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The maskers poured into the hall. The word must have spread: half of Verona seemed to be here, torches aflame and instruments a-jangle. The masks were grotesque: birds’ beaks, bulls’ horns, dragons’ ruffs, stiff feathers and bright ribbons. Tybalt drank his wine, and watched.
His eyes were drawn to the man who was last in the snaking, gambolling line: a young man, moving slightly out of time, but whose fine arse and legs made admirable compensation for any deficiencies in his dancing. Tybalt let his gaze linger. He hadn’t given much thought to this evening’s possibilities, distracted as he’d been by the morning’s scuffle and the gossip occasioned by Count Paris’ visit, but now… Yes. Perhaps. Perhaps. He drained his wine, and put his cup down, and moved a little closer. His uncle was welcoming the party effusively, and they dispersed, no doubt to avail themselves of the wine, the food, and such other accommodations that took their fancy. So much the better.
His man seemed to be concerned neither with the wine nor with the food. Better still. Tybalt waited, and watched him. The elaborate mask drew attention to the wide mouth, the shadow of stubble, the exposed throat. And one did not need to see the face to appreciate the shapely calves, the lovely line of the back, the thighs…
At last he turned. Tybalt held his breath.
The man was staring back at him; that much was clear even with the mask obscuring his face. ‘Can that be Tybalt?’ he said, apparently to nobody in particular; then, seeming to realise that he’d been indiscreet, turned his face away.
Tybalt knew that accent: the pedantic consonants, the careless vowels. ‘A Montague…’ he breathed. With some vague thought of challenging the man, he stepped closer, until they stood perhaps six feet apart.
Very, very slowly, the other man lifted his hands to his face, slipped his fingers under the strings of the mask, and slid it upwards.
He knew him instantly: Romeo. The Montague heir. A mixture of anger and attraction twisted through Tybalt, and he had no words.
The other did not seem to have many more. He only repeated, ‘A Montague,’ and stared defiantly back at Tybalt.
Horrified, he hissed, ‘Put that back, you fool: do you want to be killed?’
‘Who’d kill me here, but you?’
‘Don’t you believe that I would?’ He took a step closer. Romeo Montague’s mouth opened; he licked his lips. Perhaps it was only nervousness. Perhaps it was more. Tybalt’s anger was streaked with lust; it flared and sparked within him. One more step forward, and he had the Montague’s shoulders in a furious grip. He paused, ready to shake him, or to throw him out.
Or…
He glanced around. Nobody was looking in their direction. A step backwards, a step to the right, would take them into the niche that was formed by the curl of the great staircase in the corner of the room. Nobody would see them.
It was folly, utter folly. But he wanted it terribly; the mixture of desire and fury was potent, and he found himself moving almost despite himself, pulling the man into the shadow with him, wrapping his arms around him, willing him to be as silent as he was himself.
He didn’t close his eyes. If this was folly, it behoved him to remain on his guard. And if it was folly to kiss Romeo, it would be folly doubled to let himself forget that it was Romeo he was kissing, to shut out those dark eyes, dark curls, that generous mouth…
The man he was kissing seemed not to be bothered by such scruples; he abandoned himself to Tybalt’s mouth with a little sigh, his eyelids closing, his lashes lying gentle on his cheeks.
At last they broke apart. Tybalt let his hands slide forward to grip Romeo’s upper arms, and held him at a little distance to survey him. His lips were parted; his eyes were wide, reflecting a wonder that Tybalt feared might show on his own face, too.
He wanted more. It would be so easy to lead the man away from the bustle of the party, find a corner, find a bed, indulge in what they both clearly wanted. But what he wanted would be too much, and if he got it then it could not be enough, and he had not drunk enough to disregard all the reasons why he should not do it. Not under his uncle’s roof. Not with a man of his own station. Above all, not with a Montague.
As soon as he could be sure that his voice would be steady, he said, ‘This means nothing. Tomorrow, I’ll demand satisfaction for the insult that you’ve offered to my family, in my house.’
‘Tomorrow I’ll give you all the satisfaction you desire.’
He kept himself from smiling with some difficulty. The boy was shameless; that was, he supposed, half the trouble. ‘Oh, you will.’
