Juliet (56 page)

Seeing my confusion and discomfort, Eva Maria soon began shooing them off, and we were eventually left with the two women who actually had something to say to me.

“This is Monna Teresa,” explained Eva Maria, “and Monna Chiara. Monna Teresa is a descendant of Giannozza Tolomei—just like you—and Monna Chiara is descended from Monna Mina of the Salimbeni. They are very excited that you are here, because for many years they thought you were dead. They are both knowledgeable about the past, and know much about the woman whose name you have inherited, Giulietta Tolomei.”

I looked at the two old women. It seemed perfectly reasonable that they should know everything about my ancestors and the events of 1340, for they looked as if they had taken a horse-drawn carriage right out of the Middle Ages to attend Eva Maria’s party. They both appeared to be held upright exclusively by corsets and the lace ruffs around their necks; one of them, though, kept smiling coyly behind a black fan, while the other looked at me with a bit more reserve, her hair done up in a way I had only ever seen in old paintings, with a peacock feather sticking out. Next to their antiquated forms Eva Maria seemed positively juvenile, and I was happy that she stayed right beside me, on tiptoes with excitement, to translate everything they said to me.

“Monna Teresa,” she began, referring to the woman with the fan,
“wants to know if you have a twin sister, Giannozza? For hundreds of years it has been tradition in the family to call twin girls Giulietta and Giannozza.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. “I wish she was here tonight. She”—I looked around at the candlelit hall and all the bizarre people, swallowing a smile—“would have loved it.”

The old woman erupted in a wrinkly smile when she heard that there were two of us, and she made me promise that, next time I came to visit, I would bring along my sister.

“But if those names are a family tradition,” I said, “then there must be hundreds—thousands—of Giulietta Tolomeis out there apart from me!”

“No-no-no!” exclaimed Eva Maria. “Remember that we are talking about a tradition in the female line, and that women take their husbands’ names when they marry. To Monna Teresa’s knowledge, in all these years, no one else was ever baptized Giulietta and Giannozza
Tolomei
. But your mother was stubborn—” Eva Maria shook her head with reluctant admiration. “She wanted desperately to get that name, so she married Professor Tolomei. And what do you know, she had twin girls!” She looked at Monna Teresa for confirmation. “As far as we know, you are the only Giulietta Tolomei in the world. That makes you very special.”

They all looked at me expectantly, and I did my best to appear grateful and interested. Obviously, I was delighted to learn more about my family, and to meet distant relatives, but the timing could have been better. There are evenings when one is perfectly content talking to elderly ladies with lace ruffs, and evenings when one would rather be doing something else. On this particular occasion, in all honesty, I was longing to be alone with Alessandro—where on earth was he?—and although I had happily spent many wee hours absorbed in the tragic events of 1340, family lore was not what I felt most like exploring on this particular night.

But now it was Monna Chiara’s turn to grab my arm and talk to me intently about the past. Her voice was as crisp and frail as tissue paper, and I leaned as close as I could to hear her and avoid the peacock feather.

“Monna Chiara invites you to come and visit her,” translated Eva Maria, “so you can see her archive of family documents. Her ancestor, Monna Mina, was the first woman who tried to unravel the story of Giulietta, Romeo, and Friar Lorenzo. She was the one who found most of the
old papers; she found the trial proceedings against Friar Lorenzo—with his confession—in a hidden archive in the old torture chamber in Palazzo Salimbeni, and she also found Giulietta’s letters to Giannozza tucked away in many places. Some were under a floor in Palazzo Tolomei, others were hidden in Palazzo Salimbeni, and she even found one—the very last—at Rocca di Tentennano.”

