Juliet (6 page)

Then all at once a white horse exploded from an alleyway into their midst, scattering the men like a handful of dice thrown on the ground. They loudly cursed the rider.

It was Romeo!

I thrilled as the mount reared up proudly on two legs and crashed down again. Then amid a terrible clattering of hooves on cobble, horse and master sped off into the dark.

I wondered how I could calmly return to Jacopo Strozzi—his grazing ewes and monetary distractions. All my thoughts were of this Monticecco man, so recently a stranger, now a star at the center of my universe. And I wondered at the time and place for the future assignation he had announced—the cathedral at noon on Wednesday
. Why the Duomo? And why in broad daylight?

And then I knew. I sighed happily. Romeo. My poet. My friend
. Vita Nuova.

A New Life!

H
ow many times that Wednesday morn I rushed between my bedroom’s window on the street to its garden balcony, I do not know. The window was to see the arrival of Lucrezia in her litter come to fetch me, and the balcony to cool my brow, receive a chestful of calming air.

She could not be late. Not today!

I had many times pleaded with my father for leave to go to the cathedral, and just as many been refused. It was not to Mass I wished to go—for that purpose they surely would have given me leave—but to Friar Bartolomo’s weekly “Symposium” on the subject of Dante Alighieri’s works. It was a popular lecture, one attended by hundreds, sometimes a thousand, it was said, so beloved were his poems with his Florentine brethren.

It was this gathering to which Romeo Monticecco had invited me as he’d fled the Medici ballroom. I’d thought of nothing else since then, and worried myself sick with the thought of my father’s certain prohibition.

Then a miracle on Tuesday.

The sinking of his ship full of goods forced a sudden trip to the port town of Pisa. I was left blessedly alone with Mama, who, while strict in many ways, was in others very malleable. I proceeded to bandy about the name of my friend Lucrezia, whom I had begged and convinced to come along to the symposium.

“Lucrezia has asked me to accompany her to the Duomo at Wednesday noon,” I lied. “To the symposium,” I reminded my absentminded mother. “Dante.”

She had perked up instantly, for she approved very heartily of my friendship with a soon-to-be Medici, and the more time I spent in her company, the better. Then Mama’s face fell.

“You know how often your father has said no to this.”

“But we’ll have a chaperone—hers. And we’ll go in the Tornabuoni litter.” I spoke conspiratorially. “The whole town is still talking about the Medici ball. Lucrezia is so admired as a great lady.”

“Yes, she is.” Mama pursed her lips into a tight bud as she did when she was thinking hard. “Well, I suppose it will be all right. But you must dress properly. Something demure.”

I had won my permission.

Now I was peering out my front window in nervous anticipation. I wore a sky blue silk
guarnacca
, its bodice so high that not an inch of bosom could be seen, and a thick rolled headdress that covered my hair. I bit my lips to pink them, and slapped my cheeks to do the same. The use of cosmetics was frowned upon in my father’s house, and in any event none would be proper for a visit to the Duomo at noon.

Then I saw them—four liveried bearers carrying the wide, gilded Tornabuoni litter. I raced down the steps, calling good-bye to Mama, and was out the door and settled breathlessly next to Lucrezia in the space of a minute. Our chaperone, old Signora Munao, sat across from us and stayed very silent, as was her place to do.

“Very ladylike,” Lucrezia said, noting my perspiring face and already lopsided headdress.

“Fix it, please.” I turned to her. She righted the rolled coif, tucking a lock that had gone astray back under it. With her handkerchief she blotted my brow and upper lip.

I felt suddenly guilty. I’d not told Lucrezia of my rendezvous with Romeo. Indeed, I had told her nothing of him at all.

“I wonder what circle of hell Friar Bartolomo will be expounding upon today,” I said, rather than reveal my true reason for our outing.

“No wonder you’re warm,” she muttered, seemingly unconcerned with the subject of Dante’s
Inferno.
“Any higher and your bodice would be up to your eyes.”