The other was smiling outright, and not trying to hide it. ‘The Prince has forbidden duelling. It had better be outside the city.’
‘Very well. Where?’
‘Do you know the sycamore grove, north of St Peter’s?’
‘I’ll find it.’ And you, he added in his mind.
‘I have no doubt of it. Nine o’clock?’
He nodded. ‘And if you are a man of honour, you’ll come alone.’ He did not want Mercutio and Benvolio and all the other Montague hangers-on watching this, though he could not quite have said why.
Romeo did not demur. ‘As will you – if you are.’
‘Very well. Until tomorrow.’ He grabbed Romeo’s collar and pulled him in for one last fierce kiss, then let him go.
A few scant minutes later, he saw a little group of maskers leave; and he saw that Romeo was among them.
He found the sycamore grove easily enough. Romeo was waiting for him. Alone – yes, they’d agreed that – but unarmed? Fury rose within him, but somehow he wasn’t entirely surprised. This man was never going to do anything like anybody else.
Tybalt raised a hand in an uncertain greeting. Romeo returned it with an ironic bow.
He couldn’t mask his anger. ‘What are you playing at?’
The other looked scared, but defiant. ‘What do you mean?’
Surely no one could be as slow as this. ‘I cannot fight you if you have no weapon.’
‘Why not? It makes no difference.’
Tybalt stared at him. ‘It makes all the difference.’
Romeo shook his head. ‘Either way, you will kill me.’
‘If I have a weapon and you have none, and we fight, of course I will. But why do you yield so easily?’ He could hardly call it cowardice, not when the man had come here unarmed, alone, and apparently in the expectation of an unceremonious death. He finished, helplessly, ‘You can guess at what might happen, but you can’t know.’
‘Of course you are going to kill me. You will kill me, because I cannot kill you.’
He was one of those people who had an unhealthy obsession with fortune, Tybalt decided. ‘What makes you so sure that one of us must kill the other? Why should we not grow old and become like my uncle and your father, fighting long after it has ceased to be decorous for us to do so?’
‘Because I can never be like my father. Not now.’ He turned his face away for a moment. ‘Come,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘fight me.’
‘You still have no weapon.’ For a moment, he regretted the absence of any second. Mercutio would at least have ensured that Romeo came equipped with a sword.
‘If I don’t care, why should you?’
He didn’t bother answering that, just unbuckled his sword belt and let it slide to the ground. He laid his dagger on top.
‘Fists, is it?’
He imagined Romeo’s ardent face bloodied, bruised, perhaps missing a tooth. He let himself enjoy the idea, savoured the anger flowing through his veins; but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. ‘No.’ He stripped off his shirt and motioned Romeo to do the same – without success, until he spat in his hands and rubbed them together, making his intent clearer.
It was the closest thing to a fair fight that they were going to manage. And there was a certain – yes – satisfaction in grappling with his enemy, hand to hand, without the distraction of all Verona watching them. There was a satisfaction in the slide of skin against skin, the scrape of rough fingernails, the recklessness of putting all his strength into one effort.
He was not as good a wrestler as he was a swordsman; he had never cared to have someone come close enough to correct his undoubted faults. Romeo had the mastery of him here; had surely learned all the dirty tricks from Mercutio and that whited sepulchre Benvolio. A slip, a trip, and they were both sprawling on the ground, crushing fresh green ferns beneath them, and Romeo wasn’t letting go, and they rolled together until at last they came to rest with Tybalt on his back and Romeo on top of him.
His prick stirred treacherously; Romeo, curse him, noticed it, and pressed closer. It was some consolation that he seemed to be in a similar state. Or was it? Tybalt was hardly going to beg – did not even want this, he told himself furiously.
But Romeo smiled with frightening gentleness, laid his hands palm to palm against Tybalt’s, and kissed him until he was breathless. Almost against his will, Tybalt brought his arms up to pull him down against him, ran his hands down his sides to his hips, pushed him away just far enough to be able to get into his hose. Romeo gasped, stilled, as if suddenly unsure, then rolled off so that he could get Tybalt’s hose out of the way. They lay facing each other, side by side, as Romeo found Tybalt’s hand and both their pricks, and stroked them both, steadily, strongly, until he spilled and cried out, and Tybalt followed, gasping.
