27. All My Fortunes
When Mercutio and Benvolio informed Eliezer that Escalus had agreed to allow him to serve as physician, Eliezer's eyes sparkled. Solomon and Ephraim sat back with satisfied expressions on their faces, and Sarah embraced her father. "Perhaps we will be accepted as citizens of Verona in time," she said.
Eliezer patted her arm. "Perhaps. But for now, I will simply enjoy the freedom to practice my art openly." He turned to Mercutio and Benvolio. "I thank you for your trust and faith in me. You will not regret this day."
Benvolio ducked his head to hide the blush that he could feel creeping up his face. "I have never once regretted putting trust in you, sir," he said.
Eliezer smiled. "And I am glad of it. But the sun will set soon, and the ghetto will be locked." He escorted his guests to the door, where they parted with a final bow.
After they left the ghetto, Mercutio and Benvolio went to a tavern. Over cups of wine, they reviewed the list of positions to be filled at the foundling home. Benvolio smiled. "I believe Eliezer was the last. We have found all of our workers."
Mercutio shook his head. "That is not quite true. There is still one who must agree to the position."
"Who is that?"
"Thou art the man." Mercutio smiled, but his eyes betrayed some nervousness. "Thou hast been most generous with thy time to aid me in my mad venture," he said. "Dost thou wish to continue and assist me in running the home? If thou dost, I will ask my uncle for thy contract, and he may find another to train to replace his secretary. But I will not require thee to leave if thou art comfortable in thy present post."
Benvolio opened his mouth to reply, but Mercutio raised his hand. "Do not answer now. I would have thee think about this choice."
They finished their wine and went home. Mercutio had a geography lesson, and Benvolio had a stack of accounts waiting for him. The secretary smiled when he entered the study. Benvolio sat down and looked at the accounts before glancing up shyly at the old man he had come to respect.
"Mercutio has asked me to serve at the foundling home," he said quietly.
The secretary nodded. "That is no great surprise. Do you intend to accept the invitation?"
Benvolio shrugged. "I do not wish to desert you here. This position was the reason that I was allowed to come here at all, and I will not abandon a responsibility so lightly."
The secretary laughed. "Ah, Benvolio, do not give that idea more weight than is its due. You came here because Mercutio had need of you. He has need of you again, and I see in your eyes that the cause is yours as well as his. I have no mind to stand in the way of a true calling. Go with my blessings."
So Benvolio entered the bedchamber that evening to find Mercutio waiting for him. He shed his doublet, and then put his arms around Mercutio and drew him down to sit on the bed. "I have made my choice," he said.
"What hast thou decided?"
Benvolio took his lover's hands and held them. "My heart ached for thee when we were children, caro, when I saw thy misery at thy father's hands and knew no way to put an end to it. I was helpless then, but I am helpless no longer. If I could not save thee then, I can join with thee now to save other children from such a fate. I will join my fortune to that of this foundling home that we have worked together to build."
Mercutio smiled, and leaned in to kiss Benvolio. "Thy words are most welcome, and I am glad of thy choice," he said. "But thou art mistaken in one respect. Thou hast already saved me by thy love, and thou dost continue to do so to this day." He ran his fingers through Benvolio's hair, a gesture that never failed to send delicious shivers all up and down Benvolio's spine.
Very gently, Benvolio pushed Mercutio down onto the mattress as the hot blood began to sing in his veins. "Then let us carouse to the joining of our hearts and our fortunes," he murmured, his voice husky.
Mercutio, his eyes already beginning to grow dark and glassy, nodded his consent and reached for the laces of Benvolio's shirt.
Several days before Mercutio and Benvolio planned to open the orphanage, Romeo sent a message to the palace. After a long and frightening labor, Juliet had given birth to her second child, a daughter, almost a month early. The baby was small and had difficulty breathing. Uncle Tiberio had urged Romeo not to wait too long to have her christened. Romeo's message concluded by asking Mercutio and Benvolio to come directly to his house.
