3. A Man Of Wax

As he walked into the ghetto for the second time in four days, Paris decided that, if this was not quite the most tumultuous week of his life, it was certainly the strangest. On Sunday, he had thought his heart would burst with delight when Leonardo Capulet had all but promised him Juliet's hand in marriage. That happiness had lasted but a single day, and Paris had spent the remainder of the week walking about in a fog of bewilderment, not quite able to comprehend how he had lost his betrothed lady and his sense of place in the world so suddenly.

At least he had not lost his cousin. Mercutio had been horribly pale and wracked with pain the last time that Paris had seen him, in the house of a Jewish surgeon whom Paris had never met and whose very existence he had never suspected. It was incredible enough that one of the Jews in Verona had been revealed as a surgeon, but his skills had put those of the Italian surgeons to shame. Against all the odds, Mercutio had survived a wound that should have killed him, and Valentine had reported that Mercutio improved a little each day. Amazed and relieved, Paris tore himself from his own private misery to witness his cousin's miraculous recovery for himself.

He remembered the way to the surgeon's home with no prompting, and managed a wry smile at that. Who would have suspected that the ghetto would become such familiar territory to him? When he knocked on the door, a young servant bowed politely to usher him inside, and one of the surgeon's sons escorted him to a door cunningly concealed behind a tapestry.

When Paris had been small, his nurse had frightened him into good behavior by telling him stories of the evil Jews who would kidnap mischievous little boys and carry them off to strange, foul-smelling chambers to cook and eat them. When Paris had first entered the surgeon's home the day after the horrible street fight, he had been relieved, if slightly disappointed, to find that the place smelled exactly like any gentle home in the city. However, the sight of the surgery chamber, with its menacing implements and the table all draped in white like a sacrificial altar, might have confirmed Paris's childhood fears if he had not seen Mercutio sitting up in a chair near the couch.

Mercutio looked wan and weary, and was wrapped in a large shawl beneath which Paris could see the bandages that swathed his chest. But he was sitting up, and that was something that Paris had hardly dared to hope to see. Relief flooded through him, mingled with an undercurrent of anger. Paris carefully pushed the anger away, and went to Mercutio, embracing him gently so as not to disturb his healing wounds.

Mercutio tolerated the embrace for a moment, then squirmed, and Paris released him. "What, wilt thou not scold?" Mercutio asked with a smile. "Art thou truly my cousin, or art thou an impostor?"

In spite of himself, Paris laughed as he sat down on the couch near Mercutio's chair. "No impostor," he said. "In truth, I have thought of a dozen ways to scold thee, but in my joy at seeing thee alive, I find that I can recall none of them."

Mercutio's smile wavered, and he looked uncertain. "And in thy sorrow as well?" he asked. "I have heard that thy marriage has been canceled."

Paris bit his lip. "Ay. But nothing may change that, so thou needst not concern thyself."

"Art thou not angered? Thou hast spoken of little else save thy impending betrothal for a fortnight. When Romeo came to me with the news that he had wedded thy bride, I thought that --"

"Well, do not think." Paris pressed his lips together and swallowed. "Juliet is happy, and that is all that I would have wished for her."

Mercutio gave a small shrug. "As thou wilt."

The treacherous voice inside Paris's heart silently cursed at Mercutio for mentioning Juliet. After Paris had worked so hard to accept the girl's choice, he was horrified to find that the anger and disappointment still raged within him. Before he could stop himself, some of it leaked out. "What has possessed thee, Mercutio?" he snapped. "Why didst thou defy Uncle's express command and fight her cousin in the street?"

"Because the King of cats taunted Romeo where all eyes could see and all ears could hear," Mercutio shot back. "I had thought that thou didst know that much of honor, at least."

"Ay, I know as much of honor as any gentleman. But what of the law?" Paris asked. "Uncle did expressly forbid dueling in the streets."

"He did not. He forbade dueling between the houses of Montague and Capulet. I am neither."

Paris rolled his eyes and bit back a sharp retort. Mercutio's wounds were likely still painful, he reminded himself, and Mercutio had been confined to a room in a strange house for several days. It was no wonder that his temper was fraying. Paris, older and wiser, would have to be the one to keep the conversation polite.

"Still," he said, in his most reasonable tone, "it was a law. Hast thou no respect for the laws of this city?"

Mercutio scowled at him, then glanced away. "I respect no law that harms those governed by it," he admitted.

Paris could not stifle a little gasp of horror. Where did one even begin when addressing such a dangerous statement as that? It was an attitude that would inevitably lead Mercutio to death either by sword in the street or on the executioner's scaffold, sentencing his soul at the very least to a near-eternity in Purgatory, if not directly to Hell itself. He tried to swallow his terror at the thought of what seemed to be his cousin's ongoing mad quest for damnation. Perhaps, in the wake of such a near-fatal accident, there was still a chance to save him.