He lay looking up into the broken blue sky, trying to find it in himself to regret what had just happened. But after all, he had known that it was bound to end here from the moment he had taken off… What? His weapon? His shirt? No, he had forced it by insisting that Romeo came here alone. What else had he expected? This was only the logical conclusion of what they had begun last night.
‘What did…’ he was beginning, when Romeo grabbed his arm.
‘Hush!’
He recognised Mercutio’s voice first, then Benvolio’s. ‘Romeo? Romeo? Where are you?’ Their footsteps were coming closer.
‘They knew you were here? Is this a trap?’
‘Only if you don’t keep quiet,’ Romeo hissed, and kissed him once more.
They lay still – uncomfortably so, in Tybalt’s case, with Romeo sprawled half-across him – until the grove was quiet again.
‘Will you tell me now? Was this what you expected?’
‘No. I expected you to kill me.’ He was silent for a little while, then shook his head. ‘This was what I wanted – or part of it, anyway. I did not think I could have it.’
‘Last night ought to have told you otherwise.’
‘But you’re still a Capulet.’ His smile was so sad that Tybalt turned away. ‘I have devoted my life to love, and it seems that love demands my life.’
He did not know how to reply to that, or even what Romeo meant, so he wiped his hands, and secured his hose, and found his shirt, and walked back into Verona.
He had not meant to return to the sycamore grove. He had meant to return to his quotidian existence, fighting the people he was meant to fight, and fucking – well, not the people he was meant to fuck, exactly, but at any rate they ought not to be the same man; he knew that much.
But Verona was dead. The square was empty, not even Mercutio or Benvolio there to trade insults with him. And so he found himself passing through the gate, walking north, reaching the welcome shade of the sycamore trees.
Romeo had not expected company; that much was clear. He looked up, and his face was a mixture of surprise and pleasure and fear. Tybalt chose not to examine any of it too closely, but dropped to the ground next to him. They did not speak; they had said too much yesterday. And yet it seemed only natural to reach for each other as if they were such long-accustomed lovers that they needed no words.
It was only afterwards that he noticed that Romeo had his sword with him today. Yet Romeo had not suggested a fight before, and Tybalt did not suggest one now. He ran his fingertips along the ridge-valley of Romeo’s spine, and thought that nothing good could come of this, and Romeo kissed him as if he, too, thought this was the last time.
And once more Tybalt left him lying there, gazing up through the whispering green leaves.
After that, it became something like a habit. Sometimes he went to the sycamore grove and Romeo was not there. Sometimes, he supposed, Romeo was there but he did not know because he did not go there to find him. But often, three days or four days out of the seven, they found each other there, and matters went between them much as they had that first time. Sometimes they spoke, not of the business of their own houses, nor of the sins of each other’s; but sometimes of Romeo’s strange fancies, and sometimes of simple, everyday things, like the warmth of the day, or the cool of the shade, or the heady taste of the wine they shared. Other times they were hot and urgent and silent.
He took what he wanted. Some day, he supposed, he would have to pay for it.
And so the summer wore on. After Lammas the days were still hot and sullen, as if the summer was reluctant to leave. He felt much the same way: the lease was surely overdue on this, but he would not relinquish his possession until he was forced to. Yet all the while the air crackled and hummed with a thunderstorm that would not come. His skin sweated and prickled.
He went to the sycamore grove, and Romeo was not there. He told himself that it was unreasonable to expect him, but irritation coursed through him nonetheless.
He returned to Verona, and found Mercutio in the square. He glared at him.
Mercutio doffed his hat with an ironic bow. ‘Here’s company! God save the King of Cats!’
‘Save me from such company,’ he muttered, not quite under his breath.
Mercutio glided across the square and invited him to repeat his remark.
Tybalt responded: ‘You called me King of Cats, sir?’
Mercutio stretched his lips in an unpleasant smile. ‘A cat may look at a king, sir.’
‘What of it?’ A poor response, he knew: he had not Mercutio’s devilish facility with words.
‘Well, no matter, but why should the king look at the cat?’
He saw the opening. ‘Indeed: and so I shall be on my way and cease to look upon you.’
‘No, no, not so fast, good King of Cats!’
