Queen Mab (14 page)

Time seemed to slow its course as Mab remembered her words to Tybalt - to strike down a Montague before he had the chance to strike first.  She hoped he had taken her advice not to heart.  Oh, if she could but withdraw those words.  She looked at Benvolio and wondered how such a clumsy lad could bring about the fall of such a man as Tybalt.  Or would Tybalt make the first blow and trick the fates to let him live?

"What trouble does this Tybalt mean?" Mab begged to Faunus.  "You must turn aside this fate.  These are not games.  These are not the ways to pass the days."

"Why do you fret?  Tybalt is a champion of your House!  Quite the fetching savior of the Capulets and a more handsome protector of her honor Verona could not dream to want.  What worries you?  He, this creature who falls beneath your protection from a promise made long ago, needs only to be slayed, and the House of Montague will no longer be."

"Let Tybalt be slayed, then," she whispered looking at her Mercutio.  "Let him fall without fight.  Only let this cup pass and this game be done."

"Nay, Mab," whispered Faunus.  "For you see, I have my own champion, whom just the taste of kindness will cast aside his peaceable ways and cause him to fight to the death to defeat this man."

"Tybalt needs not defeat.  He needs only to walk away."

Tybalt looked into the courtyard, scanning the crowd for the Montague colors.  His eyes fell upon Benvolio seated by the fountain with Mercutio, and waved his friends to fall in behind.  "Follow me close, for I will speak to them."  Stepping boldly across the courtyard, he bowed, but never let his eyes leave their face.  "Gentlemen, a word with one of you."

Mercutio looked upon him and Mab knew the thoughts that flitted across the face of this lighthearted soul, whose courage was forged on the fields of battle.  She saw that he knew Tybalt sought out his friend.  She saw that he knew if the two were joined, Tybalt's sword would end Romeo, for this lover was no soldier and knew not how to fight for his life. 

Mab willed Mercutio to go to the prince, to let this meaningless moment of great matter pass, but the wine and the heat had gone to his head, the seriousness of the threat gave him courage.  Tybalt wanted a fight, and if it be Romeo or the clumsy brute Benvolio, neither would escape, and Mercutio understood this truth.  So instead, he rose, ready to take the brunt of Tybalt's ire in the hope that both might live to see another day. 

"And but one word with one of us?" said Mercutio, shielding Benvolio from sight.  "Couple it with something.  Make it a word and a blow."

"You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me occasion," replied Tybalt, not backing down from the threat.  "Mercutio, you consort with Romeo—"

"Consort!" Mercutio laughed.  "You make us sound like minstrels, ready to play for the pleasure for whatever foolish lord taps his feet.  Well, if I am a minstrel, my song is filled with discordant chords, and if you wish to change the tune, come and take my fiddlestick."  He placed his hand upon the hilt of his rapier. "Here is that which shall make you dance."

Benvolio came between them holding out his hands.  "You talk here in public on the crowded street.  Either withdraw to some private place to reason out your grievances or else depart.  Here all eyes gaze on us."

"Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze," said Mercutio in warning, protecting his friend and daring Tybalt to strike a kinsman of Verona's prince.  "I will not budge."

At that moment, the fair-haired Romeo entered into the square, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to befall.  He seemed to float rather than walk and bore the markings of love's blinders which kept a man's eyes upon his lady and from seeing any of the world beyond.  A smile was on his face as if no woe could touch his gladness and he seemed anxious to get to his friends to tell them of fortune's touch.

Faunus looked at Mab.  "My champion has arrived.  And so the world ends."

Faunus removed the vial and uncorked the stopper.  He threw it in the air blowing it towards Romeo.  As it struck, Romeo inhaled the happiness and wellbeing which seemed to mirror the feelings found already in his heart.

Mab wished she could reach out and, pressing her hands upon Romeo's shoulders, move him back to where he came from, but his feet continued steadily on, finding joy in the sunlight and seeking not the shadows of her intervention.

Tybalt looked over.  Smiling, he turned from Mercutio to this boy.  "Well, peace be with you, sir.  Here comes my man."

