Swear Not by the Moon: Part One

August 12th
   

"O God, that man should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!"

"Merc," Romeo said, "you're coming out with us. Get up."

Mercutio didn't budge. He didn't want to go out. He didn't want to drink or fight or have a whore thrown in his lap. If he heard one more of his brother's thoughts on love or another piece of advice from his friends, he would hurl himself into the river. The only person he wanted to hear from was Paulina, and Paulina had cut short every attempt to throw himself on her mercy. What a fool he had been, to think he could take her up again in his own time! All that was left was to scour his mind for a brilliant scrap of an idea. He couldn't hear himself think over his friends' nattering. So, he remained silent on the bench and hoped they would leave him for dead.

"You're as bad as Paulina was - and she didn't know the jilt was coming."

Valentine shoved his older brother. "For God's sake, man, shut up." He knew Benvolio was trying to help. Valentine also knew his brother's brain had the uncanny habit of turning into a pile of rocks at the least opportune moments. "If he wants to stay here and pout, let him. It won't spoil our night. Come on."

"It won't spoil our night," Benvolio tittered a few hours later. "Cock."

The natural end to the night at the alehouse had come early. Romeo and his friends remained, alone with the staff in the wee hours, attached to the same stools they had sat down upon to begin the evening. Valentine was lingering over the same mug of ale he had started with, though he had duly paid the barmaid the worth of another each hour. Benvolio had slurped down whatever was put in front of him all night. If he had an ounce of sense in his power, it was purely by accident. Romeo himself had also gone screaming past his brim and perhaps for the better.

The rubbish night out hadn't provided much, but it had offered plenty of time for contemplation. Romeo had first spent it resenting his brother for staying at home and then moved on to dreading all of the Mercutio-free nights ahead if nothing changed. His brother was their group's leader, and they were lost without him. Once Romeo let his mind thing unselfishly, he came to a realization: Mercutio truly was in love with Paulina. Previously, Romeo had judged that relationship as lacking the passion that ought to come with any real love. Neither of them gave the impression they would die of unsatisfied passion, and the months of muddling through had seemed proof enough to Romeo. He was wrong. Curled up and insular, Mercutio had died as much as any fresh corpse. And, for all Romeo couldn't understand why, Paulina would be Mercutio's resurrection.

"Gentlemen," Romeo announced, "we have to fix this."

"You're damn right," Benvolio groaned. "The worst night I can remember."

"That isn't it, idiot. I'm saying we have to fix Merc and Paulina."

"Fix them?" Valentine turned his glance to Romeo. "How?"

Romeo admitted he didn't know. "I always thought it'd be the three of you having this conversation about me."

"Find a lady you have a prayer with and we might." Valentine hoped not. He had a hefty bet with Benvolio that Romeo would make it to twenty-five without once 'falling in love' with anyone attainable. "Hell, find Mercutio a lady he has a prayer with instead. He jilted her, and she feels it still."

Romeo bit his lip. Misery was the natural consequence of opening one's heart to a bread-and-water miss. True love wouldn't cling to rules, principles, or a register of injuries, he thought. But, if Paulina would fix Mercutio, then Paulina it had to be. "What if we convinced them to talk to each other?"

Benvolio swayed on his stool. "Let's crown you the new duke, too."

"Shut your mouth, else I'll do it for you."

"He's right, Romeo. She doesn't want to see him." Valentine waved off the barmaid's offer of refills.

"Then we need to change her mind. It can't be too difficult."

"Then why don't you do it?"

"Because I'm taking care of Merc." When Valentine protested, Romeo pushed harder. "Come on, Val. You're her favorite of any of us."

He rolled his eyes. "And I'll drop like a rock in her opinion if I go to her with this."

"Why? It's so bloody obvious." Annoyed, Romeo kicked the bar, nearly jolting himself off of his stool. "They weren't miserable together, but they're miserable apart. You get Paulina to see that, and I'll give Merc some pretty things to say to prove the point. Do it for them both."

"When this goes bottom-up, Romeo, just remember I told you this was a bullshit idea."

August 13th

As she added a bit of texture to the horse's mane, Paulina was surprised by how much she was enjoying painting. It took a great deal of ineptitude to escape a convent school without the ability to paint, draw, sing, sew, read, reason, and write. Of these, reading was Paulina's favorite by far. Painting was near the bottom. However, after trading her skill with a brush for inclusion in the theatrical society for so many months, Paulina found she missed the mind-numbing work.

Or perhaps it was the subject. At school, art had been limited to the divine or the delicate. The tapestry she was copying from memory today was a war scene. Paulina thought little of violence. However, recreating it was a cathartic experience for her. She could imagine Mercutio on the wrong end of the spear to come and, because it wasn't real, she didn't have to admit she wouldn't want him skewered.

There had been many days when she had. There had been days when she wanted someone skewered - herself, him, or both of them - just to create a new pain to distract from the old. When Mercutio had cracked her heart open, it hadn't birthed a new pain - it had reopened the old despair of abandonment. It hurt. It ached. But as she had done before, as she realized she may have to do again, she had survived. If she no longer wanted to repay the injury, that was her own business. 

