RAGE AND REFRACTIONS

"I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire: the day is hot, the Capels are abroad, and, if we meet, we shall not 'scape a brawl; for now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
Mercutio leant back against the sun-warmed stone wall, grinning at his cautious friend's words. Benvolio was a good fellow, but his peaceable disposition was something Mercutio could never understand. What good was life if you didn't have a little danger now or then? He raised a hand as if about to make a speech, looked at the younger boy and rolled his eyes.
"Thou art like one of those fellows," he began, with a serious air, "that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need."
"Am I like such a fellow?" Benvolio replied, with an obvious inflection in his tone that suggested he thought Mercutio's description best fitting to the older boy himself. Mercutio brushed it aside. He knew that he was quarrelsome, and liked it that way, but he was enjoying teasing his friend.
"Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved," he insisted, leaping from his perch and throwing his arm around Benvolio's shoulders in a friendly gesture that nearly knocked the other boy over.
"And what to?" asked Benvolio jokingly.
Mercutio grinned again, and clicked his fingers "Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other." He paused for a moment, and then continued in a more lecturing tone. "Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less in his beard than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what
eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?" He noticed that Benvolio was not really paying any attention, but he was in full flow, and wasn't about to stop just because he had lost his audience. "Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling! Hah!"

He let go of Benvolio and jumped back onto his ledge, where he settled himself in a nicely comfortable position – lying on his shoulder blades with his legs and his lower back resting on the stonework and his head hanging over the edge of the ledge. He looked at the younger boy from his upside down pose, wondering idly what the world would be like if the ground and sky were reversed, and everybody walked upside down. He often wondered about things like that – he supposed it was his fertile imagination at work.
Benvolio broke through his friend's thoughts, pulling Mercutio out of his daydream. "An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a quarter."
Mercutio laughed. "The fee-simple! O simple!" he joked, and proceeded to make the most alarming faces he could, feeling a slight satisfaction when Benvolio blanched and turned away somewhat. Mercutio prided himself on his ability to twist his visage into grotesque masks, and had once made one of the maids in the Montague house faint by leaping out from behind a door and pulling the most horrific face he could manage. The girl had screamed, and collapsed, and the entire household had come running. Of course by the time they got there Mercutio was looking perfectly normal again, and he had spun a very convincing yarn about the maid thinking she had seen a ghost. No-one apart from Mercutio, Romeo and Benvolio had ever known the real reason for the incident.
"By my head, here come the Capulets!" exclaimed Benvolio. Mercutio twisted his head, looking around for the approaching threat. He spotted the gang of Capulets rounding the corner into the square, Tybalt swaggering at their head. Ah-ha! This could bring a bit of excitement to an otherwise dull day.
"By my heel, I care not." he replied, bending his legs and kicking the soles of his feet against the wall. The momentum propelled his lower body over his shoulders, and he rolled off the ledge, landing on his feet next to Benvolio. The other boy looked slightly startled, but he was used to his friend's bizarre actions, and said nothing. Mercutio brushed some dust from his shirt-sleeve and smirked at the Capulets in a way he knew would irritate them intensely. He was looking for a fight, and he knew that provoking Tybalt would be the best way of starting one.
Tybalt didn't seem to notice Mercutio's actions, but addressed both Montague youths civilly enough. "Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you."
Mercutio glared at the Capulet, striding forward until his face was inches from Tybalt's. "And but one word with one of us?" he challenged, tapping his fingers on the pommel of his rapier. "Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow."
"You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion." hissed Tybalt, gripping hold of the hilt of his own rapier.
"Could you not take some occasion without giving?" Mercutio riposted. This was what he had been hoping to do – he had riled Tybalt with only two sentences.
Tybalt growled, but he looked as if he was trying to keep his temper in check "Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo-"
Mercutio interrupted, his face flushing a dark, angry red under his tan. "Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. 'Zounds, consort!"
Benvolio put a hand on Mercutio's shoulder. "We talk here in the public haunt of men: either withdraw unto some private place, and reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us," he suggested in a calm tone of voice.

Mercutio shook his friend's hand off. He was in no mood for reason at the moment, and he was enjoying the conflict. "Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;
I'll budge for no man's pleasure, I," he snarled.

"Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man," Tybalt remarked, turning his attention towards Romeo, who had just entered the square. But Mercutio wasn't prepared to give up quite that easily.
"But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery" he snapped "marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower; your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'"
However, Tybalt was only interested in the new arrival. "Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford no better term than this - thou art a villain."

Mercutio clenched his fists. A villain! That was the worst insult a gentleman could possibly be subjected to. Romeo had to respond.
And respond he did, though not in the way Mercutio had expected.
"Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage
to such a greeting: villain am I none; therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not."

Mercutio hissed in surprise and rage. What was Romeo doing? Was he just going to let Tybalt insult him to his heart's content?

Apparently Tybalt was having the same idea. "Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
that thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw," he challenged
"I do protest, I never injured thee, but love thee better than thou canst devise,
till thou shalt know the reason of my love: and so, good Capulet - which name I tender as dearly as my own - be satisfied." Romeo replied, turning to go.

