make public penance for killing his hated older brother to become Verona’s ruler.
I do not need the Pope in far-off Avignon to tell me that what stains Juliet is not her guilt. It’s mine. I barely emptied my mouth of smutted words before I laid it onto her. Though Tybalt convinced Lord Cappelletto that I saved her, these marks across her face will ruin her, if they remain. What man would marry a beard-besmirched girl, no matter how large her dowry?
But I see still worse in those purple prickles. They are ghostly reminders of God’s tokens, the plaguey black specks that spread their way across the lean thighs and muscly arms of my boys, and of countless others like them that the pestilence stole away.
Not Juliet. Not so long as I breathe will I watch the breath seep from her. Tucking a blanket to cover her discolored cheeks, I place my gentlest kiss between Juliet’s puzzled eyes and ask Lady Cappelletta’s leave to take the infant to the Franciscans, to offer a prayer of thanks that she is saved.
I’m barely through the door of Friar Lorenzo’s cell before I am begging absolution for my soul, and some herbal remedy for Juliet’sbody. “I cannot absolve you,” he says, pressing the tips of his long fingers together, “until I know your sin.” Man of God and science that he is, he bids me repeat every filthy thing I said to Lady Cappelletta, making me admit which are things I’ve done myself with Pietro, and which were only my depraved imaginings.
When at last I finish, he asks, “And the bead, did you say it was, on which the child choked?”
Surely he knows what I said. Friar Lorenzo never forgets a detail that’s confessed to him. “Pearls, two of them.”
“Where are they now, these pearls?”
I picture where the crumpled cap dropped during my frantic effort to save Juliet. But I do not know what’s become of the jewels she sucked from it. “They must’ve fallen somewhere in Lord and Lady Cappelletti’s bedchamber.”
His nose twitches like he’s a hound scenting rabbit. “Can you find them?”
I cup a hand around the cradle blanket covering Juliet’s bare head. She feels so small. Even more fragile than she was on the day when I first met her. The day I lost Susanna. “Can you not offer her some cure without them?”
“A cure? Of course, of course.”He does not even bother to examine her before going to his cache of petals, leaves, and seeds. He grinds up some sickly-sweet smelling remedy, which he spoons into a pouch, securing the drawstring with a tiny cross. He tells me to mix two pinches of the herbal with a thimble-full of still-warm goat’s milk and rub the paste onto Juliet’s chin and cheeks, first thing in the morning, again when the sun is at its highest, and finally after it sinks entirely from the sky. Three times each day I am to pinch and mix and rub, until the guilt-rash goes away.
“Come back then, with the pearls. As a token of thanksgiving to the Holy Church that she is spared.”
This many pinches, that many times a day for who knows how many days, and all the while needing to hide Juliet’s besmirched face from even Tybalt’s curious eyes. My muddled brain is so occupied with trying to remember all of that, it’s only after I leave the friary that I stop to wonder where I can get warm goat’s milk. Though hogs and chickens, donkeys and wild dogs fill Verona’s streets, there’s not a goatherd within the city gates. And if Friar Lorenzo knows of some miracle that turns solid cheese back to flowing milk, he’s not shared it with me.
But I’ll not let Juliet bear that mark. Back in Ca’ Cappelletti, I lay her on her big bed. I loose the string that holds the tiny cross and drop two quick pinches of Friar Lorenzo’s powdery herbal into a thimble. Pushing off my dress, I squeeze myself like I’m a goat, catching my own warm stream of milk to mix the paste. I coat Juliet’s face with it, praying to Sant’Agata to leach the stain from her. I do the
I do not need the Pope in far-off Avignon to tell me that what stains Juliet is not her guilt. It’s mine. I barely emptied my mouth of smutted words before I laid it onto her. Though Tybalt convinced Lord Cappelletto that I saved her, these marks across her face will ruin her, if they remain. What man would marry a beard-besmirched girl, no matter how large her dowry?
But I see still worse in those purple prickles. They are ghostly reminders of God’s tokens, the plaguey black specks that spread their way across the lean thighs and muscly arms of my boys, and of countless others like them that the pestilence stole away.
Not Juliet. Not so long as I breathe will I watch the breath seep from her. Tucking a blanket to cover her discolored cheeks, I place my gentlest kiss between Juliet’s puzzled eyes and ask Lady Cappelletta’s leave to take the infant to the Franciscans, to offer a prayer of thanks that she is saved.
I’m barely through the door of Friar Lorenzo’s cell before I am begging absolution for my soul, and some herbal remedy for Juliet’sbody. “I cannot absolve you,” he says, pressing the tips of his long fingers together, “until I know your sin.” Man of God and science that he is, he bids me repeat every filthy thing I said to Lady Cappelletta, making me admit which are things I’ve done myself with Pietro, and which were only my depraved imaginings.
When at last I finish, he asks, “And the bead, did you say it was, on which the child choked?”
Surely he knows what I said. Friar Lorenzo never forgets a detail that’s confessed to him. “Pearls, two of them.”
“Where are they now, these pearls?”
I picture where the crumpled cap dropped during my frantic effort to save Juliet. But I do not know what’s become of the jewels she sucked from it. “They must’ve fallen somewhere in Lord and Lady Cappelletti’s bedchamber.”
His nose twitches like he’s a hound scenting rabbit. “Can you find them?”
I cup a hand around the cradle blanket covering Juliet’s bare head. She feels so small. Even more fragile than she was on the day when I first met her. The day I lost Susanna. “Can you not offer her some cure without them?”
“A cure? Of course, of course.”He does not even bother to examine her before going to his cache of petals, leaves, and seeds. He grinds up some sickly-sweet smelling remedy, which he spoons into a pouch, securing the drawstring with a tiny cross. He tells me to mix two pinches of the herbal with a thimble-full of still-warm goat’s milk and rub the paste onto Juliet’s chin and cheeks, first thing in the morning, again when the sun is at its highest, and finally after it sinks entirely from the sky. Three times each day I am to pinch and mix and rub, until the guilt-rash goes away.
“Come back then, with the pearls. As a token of thanksgiving to the Holy Church that she is spared.”
This many pinches, that many times a day for who knows how many days, and all the while needing to hide Juliet’s besmirched face from even Tybalt’s curious eyes. My muddled brain is so occupied with trying to remember all of that, it’s only after I leave the friary that I stop to wonder where I can get warm goat’s milk. Though hogs and chickens, donkeys and wild dogs fill Verona’s streets, there’s not a goatherd within the city gates. And if Friar Lorenzo knows of some miracle that turns solid cheese back to flowing milk, he’s not shared it with me.
But I’ll not let Juliet bear that mark. Back in Ca’ Cappelletti, I lay her on her big bed. I loose the string that holds the tiny cross and drop two quick pinches of Friar Lorenzo’s powdery herbal into a thimble. Pushing off my dress, I squeeze myself like I’m a goat, catching my own warm stream of milk to mix the paste. I coat Juliet’s face with it, praying to Sant’Agata to leach the stain from her. I do the
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