SCENE 18
Alexander shadowed me up three flights of stairs. The ballroom stretched skyward from the fourth floor to the fifth, with a long balcony and a sparkling glass atrium that stabbed up at the moon.
The Christmas masque was traditionally spectacular, and the winter of 1997 was no exception. The marble floors had been polished to such a high shine that the partygoers might as well have been walking on mirrors. Weeping fig trees, which grew out of deep square planters in each corner, were bedecked with tiny white lights and strands of ribbon and wire that sent flashes of gold darting around the room. The chandeliers—strung on thick chains that stretched from wall to wall ten feet above the balcony—let a warm glow fall across the crowded floor. Tables cluttered with bowls of punch and platters of tiny hors d’oeuvres lined the west wall, and the students who had already arrived clustered around them like moths around a lantern. Everyone was dressed their absolute best, though their faces were hidden—the boys all in white bauta masks, the girls in small black morettas. (Our masks were overwhelmingly elaborate by comparison, made to stand out in a sea of blank, anonymous faces.) The orchestral students had gathered on one side of the room with their instruments, sheet music propped up on elegant silver music stands. A waltz—airy and beautiful—swelled under the ceiling.
As soon as we entered, heads turned toward us. Alexander went immediately forward into the crowd, a tall imposing figure in black and silver and serpentine green. I lingered at the door, waited for the staring to subside, and then began a slow, inconspicuous walk around the edge of the room. I searched for sparks of color, hoping to spot James, or Filippa, or Meredith. As on Halloween, we didn’t know how it would begin. Expectation vibrated in the room like an electrical current. My hand rested on the hilt of the knife in my belt. I’d spent two hours on Tuesday afternoon with Camilo, learning the combat of the play’s first duel. Who was Tybalt, and where had he hidden himself? I was ready.
The orchestra fell silent, and almost immediately a voice called out from the balcony, “The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.”
Two girls—both third-years, I thought—were leaning out of the balcony on the east wall, plain silver half masks hiding their eyes, their hair drawn tightly back from their faces. They were dressed as boys, in breeches, boots, and doublets.
“’Tis all one,” the second one said. “I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids, and cut off their heads.”
“The heads of the maids?”
“Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.”
They affected bawdy, masculine laughter, which was enthusiastically rejoined by the onlookers below. I watched and wondered how best to enter to stop their dispute. But as Abraham and Balthasar (also third-year girls) entered on the ballroom floor, Gregory and Sampson swung their legs over the balcony wall and began to climb down the nearest column, fingers gripping tightly in the greenery wound around it. As soon as they touched the floor, one of them whistled, and the two Montague servants turned. The biting of thumbs—accompanied by more indulgent laughter—turned quickly to an argument.
Gregory: “Do you quarrel, sir?”
Abraham: “Quarrel, sir! No, sir.”
Sampson: “If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man as you.”
Abraham: “No better.”
Sampson: “Yes, better, sir.”
Abraham: “You lie!”
They dissolved into a clumsy four-way duel. The audience (pushed back now to the edges of the room) watched in keen delight, laughing and cheering their favorites. I waited until I felt the fight was ripe to be interrupted, then ran forward, drew my own dagger, and drove the girls apart. “Part, fools!” I said. “Put up your swords; you know not what you do.”
They fell back, panting hard, but the next voice came ringing from the opposite end of the room. Tybalt.
“What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? / Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.”
I wheeled around. The crowd had parted around Colin, who stood staring at me through the eyes of a black and red mask, the sides cut sharply back from his cheekbones, angular and reptilian, like dragons’ wings.
Me: “I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.”
Colin: “What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word,
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward!”
Colin charged at me, and we crashed together like a pair of gamecocks. We lunged and parried until the four girls threw themselves into the fray, jeered on by the hundreds of masked students watching. I took an elbow to the chin and fell heavily to the floor on my back. Colin was on top of me in an instant, reaching for my throat, but I knew Escalus would arrive in time to forestall my strangulation. He—or, rather, she—appeared at the top of the balcony stairs in staggering royal splendor.
“Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, / Profaners of this neighbor-stainèd steel— / Will they not hear?”
On the contrary, we all ceased squabbling at once. Colin let go of me, and I rolled onto my knees, gazing up at Meredith in mute amazement. She looked no less a prince than one of us boys would have—rich red hair tied back in a long braid, shapely legs hidden in high leather boots, face shielded by a white mask that shimmered as if it had been dipped in stardust. A floor-length cape swept the stairs behind her as she descended.
Meredith: “What ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground
And hear the sentence of your movèd prince!”
We obediently threw our daggers down.