“I would love to see those letters,” I said, meaning it. “I’ve seen some fragments, but—”

“When Monna Mina found them,” Eva Maria interrupted me, urged on by Monna Chiara, whose eyes were aglow in the candlelight, yet strangely distant, “she traveled a long way to visit Giulietta’s sister, Giannozza, and to give her the letters at last. This was around the year 1372, and Giannozza was now a grandmother—a happy grandmother—living with her second husband, Mariotto. But you can imagine what a shock it was for Giannozza to read what her sister had written to her so many years earlier, before she took her own life. Together those two women—Mina and Giannozza—talked about everything that had happened, and they swore that they would do everything in their power to keep the story alive for future generations.”

Pausing, Eva Maria smiled and put a gentle arm around the two old women, squeezing them in appreciation, and they both giggled girlishly at her gesture.

“So,” she said, looking at me meaningfully, “this is why we are gathered here tonight: to remember what happened, and make sure it never happens again. Monna Mina was the first one to do this, more than six hundred years ago. Every year on the anniversary of her wedding night, for as long as she lived, she would go down into the basement of Palazzo Salimbeni—into that dreadful room—and light candles for Friar Lorenzo. And when her daughters were old enough, she would bring them, too, so they could learn to respect the past and carry on the tradition after her. For many generations, this custom was kept alive by the women of both families. But now, to most people, all those events are very distant. And I’ll tell you”—she winked at me, revealing a sliver of her usual self—“big modern banks don’t like nightly processions with candles and old women in blue nightgowns walking around in their vaults. Just ask Sandro. So, nowadays we have our meetings here, at Castello Salimbeni, and we light our candles upstairs, not in the basement. We are civilized, you see, and not so young
anymore. Therefore, carissima, we are happy to have you here with us tonight, on Mina’s wedding night, and to welcome you to our circle.”

I FIRST REALIZED
something was wrong at the buffet table. Just as I was trying to pry a drumstick off a roasted duck that was sitting very elegantly in the middle of a silver platter, a wave of warm oblivion rolled onto the shore of my consciousness, gently rocking me. It was nothing dramatic, but the serving spoon fell right out of my hand, as if the muscles suddenly all went limp.

After a few deep breaths, I was able to look up and focus on my surroundings. Eva Maria’s spectacular buffet had been set up on the terrace off the great hall, underneath the rising moon, and out here, tall torches defied the darkness with concentric semicircles of fire. Behind me, the house shone brilliantly with dozens of lit windows and external spotlights; it was a beacon that stubbornly held the night at bay, one last, refined bastion of Salimbeni pride, and if I was not mistaken, the laws of the world stopped at the gate.

Picking up the serving spoon once more, I tried to shake my sudden wooziness. I had only had one glass of wine—poured for me personally by Eva Maria, who wanted to know what I thought of her new-growth sangiovese—but I had tossed half of it into a potted plant because I did not want to insult her wine-making skills by not finishing my glass. That said, considering everything that had happened that day, it would be odd if I did not, at this point, feel mildly unhinged.

Only then did I see Alessandro. He had emerged from the dark garden to stand between the torches, looking straight at me, and although I was relieved and excited to have him back at last, I instantly knew something was wrong. It was not that he seemed angry; rather, his expression was one of concern, perhaps even condolence, as if he had come to knock on my door and inform me that there had been a terrible accident.

Filled with foreboding, I put down my plate and walked towards him. “‘In a minute,’” I said, attempting a smile, “‘there are many days. O by this count I shall be much in years ere I again behold my Romeo.’” I stopped right in front of him, trying to read his thoughts. But by now, his face was—as it had been the very first time I met him—completely void of emotion.

“Shakespeare, Shakespeare,” he said, not appreciating my poetry, “why does he always come between us?”

I dared to reach out to him. “But he is our friend.”

“Is he?” Alessandro took my hand and kissed it, then turned it over and kissed my wrist, his eyes never letting go of mine. “Is he really? Then tell me, what would our friend have us do now?” When he read the answer in my eyes, he nodded slowly. “And after that?”

It took me a moment to grasp what he meant. After love came separation, and after separation death … according to my friend, Mr. Shakespeare. But before I could remind Alessandro that we were in the process of writing our own happy end—were we not?—Eva Maria came flapping towards us like a magnificent golden swan, her dress ablaze in the torchlight.