He frowned. ‘What do you want with me, then?’
‘Only to see if you fall on your feet, I assure you.’
By the smile that came to Mercutio’s lips, he knew that they understood each other. By the rapier in Mercutio’s hand, he knew that they understood each other very well indeed.
He thought briefly that Romeo would not like it; then thought that if Romeo cared he should have been in the sycamore grove. Anyway, his sword was in his hand. Both of them had been spoiling for this since the moment they saw each other. It would do, Tybalt thought; it would do very well. It would pierce this swollen hot day, relieve the scalding blood.
And then there was no space for thought, the direction of his mind distilled to one sharp bright point, nothing but Mercutio and Mercutio’s sword and his own faithful blade.
He pressed on, matching Mercutio’s swift thrust and parry with deceptively showy flourishes that distracted his opponent and consolidated his advantage. Then Mercutio muttered an ugly taunt and came in close with an insolent little flick that brought a line of blood on Tybalt’s cheek, maddening as a bee sting. He reciprocated with a swift sharp whirl, crowding him back towards the arcaded wall. Mercutio retreated behind one of the slim pillars, grabbed it with a hand and swung back at Tybalt.
Intent on the fight, heedless of the crowd that had gathered to watch, neither of them saw Romeo approach, hurrying over the cobbles. The first Tybalt knew of it was a desperate cry: ‘Stop, I beg you!’ And then he was there between them.
Tybalt dropped his sword; the clang mingled with his cry of ‘Romeo, you fool, get back!’
It was too late. Mercutio kept coming, and Romeo didn’t move – until he did – staggered, cried out – clutched his side – fell to the ground.
Tybalt dropped to his knees beside him, looked into dark, shocked eyes. His heart was full of words; his tongue would speak none of them.
Mercutio was there almost immediately, a furious presence. ‘Get away from him, you Capulet dog!’
‘There’s no time for quarrelling.’ Benvolio had appeared from nowhere. ‘Can’t you see? He’s hurt, badly.’
It was all too plain.
‘We must get him out of the street.’ Benvolio looked around the square, selected a door, hammered at it, and spoke low and swiftly to the woman who answered it. Apparently receiving a satisfactory answer, he strode back to where Romeo lay and spoke a few sharp words to Mercutio. They bent and picked him up. Tybalt followed them. He knew that he ought to have run long ago, but no power on earth would have torn him from Romeo’s side. Not now, not now that it was far too late.
There was a long, bare table in the room, and they laid Romeo upon it. He was still conscious, and he knew Tybalt; grey-faced with pain as he was, he caught his hand and held it close to his heart.
‘I’m going for a surgeon,’ Benvolio said, and his face was heavy with unuttered threats. Tybalt glanced at him briefly, and then turned his attention back to Romeo.
If he dies, he thought, I will kill Mercutio, and the Prince will kill me, and that will be an end of it.
But neither he nor Mercutio was killing anyone, not when Romeo held both their right hands in a desperate grip. They glared at each other across his supine form, hating each other, while his breath stuttered and caught and the patch of red on his shirt grew wider and wetter.
Benvolio returned, bringing not only a surgeon but also, somewhat reluctantly, the Prince. ‘This is the place, your grace, good sir… He lives yet?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank God.’
The Prince said nothing, his eyes sweeping the room. Tybalt caught his gaze, and had to look down as if dazzled.
The surgeon frowned, opened the shutters, moved Romeo’s shirt away from the wound.
‘Let me work, sirs, I pray you, if you value his life.’
Reluctantly, Tybalt prised Romeo’s fingers from his own. He quelled the urge to kiss them; thought that he might never kiss Romeo again; cursed himself silently for a coward.
The Prince spoke: ‘Mercutio, you come with me. Tybalt, Benvolio, stay here, and give this good man any assistance he may require.’ He swept out again, the shivering Mercutio at his heels.
The surgeon kept them busy for a few minutes, asking for water and light, and then shooed them into a corner.
At last Tybalt could ask: ‘What did you tell him?’
‘The truth,’ Benvolio said, quietly.
‘The truth?’
He met Tybalt’s eye. ‘You don’t trust me. But why should you? Even so, it’s Mercutio’s sword that’s stained with Romeo’s blood, and even if I were to claim otherwise there were other witnesses to contradict me.’ Then, ‘So, now you can tell me.’