An echo of boots on the wood floor in the corridor alerted Paulina to a visitor before the knock on her door. "Come in," she called.

Valentine slid into the room quickly and quietly, anxious not to be seen. Lately, his father had got it into his head that it would be natural to pair off Valentine and Paulina. Valentine wanted nothing to do with that scheme. After sleeping on last night's discussion, he was also quite wary of participating in Romeo's. "Good morning, coz. What are you painting?"

She sighed and put down her palette. "You can't recognize it?"

He stared at the canvas for several uncomfortable moments. Art was not his strong suit. "The tapestry in the hall, is it? You shouldn't take it as a criticism. I never liked art to begin with, and since I realized the rest of you see more colors than I do, I have liked it even less."

"I didn't know you can't see colors."

Of course not. Valentine's father had banned anyone from talking about it. Arlecchinos did not have defects, no matter how interesting and trivial. "I can see colors, but not all of them. I can't tell some of them apart. What looks like art to everyone else is a muddy mess to me. So, it's actually better if I can't tell what you're doing."

Smiling, she nodded her agreement. "If you say so. What can I do for you?"

He wished she hadn't smiled. If he didn't have a scrap of belief in the object of the plan, if not the plan itself, he would have made something up and left. She didn't deserve to be part of a scheme. "I wanted to know if you would consider hearing Mercutio out."

Instantly, Paulina's aura darkened. "Did he put you up to this? I told him last week, and I'll tell you now: no. I have no interest in anything he has to say."

"Paulina." Valentine leaned to block her from picking up her palette. "Paulina, he's completely miserable."

"Then let him be miserable." Paulina trembled from the effort of sounding disinterested. How many weeks - months, in truth - had she spent hoping he would feel an ounce of regret? It had gone on too long now. Faced with the choice of dying of her agony or healing herself with ice, she had chosen to heal. She wished that she had chosen earlier now, that she might be frozen over. Paulina fought to keep her heels dug in. "He was well enough when he told me that he couldn't waste any more of his time on me."

"Is that what he said? Coz, tell me." Valentine thought his face would ache from the strain of disbelief.

She had never told anyone exactly what Mercutio had said. At least when she had been told that her mother had died, she had been told with tact and care. Being jilted by Mercutio hadn't been half as tender. The words still made her stomach quake, but she was determined to say them. "He told me he had been distracted from the important parts of his life, and that he had to refocus his attention accordingly. He was very sorry that this meant our friendship would lapse."

Valentine had to swallow his surprise. How could Mercutio, who could dance around a point of logic like a pixie, ever let down a lady by smashing her with a brick? And how could he expect that lady wouldn't rather smash him than take him back? "I didn't know."

Because you never asked. The thought struck her as unfair; she kept it to herself. "I think you will now understand why I don't want to hear any more of his reasons."

"I do. I do." The prospects of this scheme were slim now, and Valentine couldn't say he thought it should be otherwise. Mercutio had been an utter ass to her and then silent for months. Going back for more was a mark of insanity. And yet... "But," he added in a hesitant tone, "weren't you happy before then?"

"If you are trying to lay guilt on me, don't," she warned him. Her demeanor was cracking under the strain.

"On my soul, Paulina, I am not."

"Then why-"

"Because he's miserable, and even if you aren't miserable, you aren't happy. You were both happy before." Paulina huffed at this reminder, prompting Valentine to take up a different strategy. "Coz, I've known him all my life. The most evil part of his character is being the firstborn son. Heirs think they should always get their way, better or worse, and that they don't have to explain themselves until everything goes bottom-up. I would bet my last copper he thought he had a reason."

Paulina shook her head. "If he did, he ought to have been honest with me then. I would have done anything he asked. That can't be so anymore." Her eyes blinked rapidly, and she prayed she wasn't about to cry. "I have to protect myself."

"I'll protect you, if you want. If he does anything you don't like, I'll slice him from neck to navel." The vow was one Valentine immediately prayed he wouldn't have to keep. Mercutio slicing him open was the far more likely outcome of personal combat.

Paulina shook with frustration. "That isn't the issue, Valentine. You aren't listening to me." All of the old anguish was rising up in her, along with all of her old wishes for things to go back to how they were. She had to be alone. "Now, I would like to be alone." To prevent any more discussion, she forced herself to add, "I would like to... to think on what you said."

"If you don't want-"

"Please, just go now." She was prepared to push him out of the room if he didn't oblige. After a hesitant moment, he did. Paulina hurried to the door and turned the lock under the handle. It was a silly precaution. Nobody had come in all the other times she had cried, and that wouldn't change. There were only two people she had ever expected such consideration from since her mother died. One was her grandmother, who was at home on her estate, far out of reach.

The other was Mercutio.

Next Post: "Such is my love, to thee I so belong, that for thy right myself will bear all wrong."