Sessione 13 – Nibbles and Naptime

Nico had already dared the quiet places of the house and slipped into a small library, where his deft hands had uncovered papers tying Verona and Mantua to an arms deal backed by the Byzantines. He had taken the incriminating documents and now stole out again into the whirl of the hall, unseen by all save Fancy, who watched from her post near the guards. Meanwhile, Volpeo, by charm and bold speech, had turned the course of the evening, persuading Romeo to dance with Juliet; and they moved now together under the candles, their faces alight, while Rosaline stood neglected at the edge of the floor. Tybalt, prince of cats and ever eager for blood, had recognized Romeo and burned for a fight, but old Capulet, desiring no quarrel at his feast, had commanded him to stand down. So Tybalt had stalked away to sulk in a corner with his friends, and the time was ripe for quieter schemes.

Gianna stood near Lady Capulet, bearing herself with a soldier’s calm beneath her mask. Lady Capulet turned to her and said with courteous curiosity that their masks were intriguing and their accents strange to Verona’s ear. “So do praise my hospitality,” she asked, “does it rival Venice’s canals?” Gianna, polite and guarded, replied that she had never seen its like, and Lady Capulet smiled, urging her to enjoy the drink and the abundance of the table.

Fancy lingered among the guards in the entry. Her mind reached out with secret art, and she listened to their unspoken thoughts. One guard brooded that the Montagues must already be plotting revenge, and that the Capulet blades were being sharpened in vain. Another, less noble, thought only of the rich smells of the food table and how hungry he was. Fancy chose the first and, feigning idle conversation, murmured that it was an interesting company indeed, to have even a Montague boy present. “What, Montagues here?” he said aloud, startled. She pressed on, asking what trouble had lately troubled Verona, and he spoke of the ruckus in the square, of stalls overturned and the prince’s wrath, and of Tybalt, cousin and hothead, who always seemed first to start a fight. Fancy laid a light hand on his arm and told him that a “big, strong dashing man” such as he surely need not fear any danger, then giggled and sashayed away, leaving him slightly dazed yet warmed by her flattery. All the while, she continued to draw out such tales as she could, playing distraction while her companions worked their own designs.

Volpeo, restless and ever seeking another angle, crossed the ballroom and made for the staircase that rose toward the upper stories of the house. A guard at its foot barred his path with a polite but firm word, saying that guests must remain below, where a lounge, a card room, and tables of food would surely suffice. Volpeo claimed to be on business, a new accountant of the house whose offices lay upstairs, but the guard insisted that no business would be done above that night. When the guard turned to appeal to Capulet for confirmation, Volpeo saw a brief opening and attempted to shove him so that he might fall and strike his head, leaving the stairs unguarded. Yet his effort failed; the guard merely staggered and turned back in anger. “What did you do that for?” he demanded. Volpeo tried to pass it off as an attempt to catch a stumbling man, but the guard would have none of it, declaring that this was a respectable party and that there was no place for sloppy drunks. He pushed Volpeo toward the door and said that if he desired more wine, he should seek it at a tavern elsewhere. Volpeo bowed to this with exaggerated politeness, saying that if this was how things were done in Verona, he would gladly leave, though his heart and mind were already turning toward re-entering by other means.

As the guard escorted him toward the entry, they came near where Fancy stood. There she intervened at once, throwing herself into the role of a long-suffering sister. She thanked the guard profusely for “finding her brother,” explaining that poor Volpeo was unused to high society and drank to calm his nerves. She said she had spent much of her life looking after him and begged that they not be put out on his account. The guard looked from Fancy to Volpeo and back again, puzzled at the mismatch but convinced by Fancy’s overwhelming charm. He handed Volpeo over to her and declared that if she kept him out of trouble, he might stay, but that if he caused any further disturbance, both would be turned out. Fancy promised earnestly to “see to it,” leading Volpeo back into the hall by the elbow while the guard returned to his post. Volpeo could only admit that he would indeed “do whatever” she asked; and as another companion quipped, “That’s what all men say,” there was a glint of shared amusement amid the tension.

Nico, in the meantime, slipped from the little library and into the crowd, carrying the stolen documents: proof of Byzantine payments through Genoa to the Capulets, and mention of dealings tying Verona and Mantua together. He rejoined the others near the food, and they spoke in low tones, planning their next steps. Fancy revealed something she had learned earlier in the evening: she had heard one of the guards singing of a secret room in the estate and doubted very much that the obviously displayed office door was the one in question. She believed there was a hidden chamber, perhaps where truly damning evidence lay. Nico floated an idea as darkly comic as it was fitting for Verona: to lace the feast with sleep poison and let the powerful slumber while they plundered secrets. Ever the nimble-handed, he was ready to gather a tray and pass among the revelers as a servant.