Mercutio couldn't believe his ears. Romeo saying that he loved Tybalt? Romeo refusing to fight? He couldn't let the insults applied to his friend go unpunished, even if said friend was acting in an decidedly unusual manner. "O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!" he growled "Alla stoccata carries it away!" He drew his rapier, waving the point dangerously close to Tybalt's startled face. "Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"
"What wouldst thou have with me?" Tybalt asked, sounding more surprised than annoyed.
Mercutio smiled slyly. "Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out!" He flourished his rapier, cutting through the air so close to Tybalt's ears that the Capulet flinched.
"I am for you!" Tybalt drew his own rapier, and the two squared off, circling warily.
"Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up," Romeo interjected, trying to pull his friend away. Mercutio elbowed Romeo in the stomach, and continued to taunt Tybalt.
"Come, sir, your passado," he said, flicking his blade up to tap the tip of Tybalt's rapier. Tybalt beat the other youth's sword away, and the two closed, their rapiers glinting in the harsh afternoon sun as they fought.
"Draw, Benvolio! Beat down their weapons!" Romeo yelled, pushing himself between the two duellists. "Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage! Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath forbid this bandying in Verona streets: hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!" Romeo stepped in front of his friend, trying unsuccessfully to stop the brawl. Mercutio swore vehemently under his breath. He was in the worst possible position – not only could he not get his sword arm free, but he couldn't see what Tybalt was doing. For all he knew, the Capulet could be just about to-

Mercutio cried out and staggered back, looking down with shock at the blood spreading over his white shirt. He couldn't take it in. He'd….Tybalt…he… He dropped to his knees as the pain stabbed through his gut. "I am hurt," he murmured in incredulous, fascinated horror. Then, with mounting anger at Tybalt, at Romeo, at the entirety of the damned houses of Capulet and Montague: "A plague o' both your houses!" The curse ripped from his lips with the force of his agony behind it, and, looking at Romeo's shocked face, he wished he could unsay it. But it was out now, and the words seemed to hang in the air, a premonition of disaster. " I am sped," he continued, in a quieter tone. "Is he gone, and hath nothing?
Benvolio's face swam into his vision, the younger boy's open, honest features creased with worry. "What, art thou hurt?"

Mercutio normally would have riposted with a sarcastic comment to such an obvious question, but at that moment he couldn't bring any of his normal wit to bear on the situation. But still he was determined to make light of it. "Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch," he joked, before another slash of pain sliced through his chest, making him gasp. "Marry, 'tis enough! Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon."

The servant scurried off, his boots kicking up the dust from the ground so that it hung in pale clouds in the sultry air. Mercutio smiled slightly, watching the dirt settle. He'd never thought dust a beautiful thing before, but looking at it now, it seemed almost like the mist of some undiscovered country, some land beyond mortal ken…. He blinked, realising that he'd been drifting off again. Not a good idea. In his present state, he might never return from any daydream he entered into.
"Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much," Romeo whispered, but looking at his face, Mercutio knew the real truth.

Not that he hadn't known before, ever since Tybalt's sharp blade had pierced his skin, but to know that his friend knew too, that made it the more real. But he was determined to go out fighting, not to lie back and accept the thread the Fates had spun for him. "No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door." He saw Benvolio smile with obvious relief, and sighed inwardly. He didn't want to get his friend's spirits up unduly. "But 'tis enough… 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man." He was proud of that – a jest in the teeth of death, a refusal to succumb to the darkness he could almost see closing in on him. "I am peppered, I warrant, for this world," he continued, before another stab of pain made his breath catch in his throat. He was dying, and for what? For a feud he should not have been involved in? For someone else's quarrel? "A plague o' both your houses!" he snarled, with all the acidity he could muster in his voice. "'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!" He breathed in, and a fit of coughing overcame him, air he badly needed hissing from between clenched teeth as he fought to fill his lungs again. Finally the coughing subsided, and he was able to draw breath again. He swallowed, and went on. "A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!" He turned his eyes on Romeo, watching with bitter satisfaction as the other boy looked away, unable to meet his gaze. "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm."
"I thought all for the best," Romeo answered, his voice thick with tears. Mercutio turned away, hunching his body in on itself to try and somehow contain the pain that was spreading through every nerve, through the entirety of his being. The pain of his wound, and the pain of his betrayal, his friend-caused death.
"Help me into some house, Benvolio," he gasped, "or I shall faint." His voice was growing weaker, and the world was blurring around him, the colours suddenly so much more vivid. He was dying - he knew it truly now. And it was the Capulets and the Montagues who had brought him to this pass. "A plague o' both your houses!" he spat, with the last remnants of the vigour that had characterised him whilst he lived. He coughed again, hearing with a strange detachment his own blood bubbling in his throat. He could taste the metallic liquid in his mouth, and he fought to get his words out around it. "They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, and soundly too: your houses!"

The last words were scarce out of his mouth when the dark which he had been fighting off for so long claimed him at last. His vision clouded over, and he could feel his body relaxing, giving up the struggle. He thought perhaps this was better than the pain. He thought… and then there were no more thoughts.