The Serpent of Venice (19 page)

“No he won’t,” said Desdemona from behind.

“No I won’t,” said Othello.

“He’ll rain down death on you and all your families, ravage your women, and fit your children on spikes with frightful efficiency!”

“Set down your arms,” said the Moor. “Were it my cue to fight I should have known it without a prompter.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake—”

The Moor pushed me back from the railing. “I will come down. Let us go before the doge and the council, and I shall there answer your charge under the law.”

“Useless bloody sooty-bosomed toss-tick, that’s what you are,” said I. Othello had invoked the law, and Venice was a city of bloody laws, wasn’t it?

“To prison with you, then,” said Brabantio. “Until a fit time for a trial.”

Then there came from below the cry of a new voice. “Hail, General, it is Cassio!”

I crept to the rail. At the edge of the mob stood an armed soldier in leather and light armor, and with him a cohort of six men-at-arms. Othello’s captain, Michael Cassio, who I was yet to meet.

“The doge calls for you,” said Cassio. “There is an urgent matter of strategy and the entire council is awake and waiting. The Genoans are moving on Corsica.”

“Look,” said I. “Your captain’s brought help. We could slaughter these knaves and still be at the council within the hour.”

“Stop it, Pocket,” said Desdemona. “You’re just trying to come up with new ways to off yourself to ease your grief.”

“You mean
kill myself,
right?”

“Yes.”

“Possibly . . .”

“I am coming down,” said the Moor.

“Fuckstockings!” Out in the piazza, beyond Cassio and his men, I saw Iago crouching in a doorway, careful not to be seen by the other soldiers. How could I know that even then he was working his dread plot upon the Moor?

On the ship to Corsica the meaning of Cordelia’s dream came to me . . .

“You’re the bloody Jewess!” I exclaimed, coming out of a dead sleep and struggling to sit up in my hammock, which hung in our little corner of the cargo hold. We’d been at sea for two days; I’d spent much of it belowdecks, unwell.

“Rather undermines the disguise if you’re just going to shout that out, Pocket,” said Jessica.

“Right, sorry,” said I. “But it’s only now occurred to me that you’re the Jewess I’m not supposed to shag.”

“I’d have snatched your bollocks off and fed them to the fish if you tried, so probably just as well you remembered.”

“You’re still being piratey, aren’t you?”

“I think I’d be terribly good at it, don’t you? Maybe Lorenzo and I will go pirating.”

“Yes, well, there’s more to pirating than salty talk and not painting the decks with your breakfast every morning. There’s throats to be cut, and some nautical bits to know, too, I’ll wager. Plus, you’re a sodding girl.” This didn’t seem to be the time to mention that Lorenzo would be somewhat impaired in his pirating by being quite dead.

“I can dress as a boy. I’m ever so clever at it. I was talking to two soldiers on the deck while you slept, and neither even suspected me to be a girl. One is even an officer—on his way to see your friend Othello as well. Called Iago. Looks a bit piratey himself. I didn’t catch the other bloke’s name.”

“Iago? Iago is on this ship?”

“He said that’s his name.”

“Did you tell him you were traveling with me? With a companion? Or that I know Othello?”

“He didn’t seem interested. He was rather distracted in lecturing his friend about money and how deceitful women are, which, overhearing, is how I found my way into their conversation. I was obliged to agree with him, given the circumstances. Excused myself when the two decided to have a communal wee over the side, so as not to reveal my manly shortcomings.”

“But you told him nothing of yourself or me.”

“It wasn’t called for.”

“Hand me your rucksack.”

“You don’t need any more gold. There’s nowhere to spend it out here.”

“I need to refashion my disguise,” said I. “If Iago recognizes me, we are finished.”

FOURTEEN

A World of Sighs

I
n Belmont did fair Nerissa curse the English fool when she rose to find her Portia quite unslain, her delicate throat quite unslit, and her musical voice still quite capable of barking commands to her servants, while intermittently whining about the sad path laid before her by her dead and arse-eaten father.