Still they needed more precise knowledge. Fancy proposed enlisting the nurse, Juliet’s doting guardian with whom Volpeo had already shared some banter. If Volpeo, feigning drunken distress, sought the nurse’s help, Fancy might, by her mind-reading art, draw from the woman’s thoughts the true location of the secret room. They would then know whether to focus their efforts upstairs, downstairs, or elsewhere entirely. There was also talk of provoking hot-blooded Tybalt into a brawl to create a distraction, but they remembered Capulet’s earlier warning to him and judged that tying their schemes to his temper would be risky. Distractions would come soon enough in other forms.

While these plots grew in the foyer, Guido was not idle. He drew Benvolio and Balthazar aside into a quiet room and told them that he had seen Tybalt watching Romeo with hostile intent. He offered himself as another pair of eyes to help protect their friend, promising to assist if trouble arose. Balthazar sighed, blaming Mercutio for luring them into such situations, and Benvolio wondered aloud if they ought to take Romeo away before violence could spark; yet he admitted that Romeo, entranced with a new girl who was not Rosaline, would likely refuse, and Mercutio, dancing with two women at once, would mock any retreat. Guido warned that Tybalt always wanted to fight and that they must be ready, for sometimes one cannot back down. They returned to the hall, grateful for his offer, while Guido briefly searched the little room for hidden things and found only cushions, half-eaten canapés, and ordinary books.

Soon a chime of glasses sounded, and Capulet called loudly for attention. The music ceased, the dancers drew back, and Paris raised a glass, offering a fine and flowery toast to their generous host. He praised the gleam of Capulet’s halls, the bounty of his tables, and declared that his name shone brighter than the candles overhead. The company lifted their cups, including the disguised Venetians, who echoed the words to keep themselves unnoticed. Mercutio, nearby, turned to Volpeo and, with a bow, murmured that the candles must flee in shame “lest they be outshone by Capulet’s vanity.” Nico, who listened as well, understood the edge in the joke.

Fancy stole nearer and peered into Mercutio’s mind. She found him thinking that Capulet was indeed a pompous blowhard and that such shows of wealth were the vain displays of rich men seeking to impress those who did not care a whit for them. As for Volpeo and Nico, he judged them humorless fellows who would not recognize a jest “if it sat in their laps and called them mama.” Fancy stepped nearer, bowed her head slightly so that only he would notice, and whispered that candles burn bright indeed “until they are snuffed out.” Mercutio raised an eyebrow, pleased with the spice of her words, and the balance of favor between the Montagues and the foreign guests shifted in his mind, for Fancy had answered jest with jest and not allowed them to appear stodgy dullards.

Volpeo opened his heart a little more to Mercutio, saying that he had to keep a low profile, being on something like probation and not entirely welcome, but that in truth he, too, desired “some action.” Mercutio laughed and cried that at last someone wished for excitement. He seized one of his dancing partners, a young woman in pink, and pushed her toward Volpeo, declaring, “There’s your action,” before drawing the other lady in green back into his own arms. Volpeo took the hint, danced, and soon learned that the girl’s name was Lucia, a kinswoman of Capulet. She gazed often over her shoulder at Mercutio, at once annoyed that he had handed her off and yet clearly smitten. Volpeo offered gallantly to return her to the man who had cast her aside, suggesting that such women were not to be thrown away. Mercutio, with a flourish, called the older Gianna “father” when she scolded him for his treatment of the ladies, and Gianna, revealing a hint of her blades beneath her cloak, retorted that he was not too old to be spanked. Mercutio, in answer, let his own cloak fall back far enough to show that he was armed as well, though he declared that he would far rather find his “action” with the ladies than crossed steel that night. Their banter was half jest, half veiled warning, and in it there was a mutual recognition between the jester-swordsman of Verona and the veteran fighter from abroad.

At length, Fancy led Volpeo back to the nurse. The woman eyed him fondly, and her thoughts betrayed a desire to shepherd him off to some private nook for solace and more. Fancy spun again the tale of her hapless brother, too drunk and prone to trouble, and asked if there might be some quiet place where he could be taken away from the crowd. With her mind-reading keen, Fancy heard the nurse thinking not of medicines but of secluded rooms for quite other activities. When Fancy gently asked if there was a secret place, even a “secret room,” where he might be hidden from eyes and temptation, the nurse’s thoughts shifted. In her mind, she acknowledged that indeed there was such a room, a master’s private study, where even most of the staff were not allowed, and that it lay not above, but beneath the great stair. Out loud, however, she demurred, recommending instead the small side rooms and saying that these little private retreats were the best options for guests. Fancy, feigning confusion of language and continued concern, kept pressing in small ways. In the nurse’s inner thoughts, Fancy finally heard it clearly: “The secret room is not up the stairs, but under the stairs.”