"Your man?  He does not wear your livery," said Mercutio, trying to keep Tybalt's attention.  "But lead the way to the dueling ground instead this ambush in the street and indeed he will face you there, for he is such a man."

Tybalt would not be distracted by Mercutio's words and called, "Romeo, the hate I bear towards you can afford no better term than this—thou art a villain!"

Romeo stopped, suddenly aware of the faces and tempers he had stumbled into.  He placed his hands up in peace and spoke out in soothing tones, "Tybalt, there are ties which bind us that cause me not to answer the insult you give.  Villain am I none.  Therefore, farewell.  You know me not."

Tybalt, thinking back to the prophecy of ages ago called out, "Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw."

He ran at Romeo, sword in hand, and Romeo sped to get away.  Unarmed, he used his tongue to fight the madness which had seized Juliet's cousin.  "I do protest, I never injured you!  And so, good Capulet, which name I tender as dearly as my own, be satisfied!"

But Tybalt would not and he advanced upon Romeo as if to force him to find a sword to draw or die a coward in the street.  He pointed his bare blade upon Romeo as if to run him through.  Romeo stood with his hands held up in peaceful surrender as Tybalt's anger grew.

Mab watched in horror as Mercutio unsheathed his own rapier to protect his weaker friend.  He stepped between Tybalt and Romeo and challenged, "Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"

Tybalt looked upon Mercutio, gentle Mercutio, friend of both Houses, in confusion. "What wouldst thou have with me?"

"Good king of cats, I want nothing but the first of your nine lives.  You may then have your other eight to do with as you will.  Move your sword away from this foolhardy boy and face the man before you before I give you not a choice."

Tybalt turned his blade upon his new target, knowing that Mercutio posed no danger.  The old god had warned him of a Montague, and Mercutio was not one.  Tybalt knew this was not the day that he had been preparing for his entire life.  "I am for you."

"We shall kill them with kindness, shall we Mab?" whispered Faunus.  "Present thy champion, for the match point is upon us.  Choose who shall protect the House of Capulet."

But Mab had drunk the kindness and there was no champion to be had.

Faunus leaned once more towards Romeo, causing him to leap into the fray, pleading with honesty and goodwill, the taste of Capulet's goodness still upon his lips.  "Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up!"

But Mercutio would not be swayed.

"Come, sir, give me that thrust that I have heard so much about in court," Mercutio taunted at Tybalt before giving in to the attack.

Mab could feel Faunus's heat in every word as his fiery influence sped their blades and gave strength to each blow.  In horror, she watched, impotent and unable to provide protection, only witness.  Capulet's kindness was within her and it burned bitterly to know that even when she thought she was out-foxing Faunus, she was two steps behind his plans.  She could not pass the kindness to Tybalt now to stay his hand.  Instead, she saw her love, Mercutio, defend himself.  He seemed fixed on disarming Tybalt, to answer Tybalt's insults with a lesson in respect, but Tybalt was not a man to let his ego be bruised.  No, indeed, correction was a crime worth retaliating in his book. 

If only she had some cruelty to give to Mercutio, wept Mab, to match the bloodlust that pounded in the veins of his foe. 

"Draw, Benvolio," Romeo begged his lumbering friend, "beat down their weapons."

But Benvolio hung back, unwilling to break the prince's decree, even if it meant the life of his most worthy friend.

Romeo ran between Tybalt and Mercutio, trying to stay their bare blades with his bare body.  "Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!  Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath forbidden bandying in Verona streets.  Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!"

Mercutio pushed Romeo aside to get the boy out of harm's way.  Instead of gratitude, Romeo ran forward, hugging Mercutio's arms to his side in order to pull him from the fight.  In that moment of horrible distraction, neither saw Tybalt's thrust.  From beneath Romeo's arm, Tybalt's blade found its mark in Mercutio's side.

"I am hurt," said Mercutio.  Blood spread across his doublet as if red ink spilled across a virgin page. 

Mab felt her lover's pain as if it was her own heart that had been run through, but her cries of horror carried no more weight than the wind.  She braced herself, the sight of Mercutio's crimson life calling like a siren's invitation to dash herself upon the rocks. She willed herself not to rush to his side.  She was trapped in the prison of shadows with the sun as her jailor.  One step into the unshaded square and she would wake in the icy prison of her reality, never again to see her love.

