Juliet (57 page)

Now, at last, Friar Lorenzo opened the box to reveal Romeo’s signet ring that was nested inside in royal blue velvet, and we all—even I—leaned forward to look.

“Dio!” whispered Eva Maria, admiring the wonder. “This is Giulietta’s wedding band. It is a miracle that Friar Lorenzo was able to save it.”

I stole a glance at Alessandro, expecting him to look at least slightly guilty about driving around with the damned thing in the trunk all day and only telling me part of the story. But his expression was perfectly serene; either he felt no guilt at all, or he was frighteningly good at masking it. Meanwhile, Friar Lorenzo gave the ring an elaborate blessing before taking it out of the box with trembling fingers and handing it not to me, but to Alessandro. “Romeo Marescotti … per favore.”

Alessandro hesitated before taking the ring, and when I looked up at his face I saw him exchanging a stare with Eva Maria, a dark, unsmiling stare that marked some symbolic point of no return between the two of them and went on to close around my heart like the grip of a butcher before the blow.

Just then—perhaps understandably—a second wave of oblivion blurred my vision, and I swayed briefly as the room took a turn about me and never came to a complete halt. Grabbing Alessandro’s arm for support, I blinked a few times, struggling to recover; amazingly, neither he nor Eva Maria allowed my sudden discomposure to interrupt the moment.

“In the Middle Ages,” said Alessandro, translating what Friar Lorenzo was telling him, “it was very simple. The groom would say, ‘I give you this ring,’ and that was it. That was the wedding.” He took my hand and let the ring slide onto my finger. “No diamonds. Just the eagle.”

It was fortunate for the two of them that I was too groggy to voice my opinion about having an evil ring from a dead man’s coffin forced onto my finger without my consent. As it was, some foreign element—not wine,
but something else—kept jiggling my consciousness, and all my rational faculties were by now buried under a mudslide of tipsy fatalism. And so I simply stood there, docile as a cow, while Friar Lorenzo sent up a prayer to the powers above and went on to demand yet another object from the table.

It was Romeo’s dagger.

“This dagger is polluted,” explained Alessandro, his voice low, “but Friar Lorenzo will take care of it and make sure it does not cause any more harm—”

Even in my haze I was able to think,
How nice of him! And how nice of you to ask before you gave this guy an heirloom that my parents left for me!
But I did not say it.

“Shh!” Eva Maria evidently did not care whether I understood what was going on. “Your right hands!”

Both Alessandro and I looked at her, puzzled, as she reached out and placed her own right hand on top of the dagger, which Friar Lorenzo was holding towards us. “Come!” she urged me. “Put your hand on top of mine.”

And so I did. I put my hand on top of hers like a child playing a game, and after I had done that, Alessandro put his right hand on top of mine. To close the circle, Friar Lorenzo put his free hand on top of Alessandro’s, while he mumbled a prayer that sounded like an invocation to the powers below.

“No more,” whispered Alessandro, ignoring Eva Maria’s warning glare, “will this dagger harm a Salimbeni, or a Tolomei, or a Marescotti. The circle of violence is ended. No more will we be able to hurt each other with any weapon. Now peace has finally come, and this dagger must be returned to where it came from, poured back into the veins of the earth.”

When Friar Lorenzo had finished the prayer, he put the dagger very carefully into an oblong metal box with a lock. And only now, handing off the box to one of his brothers, did the old monk look up and smile at us, as if this was a completely normal social gathering, and we had not just taken part in a medieval wedding ritual and an act of exorcism.

“And now,” said Eva Maria, no less exalted than he, “one last thing. A letter—” She waited until Friar Lorenzo had taken a small, yellowed roll of parchment out of a pocket in his cowl. If it was really a letter, it was very
old and had never been opened, for it was still sealed with a red wax stamp. “This,” Eva Maria explained, “is a letter which Giannozza sent to her sister Giulietta in 1340, while she was living in Palazzo Tolomei. But Friar Lorenzo never managed to give it to Giulietta, because of everything that happened at the Palio. The Lorenzo Brothers only found it recently, in the archives of the monastery where Friar Lorenzo took Romeo to recover after saving his life. It is now yours.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said, watching as Friar Lorenzo put the letter back in his pocket.

