11. Above A Common Ground
With the help of some pressure from Romeo and Benvolio, Vincenzo and Pietro apologized to Mercutio for trying to force him into the bawdy house. They pleaded overindulgence in the taverns, which was an acceptable excuse, though it did not quite cover the situation. Mercutio accepted their apologies graciously and made peace with them, though Benvolio was never certain whether or not he went so far as to forgive them.
He did count one positive result from the disastrous birthday celebration, though. Some of Mercutio's wariness about touch had dissipated. It did not leave him completely, and there were still days when he shied from even the slightest brush of a hand, but on the whole, his friends could make casual contact without fearing a flinch or a blow. Later, Mercutio even began to reach out to others. This delighted Romeo, who had always enjoyed the ready intimacies of friendship. As for Benvolio, the occasional light, hesitant touch of Mercutio's fingers on his arm during a conversation sent tingling jolts through his body, and he sometimes had to take a deep breath in order to retain control of himself.
The adventure at the bawdy house had inspired the boys, and half of their talk now concerned maidens. Most of Benvolio's friends declared themselves madly in love with one maiden or another, though Mercutio continued to insist that love was a fool's game. Romeo, of course, shone at this sport, writing impassioned poetry about the beauties who caught his eye and then reading the poems to his friends. Pietro would pretend to swoon, and Mercutio would laugh. Privately, Benvolio thought that Romeo's poetry was usually terrible, but he envied his cousin the ability to fall so easily in love with women.
Benvolio put off questions about his own desires as long as he could. His salvation came unexpectedly from Mercutio. They were attending a feast at the house of Count Bellini. The music was fine, and they danced until they were out of breath. When the musicians paused to clean and re-tune their instruments, Mercutio approached Benvolio with a smirk on his face.
"Look over there," he said. "Yon maiden in the rose-colored gown with lace in her hair."
Benvolio looked, and saw a tall, rather gawky girl with a long nose and liquid eyes nervously patting a stray lock of hair back beneath her lace headdress. Something about her interested him, though he could not say what it might be. "What of her?" he asked.
"That is Helena Pergolesi," Mercutio said. "She is niece to Signior Capulet through his youngest sister."
Benvolio nodded. Mercutio knew most of the Capulets, as their family had done business with his before his father had been banished. They continued to associate with him now as a ward of the Prince, and he had been invited to several of their feasts. "I see," Benvolio said. "What wouldst thou have me see in her?"
"Didst thou not notice?" Mercutio said with a grin. "I had thought that the entire hall could see. She has had her eyes on thee through the last pavane and the galliard that followed."
This was news. Usually, women seemed to have as little interest in Benvolio as he had in them. "Truly, Mercutio? Surely this is another of thy jests."
"No, upon my honor. She gazed at thee alone and did not condescend to spare even one glance at the gentleman who squired her through the dance. I think he was most put out by that."
Benvolio smiled. "I can well imagine. Who was the unfortunate gentleman?"
"Tybalt. It seems thou hast won the eye of a lady and the anger of a gentleman all in one fell swoop. I think thou art to be congratulated." Mercutio laughed, and Benvolio rolled his eyes and went to fetch himself another drink.
If Helena Pergolesi's wandering eye had widened the rift between Tybalt and Benvolio, it also provided him some benefits. Now, at last, he could tell his friends that he was intrigued with a woman. It was not entirely a lie, either; Benvolio could not quite define the nature of his attraction to Helena, and that was a pretty puzzle to occupy his mind. Helena's connection to the Capulets meant that no one expected him to pursue his interest beyond looking. His friends were impressed that he dared to contemplate a woman attached to the Capulet family at all, however distantly attached. If he had to pick a woman to be in love with, Benvolio decided that Helena Pergolesi would do quite nicely.
If anyone could be said to fan the flames of the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets the most, it was Tybalt. When he was younger, Benvolio had wondered why Tybalt was so dedicated to the cause of the feud, for his parents were not Capulets at all. His father's younger sister was Signior Capulet's wife, which did not strike Benvolio as much of a connection at all. Still, whenever a fracas erupted between Montagues and Capulets, Tybalt was sure to be in the middle of it, swinging his sword with gleeful abandon.
He even went out of his way to provoke fights. He and his gang of friends and followers had a disturbing trick of surrounding their chosen target, closing off all avenues of escape while Tybalt hurled insults and petty physical assaults at their victim until he erupted in rage and struck the first blow. Benvolio was aware of this tactic, and tried not to allow himself to be caught in their trap. However, when the Capulet gang did manage to surround him, they only became more vicious. Once, Petruchio and Salanio caught Benvolio by his arms, and Tybalt advanced on him, threatening to tear off his hose and chase him home flopping in the breeze if Benvolio did not immediately make a servant's bow to him.