‘What should I tell you?’ How could he tell Benvolio what he had never told Romeo - what he had barely admitted to himself?
‘I saw you drop your sword when Romeo came between you.’
‘He was unarmed.’
‘I’ve never yet known something like that stop you.’
He leapt upon the insult. Something, anything, to stir the ashes of his hatred; but it had consumed itself; love had risen from it like a phoenix. Romeo’s cousin was dear to him for Romeo’s sake. Romeo had spoiled him for Verona. ‘You think I have so little honour?’
‘No: but you were fighting Mercutio, not Romeo.’
He would never fight Romeo again. ‘Then you know.’ He gestured helplessly. ‘I would not harm him for the world. I would die for him.’
Benvolio’s face was hard. ‘It seems as if it might have been the other way about.’
He knew it. He knew it, and had not the capacity to comprehend the wonder and the horror and the unworthiness, the grief and the gratitude, that rose inside him at the knowledge. Before Romeo, there had been nobody who would have stood between him and a naked sword. Even now, he could scarcely admit to himself what that meant. ‘Pray God it isn’t.’
‘Amen.’
Benvolio had precious little reason to trust him. He remembered it now as if it had been another man. Scant weeks ago he had held him at the point of his blade and told him that he hated him; and he had meant it. Tybalt looked at him now and could see nothing in his face but weariness and grief.
‘Well?’ The Prince’s voice startled them both.
The surgeon wiped his bloodied hands on a towel. ‘He’ll live, your grace, if Providence wills it and the wound’s kept clean.’
‘Thank God.’
He did not know who said it. Perhaps it had been all of them.
The Prince ordered matters in his own autocratic fashion. Romeo was to be taken to the palace, that he might receive the care and attention fitting to one of his rank. Mercutio, who had struck the blow, was placed under house arrest. Then, it seemed, it was only fair for Tybalt, the other combatant, to be confined in like manner. And the Prince preferred to have all three of them under his eye. Benvolio was left to report matters to the Montagues as he thought best, and was then free to come and go as he pleased.
Tybalt didn’t care. Here, at least, he would hear news of Romeo as soon as there was news to be heard, might even be permitted to see him. And he had no stomach for such Capulet scheming as would doubtless come of this were he at home.
They put him in a commodious room with a pleasant view over the garden. The door was locked, but this seemed to be more for form’s sake than from any fear he would try to escape. He could have managed the window perfectly well. He would not have left had it been death to stay. Romeo was under this same roof, and the surgeon had been hopeful. Tybalt tried to reassure himself with that knowledge; but it was not proof against the memory of that grim red wound.
The place was deathly quiet. The Prince conducted all his business downstairs, no doubt, but Tybalt would not have thought that a building that held Mercutio within its walls could be so hushed. The only thing that broke the silence, that first day, was the slow step of the man who brought his food and took away his chamber pot. He told himself that if anything had happened, he would surely have heard something. When he slept, he dreamed over and over of Romeo falling at his feet, and blood on his own sword. It was of no use to tell himself that it had not been his sword that dealt the blow. It might as well have been. Eventually he abandoned his bed and sat at the window to watch the sky lightened by a sun he couldn’t see.
On the second day there was an anxious bustling. He listened at his door, sick with fear. Swift footsteps. Voices. One was the Prince’s; another was familiar.
There was silence for some minutes. He thought he heard footsteps again; then his door rattled and sprang open. Startled, he jumped back.
‘The surgeon wants you.’ It was a woman of about his aunt’s age, though that was the only similarity.
‘Me?’
‘You.’
He followed her along the broad corridor. She pointed at a door at the far end. Romeo had not been so very far from him all along.
He knocked, and walked in.
The surgeon looked up, harried. ‘Yes, that’s the man.’ He glanced at Tybalt. ‘Listen, this won’t be pleasant and I need him to lie still. He seemed to trust you before. Talk to him while I see to his wound. Hold him down if you have to.’
It was not pleasant; but he was glad to be there, glad to hold Romeo’s burning hands in his, glad to be able to smile when Romeo opened his eyes, and knew him, glad to be able to murmur comforting words to him and to think that perhaps he heard him through the pain.