Meanwhile, Nico began his work as a false servant, bearing a tray of canapés that had been laced with a sleeping draught. He moved through the hall, offering them with a servant’s bow to Benvolio, to Liam, and to others, all the while keeping up the pretense that he had simply taken up a forgotten tray to be helpful. Guido and others advised guests loudly to “eat something” to soften the effects of wine. Many accepted; some did not. In the card room Guido and Gianna mingled with minor gentry and a servant, waiting for the poison to take hold. It did so swiftly. Benvolio and Liam complained aloud that they felt lightheaded and then sank to the floor. Near Tybalt, two of his companions slumped against the wall and slid down. Confusion rose in the hall, with Sampson exclaiming that something was wrong and that it was unlike Tybalt, who was proud of his sobriety and his readiness for a fight, to fall so suddenly.

As she pretended to fuss over Tybalt and Gregory, the door itself eluded Fancy. Gianna, Guido, Nico, and Volpeo each had a turn trying to find the hidden catch or seam, and each in turn failed. The odds grew stranger with every attempt, and Guido at last joked in frustration about needing “an elf” for such work. Yet the nurse’s mind had given enough away that the companions knew where to look, even if their hands were yet clumsy upon its hiding-place. Before long, the nurse returned from her chamber with castor oil in a vial, offering it to Fancy as a remedy for Volpeo’s “drunkenness.” Fancy accepted with thanks, then, with practiced innocence, remarked that there was something odd about the wall under the stairs that kept drawing her eye. “Am I losing my mind,” she asked, “or is there not something very strange about this wall?” The nurse whispered that Fancy should leave it alone, for that was where the master study lay. Fancy moved aside, thanked her for her help, and quietly suggested that the nurse take a well-earned plate of canapés from another room. Tempted by the mention of the chef’s work, and urged on by Fancy’s charm, the nurse went to seek food, walking directly into the trap the companions had prepared.

The nurse entered the side room just in time to see two people snoring on sofas and two more sprawled on the floor, including a servant. She marveled that people were “drinking too much,” and when Gianna, holding the tray, suggested that she, too, should eat to stave off the drink’s effects, the nurse accepted at once, saying that this was exactly what she had come for. She took a canapé, sealing her own brief fate. With the nurse occupied and the corner of the hall thus distracted, the companions had their opportunity. Fancy moved to the middle of the room and cast herself into a dance, drawing the eyes of guards and guests alike with her grace. While all watched her, Nico slipped back to the hidden door. This time, his tools and touch did not fail him; the lock yielded, and he slipped inside, closing it behind him.

Within he found Capulet’s secret study: a quiet, well-crafted room, its desk drawers locked. He tried the subtle way first, then, finding the locks too stubborn, resorted to levering them open with his dagger, sacrificing their neatness for speed. Inside were documents of great import: records of Byzantine payments to Genoa, notes tying those sums to Capulet, and mention of a “vault of truths” hidden in the family crypt in the churchyard. There was also a reference to a silver key, held by Friar Lawrence, which could open that crypt. These were the proofs the company had been seeking. Nico gathered the separate papers quickly, taking care to remove the incriminating ones, and then slipped out again to the hall.

As he went, more sleepers accumulated. In the side rooms where Guido and Gianna had lingered, all were soon slumped, including the servant who had challenged Nico’s right to a tray. The nurse too succumbed, and the little corner beneath the stairs grew quiet. The companions regrouped. Fancy, still dancing, read from Guido’s thoughts that the evidence had been found and that Friar Lawrence and his key would be their next concern. She glided off the dance floor and went to fetch Volpeo from the side room where Sampson watched over Tybalt and Gregory. “This drink is too strong for you,” she said aloud, loud enough that onlookers could hear. “It is too strong for some of the people here. Even you should not have had this much to drink. It is time for us to leave.” Her words, sharp with feigned disapproval, gave the bystanders a ready explanation for the strange faintings: the wine must be at fault.

Before quitting the house, Nico took the chance to relieve the unconscious of their coin, gathering a sum of ninety gold pieces from the pockets of those who would hardly miss it that night. Later, outside and in safer quarters, Nico confessed that he had “found this gold just laying around,” neglecting to mention precisely how much, and proceeded to distribute ten pieces to each of his companions while quietly keeping a double share for himself and Fancy. “I worry about my pockets,” he said, half-apologetic, half-unrepentant. Guido set aside part of his share for his charitably inclined “special fund,” as was his custom.

At last, the five of them, having gained evidence of Byzantine treachery, knowledge of the crypt’s “vault of truths,” and a new target in the person of Friar Lawrence with his silver key, took their leave of the house of Capulet. Behind them, the music faltered beneath murmurs over sleepers and too-strong drink, and the candles still blazed above the hall. In front of them lay the dark streets of Verona and, beyond, a graveyard where truth itself was said to be locked in stone.