Tybalt stiffened, the madness of Faunus finally lifted, to see what he had done.  In horror, his eyes grew wide, knowing that this, slaying the Prince's kinsman, meant his own death.  He motioned to his friends and they fled.

Mercutio's hands touched his wound and he gasped in anger and in sadness.  "A plague on both your houses! I am sped.  Is he gone and hath nothing?"

"What, art thou hurt?" asked Benvolio, helping Mercutio as he slid to the ground.

Mercutio lifted his hand and showed him the blood.  "Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough." 

"Courage, man," said Romeo, trying to will the wound to be much smaller than it was, "the hurt cannot be much."

"No, it is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but it is enough, it will serve."  He began laughing, though his face twisted in agony.  "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world."

A spasm shook his body and he gasped.  He shouted in his pain the words that Mab screamed from the shadows.  "A plague on both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!"  Mercutio looked up at Romeo and, begging, looked into his eyes for answers.  "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm."

Romeo, his mouth filled with secrets he could not reveal, with a heart destroyed by the moment of peace it was trying to give, could only answer back, "I thought it all for the best."

Another wave caused poor Mercutio's body to clench and convulse.  Laughing once again as his face became ashen grey, he held his arms to his other friend. "Help me into some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint."

Benvolio gently placed his friend's arm around his own neck and lifted him.  Mercutio cried out and paled, his knees buckled unable to bear his weight.  He shouted, "A plague on both your houses!  They have made worms meat of me.  I have it, and soundly too! Your houses!"

Faunus's laughter echoed through the square, delighting in his victory.  Mab fell to the ground, wracking sobs heaving in her chest. 

"Why mourn you so, Queen Mab?  This tragedy is your own, every event a direct result of your meddling and schemes," Faunus said. He gave her a wink.  "What sport.  We should play again."

And then he disappeared.

M
ab stood in the doorway as they took her love to couch, resting him gently upon the cushions as he bled.

She knew he could not see her.  The daylight made it so, fading her corporal appearance to nothing but motes within a sunbeam.  But she would stay until the end.  She would not let one breath of his slip away without bearing witness.  She would remember, even though she felt her heart might break with each gasp.  Indeed, it did break.  She wanted to curse Romeo and Tybalt and all the foolish humans who had looked on at the violence in the street.  But she could not.  For she knew that it was her fault.  It was the steady march of one hundred years of unkindness which now took her love forever from the earth, his smile never to grace the sunrise, his laugh never to fill the air.  She had learned to love too late, and the mistakes were all her own.

And yet, when his eyes opened he seemed to see her, for they softened and for a moment appeared almost glad.  She stepped forward into the darkened room, unable to keep away.  He whispered, "Queen Mab... have you a hazelnut shell to come and bear me away?"

"Do not leave us, good Mercutio!" urged Benvolio.

But Mercutio had eyes for none other than his queen.

"How you seems to shine in the sunlight," he smiled.  "How your darkness seems to almost glow."

"Forgive me, my love!  Forgive me!" she whispered.  "I would risk all to save you.  I should destroy my very world if I could lift so much as a finger to come to your aid.  And yet, I cannot.  Forgive me for being powerless and for leaving you alone to face your death!"

The tears streamed down her face, tears from one whose heart had once hardened to ice, but now melted for one human.

He reached out his hands, as if to wipe those tears away.  His friend, Benvolio, reached out to grasp it, thinking he was reaching for someone else.

But Mab knew who he yearned for, whose perfect soul had finally matched his.

"What dreams we could have had," he whispered to her.

And she knew an immortal existence was not worth a moment without him there at her side.

"Tell him to shutter the windows," she spoke.

Mercutio turned to Benvolio.  "Draw the curtains my friend, for indeed the curtains are being drawn upon me."

"You shall not die..."

"Please, as my one request.  Into darkness I entered this world, crying a newborn's mewling cries as the midwife guided me from the dark safety of my mother's womb into a room warm and shuttered.  And now I return to the quiet darkness.  And it is within this warm and shuttered room that I wish to rest this final rest, guarded from the world lest I make a mewling cry once more for my mother."