I Am Juliet Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Prince really put anyone who fights to death?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes.’ Tybalt lifted his rapier from its scabbard. It shone in the sun from the window. He lunged, so suddenly his dog barked, then laughed as he put the rapier back. It was not a pleasant laugh. ‘I must exercise with shadow Montagues instead of their rat-like hides.’
    I smiled, as he had meant me to. It was easy to smile this morning. The Prince was right. Peace was better than battles with cabbages, than severed heads thrown into gardens. I would be nobility, above squabbles in the alleys and marketplace. My son would be an earl one day, as well as head of the House of Capulet,far above any Montague! But I hoped my father had promised Tybalt that he would always be a valued member of our house. Today I hoped the whole world could be happy.
    Nurse pulled my hand. ‘Come on, my dearie. It will take two hours to get you ready, though indeed I’ve had your betrothal dress ready these two years … The flies will get the banquet first if we don’t hurry.’
    Tybalt bowed. I walked away with Nurse, then stopped. My lovebird lay in the corridor, its neck snapped.
    Nurse whistled for a footman, who carried the small corpse away. He said nothing. Nor did Nurse, or not about the bird.
    I stood while the Joans stripped my clothes off me and washed me again. The new shift they slipped over my head was silk, not linen. Over it went a corset to nip in my waist, then a hoop skirt of arched whalebone, and a yellow silk petticoat. The Joans sewed on the yellow sleeves, then fastened a jewelled stomacher on an overgown of red velvet and scarlet lace. More stitching now, for slashed oversleeves to show the yellow underneath, and then still more sleeves, slashed even more and embroidered with pearls, and a half-ruff of white, sewn about my neck.
    My feet ached from standing still while they worked on me. I had never seen these clothes before. My mother must have ordered them for just such a day.
    Nurse arranged my mother’s pearls in three strands around my neck and bosom; then pearl rings and earrings and another strand about my waist. It took hours to dress as a lady should for company, and at least five hundred pins and stitches. Today it seemed there were two thousand.
    Now they worked on my hair, brushing it with rose oil to make it shine, curling tongs at the front, and then a French net, with pearls too. Then they began on my face: red wax on my lips, kohl about my eyes, making a Juliet fit to be the Earl of Paris’s bride.
    The Earl of Paris! Could I love him, as my mother had asked? Had the Earl of Paris fallen in love with me, like Guigemar had with the Queen?
    I shook my head. What was love, except the duty one owed one’s parents and one’s husband? Dreams were just that: shadows of the night.
    No, I would have a noble husband, and a household of my own. My father would not choose a cruel man for me, nor a stupid one to inherit his estates. I would be well contented with his choice. To be mistress of my own home! My mother would find me a trustworthy steward; I would have my household running like oiled silk. Nurse would come with me, of course, and the Joans. I glanced at them. They were as flushed as if my good fortune was theirs too — which in many ways it was.
    ‘There you are,’ said Nurse, ‘as fair as a singing bird. Though to be sure a singing bird is not always fair. I saw one once that had lost quite half his feathers …’
    I kissed her to shut her up, then lifted my skirts to run along the gallery, not wanting to be late. Nurse followed me to the terrace, then stopped.
    I turned to her. I had never in my life gone anywhere without my nurse. She smiled at me, and brushed at a tear. For once her flood of words had vanished.
    ‘Go on, my little lamb,’ she whispered. ‘You will be a woman now.’
    I lifted up my skirts again and crossed the terrace, my head high, feeling the pebbles of the path under my slippers. I walked alone along the