“Mama worries endlessly about decorum.”

“Why did she even let you come?”

“Well . . . I . . .”

“And why, suddenly, is the symposium something you so desperately need to hear?” Her tone was suspicious. Lucrezia Tornabuoni was a young woman of rare intellect and spotless instinct. Something was afoot and she knew it.

This was the time for my revelation. But I could not bring myself to reveal it. Instead I quoted, full of passion:

“All right, all right,” Lucrezia cried in mock despair. “To the Duomo, then.”

The litter came round a corner into the cathedral square and we exited into the great circular shadow of Brunelleschi’s architectural masterpiece. I had been nine years old the day of the famous church’s consecration, its massive egg-shaped dome the grandest in the world. Pope Eugenius had come from Rome for the celebration and spectacle, as had two hundred thousand souls from everywhere.

Now as we entered the enormous marble edifice, the crowd seemed sparse in comparison with that day, yet every face seemed eager and cheerful, and all moved quickly to the front altar in order to better hear the friar’s lecture.

There were some men who looked askance at us, two young ladies—not matrons—in this place, but we moved quickly, speaking to no one. With our chaperone trailing behind, I steered my friend to the right where the now-empty choir was, and we took our places near the side aisle.

I had no knowledge of Romeo’s plan, indeed no promise of his coming. If he did come, would he find me? If found . . . what then? All I knew was a heart thumping insistently in my breast, my senses afire, and memory of a strong, warm hand clutching my own.

Now came Friar Bartolomo before the altar, with tonsured head and humble in his rough brown robe. “Welcome, all,” he began with a broad smile.

The crowd replied in kind with friendly, familiar ease. I thought it strange, a man of God in the Lord’s House, more kindly tutor than priest.

“As I told you when we last met, we would today diverge from our usual travels.” He went on in a playfully tremulous voice.

“We have spent many tortured weeks in all the circles of Dante’s hell.”

This caused the audience to laugh with delight.

“So we shall climb up from the bowels of the earth to the maestro’s other masterwork,
Vita Nuova
.”

I think my jaw dropped then, for there was no doubt that Romeo had known this day’s agenda. Known it would please me no end.

A perfect invitation.

I chanced a look around for him but saw only a sea of faces smiling with anticipation. I craned my neck the other way and found myself caught in Lucrezia’s stare.

“Looking for someone?” she said. That tone of suspicion again.

“Before you settle into complacency,” the friar continued, saving me from another lie to my friend, “before you feel yourself freed entirely from darkness and pain, let me tell you the subject of our explorations this day.” He opened a small volume I took to be
Vita Nuova
, turning to a page marked with a ribbon. “The subject is death.”

The jovial murmurings of the crowd were silenced as all attended the cleric’s words.

“Have we not—every one of us—suffered at the cruel hand of the Reaper?”

There were numerous utterings from the assembled, agreement and consensus.

“Dante, himself, suffered a most wrenching loss with the death of his Beatrice. The poet wrote”—the friar read now—“
‘So much grief had become the destroyer of my soul.’
He was a man who,” he quoted, “ ‘
died a death of tears
.’ ”

The gentleman beside me nodded with deep understanding.

“He was so bereft he became ‘
jealous of whosoever dies
,’” Bartolomo went on. “And yet, my friends, Dante Alighieri, torn apart by grief, gave us instruction in graceful acceptance of loss. In the depths of his misery he writes of seeing Beatrice’s ladies covering her head with a white veil and it seemed that his deceased lover’s face was—listen to these words—‘
so filled with joyous acceptance that it said to me: I am contemplating the fountainhead of peace
.’” Friar Bartolomo looked up and smiled beatifically at his students.“Death is a ‘
fountainhead of peace
.’ Can we not all take comfort in that image?”

From everywhere I heard men calling, “Yes, yes.”

The teacher found another ribboned page. “His Beatrice, he said, ‘
has ascended to high heaven into a realm where angels live in peace
.’”

