This wasn't written to put up on this site, or at all, but I thought I might as well share it with you.
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The lady
I was standing outside, the cold was freezing my hands and the chill in the air had turned the end of my nose almost blue. The single candle shone light upon me, but it was the shadows outside the illuminated circle that reflected my mood. They seemed to swirl in the fog, always changing; sometimes dangerous, as though cloaking predatory animals then changing in an instant to harmless cloaks of the night. I checked my watch. He should be here by now. I did not like waiting at this dark place in the evening, let alone in the early hours of the morning, when who knows what could be about. However, I knew it was essential that we meet here, and at this time. Last time we had met in a busy market town several miles from my house, and had been almost spotted by my neighbour. It was too risky. And this was why I was awaiting his arrival under the shadows of the olive grove, near the deserted goat herder's hut, at one o' clock in the morning.
At last I heard it, his soft footsteps padding along the other side of the narrow wall. I called out to him, and he answered, his voice low to muffle the sound, so that his voice seemed huskier like another's.
"Juliet?" he whispered, I could see him now, the dim figure coming up between the two trees that flanked the narrow opening to the grove. He came closer and I gasped in shock. It was no trick of the mist that had given him a different voice, and I saw him now to be only a messenger, a friend of him I waited for. He handed me a note, deliberately not speaking and I could see that his face was hardened towards me, disapproving and contemptuous of the family I came from.
Nevertheless, he had come and I was grateful, I tried to smile but my lips were so cold that I could barely let them to curve. I took the letter in my trembling fingers, and he saw how numb I was and his expression seemed to soften. Still not speaking, he unfastened hi cloak and wrapped it around my shivering shoulders. Although it had only reached to his knees, it almost covered my ankles. I was glad of the warmth and smiled at him again. My fingers were undoing the note with such speed that I almost tore it in my clumsy haste, but I was quickly able to read what had been written by his hand. Such quavering letters!
"An accident… a duel… wounded in the chest..?" I clutched at my throat; it had ceased to breathe, my vision was clouding, writing and note were wavering, I could not see them. My legs would not hold me up and I could no longer feel the cold. The messenger's arms were quickly around me, steadying me. I still could not breathe, and the sobs that choked out were stealing all my breath.
I woke inside the hut, and the messenger was rubbing my wrists, he looked at me when he felt me move, and his face had lost all harshness.
"My lady Juliet, I must take you back to your home. You will die from this cold if you stay out in the night any longer."
His arms lifted me as though I weighed no more than a piece of material, and he carried me down through the trees, and out of the grove. I was shivering with fear. Wounded? Dying? How would I live if he did not? It was impossible now that we had met for us to separate so. I would be ripped in half.
An ominous glow of light was glimmering on the top of the hills that surrounded our town as we reached my house, and the envoy set me on my feet, gently unburdened me of his cloak and slipped off into the trees. I was left to go back up to my balcony alone, to wile away the remaining hours until dawn crying for my love, wounded and far from my side.
The lord.
He sweated in his sickbed, the heat rolling in waves over his body as he thrashed from the pain of his wound. The doctor stood by his bedside, and his mother and father came constantly, crying over him, weeping tears for the son whose choices they had never respected, whose views were never consulted and whose advice was never taken. Their hypocritical lamentation sickened him further, and his doctor had asked that they remain outside.
Why did his messenger not return? Why no word of her? His questioning went unanswered, and no herald was admitted. He bit his lip to keep from screaming from the pain, both the searing sword thrust in his chest and the stabbing in his heart that comes from not knowing how she fares. Has she abandoned him when he wounded her cousin? Was that why no message returned? Were they withholding the information that would give him the wish to live or die?
At last the chamber door opened, his friend entered, flushed from the cold and the speed at which he had been travelling.
"Leave" he screamed at the doctor, who ran from his presence, frightened by the ferocity and urgency of the young man. He must find the herbs that would soothe, would give him sleep, where was the seed of poppy that he kept in his shop?
The herald dropped on his knees by the side of the stricken man,
"She loves you still, my friend, and in sooth did swoon when she read your note. It is my feeling that she cares only for your safety, for she was sadly chilled when I reached her and would a lady wait so long on such a night for a man she did not love?"
His words comforted him, and he lay back, as though he could feel the warmth of her love around him, and the waxen lids closed, giving him the appearance of an angel, lying asleep.
His companion and messenger was alarmed at the white pallor of his cheeks, the pallid face and drawn mouth, that had been so animated only hours before, in expectation of the meeting. When his dead friend had made that remark, none could have predicted its' consequences; one dead, and too sorely wounded, with a large possibility of both dying before the sun set a second time on the charity.
His fists clenched, the messenger left the room, all feelings of any candour towards that house vanished in concern for his friend. A desire for revenge filled his mind, like a red sheet enveloping all his senses. He ran from the villa, and the youths waiting in the courtyard gathered around him, eager for news of their comrade.