Benvolio twisted free of Petruchio and Salanio, who had not been expecting him to react with such vehemence, and shoved his way out of the circle. Tybalt started to give chase, but stopped short when he saw Mercutio pointing a rapier directly at his eye.
"Hie thee hence, worm," Mercutio snarled. "Think not that thou canst insult my friends with impunity."
Tybalt's nostrils flared, and his hand moved to the grip of his own sword. Mercutio advanced on him until his blade was a mere handspan from Tybalt's face. "I dare thee," he said. "Shall we see whose blade can move the fastest? Thine from its scabbard, or mine into thy brain?"
Tybalt paused, and Benvolio could see his mind working furiously, trying to find a way to disengage himself from a situation turned truly dangerous without damaging his pride. Finally, Tybalt let out a derisive laugh. "Do not bother playing at being a man, Mercutio," he said. "Look thou to thy friend, for I have left him more in need of a nursemaid than a knight."
With that, he snapped his fingers, turned on his heel, and stalked off, his friends swaggering after him. Mercutio kept his sword drawn and raised until they had turned a corner, then sheathed it and turned to Benvolio. "Art thou hurt?"
Benvolio managed a wry smile. "In dignity only," he said. "And whatever Tybalt may think, that wound will heal quickly, of its own accord." But he could not keep the tremor from his voice or his hands.
Mercutio frowned, and something that Benvolio could not identify stirred behind his eyes. The hand that had been so steady holding a rapier now trembled a little as he reached out and touched Benvolio's shoulder, a comforting gesture that any other of Benvolio's friends would have made without even thinking about it. Coming from Mercutio, however, even such a light touch was a rare and precious thing, and Benvolio relaxed almost immediately at the unexpected intimacy of it.
"Why does he do that?" Benvolio asked. "Why must Tybalt fight so much for the honor of the Capulets, when he is not even a Capulet by blood?"
Mercutio's eyes grew hard, as they always did when he thought about Tybalt. "In the eyes of the law, he is a Capulet. That family has run to daughters, and Signior Capulet has no surviving sons or nephews – at least not legitimate ones. I have heard rumors that Salanio is one of his by-blows from a chambermaid, but do not repeat that where Salanio might hear thee say it."
Benvolio managed a smile. "My lips are sealed. But what of Tybalt?"
"Signior Capulet has made his wife's nephew heir to a son's portion of his estate, and to the privileges of his name, in return for assistance with several old gambling debts," Mercutio said. "Therefore, Tybalt is a Capulet, by law if not by blood."
"And he fights for that name to prove his affiliation," Benvolio sighed. Although much of Tybalt's behavior had become clearer to him now, he still could not bring himself to like Capulet's heir.
Mercutio laughed suddenly, startling Benvolio a little. "I think that the family affiliation is a convenient excuse for one such as Tybalt. He is vicious and loves to quarrel, and he would fight thee even if he were thy brother."
"Harsh words, from one who is not even a Montague by a trick of the law." Benvolio smiled to take the sting from his words.
Mercutio shrugged. "Tybalt is a bully, and one need not be a Montague to see that. I hate bullies, and I will not suffer them to wound my friends."
Several weeks later, Benvolio discovered that Mercutio's impetuous defense of Tybalt's victims was not limited to his friends, or even his acquaintances. Mercutio had dozed off during one of the Montague boys' interminable debates about the feminine objects of their affections. Romeo, having just described the charms of Cecilia, the newest lady to catch his eye, reached out and shook Mercutio's shoulder. Mercutio opened his eyes and swatted irritably at Romeo.
"Upon my word, thou wilt sleep through a tale of the fairest lady ever to walk the earth?" Romeo asked.
"Not as soundly as I would wish, for I could still hear the lady's name penetrating my dreams," Mercutio said. "Cecilia the fairest of the fair, Cecilia the gracious, Cecilia the virtuous. I have heard it unnumbered times before."
"Have we bored thee to tears at last?" Pietro asked.
Mercutio sat up and squinted into the morning sunlight. "Not yet. In truth, I am weary because I had little rest last night."
This remark made the boys hoot with laughter. "Dost thou mean what I think?" Vincenzo chortled.