Afterwards, the surgeon bandaged the wound once more and gave some instructions to the woman who had shown Tybalt to the room.
Tybalt asked, ‘May I stay?’
‘Yes, yes,’ the surgeon said, ‘by all means.’ He glanced at Romeo and frowned. ‘I have given him somewhat for the pain. Give him water if he asks for it. If he raves; if he sleeps and you cannot waken him; call for me.’
They left the room.
He drew a chair up to the head of the bed, sat down, and took Romeo’s hand in his. He held it until Romeo closed his eyes and slept, and afterwards.
It was some hours later that Romeo stirred, opened his eyes, smiled, and said, ‘Tybalt. Beloved Tybalt.’
It was as happy a moment as he had ever known in Verona. He did not know what to say; he could only bend and kiss Romeo’s parched lips. Then he told himself that it was not fair to believe what a man said in a fever; then he chided himself for doubting a man who had been ready to die for him.
Romeo, heedless of all the turmoil in Tybalt’s heart, turned, and slept again. The next morning, the fever was gone.
After that, he was given the run of the place. He spent as many hours as he was allowed sitting at Romeo’s side. When he was chased out, he passed the time wandering in the gardens, or, sometimes, on his knees in the chapel, giving thanks for his answered, unuttered, prayers, wondering what to ask for now. He watched Romeo’s visitors come and go: the old Montagues, arriving stately in silks and velvets and leaving worried and disappointed; Benvolio, whose very loyalty he was coming to appreciate; Friar Laurence, bearing a covered basket. He did not see Mercutio, though he was almost sure that the Prince would not have kept him under lock and key if Tybalt himself was allowed to roam free. He did not much care. The Prince’s palace was as pleasant a prison as any man could wish. He would have tolerated the vilest dungeon so long as he could have shared it with Romeo.
And Romeo, the fever having now dissipated, was doing well, was sitting up in bed and talking; his wound was healing, though movement was still painful to him; the surgeon was satisfied. Tybalt was thankful, and was careful not to think about what came next.
Outside the walls, he heard, his uncle raged and Romeo’s father remonstrated. But they were old men, and neither was in a position to raise an army to retrieve his heir.
When his uncle came to see him, he assured him that he had no complaints about his treatment, that he was perfectly content to stay as long as the Prince pleased so long as it preserved peace in Verona. His uncle raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
He watched from an upstairs window when Romeo’s parents arrived, willing them not to look up. Goodness knew what Romeo told them; he surely couldn’t be such a fool as to have made it the truth. Benvolio had as good as guessed, but he had some sense and he’d keep quiet for Romeo’s sake, surely. The law, the Church, would have scant sympathy for this, and for all that the Prince seemed to know what was between them and to wink at it, one could hardly expect such tolerance from either of their families. Before now, it would not have occurred to him to desire it.
‘Where’s Mercutio?’ Romeo asked one day.
Tybalt still could not think of Mercutio without anger. To hear his name on Romeo’s lips was almost more than he could bear. ‘In his chamber, I assume.’
‘He hasn’t come to see me.’
He managed to say, ‘No doubt he would, if you sent for him.’
‘Then I do.’
Tybalt clenched his teeth. ‘So…?’
‘Bring him to me. Please.’
He told the Prince: ‘He wants to see Mercutio.’
The Prince raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I have no objection.’
Tybalt waited.
‘Perhaps,’ the Prince suggested, ‘it might please you to tell Mercutio.’
It did not please Tybalt at all, but he knew an order when he heard one.
Mercutio was lying on his bed, his face turned to the wall.
Tybalt did not waste time on compliments. ‘He wants to see you.’
Mercutio mumbled something.
‘I beg your pardon: I didn’t hear you.’
‘I said, my uncle knows where to find me.’
‘Not your uncle. Romeo.’
That provoked a response: Mercutio rolled over and sat up. There was fury in his eyes. ‘And he sends you to say so?’
‘You’re in no position to be choosy,’ Tybalt retorted. He wrinkled his nose. Mercutio was unshaven and seemed not to have changed his shirt in days. Still, if Romeo wanted to see him, that was his business. ‘Come on.’