“And now—” Eva Maria snapped her fingers in the air, and within the blink of an eye a waiter had materialized right next to us carrying a tray with antique wine goblets. “Prego—” Eva Maria handed the largest vessel to Friar Lorenzo before serving the rest of us and raising her own goblet in a ceremonial toast. “Oh, and Giulietta … Friar Lorenzo says that when you have—when all this is over, you must come to Viterbo and give the crucifix back to its true owner. In return, he will give you Giannozza’s letter.”

“What crucifix?” I asked, only too aware that my words were slurred.

“That one—” She pointed at the crucifix hanging around my neck. “It belonged to Friar Lorenzo. He wants it back.”

Despite the bouquet of dust and metal polish, I drank with a vengeance. There is nothing quite like the presence of ghostly monks in embroidered capes to make a girl need a drink. To say nothing of my recurring wooziness and Romeo’s ring, which was now stuck—completely stuck—on my finger. But then, at least I had finally found something that actually belonged to me. As for the dagger—presently locked away in a metal box before its journey back to the crucible—it was probably time for me to acknowledge that it had, in fact, never been mine.

“And now,” said Eva Maria, putting down her goblet, “it is time for our procession.”

WHEN I WAS LITTLE
, curled up on the bench in the kitchen and watching him work, Umberto had sometimes told me stories of religious processions in Italy in the Middle Ages. He had told me about priests carrying the relics of dead saints through the streets, and of torches, palm leaves, and sacred statues on poles. Occasionally he had ended a tale by
saying, “and it is still going on, even now,” but I had always interpreted that the way one interprets the “happily ever after” at the end of fairy tales: as wishful thinking, and nothing more.

I had certainly never imagined that I would one day take part in a procession of my own, especially not one that seemed to have been put on partly in my honor, and which took twelve austere monks and a small glass case with a relic through the whole house—including my bedroom—followed by the better part of Eva Maria’s party guests, carrying tall candles.

As we moved slowly along the upstairs loggia, dutifully following the path of the incense and Friar Lorenzo’s Latin chant, I looked around for Alessandro, but could not see him anywhere in the procession. Seeing my distraction, Eva Maria took me by the arm and whispered, “I know you are tired. Why don’t you go to bed? This procession will go on for a long time. We will talk tomorrow, you and I, when all this is over.”

I did not even try to protest. The truth was that I wanted nothing more than to crawl into my Homeric bed and curl up in a tight ball, even if it meant missing the rest of Eva Maria’s strange party. And so, when we passed by my door next, I discreetly extricated myself from the group and stole inside.

My bed was still moist from Friar Lorenzo’s holy-water sprinkles, but I didn’t care. Without stopping to take off my shoes, I collapsed—facedown—on top of the bedspread, certain that I would be asleep within a minute. I could still taste Eva Maria’s bitter sangiovese in my mouth, but didn’t even have the energy to go out and brush my teeth.

As I lay there, however, waiting for oblivion, I felt my dizziness receding to a point where everything suddenly became perfectly clear again. The room stopped rotating around me, and I was able to focus on the ring on my finger, which I still could not get off, and which seemed to emanate an energy all its own. At first, the sensation had filled me with fear, but now—seeing that I was still alive and had not been harmed by its destructive powers—the fear gave way to tingling anticipation. Of what, I was not entirely sure, but I suddenly knew that I would not be able to relax until I had talked to Alessandro. Hopefully, he would be able to give me a calm interpretation of the evening’s events; failing that, I would be quite content if he simply took me in his arms and let me hide there for a while.

Taking off my shoes, I slipped out onto our shared balcony in the
hopes of catching a glimpse of him in his room. Surely, he had not yet gone to bed, and surely—despite everything that had happened this evening—he would be more than ready to continue where we had left off this afternoon.

As it turned out, he was standing right there on the balcony, fully dressed, hands on the railing, looking despondently into the night.

Even though he heard my French door open and knew I was there, he did not turn around, just sighed deeply and said, “You must think we’re insane.”

“Did you know about all this?” I asked. “That they would be here tonight … Friar Lorenzo and the monks?”

