I had never spoken to Tomasso. The only knowledge I had of him was from Mercutio’s lips, who’d spoken of his kindness, his warmth, his intelligence, his passion for God and learning. He did not struggle when they pulled him roughly to his feet, nor when they fitted the noose around his neck.

Mercutio tried to save him. I could not hear the words, but I knew he was telling his father anything, everything to spare the boy’s life, trying with all his skill and wit and charm; when he started to raise his voice, to beg whether others might hear, his father ordered a belt passed around his throat, and had him choked just enough to silence him. Romeo was weeping to see it, and it was all I could do to hold him back. And myself, God help me.

Mercutio could not even scream as they hauled on the rope and pulled Tomasso from his knees, and then his feet.

It was not a large tree they hanged the boy from. I don’t know why that bothered me so, that it was so small, so pathetic, because the branch was sturdy enough to bear his slight weight when they pulled him up, and though his toes kicked just a few inches above the ground, it was enough; it would serve as well as a mighty height.

It took a horribly long time to be finished, and Romeo wavered as if he might be sick, until I hissed in his ear, “If they see you flinch, they’ll turn on us, too.” The mood of the onlookers was gleeful, not solemn; they cheered when Tomasso swung, and threw stones at him as he twisted and died. I wanted desperately to kill them, kill them all, but I hung on to my cousin in grim fury and let none of that show. You’ve cold milk in your veins, Mercutio had accused me, but I was all fire and ash now, and hardly holding it in. No one had yet recognized me, or Romeo, and if they did our station might not save us; we were Mercutio’s close companions, and in the heat of this awful frenzy, that would be enough to see us beaten or killed. It would destroy the Ordelaffi family, but likely politics was not on their minds just now.

I thought they might hang Mercutio after, but instead they left him weeping and bloody on the dirt, fingers plunged deep in the soil as if he wished to bury himself in it.

Lord Ordelaffi said a few words to his chief servant, then stalked off with most of his attendants, heading for the walls. He wiped his son’s blood from his hands with a silk cloth, and left it lying soiled at the side of the road. One of the peasants scurried over to retrieve it. The blood would wash out, and silk was precious.