"That is not thy place to decide," he said. "Wiser heads than thine have made the law, and it is for thine own weal that thou must obey."

"For mine own weal?" Mercutio's head suddenly flopped forward, and his shoulders began to tremble. Horrified, Paris leaped from the couch, and had rushed to kneel at Mercutio's side before he realized that Mercutio was laughing at him.

"Mine own weal?" Mercutio gasped. "Paris, thou art meant to be clever. Has the loss of thy bride addled thy brains completely?"

"Tread with care," Paris said, though he could not quite force any menace into his voice.

As was his wont, Mercutio ignored the warning. "My tutor tells me constantly that thou shouldst serve as a model for my studies," he said. "Therefore be so. Use thy vaunted brains and tell me, when has obeying a law ever given me benefit?"

"What should I tell thee?" Paris retorted. "Thou dost not obey laws. Thou dost run wild in the streets, more like unto a beast than a man."

"That is because I know what the laws of men cannot do!" Mercutio cried, then crumpled back in his chair as a grimace of pain swept over his face. Paris reached out to him, but Mercutio shook his hand away. "The law tells me that I must obey my father's commands. I obeyed that law, and my father, through the years of my childhood, as a good son must, and I gained nothing by it save hurt and shame."

He refused to meet Paris's eyes. Silently, Paris cursed himself. He had so rarely had cause to associate with his Aunt Donatella's husband that he had forgotten just how brutish the man had been. A terrible memory of Mercutio standing in their uncle's study, pale and trembling, his hose stained with blood, flashed in Paris's mind, and he quickly shoved it away. "I am sorry," he offered. "I forgot for a moment."

Mercutio nodded. "Thou canst forget," he said. "How I envy thee. But now I tell thee true, it has only been in the breaking of the law that my weal was served. It was not lawful to flee my father's house, nor to kidnap my brother as I went, but our lives were saved by that misdeed. It was not lawful to demand that the ghetto might be opened past curfew to admit the surgeon's daughter, but it is for that misdeed that Eliezer remembered me in my hour of distress."

Paris swallowed. "Perhaps," he suggested, "if thou wouldst make some effort to obey the laws that men have enacted for thy sake, thou might find thyself with fewer hours of distress."

This was met not with mockery or laughter, as Paris had expected. Instead, Mercutio raised his eyebrows, interested, but also skeptical. "Wilt thou be my model, then?" he asked, genuinely curious. "Thou dost obey every rule that thou dost encounter. Are thy hours of distress so few?"

Paris opened his mouth, intending to affirm that statement. But something in Mercutio's weary, open expression demanded complete honesty. So Paris closed his mouth and began to consider what his twenty-three years of law-abiding existence had brought him.

His first memory was of being three years old, and of meeting Giacomo Rinuccini's kinsmen when they traveled from Mantua to attend Rinuccini's wedding to Aunt Donatella. On the request of his nurse, Paris had shared his beloved hobby horse with Claudio Borsa, a guest only a year his senior. Claudio had refused to return the toy, but had played with it until it broke. At twelve years old, Paris had obeyed his tutor's orders to spend a lovely summer's day studying indoors. The terror of scrambling for shelter as an earthquake rocked the house had never left him. He had honored and loved his father and his mother until he was fifteen, when their deaths from the plague, within hours of each other, had torn his heart from his chest. His efforts at nineteen to establish his proper authority over his younger cousins had earned him nothing more than a series of quarrels with Mercutio that he wished he had not had. And finally, his proper, decorous courtship of Juliet had ended ignominiously with Romeo whisking her away beneath his nose.

With no small sense of astonishment, Paris realized that his efforts at obedience had brought him very little. His good behavior had always won him the approval of the adults in his life, but that was all. The promised reward had never quite managed to appear.

Well, that was what Heaven was for, was it not? The priests had told Paris just that, as he mourned over his parents' grave. They had shed their earthly cares and were even now receiving the joy of all that had been denied to them in life, including the knowledge that their son was a good, godly, and obedient child. It had been cold comfort, but Paris had taken it eagerly. He was the good son, and that knowledge had sustained him through the disappointments of his life.

He squared his shoulders and faced Mercutio. "I have had my hours of distress," he said. "But as it is said, virtue is its own reward, and the virtuous will find favor in Heaven."

But as lovely and proper as this speech was, it, too, failed to bring Paris the response he desired. Mercutio's expression hardened. "Perhaps I should have died after the first time that I allowed my father to rob me of my innocence," he spat.

For a moment, Paris thought that Mercutio had spoken simply to shock and challenge him. But one look at the distress in his cousin's eyes convinced him otherwise. As terrible as his words were, Mercutio apparently meant them in all sincerity. Horrified, Paris seized his hands.

"Oh, Mercutio, no," he breathed. "Speak not of such a death, not so soon after thy life has been spared."