“Sandro! Giulietta! Grazie a Dio!” She waved for us both to follow her. “Come! Come quickly!”

There was nothing else to do but obey, and we walked back to the house in Eva Maria’s shimmering wake, neither of us bothering to ask her what could possibly be so urgent. Or perhaps Alessandro already knew where we were headed and why; judging by his glower we were once again at the mercy of the Bard, or fickle fortune, or whichever other power commandeered our destinies tonight.

Back in the great hall, Eva Maria led us straight through the crowd, out a side door, down a corridor, and into a smaller, formal dining room that was remarkarbly dark and quiet considering the party going on right around the corner. Only now, crossing the threshold, did she briefly pause and make a face at us—her eyes wide with agitation—to make sure we stayed right behind her and remained quiet.

At first glance, the room had seemed empty, but Eva Maria’s theatrics made me look again. And now I saw them. Two candelabra with burning candles stood at either end of the long table, and in each of the twelve tall dining room chairs sat a man wearing the monochrome garb of the clergy. Off to a side, veiled in shadows, stood a younger man in a cowl, discreetly swinging a bowl of incense.

My pulse quickened when I saw these men, and I was suddenly reminded of Janice’s warning from the day before. Eva Maria, she had said—bursting with sensational headlines after talking to cousin Peppo—was a mobster queen rumored to dabble in the occult, and out here, at her
remote castle, a secret society supposedly met to perform gory blood rituals to conjure the spirits of the dead.

Even in my woozy state, I would have stepped right back out the door, had not Alessandro put a possessive arm around my waist.

“These men,” whispered Eva Maria, her voice trembling slightly, “are members of the Lorenzo Brotherhood. They have come all the way from Viterbo to meet you.”

“Me?” I looked at the stern dozen. “But why?”

“Shh!” She escorted me up to the head of the table with great circumstance, in order to introduce me to the elderly monk slumped in the thronelike chair at the table end. “He does not speak English, so I will translate.” She curtsied before the monk, whose eyes were fixed on me, or, more accurately, on the crucifix hanging around my neck. “Giulietta, this is a very special moment. I would like you to meet Friar Lorenzo.”

   [   VIII.II   ]

…

“
G
IULIETTA TOLOMEI!” THE OLD MONK
rose from the chair to frame my head with his hands and look deeply into my eyes. Only then did he touch the crucifix hanging around my neck, not with suspicion, but with reverence. When he had seen enough, he leaned forward to kiss my forehead with lips as dry as wood.

“Friar Lorenzo,” explained Eva Maria, “is the leader of the Lorenzo Brotherhood. The leader always assumes the name of Lorenzo in remembrance of your ancestor’s friend. It is a great honor that these men have agreed to be here tonight and give you something that belongs to you. For many hundreds of years, the men of the Lorenzo Brotherhood have been looking forward to this moment!”

When Eva Maria stopped talking, Friar Lorenzo gestured for the other monks to rise, too, and they all did so, without a word. One of them leaned forward to take a small box that had been sitting in the middle of the dining room table, and it was passed from hand to hand with great ceremony until it finally reached Friar Lorenzo.

As soon as I recognized the box as the one I had found in Alessandro’s trunk earlier that day, I took a step back, but when she felt me moving, Eva Maria dug her fingers into my shoulder to make me stay where I was. And when Friar Lorenzo embarked upon a lengthy explanation in Italian, she translated every word he said with breathless urgency. “This is a treasure that has been guarded by the Virgin Mary for many centuries, and only
you must wear it. For many years, it was buried under a floor with the original Friar Lorenzo, but when his body was moved from Palazzo Salimbeni in Siena to holy ground in Viterbo, the monks discovered it within his remains. They believe he must have kept it hidden somewhere on his body to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Since then, it disappeared for many, many years, but finally it is here, and it can be blessed again.”