Why would they not? The parish bells toll it. The holymen and noblemen who don mourning bands and accompany the gold- and fur-trimmed bier pay solemn tribute to it. The poor huddled on the benches placed to line the cortege route earn their coin by witnessing it. And Lady Cappelletta and I peer down from the sala windows, watching all of it. Roused by Lord Cappelletto and dressed in a silk mourning gown covered by a vair and ermine mantle, a ruby necklace newly clasped to set off her garnet cross, with sapphire rings on every finger and a gold-and-sapphire garland in her hair, Lady Cappelletta dutifully rent and wept and caterwauled during the long hours of the vigil. Cursing the Montecchi and mourning the twin loss of Tybalt and the samite gown, mayhap, if not Juliet. I let my grief for Tybalt swell to tears as well, so none would wonder why I’d not cry over my nursling’s seeming corpse. But as the death knell tolls, the procession candles burn, and the cortege snakes away from Ca’ Cappelletti leaving us behind, our eyes are dry, and our words are few.
