SAVING JULIET: CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I’m not sure how long I was alone in the prison cell. I measured time in scattered thoughts. I am so fired. So this is Rosaline’s revenge for our humiliation of Tybalt. Not that we planned on humiliating him. It’s just one of the side effects of survival. I wondered if Benvolio had been arrested and was crammed in some other cell with a crowd of criminals. If so, I somehow doubted that it was his first time in prison. He was an honest man, but the world was not so honest, and he’d seen quite a bit of it. The floor was too hard to take a nap on, even for someone experienced with hard beds, so instead I sat awake with my mind racing. Juliet is married. Even after everything we did, Juliet is married to Romeo. I tried turning it around to see if that made any more headway in my brain: Romeo has married Juliet. Romeo, whom neither Juliet nor I had even seen until yesterday, has married Juliet. And now…what?

The whole thing seemed like some preposterous nightmare. What a wedding! I wasn’t sure if Juliet deserved better, but I wanted it to be better for all of our sakes. We were doomed. How long would it take before the parents found out? What would my parents say when they found out? We had to get out of Verona, all of us. That is, provided that we got out of prison first. On the positive side, the Capulets and Montagues couldn’t kill us in prison, and it seemed unlikely that the Prince would. Maybe Romeo and Juliet would have the sense to leave without us, and we could just stay in prison until the fury died down and then resume our lives. I wouldn’t miss the city, but what about my family? Somehow, I had become not a disappointment, but an utter disaster as a daughter.

Where did Benvolio and I fit into this mess? I wondered what he’d been thinking as we stood there in Friar Lawrence’s cell. Did he want to marry me? What on earth would it be like to be married to him? Wonderful and utterly terrifying. What would it be like to be together almost always, not to have to say goodbye? Somehow, I doubted that being married to Benvolio would ever be dull…

As if my thoughts had conjured him, the cell door clanged open and Benvolio was thrown inside. He fell to the ground and the door clanged shut behind him. I suppose there were guards, but I was too busy looking at Benvolio to find out. He was pale and bloody, but I rushed to him and caught him in a hug as he recovered from his fall. A soft happy groan escaped him as he returned my embrace.

“Thank goodness you’re all right,” he said, and I felt his hand running through my hair. “They told me you’d been arrested for fighting in the streets.”

Under different circumstances, I might have said that “all right” was a bit of an overstatement, but yes, in spite of everything, in that moment I was more than all right. “You don’t look all right,” I said as he released me. “Did they do that to you?”

He settled himself back against the wall and shook his head. “No,” he said.

I sighed, and made myself comfortable beside him. “For such a good swordsman, you sure do get beat up a lot. Who was it this time? Do you need a doctor?”

“No...it’s not my blood.” He fell silent, staring out into the void of the jail cell.

I fished out my handkerchief and handed it to him, but he did not take it. “Tybalt is dead,” he said.

Now it was my turn to stare in shattered silence.

“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “After that crazy wedding, I went home to take a nap. When I woke up, no longer a sarcastic human zombie, I realized that we needed to get the newlyweds out of Verona as soon as possible. So, I went to find Romeo, but Tybalt found him first. With everything that’s happened, we’d both forgotten that Tybalt had challenged Romeo to a duel. I don’t know why he bothered to be formal about it—we’ve been dueling since we were thirteen.”

“Given the way things are going, I would attribute that to Rosaline. Or maybe he thought it would force Romeo to quite skulking around and fight.”

“Well, it didn’t. Whatever brains Romeo had are completely gone now. I think he had some crazy idea that because the two families are related now, everyone would just stop fighting and be happy. I tried to calm Tybalt down, but you know how that is. He told me that this time, no one was running away. Mercutio was more than happy to fight with Tybalt. Romeo tried to talk them out of it, but of course no one listens to Romeo.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

He said, “Duel or no duel, we normally would have attacked Tybalt and that would have been the end of it. But now the punishment for fighting in the streets is death. There wasn’t any time to decide what to do next. Romeo got between Mercutio and Tybalt. Tybalt saw his advantage and stabbed Mercutio under his arm. And Mercutio fell. Romeo rushed at Tybalt. There was no stopping them. I went to Mercutio—and he wasn’t dead, just badly wounded. I don’t know how Tybalt missed, but it was a difficult spot. I looked up to shout at Romeo and tell him…and I saw Romeo kill Tybalt.” He stared at me, horror and guilt etched on his face.

