Beatrice and Benedick Read Free Page B

still, I am not half done. Yes, he is a Moor. What of it?’
    â€˜Well. It is only that … All infidels were cleansed from the island. I thought all Moors had been driven from Sicily.’
    â€˜Not this one.’
    â€˜Was he like other men?’ she asked curiously.
    â€˜Not at all. In form and in all other ways, he was vastly superior. Now do me.’
    I turned, but not before I could enjoy my little cousin’s expression. ‘Beatrice!’
    â€˜Yes?’ I was all innocence.
    â€˜Moors are …
savages.
Surely the lady is in danger.’ Hero’s little fingers pulled fiercely at my lacings.
    â€˜Do not repeat the follies of your parrot-teacher elders.’ I tried to express what I had seen on the beach, the couple’s intimacy, their partnership. ‘There is love in the case, and nobility, and respect.’
    The fingers stopped. ‘They are
married
?’
    â€˜They are.’
    â€˜I did not know that white and black could wed.’
    â€˜So now you do. I can tell your aunt, with good conscience, that I have contributed to your education. Now hurry; call Orsola to you and Margherita for me, for no one plaits my hair as well as she.’
    We dressed quickly, in our favourite colours – coral for Hero, blue for me – all the time with our eyes on the sea road. Orsola, Hero’s old wet nurse, was a talker, and answered our questions before they were asked. ‘Their leader is a prince of Aragon, Don Pedro. Owns a big bite of Spain, and has the ear of the Spanish king hisself. All gold from crown to spurs, and a handsome fellow too. With him are some nobles of the north, who joined his train at Venice, come to stay a full month in his court.’
    Margherita, Orsola’s daughter, was Hero’s milk-sister, and despite the difference in their class they were as close as you could expect two girls of an age to be when one has suckled from the left dug and the other from the right. Margherita’s little fingers had the trick of my hair, and she plaited and twisted my locks, forever yanking my head around as if my braids were reins, for I could not help my head turning to the window and the colourful cavalcade that came. I could hear the trumpets sweet in my blood, and the hoofbeats in my chest, and, my toilet done, I joined my cousin at the window.
    The Spanish were a fine sight. All scarlet, and gold breastplates, and prancing Arab destriers of inky black. They laughed and jingled up the hill, white teethed, brown skinned and carefree. I could not, just yet, make out a single face from the melee. I wondered, giddily, whether my husband was in the company, whether, somewhere among that cacophony, I was hearing his hoofbeats, his laughter, the chinks of his fortune in his purse.
    Suddenly moved to make a good show of ourselves, I rummaged into my coffer for my best combs – moonstones set in silver – fixed them in my hair, and picked out a collar of gold filigree for Hero. She lifted the dark waterfall of her hair and I was still fiddling with the fastening as we clattered down the stone stairs to the courtyard. Margherita had to help me for suddenly my inky hands were all of a shake.

Act I scene iv
A courtyard in Leonato’s house
    Beatrice: In the courtyard there was a press of people with my uncle at the centre of them all, as if he were the earth in the middle of a coloured cosmos.
    I could hear his rich, sonorous voice, and knew he would be making one of his wordy speeches, for there was nothing my uncle loved so much as his own voice.
    I rolled my eyes and Hero and I made our way towards the crowd, me pushing Hero in front of me as rank demanded. Soon we stood behind my uncle and aunt, in the shadow of his outflung arms, as he gesticulated and flourished like a player. Satisfied that all eyes were on my uncle, I was free to look about me.
    My uncle’s court and the Spanish court had now divided into two opposing ranks like