When they arrived, Friar Lawrence was already there, along with a young novice standing by to assist him. Juliet lay wan and pale in her bed, the midwife, her nurse, and her mother fussing over her. Marcello toddled around, crying because the adults in the room were afraid. Benvolio picked him up, and the nurse shot him a grateful look. Romeo asked Mercutio if he still wished to stand godfather to the new baby, and Mercutio agreed. Aunt Elvira arrived moments later, and agreed to stand godmother. Aunt Susanna placed the baby into her arms.
Friar Lawrence brought forth a small vial of holy water and began the christening. Romeo announced that the baby's name would be Olivia. With all due ceremony, Friar Lawrence welcomed Olivia into the faith. Aunt Elvira placed Olivia in Mercutio's arms, and Mercutio held her so that Marcello could greet his new sister. Romeo then returned his daughter to Juliet's arms, and the midwife shooed everyone out of the room so that Juliet and Olivia could rest.
Juliet was sick and weak for many days after the birth, and Olivia's health was precarious as well. Lady Capulet wondered if they ought to send Olivia off to a wet nurse in the countryside, but Aunt Susanna argued that the baby was not strong enough to travel. When Juliet's fever suddenly rose, Uncle Tiberio called Benvolio and Mercutio to come to Romeo's home quickly so that they might be at Romeo's side if the worst should happen.
A strange physician hurried in and out of Juliet's chamber, and Romeo sat outside, with Friar Lawrence at his side. When Romeo saw his cousin and his friend, he rose to his feet and stumbled forward to embrace them. The physician summoned Friar Lawrence into the bedchamber, and the three young men were left alone. They sat together in silence, for there was nothing to say. Benvolio put his arm around Romeo, and Mercutio held his hands tightly. The hours wore on.
"She is dying," Romeo moaned after a while. "My dearest beloved Juliet is dying, and I am left alone in a world grown cold."
"She is not dying," Mercutio said firmly. "She is fighting. Thy wife is stronger than she appears. Were she truly dying, the physician or Friar Lawrence would have summoned thee. They would not let her die without seeing thee one last time."
Romeo dropped his head into his hands. Benvolio sat up and looked around. "Where are our godchildren?" he asked. "Marcello and Olivia should be here to comfort their father in this time of need."
"They have long since been put to bed," Romeo said.
Mercutio stood up. "Then I shall fetch them out of bed," he replied, and strode away. Privately, Benvolio wondered if the children's nursemaids might not have something to say about that. However, it seemed that Mercutio's charm could still work its miracles, for he returned in short order carrying Olivia, with Marcello toddling after him, clutching at the ends of the sash that decorated Mercutio's doublet.
Romeo held out his arms, and Marcello crawled into them. Father and son embraced for a long moment, and then Mercutio carefully deposited Olivia in Romeo's lap. Olivia fussed for a moment, then fell asleep. A moment later, Marcello snuggled down against Romeo's side as well. Lulled by the weight and steady breathing of his children, Romeo finally bowed his head and slept. Benvolio dozed fitfully on the bench beside him. Whenever he woke, he saw Mercutio watching the door.
The physician came to them in the morning. The man looked exhausted, but his face showed no grief. "The lady Juliet's fever has finally broken," the physician told Romeo. "I believe that she will recover in good time. She has asked to see her lord and husband."
Romeo glanced at the ceiling and muttered a brief, heartfelt prayer, then handed Olivia to Benvolio. The physician smiled, and ushered him into the bedchamber. Marcello crawled into Mercutio's lap, and they waited for Romeo to emerge.
When he did, the news he brought was decidedly mixed. Juliet would survive, but her body had suffered from the strain of bearing two children at such a young age. The physician had advised Romeo that Juliet would likely never bear another child.
"That is not such a tragedy," Romeo told his friends. "I have a son and a daughter already, and I am content as long as they and their mother are spared to me."
"Then we must do what we can to care for them," Benvolio said. "They are doubly precious now." In his arms, Olivia woke up and began to fuss. Benvolio bade his cousin farewell and carried his little niece away in search of her wet nurse.
When Juliet had recovered her strength, Mercutio formally opened the Innocents' Hospital. Friar Lawrence blessed the building in a small ceremony that the Montague family and the Prince's household attended. The first innocents who dwelled in the home were a pair of infant twins who had been abandoned at the Franciscan abbey earlier in the month. The friars had cared for them until the Innocents' Hospital was ready to take them in. When the ceremony was over, Benvolio noted that the young monk who carried the babies in a basket had looked distinctly relieved as he handed the basket to one of the women engaged to care for the orphans.
