O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell Read Free Book Online Page A

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:
    O you possessed of sturdy intellects,
observe the teaching that is hidden here
beneath the veil of verses so obscure....
    “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