A long sigh was heard behind me.

A man in front of me put his face in his hands and wept unabashedly.

Bartolomo went on.

He looked up.
“ ‘This lady had become a citizen of eternal life.’”

Suddenly a voice from the choir rail a few feet before me called out, “Good friar, why of all his subjects in a book Dante titled
New Life
do you choose to speak only of a lady’s death?”

My heart leapt nearly from my chest.

It was Romeo.

That deep, melodious voice had come to be familiar to me in one short meeting. I twisted sharply to see him, but then many did the same, for they wished to know the face of the man who spoke out so boldly in the friar’s symposium.

And there he was! My Romeo dressed in a short blue tunic with wide flowing sleeves.

“Why not speak of love?” he persisted. “
‘Joyous love.’
What our maestro called ‘
the very summit of bliss
.’ ”

“Only because, young sir,” the friar answered mildly, “my chosen topic was death.”

“But perhaps the good people of Florence have had enough of death. They might prefer a happier topic.” Romeo looked around at the assembled.

Everyone was silent, unused—it appeared—to one of their ranks defying their teacher.

“Are there none here that are”—and Romeo quoted—“
‘utterly consumed for the sake of a lady’
? Who
‘travel on the road of love’
?”

I felt a gush of words unbidden, yet unstoppable, burst from my throat. “Here is one
‘on the road of sighs’
who is calling,
‘Love, help your faithful one’
! ”

Romeo turned to find me. He was beaming and triumphant. Our eyes met and held.

A horrified Lucrezia whispered, “Juliet . . .”

But now the congregation, shocked that a young, unmarried lady was here and, even more so, that the lady had spoken and knew Dante so well, was all agog. Excitement rippled the room. And grumbling, too.

But I had grown very bold and asked the friar, “Did not Dante write in the vernacular so his words might be understood by ladies who found Latin verses difficult to comprehend?”

“Yes, that is true,” Bartolomo said.

But this audience of men was not at all happy. They began to talk loudly among themselves.

“Let her speak!” Romeo cried.

The place reluctantly quieted.

My mouth was dry cotton, but I rose to the occasion.
“‘I have a vision of love . . . ,’”
I recited, my voice echoing grandly in the cavernous chamber,
“‘ . . . a miracle too rich and strange to behold.’”

“ ‘Here in my unbearable bliss . . . ,’”
Romeo shouted in exultant reply,
“ ‘ . . . all my thoughts are telling me of love!’ ”

Someone cried, “Go on, go on!”

“ ‘Whenever and wherever she appears,’ ”
he spoke in a voice filled with wonder,
“ ‘in anticipation of her marvelous greeting, I hold no man my enemy.’ ”

The place rumbled with agreement of that sentiment. Love did make a heart more peaceful.

All fear fled my soul and now in the midst of hundreds I spoke with Dante’s words, but only to Romeo. “
‘Love’s power is insane’
!”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“Brava! Bravo!” someone called. Then other voices of approbation joined them.

“Good people,” called the friar. “Good people, attend me!”

Everyone quieted.

“I can see that the topic of love makes many hearts race. But take pity on a poor old man who has prepared his lecture on a somewhat more grim note, but one most worthy of discussion. Perhaps next week we will take up the subject of Dante and Beatrice’s romance. But for now . . .”

We did return to Friar Bartolomo’s chosen theme, and for the rest of the afternoon Romeo and I remained silent and respectful. As the talk was of
Vita Nuova
, it was infinitely pleasurable, and I learned many things that I had not, in my solitary study of it, observed before.

So engrossed had I become that when the session ended, I had not noticed Romeo’s departure from his place at the choir rail. I looked all around for him as we made for the cathedral door, but found no one but my cousin Marco.

He fixed me with an impish grin. “You kept your love of Dante, and Dante’s love, very quiet, cousin. I never knew.”

I kissed him on both cheeks.

“But did you know your sparring partner was that interloper we chased from Don Cosimo’s ball? A Monticecco?”