"Why should I not? Perhaps thou art correct, and my life should not have been spared this time. Perhaps it is better to die and to cease troubling this world with my existence."

Paris's vision blurred, and his nose stung. Hastily, he blinked the tears away. "Do not speak thus, Mercutio, or I must fear that thou wouldst fly in the face of God and turn thine own hand against thyself."

Mercutio gave a bitter little laugh. "What, wilt thou quote another law to me that I must disobey?"

Of course, it had been precisely the wrong thing to say. Paris closed his eyes and felt fresh tears about the lashes as he struggled to find the words that he desired. "Not a law, Mercutio, but the most solemn plea of thy kinsman."

Mercutio said nothing. Paris opened his eyes and was heartened to see Mercutio studying him intently. "I pray thee, Mercutio, listen and hear my words," he said, not even trying to disguise the emotion in his voice. "I know that we have had our differences, and I admit that a part of the fault is mine, and I am most truly sorry for that. I fear that I have been remiss in other quarters as well."

"In what quarters?"

"In those quarters that perhaps thou didst have most need of," Paris admitted. "I fear that thou knowest not how much I care for thee. Thou wast the first babe that ever I did hold in my arms, and I fancied that thou couldst be a small brother to me."

Mercutio's eyebrows shot up at that, and the ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. "I am no one's small brother," he said.

Paris had to smile in return. "I know that now. Thou didst scold me oft enough for treating thee so when first thou and I did dwell together beneath Uncle's roof. In time, I do learn."

Mercutio dropped his gaze and tried to look away, but Paris commanded his attention with a squeeze of his hands. "I will not treat thee as a small brother again. But thou must know that I care for thee, and that thou dost strike terror deep into my soul when thou dost act with such reckless abandon as thou didst show on Monday. If thou wilt not exercise some prudence for the sake of thine own skin, perhaps thou might do it for me, or for Valentine. We would not lose thee, and we would not live in fear all the days of our lives."

"I shall obey no law that will harm me," Mercutio declared, though his tone was less defiant than his words.

"I shall not ask thee to do so," Paris assured him. "I ask only that thou might, on occasion, think before thou dost act, and consider if the law that thou wouldst flout would truly harm thee."

Mercutio considered this proposition for a time, then nodded. "But I shall extract a promise of thee in return," he said.

"What wouldst thou have?"

"If I am to examine the laws that I would flout, then thou must examine the laws that thou wouldst obey," Mercutio said. "If thou dost eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou dost gain the knowledge of good and evil, even if thou art cast from Paradise as a result."

Now it was Paris's turn to draw back in surprise. "Wouldst thou have me cast forth from Paradise, then?" he asked.

Mercutio laughed, genuinely and without rancor. "Ay. Paradise is dull and unchanging, and it is surely no place for a man of strength and vigor. If thou dost take a chance, thou wilt lose some thing. But what wouldst thou gain? Thou wilt recall that Romeo took a chance."

That was true, though Paris blushed to admit it to himself. And, now that he recalled some hushed conversation that he had overheard between his uncle and the first gentleman of the bedchamber, he suspected that Romeo's timid little kinsman Benvolio had taken an even greater chance. Paris knew not whether that risk would pay in the end; certainly Mercutio would not wish to discuss it with him just yet. But if Romeo could whisk a maid away from her family on a whim, and Benvolio could put his life and soul on the line, then surely Paris might find some small venture upon which to wager his reputation.

"I shall seek another bride," he heard himself say. "And I shall approach her and not her father."

He was just petty enough to be thrilled at Mercutio's mildly startled response to that statement. But then Mercutio smiled approvingly. "I wish thee luck in thy venture," he said. "I shall look forward to dancing at thy nuptials."

Paris grinned and reached out to ruffle Mercutio's hair. "Thou mayst dance only if thou art fully healed," he said, "and thou must rest if thou wouldst heal. Therefore promise me that thou wilt obey this rule and take thy rest."

"Only if thou dost promise me to take thy risk while I take thy rest."

Paris nodded. "Ay. I will do so. And I will be married, and thou wilt dance again." He rose to his feet and gently guided Mercutio from the chair to the couch. Mercutio lay down with only a small grunt of pain, and Paris covered him with a blanket. Their conversation, though enlightening, had also been draining, and Mercutio fell asleep only a few minutes later.

Paris smoothed his hand over his cousin's hair one last time, then walked out of the surgery chamber, closing the door behind him. He took his leave of Eliezer, then walked out, determined to face the world with bold countenance.

END

Afterword: Many thanks to those who have read and enjoyed this story! Lots of air cleared in a series of painful conversations, but I think that they were conversations that needed to happen. I liked having the opportunity to use perspectives that I hadn't used before, and listening to these characters' voices has definitely given me more insight into the way they think, which might prove useful in the future.