Now, finally, Alessandro turned to look at me with eyes that were darker than the star-spangled sky behind him. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have brought you here.” He paused, then said plainly, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, hoping to soften his frown. “I’m having the time of my life. Who wouldn’t? These people … Friar Lorenzo … Monna Chiara … chasing ghosts around—this is the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Alessandro shook his head, but just once. “Not my dreams.”

“And look!” I held up my hand. “I got my ring back.”

He still did not smile. “But that is not what you were looking for. You came to Siena to find a treasure. Didn’t you?”

“Maybe an end to Friar Lorenzo’s curse is the most valuable thing I could possibly find,” I countered. “I suspect gold and jewelry don’t count for much at the bottom of a grave.”

“So, is that what you want to do?” He studied my face, clearly wondering what I was trying to say. “End the curse?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing tonight?” I stepped closer. “Undoing the evils of the past? Writing a happy end? Correct me if I am wrong, but we just got married … or something very like it.”

“Oh, God!” He ran both hands through his hair. “I’m so sorry about that!”

Seeing his embarrassment, I couldn’t help giggling. “Well, since this is supposed to be our wedding night, shame on you for not bursting into my room and slapping me around in a medieval manner! In fact, I’m going down to complain to Friar Lorenzo right now—” I made a move to go, but he caught my wrist and held me back.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, playing along at last. “Come here, woman—” And he pulled me into his arms and kissed me until I stopped laughing.

Only when I began unbuttoning his shirt did he speak again. “Do you,” he asked, briefly stopping my hands, “believe in
forever?”

I met his eyes, surprised at his sincerity. Holding up the eagle ring between us, I simply said, “Forever started a long time ago.”

“If you want, I can take you back to Siena and … leave you alone. Right now.”

“And then what?”

He buried his face in my hair. “No more chasing ghosts around.”

“If you let go of me now,” I whispered, stretching against him, “it could be another six hundred years before you find me again. Are you willing to take that risk?”

I WOKE UP
when it was not yet day, to find myself alone in a nest of tousled sheets. From the garden outside came a persistent, haunting birdcall, and that was most likely what had pierced my dreams and stirred me from sleep. According to my watch it was three in the morning, and our candles were long since burnt out. By now, the only light in the room was the raw shine from a full moon coming through the French doors.

Perhaps I was being naïve, but it shocked me that Alessandro had left my bed like this, on our first night together. The way he had held me before we fell asleep had made me think he would never let go of me again.

Yet here I was, alone and wondering why, feeling parched and hung-over from whatever it was that had hit me earlier. It did not help my confusion that Alessandro’s clothes were—as were mine—still lying on the floor beside the bed. Switching on a lamp, I checked the bedside table and found that he had even left behind the leather string with the bullet, which I had personally pulled over his head a few hours ago.

Wrapping myself in one of the sheets from the bed, I winced when I saw the mess we had made of Eva Maria’s vintage linen. And not only that, but entangled in the white sheets lay a bundle of frail, blue silk, which I had not even noticed until now. Strangely, as I began unfolding it, it took me a while to recognize it for what it was, probably because I had never expected to see it again. And most definitely not in my bed.

It was the cencio from 1340.

Judging by the fact that I had not noticed it until now, this invaluable artifact had been hidden among the sheets by someone who was determined to have me sleep on it. But who? And why?

Twenty years ago, my mother had gone to extremes to protect this cencio and pass it on to me; I in turn had found it, but quickly lost it, and yet here it was again, right beneath me, like a shadow I couldn’t shake. Only the day before, at Rocca di Tentennano, I had asked Alessandro point-blank if he knew where the cencio was. His cryptic response had been that, wherever it was, it was meaningless without me. And now, suddenly, as I sat there holding it in my hands, everything fell into place.

According to Maestro Ambrogio’s journal, Romeo Marescotti had vowed that, if he won the Palio of 1340, he would use the cencio as his wedding-sheet. But the evil Salimbeni had done everything in his power to prevent Romeo and Giulietta from ever spending a night together, and he had succeeded.

Until now.

So maybe this, I thought to myself, startled that I was able to make sense of it all at three in the morning, was why there had already been a smell of incense in my room when I came back from the swimming pool the day before; perhaps Friar Lorenzo and the monks had wanted to personally ensure that the cencio was where it belonged … in the bed they assumed I would be sharing with Alessandro.