He took Mercutio as far as Romeo’s door and left him there; that, he considered, fulfilled his duty. He stalked through the gardens, until it occurred to him that he was never moving out of sight of Romeo’s open window, and yet could hear nothing. He went to the Prince’s library, and could read nothing. He thought that he might have talked to Benvolio, but Benvolio had been and gone already that day; or Paris, but Paris was probably over at the Capulet house, suing still for Juliet’s hand.
He went down to the kitchens and made acquaintance with one of the cats, a sleek tabby who purred and wound herself around his legs, until the chief cook told him that he might as well take the animal away with him for all the good she was as a mouser. So he gathered her up in his arms and carried her up to his quarters.
Halfway up the staircase, she grew restive, wriggled free, and bolted up the stairs. He wasn’t quick enough to see where she had gone, but he heard a voice – Romeo’s, sounding merrier than he had lately: ‘Hoi, puss! Where are you going?’
He heard Mercutio’s drawl: ‘A mutiny! A rebellion!’
He knew well what Mercutio called him; how could he forget it, after what had passed that last time? Anger flared and burned out again: it seemed so trivial, compared with the fact that Romeo was alive, was laughing. He paused a moment at the top of the stairs, then settled his humour and looked into Romeo’s room. ‘Excuse me, sirs. I seek one of my errant subjects.’ He made for the cat; she leapt up onto the bed, where he judged it impolitic to pursue her, at this moment at least. Even so, Mercutio stood up.
‘Don’t go,’ Romeo pleaded.
But Mercutio shook his head. ‘I’ll come back,’ he said stiffly.
Tybalt said, ‘I beg your pardon: I interrupted you.’
He made for the door, but Mercutio was through it first, shooting a malevolent glance at him as he passed. Romeo exclaimed in dismay. The only person who seemed to be at ease was the cat. She was curled in Romeo’s lap. Absently, he stroked her, from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. ‘At least there’s one who likes me enough to stay.’ The words were mocking, but the tone betrayed some genuine hurt.
Tybalt could not help saying, as he crossed the room, ‘Oh, Romeo, how do you not know how well you are loved?’
‘I?’
He bent and kissed the petulance from the mouth, and said, as he sat down next to him on the bed, ‘Your father, your mother, sending for word of you every hour. Benvolio, here every day. Mercutio, sick with remorse at having hurt you, though even I would swear he never meant to. How many masses do you think Friar Laurence has said for you? And I –’ He broke off, realising all at once what he had been about to say, realising that it would have been true.
‘And you?’
He was smiling as if his question had already been answered, and it was this that let Tybalt answer: ‘I love you now with the fervour with which I used to hate you. And I hated you as a Capulet ought to hate a Montague.’
Romeo confessed: ‘I have loved you since I saw you at your uncle’s feast. I’d dreamed, the night before, of something wonderful and terrible that would be the end of me, and I knew when you kissed me that it was you. I thought you could not love me. Every time we met I thought you’d kill me.’
Tybalt laid one hand gently on either side of Romeo’s face. ‘I did not know that I loved anybody – and yet here we are.’
‘And let us be devoutly thankful that we are.’
Tybalt stretched his legs out along the bed, and put his arms around Romeo, and kissed him.
The cat fled, affronted. Of course matters could go no further than an embrace, with Romeo still wincing at every movement. All the same, Tybalt considered, it was tactful of her.
Mercutio returned the next morning, and he did not leave when he saw that Tybalt was there, which seemed to please Romeo. And Tybalt did not see why he should leave, so he stayed. The cat was also present, and did not seem to object.
Tybalt did not know what to say to Mercutio. It was not the fact that he loved Romeo that stopped his tongue; he was beginning to think that Mercutio knew that. It was not that they had tried to kill each other; it was that Mercutio had almost killed Romeo, and Tybalt might have done so. And it was that they had never known any way of being in the same space without baiting each other.
Eventually, Mercutio said, ‘We have unfinished business, you and I.’
‘I won’t…’ Romeo began.
Mercutio interrupted, ‘And you and I, when you’re well. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.’
They exchanged a look, and for a moment Tybalt felt as if he was an outcast. This was a joke that he did not know – if it was a joke at all.