The numbness of too many bizarre and devastating happenings filled me. “No!” was all I could say. It seemed utterly impossible that fluff-brained, besotted Romeo could hurt anything.

He braced himself to continue, his face pale: “For a few moments, everything seemed frozen. Then Romeo ran. I don’t know where. I’m not sure I care anymore. Probably to Friar Lawrence. Then the soldiers came and arrested us. I convinced them to let me take Mercutio to a hospital—that’s why there’s blood all over me. I think—I think he’ll be fine. He’s the Prince’s relative, so he’ll have the best of care and he won’t be executed.” His hands were shaking. “Where did I go wrong?”

I wrapped my arms around him and held him tightly, almost afraid of what would happen if I let go. “There was nothing you could have done. They made their own choices. We can only do so much.”

We sat there in silence. I was at a point where my mind failed to register shock over any more terrible developments. Romeo had killed Tybalt. It made no more sense to my mind than the fact that Romeo had also married Juliet. Facts were useless. The practical, coping side of my mind decided to skip over these happenings and wonder what we would do next. But I waited to speak, wondering just how damaged Benvolio was.

After a long while, he broke the silence. “You’re an angel, Elena.”

“Not by a long shot,” I replied.

“Are you always this argumentative?” he asked, sounding faintly teasing.

I rolled my eyes. “Why do you think I’m in jail?”

“A sassy angel,” he amended.

The light was fading from the high window. I asked, “Are we going to die?”

“Well, yes, eventually. Everyone does, you know.”

I groaned, letting go of him.

He said, “Sorry. That was in poor taste. I don’t think the Prince is going to execute us, though. There’s a possibility, of course, but we didn’t do anything illegal, at least technically speaking. And he likes your family. He might even banish us as a favor.”

“Banished or not, we’ve got to get out of here. Out of jail, out of Verona,” I said.

“We’ve got to get out of jail first, which I think just means waiting. Someone will be along to bail us out presently—your family or my family. Or both. That would be awkward. In the unlikely event that they don’t come, the Prince will get to us eventually. Once we’re free, I’ll get horses and we’ll leave for my home in Genoa. We’ll have to figure out all the details after we’re out of jail.”

“What about Juliet?” I said.

“I suppose we’ll have to bring her with us.” He didn’t sound pleased at the thought. “Regardless of what happens to Romeo, she certainly can’t stay here.”

Another unpleasant thought struck me. “And then there’s my family.”

“I think they can hold their own,” said Benvolio. “Look.”

Sure enough, my parents were coming—or rather, storming—down the hall, with the guards trailing timidly at their heels. Despite their simple clothes, they were every inch Lord and Lady Carafa. As they halted in front of our cell in the flickering torchlight, I was astonished at the transformation that had overcome my parents in the last few months. They looked strong, healthy, and fierce—a force to be reckoned with. Upon seeing us, they too, looked astonished.

“I’m terribly sorry,” sputtered the guard as he hastily unlocked the cell. “There was some misunderstanding. I’ll see to it that this business is cleared up immediately, my lord. All right then, Miss. You’re free to go.”

Father was staring hard at Benvolio. “I suppose we’d better take that one too,” he said. “Unfortunately, I owe him a favor.”

“Mother! Father!” I rushed out of the cell and embraced them. “I’ve missed you so much! How did you find us here?”

“Word travels fast in Verona,” said Mother. “What on earth has been going on?”

I glanced over my shoulder at Benvolio. “It’s a long story. Do you…know Benvolio?”

Father replied, “It’s a long story. As soon as we get home, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”