“Well, this same should be the voice of Friar John!” my friend boomed, and I heard the two men give fraternal embrace. “Welcome from Mantua. . . . What says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.”

I peered around the corner of the screen, and saw a monk as thin as Friar Lawrence was round; he was older, with wisps of white hair circling his tonsured crown. He had a beaming look on his face that clouded over as my friend spoke, and by the end of it, he was as penitent as a tardy schoolboy.

“I went to find a barefoot brother of our order to accompany me to Mantua,” he said. “And I found him here in the city visiting the sick, but the searchers of the town, suspecting that we were both in a house of infectious pestilence, sealed up the doors and would not let us go forth. So, you see, my passage to Mantua has not yet begun.” He spread his hands in helpless apology.

I watched the hard truth dawn on my friar’s face. “Who bore my letter, then, to Romeo?”

Friar John searched quickly within his robes. “I could not send it—here it is again.” He handed over the sealed message with an apologetic smile. “Nor could I get a messenger to deliver it back, so fearful were they of infection.”

“Unhappy fortune,” Friar Lawrence said, and his distress almost crumpled the note in his hand. “This letter was no simple greeting, but full of import, and neglecting it may do much damage. . . . Friar John, find me an iron crowbar and bring it hence.”

“An . . . iron crowbar?” Friar John’s mystified face would have been funny to see in any less dire situation.

“Yes, yes, go!”

“I will go and bring it.”

He left, much speeded by the obvious distress of Friar Lawrence, and I came out behind the screen and put the mug aside.

Friar Lawrence met my eyes with mute horror for a moment, and then said, “I must to the monument alone, then—within three hours will fair Juliet wake. She will be angry that Romeo does not come to greet her, but I will write again to Mantua and keep her here, in my cell, until Romeo comes.”

No more sunny smiles, no more all will be well . . . he was afraid now; I could see it in the tight lines of his eyes and mouth, and the wretched washing motions of his hands.

“I will go with you,” I said.

He did not look so much relieved. His thoughts were far from me. “Poor living corpse,” he said softly. “Closed in a dead man’s tomb.”

I prayed she would not wake to know it, but already I could sense the darkness of the day spinning darker still.

QUARTO
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