But Romeo laughed. ‘Then go to your uncle and ask for the practice weapons.’
‘Oh, believe me, when you’re well, I shall.’
Tybalt couldn’t help but say, ‘Might I see this?’
‘Have you never seen him fight? He’s quick enough with a blade, when he isn’t smitten through the bosom by a pretty face – or through the belly by his bosom friend.’ Mercutio was as offensive as ever, but his smile included Tybalt in the joke this time.
‘I await a demonstration with great interest.’ He added, stiffly, ‘And in the meantime, yes, you and I have unfinished business. Perhaps you ought to speak to your uncle.’
Romeo insisted that they wait until the next time Benvolio came.
‘I wait on no Montague’s pleasure,’ Tybalt said.
‘Oh, come now, we all know that’s a lie,’ Mercutio retorted.
It was some consolation that Romeo was blushing even more furiously than Tybalt was himself.
They waited for Benvolio, though he did not arrive until mid-afternoon. Then they brought Romeo downstairs, and fussed over him with cushions and coverlet until he laughed and scolded them for a pack of old women. The Prince came out to oversee proceedings, wearing a face that expressed some doubt as to the wisdom of these proceedings.
But truly, it was a pleasure to fight Mercutio, who was a skilful swordsman, if somewhat lacking in finesse, and if they were both more careful than they might once have been there was as much satisfaction in the sport as there had been in the quarrel.
He was more grateful than he would have ever have owned that Romeo was bound to stay out of trouble. Romeo himself seemed content to watch the exhibition. Indeed, it was a glance at him that distracted Tybalt, allowing Mercutio to come in close with a stroke that would have drawn first blood had they been using edged weapons.
The Prince called out a warning. Tybalt laughed and conceded. ‘Next time,’ he promised Mercutio in a whisper, ‘I’ll get you.’
‘Oh, I have no doubt of it.’ Mercutio clapped him on the shoulder with more force than he might, then wandered off to say something impudent to his uncle the Prince.
Benvolio had seemed as glad to see Mercutio out of bed as he had been to see Romeo, and now he took him off to some place to hear the news and to tell it, leaving Tybalt to rearrange the pillows.
Romeo smiled up at him, and Tybalt felt as if he had not lost the fight after all.
The cat, who had made herself scarce for the duration of the fight, now appeared, curled into the crook of Romeo’s arm and purred.
Tybalt laughed and sat down next him. ‘You won’t be able to move, now, unless you wish to offend her mortally.’
‘I would stay here forever,’ Romeo said. He stroked the cat, but he seemed abstracted, wistful.
‘Would you? Do you not wish to recover, to be out in the world again?’ He remembered the sycamore grove with affection; he would be well pleased to go back there with Romeo now.
Romeo looked grave. ‘Oh, yes, but here we are at the eye of the storm. Here we can be – with each other.’
‘Could we not be so after?’
‘How? As we were before?’ A rueful, mischievous smile played on his lips. ‘Shall we take turns to shoot arrows on one side of a rock or another, to say if it’s safe to meet or no?’
‘I see no need for such an ill-omened practice. Should not two heirs of two great houses be fast friends? Is that not fitting?’
Romeo still seemed doubtful. ‘Two such great houses as ours?’
‘Why not? If we don’t fight, who’ll dare to?’
‘Why, who but Mercutio?’
‘He can’t fight nobody.’
A shake of the head. ‘Ah, that only shows that you don’t know him.’
‘He has threatened to fight you, and you are his dearest friend. I don’t count Mercutio.’
Neither of them said what they might have done. ‘Then what will your uncle say?’
‘Nothing, if he doesn’t wish to discourage the County Paris from paying suit to my cousin Juliet. And your father daren’t offend the peace if my uncle doesn’t.’
‘You call my father a coward?’
There was a flash of Montague arrogance there. God help him, he smiled to see it. ‘No, I merely refrain from calling him a fool. Romeo, believe me. If I can find peace, then any man can.’
‘Then let us keep it. And more.’
‘And more, indeed.’ He took Romeo’s hand, and they sat there together for a long time in quiet, while the bees hummed in the rosemary, and the sun washed the garden in gold, and the afternoon stretched out into the delicious coolness of a pale-blue evening and the promise of tomorrow.