Beatrice and Benedick by Marina Fiorato Read Free Book Online Page A

other.’
    â€˜Not even the Lady Beatrice and her fortune?’
    So he
had
seen us talk at dinner. I grimaced convincingly. ‘Least of all she. Why would I betroth myself to unquietness? If we were but a week married we would talk each other mad.’ Then I realised what he had said. ‘Wait – what fortune?’
    â€˜Her father is Bartolomeo Della Scala, Prince Escalus of Villafranca. He is the kingmaker of Verona, for the other two great families are perpetually at war. She is not the heir at present, though – she has an older brother.’
    â€˜Ah yes, the great quarreller.’
    He misunderstood me. ‘Precisely. He does not have the gift of Prince Escalus, to stay out of the squabbles of the Veronese. He may not outlive his father.’
    Now I am not a religious man, but this, said so coldly on the hot steps of a cathedral, was a little more matter-of-fact than I cared for.
    â€˜And if he does beat his father to the grave … then she will be a princess and a prize indeed. What do you think now?’
    â€˜I think, Prince, that if you know so much, you have no need of a spy.’
    He laughed. ‘Her great wealth does not change your mind?’
    It did not. My own father was only a merchant, but he had chinks enough. ‘I swear on my allegiance that I will die a bachelor. Else, what would all the other ladies of the world do? For they all adore me, and I am a confessed tyrant to their sex.’
    He laughed once more, showing his teeth. ‘That is well – for single men are single-minded. And you will need your wits about you for the task to come.’
    And I entered the church, walking a little taller than when I had left the cloister; and whatever denials I had made to the prince, I had but one thought in my mind; how the Lady Beatrice would greet the new Signor Benedick tonight.

Act II scene ii
A masque in Leonato’s garden
    Beatrice: When I saw Signor Benedick, I laughed till I ached.
    I’d had such good intentions too. I was genuinely contrite for the way I’d treated him the previous night at dinner, and had dressed with great care, determined tonight to make good.
    The garden was dressed in its best too. The night was still warm and numberless candles, their flames amplified by halos of polished pewter, stood in each niche and rockery like tiny sentinel angels. Strings of lanterns reached from tree to tree, and torches flamed in wavering ranks set into the ground by each alley and walk. Musicians wandered about the gardens in little groups, so that, turning a corner in the maze or bower, you might come across a lutenist or a viol player, running the gamut of your conversation. Castrati, naked except for their loincloths, and painted white like statues, stood dotted around the garden in various attitudes, only to come to life and begin to sing when a guest wandered past, their clear pure treble voices floating up to the stars. The effect was magical.
    Hero and I were charged to meet the guests and conduct them to where the masks were waiting for them. Hero had suggested, since at a masque we were supposed to dress as other than ourselves, that she should wear a gown of my favourite blue, and that I should wear a flame-coloured gown of Barbary silk, that had been bought from Tripoli for Hero but was too long. It was a beautiful dress, the bright silk cool and flowing. I wore strings of yellow diamonds and topaz about my throatwhich cascaded in a glittering firefall over my bodice, like the lava that spilled from the volcano. A cunning panel at the waist and flare at the hips made my waist seemed tiny. My inward humours matched my gown, flaming with excitement.
    My uncle had had dozens of the finest masks conveyed from Venice, and all afternoon his gardeners had been hanging them about the low-hanging branches of the great mulberry trees clustered in the middle of his lawn, for his guests to pluck like fruits. Now, in the darkness, the varnished