When the group broke up a few minutes later, their faces were grimmer than before, and hands were on sword hilts. The angry assemblage left the square, bent on the destruction of their enemies, and the blood of their foes.
The lady
When she woke, it was to the sound of weeping. She was amazed; were they weeping for her love? Had there been so miraculous a change in her father's mind that he wept for his enemy's son?
Her nurse rushed into her bedchamber, and began to search through her draws, pulling out black gowns, scarves and veils. When she had gathered what she needed she laid the garments on the chair and knelt beside the lady's bed, sobbing.
"My nurse, why are you weeping?" hardly daring to believe that the miracle had happened. "Who do you weep for?"
"Oh my dove, it is so sad, so cruel. Taken from us in his youth. Such a young man he is to be wounded so."
Juliet could not contain herself, with her swirl of emotions, "When came this change of heart? I had thought you hated him."
The old woman glanced sharply up at her face, "What, my lady, what wicked words are these? There has never been a boy so loved by me as your dear cousin. You are a sinful girl to speak so."
It was not him they wept for, but her cousin, the one who loved her and hated him. He was wounded also. How could this be?
"How came he by this hurt," she questioned her nurse frantically, "when was he wounded?"
"Late last night, my dove, in the evil hour of the night. A duel it was, with that demon, that devil, he who your father loathes and who loathes your father. Truly it was that fiend who hath struck the blow. May he die and go down to the fierce fires of hell that await him."
"Never speak like that of him, you hag. He deserves no such curses. Stay your tongue." She rose up from her bed, her eyes sparking with fury, ready to lash out at her servant for abusing him who she loved.
"He has mortally wounded your cousin, who lies on the very brink of death from a dagger wound in the side. How else would you have me speak of such a man?"
"Never him, never. I will not suffer you to blight him so." She sprang from her bed and ran from her chamber, down the crumbling stone steps from her balcony and into her garden, dressed still in her white shift. She fled to seclude herself in the hidden corner of her garden, which no one was permitted to enter. All that could be seen or heard of her were the bitter sobs that issued forth from the veiled entrance of her sanctuary.
The Lord
He had been woken by the sound of screams. A woman was screaming in the passage outside his chamber, and there were the harsh sounds of men's shouts and jeers, drunken and coarse, filled with anger and merciless.
He lifted himself as far as he could, causing a great wash of pain that threatened to drown him. Dizzy, he shook his head to clear himself of the nausea that hung there, but it would not be got rid of.
There was a crash as his door swung open, nearly knocked off the hinges by the force of the blow. The woman was pushed into the room, her grey cloak torn, revealing the delicate white gown that was underneath. Her dark hair almost covered her face but she lifted it to his for an instant.
It was her, his lady, his love, beaten and brutalised by the men he had hitherto called his friends. She was crying, but when she saw him she stopped, and a look of shock came to her face. She stared in horror at his pale countenance, and below that, the poultice that had covered his wound the night before but had slipped and he tossed in his sleep, and exposed part of the bloody wound that had been last night's wages.
She darted towards him, but before she could reach him, was wrenched back by her hair and cried out in pain. His most trusted friend was holding her, a knife in his hand. He began to hack at her hair, the fine silken hair that he loved so dearly, cutting her head with his pitiless strokes. She screamed again, her hands reaching out to him, half in appeal, and half in sorrow, dismayed by his wounds.
He shouted furiously at the band of drunken revellers, but his weakened throat and damaged voice could not speak above the sin. He stretched out an arm, turning ashen as the movement reopened the wound he suffered from, and only just managed to reach the ceramic bowl holding the water used to clean his wounds. He shoved with all his remaining strength and it was jolted off the table, smashing on the cold tiles below.
The discordant sounds of the jagged pieces of china rang out loud into the clamour and the perpetrators of the wickedness were stilled. The only sound was the soft weeping from his lady as she stared at his face which was so contorted with pain.
"Go", he croaked as loudly as he could.
His friends turned on the hapless lady in anger. "You have disturbed him. You wish him more ill than he already is. You will never see the light of day again."
"Leave her," the rasping voice from the bed called, "Go."
They stared at him in disbelief.
His best friend rushed to his side, placing a bloodied hand on his waxy forehead, "Your mind is addled cousin; I do not doubt she will kill you if she has the chance."
"Go"
Finally they left, but not without some violent blows to the lady as they passed her. As soon as the door was shut, she hurried to his side, weeping yet more as she realised the extent of his wounds. She caressed his face and held him in her arms, the tears spilling from her eyes as she cried his so dearly loved name.
He tried to return her embraces, but his arms were so weak. Seeing he could not raise himself, she bent her head further, to kiss his face and brow. He reached up to gently brush the cuts his cousins had made on her head and he whispered her name,
"Juliet."
"Romeo."
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