"That is not so surprising, I think," Mercutio said. "Those men who devote their lives to the Church generally do not expect to find themselves caring for infants. Such a home as this is far better prepared for that task."
Benvolio picked up one of the twins from the basket and cradled the baby in his arms. "He is almost as beautiful as Marcello and Olivia," he said.
Mercutio smiled. "I wish that I could immortalize this moment. Thou dost look so joyful, it is as if thou hadst seen an angel from on high."
Benvolio returned the infant twin to the basket, and put an arm around Mercutio's waist. "I told Romeo once that I had only one regret when I chose thee, and that was that I would never have children," he said. "But now we have two, that we shall cause to be raised in love and safety."
Mercutio laughed. "We shall have far more than two, and we shall always have small children until the end of our lives. I hope that thou wilt not weary of them."
"Nay, never." Benvolio shook his head. "Who better than thou and I, who cannot create life between us, to appreciate these children as their own families could not?"
For almost a year, the twin boys, named Sebastian and Benedetto, were the only permanent residents of the Innocents' Hospital. Slowly, the beggar children of Verona began to explore the place. Mercutio instructed the cooks to provide simple meals for those children who arrived at appropriate times, and soon there was a regular contingent appearing around noon. Some came from families who sent them out to beg as a means of supplementing the family income, but some had been orphaned by accidents or disease, or had been abandoned by parents who either did not want them or could not care for them. These children began to linger at the home after they had finished their meals, and Friar John soon organized them for lessons.
The orphaned and abandoned children were no dullards, and when they were asked to remain as residents of the Home, they agreed readily. They received a basic education from Friar John, and most either began apprenticeships or went into service when they were old enough. Those children living at the Home helped to care for the babies and the gardens. In particular, Mercutio gave his father's orchard garden to the children. In exchange for taking care of the trees, the children were welcome to the fruit. Valentine laughed out loud when he heard about that.
"Father must be turning over in his crypt," he said. "He would beat us merely for looking at his fruit trees."
"That was not all that he did," Mercutio replied. "But those trees will find their fruit just as appreciated now as when Father guarded them with such an eagle eye."
The Innocents' Hospital had been established for roughly a year and a half when a small boy arrived at the door. He was nervous and on the verge of tears, and flinched away when the maid who greeted him tried to take his arm. Mercutio, upon hearing about the child, summoned Eliezer at once. Eliezer spent a full hour with the boy, of which, he reported, he had spent slightly more than half coaxing the child out from underneath the examination bed. He described a pattern of bruises and welts, both old and new, that he had found on the boy's body. Benvolio nodded sadly when he heard that, remembering the days when bruises had blossomed in similar patterns on Mercutio's body.
Mercutio and Eliezer immediately went to report the case to the Prince, and Benvolio instructed the nurses to make up a fresh bed for the little boy, whose name was Cardenio. The Prince agreed that Cardenio should stay at least one night at the Innocents' Hospital, and sent the Watch to locate and question the boy's family in the meantime.
Mercutio woke with a cry in the middle of the night, gasping that he had felt his father's hands on his body once more. Benvolio held him close, stroking his hair and murmuring soft nonsense until his trembling eased. "It was a dream, caro, nothing more," he said. "Thy father lies in his grave, and Cardenio is safe within the walls of the refuge that thou hast created from thy father's house."
Cardenio's father was livid at his son's flight, and demanded the boy's return. Escalus, showing more patience than Benvolio had expected, heard the man's arguments in full the next morning, and then denied his request. "You have used him worse than a beast of burden in your household, sir," Escalus said. "I am the Lord of this city, bound to give protection to all its citizens, even the youngest among them. Cardenio will stay at the Innocents' Hospital until such time as I deem it in his interest to leave."
When he heard the news, Mercutio threw his arms around Benvolio and cried out for joy. Escalus's words had set a precedent in Verona. From that day forward, the Innocents' Hospital would truly serve as a refuge not just for those children in desperate need of a family, but also for those in need of a place to which they could flee.