Prince of Shadows: A Novel of Romeo and Juliet Read Online Free PDF Page B

went to the window and lifted the catch, and then gazed for a moment in silence.
    Mercutio laughed breathlessly as he dangled precariously over a three-story fall to hard stone. “Well?” he gasped out. “Stab me or let me in, fool; I’m seconds from testing my wings!”
    I held out my left hand and took his, and pulled him over the sill. He turned his slithering entrance into a tumbler’s roll and bounced to his feet. There was a sense of trembling joy about Mercutio; I climbed walls purely as a matter of necessity, but he seemed to delight in tempting death. His cat-sharp face was alight, dark eyes wickedly gleaming, and he tossed his loose curls back from his face and saluted Romeo with casual elegance. “I hear there is dire trouble afoot,” Mercutio said, and took a seat at the table with us. He held up his hand without looking, and Balthasar—well versed in the ways of my friends—placed a full wine cup into it. “How unexpected that is!”
    “How did you do that?” Romeo asked. He went to the open window and leaned out, examining the sheer stone wall. “Maybe you really can fly.”
    “I had an excellent teacher,” Mercutio said, and winked at me. “Ben, did you know your too-sly servant is plying me with your best vintage?”
    “Hardly the best. He knows better than to serve the best to the worst,” I said. “Montague has a front door; were you aware?”
    He shrugged and drank deeply. “Boring,” he said. “Did you know that by my climbing walls in public view, half the city believes I’m the legendary Prince of Shadows? It greatly enhances my legend.” He sent me a sideways glance, acknowledging the irony. “And besides, how am I to keep in practice for these small intrigues if I simply walk up and announce myself?”
    “By all means, use my family walls at any time to hone your skills. Should the hired bravos see you, you’ll also get practice in dodging arrows.”
    “A benefit I will treasure. Now, whom are we here to conspire against?”
    “Poetry,” I said. “Namely, Romeo’s poetry.”
    “Is it
that
bad?”
    “Inadvisably sent, at the least.”
    “Oh, my,” Mercutio said, and smiled slowly, full of delight. “These verses must be scandalous. Stuffed with humiliating details, I presume.”
    “Worse. They’re signed.”
    He whistled. “Well. I salute you, Romeo. You don’t go halves when you plunge into the maelstrom. What else?”
    “They’re inside the Capulet palace.”
    Mercutio stopped whistling at that. Stopped laughing, too. He went as quiet as he ever did, although there was still a faint vibration in him; he was never completely still. “Surely retrieving them is not on your mind.” I’d burgled the Capulet house only a few months ago; there were unbreakable rules to my secret life, and one was to never visit the same enemy again after they’d been so badly embarrassed. Their smugness would have turned to rank suspicion. I would triple my risks.
    “My grandmother says we must have them back,” Romeo said. “If they’re discovered, my name and the lady’s will be filthy jokes in the square. Worse, she’ll be punished. Badly punished.”
    “A Capulet? Why do we vex ourselves with that? Never a Capulet born who didn’t deserve to suffer; I’ve heard all of Montague say it often enough.”
    “Not Rosaline,” said Romeo. “She is kind, and good, and beautiful. You’ve seen her, Mercutio. Is she not wonderful fair?”
    “Wonderful,” Mercutio said without enthusiasm. “Her eyes are two of the brightest-shining stars in all the heavens, et cetera. . . . Ben, good or bad, the girl’s a Capulet, and her danger is her own affair.”
    “True,” I said—also without enthusiasm. “But there is Romeo’s reputation to consider.”
    “Ah, me. How many of these florid declarations did he pen?”
    “Six,” I said.
    “Perhaps seven,” Romeo amended. He sounded properly abashed about it, as the night wore on and his wine did not. “It was not wise,