Mercutio glared at him. "Ay. I spent several hours in the company of a woman." He said no more, even when they pressed him for details. However, after the group had parted to pursue separate interests, Mercutio told Romeo and Benvolio the true story.
Mercutio had gone to bed early the night before, but sleep had not found him. In order to escape his own dark, troubled thoughts, he had pulled clothes on and left the palace in the hope that a walk in the night air might clear his mind. This was not exactly news to Benvolio; he knew that Mercutio sometimes had difficulty sleeping as well as eating. It worried him, but there was nothing he could do about it except offer his sympathy.
It seemed that Mercutio had not been the only high-born youth prowling the streets of Verona that evening. He had heard what sounded like a quarrel between a man and a woman, and recognized the man's voice as Tybalt. Upon further investigation, Mercutio discovered Tybalt pressing a strange woman up against a wall, working her skirt up and her bodice down as the woman squirmed and struck at him with her fists. The woman's distress had distracted Mercutio from his own, and he drove Tybalt off with savage mockery and a few well-chosen threats, assisted by several more blows from the woman's fists.
"What didst thou do with her then, thy damsel in distress?" Romeo asked with a smile.
Mercutio was weary enough that he simply bit his thumb at Romeo before he continued his tale.
"I asked the lady's name, for I did not remember having seen her before. She said that she was Sarah bat Eliezer."
Benvolio raised his eyebrows. "That is an odd name. I have never heard anything quite like it."
Mercutio smiled. "Nor had I. I offered to escort her home, and I asked where her family's house was. She grew distressed, and explained that she lived in the goldmongers' street."
It took a moment for that detail to sink in. When it did, Romeo sucked in a shocked breath, and Benvolio's eyes grew wide. "That is in the ghetto," he said. "She is a Jew, then, this Sarah bat Eliezer?"
"What business had she in the street after the coming of darkness?" Romeo asked. "The ghetto is locked at night."
"She had gone to the river to do her washing," Mercutio said. "I suppose she took longer than she had anticipated." He frowned a little remembering. "She will have to go and do it again, for she had dropped her basket, and the clothes lay all over the street. Tybalt had made her drop them. He did not need to do that." For a moment, Mercutio's expression wavered between anger and misery.
"How didst thou manage to return the lady to the locked ghetto?" Benvolio asked, as much to bring Mercutio back to himself as to hear the end of the tale.
Mercutio looked surprised for a moment, then smiled. "Being nephew to the Prince bears certain advantages," he said. "I brought Sarah to the gates and encouraged the guards to let us in. When they hesitated, I asked their names, that I might tell my uncle of their diligence, and they relented and opened the doors."
Romeo laughed delightedly at that, and Mercutio imitated the guard's fish-faced expression of shock upon discovering the identity of the young man he had tried to refuse.
"Thou didst escort this Sarah to her home, then?" Benvolio asked. "Didst thou see her family? What manner of folk are they?" Benvolio knew that Jews resided in Verona, but he had never met any, for Uncle Tiberio and Aunt Susanna did not encourage their boys to mingle with that alien folk. All that Benvolio knew about Jews, he had heard in church, and most of that had contradicted itself at every turn. He burned with curiosity about this strange, stubborn group of people living in a shadow world in his very own city.
Mercutio's eyes sparkled now, and Benvolio was sure that the evening had been an adventure for him as well. "She is unmarried, and lives with her father and two brothers. They were amazed to see me, but they knew me and treated me with respect. That is more than I had from my uncle's own guards at the ghetto walls.
"Sarah told me of her family as we walked. Her father is Eliezer ben David Moreno, and he traveled in the Orient as a young man. Dost thou know, he had schooling in Baghdad, and is a learned surgeon and physician? I did not know that there were lands where Jews could be physicians." Mercutio smiled, momentarily lost in a dream of exotic, faraway lands. "He does not advertise his skills in Verona, of course, and I trust that neither of you will breathe a word about it."
Romeo and Benvolio both swore to keep the secret. "How does the family survive, then?" Romeo asked.
"Her brothers are moneylenders, of course," Mercutio answered. "It would seem that they do brisk business, for their house is richly appointed. It would not surprise me if Tybalt's father, or mine, had done business with them in the past."
"Yet thou didst have the better end of the bargain, with the fair Sarah," Romeo said with a smile.
Mercutio shrugged. "Perhaps. She did smile upon me when I left her, and I felt that I had done a deed of true worth that night." And he smiled, a wide, open, beautiful smile of pure joy, a smile so rare that it broke Benvolio's heart to see it.