“Fucking fool,” said Nerissa, under her breath, hiding a sour scowl behind her hand, as if a bite of lemon tart had bubbled up from below.

“Oh, Nerissa, I am beside myself with worry,” said Portia. “Because he did not present his suit in time, Bassanio does not try for my hand with the caskets until tomorrow afternoon. Before him, in the morning, the Duke of Aragon tries, and today the Prince of Morocco, and he with as much the gift of chance as any. I dread him.”

“Aye, mistress, but I hear the prince is fair-minded and generous.”

“What does it matter if he has the condition of a saint, when he hath the complexion of a devil? Would you have me surrender my charms to his most dusky affections, even as my sister beslutted herself with Othello?”

“Rest easy, lady, no matter his choice, the prince shall be bound by bad luck, I’m sure.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” said Nerissa as she braided Portia’s hair, preparing to fit it into a tiara for her appearance before the prince. While she worked, she mused, “Of course, if the fool
had
done the slaughter,
I
no doubt would be the one washing the body and scrubbing the blood out of the bedding, as the staff is composed of nothing but cowards and catch-farts, so perhaps the fool has done me service by leaving breath in your scrawny bellows.”

Nerissa knew that as long as Portia fretted over her own fate, which was most of the time, she heard only the tones of her maid’s voice and not the words, so Nerissa liked to take these opportunities to croon her resentment in a manner most melodious.

Portia said, “Perhaps we should fix my hair askew, muss my gown, taint my breath with garlic so the prince will find me unpleasant and go away without taking his chance at the caskets.”

“Dear Portia, don’t be silly, to thine own self be true; the prince will see through to your unpleasantness without the taint on your breath.”

Before Portia could formulate a retort, a fanfare played from the dock and the two women looked at each other, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“He travels with his own trumpeter?” said Nerissa. “Perhaps you should reconsider, lady.”

Portia led the way down the grand staircase to the foyer, where they were met by two of Brabantio’s lawyers—bent-backed graybeards in black robes and mortarboard hats—escorting the Prince of Morocco and an entourage of six soldiers, all wrapped in white robes from head to toe, their faces as black as polished ebony, each wearing a scimitar in his sash, the prince’s in a jeweled scabbard. The prince bowed, then held his bow so Portia might glide down the staircase as if presenting herself upon the stage before him, where she returned his bow. Nerissa, having played this scene out many times before, came bouncing down behind her mistress with such enthusiasm that her bosoms nearly escaped the top of her gown. The Moors were captivated.

The prince tore his gaze from Nerissa’s décolletage and addressed Portia. “Lady, you are more beautiful than the stories that precede you. It is no wonder that the seas fill with ships bringing suitors from all the corners of the world.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” said Portia. She betrayed a sneer, which did not pass the prince unnoticed.

“Mislike me not for my complexion,” said the Moor. “I am but the shadowed design of the burnished sun where I was bred. I would not change my hue except to steal your favor, my gentle queen.”

“You stand as fair as any suitor I have looked on, but choice is not solely led by my eye. My father has set the lottery of my destiny.”

One of the lawyers, longer and whiter of beard than the other, stepped forward. “He knows of the terms and has paid the price of his chance.” The lawyer then made his way to the doors to the terrace, which he unlocked with a key on a chain about his neck.

“Condolences on the loss of your father,” said the prince. “I heard only of his passing after we arrived in Venice or I would not have added the weight of my suit to the lady’s grief.”

Meaning, thought Nerissa, that his interest in Portia was the political alliance with her father on the council, not her legendary beauty and widely exaggerated cleverness.

Portia, too, caught the subtext of the prince’s comment, quickstepped to the terrace doors, and drew aside the curtain.

“You must take your chance,” she said. “Or not choose at all, but swear before you choose that should you choose wrongly, you must tell no one which casket you chose, and never speak to this lady afterward in the way of marriage.”

“If so cursed, I will console myself with my other nineteen wives,” said the prince.

Nerissa covered her mouth to stop from giggling, but alas, snorted a bit and drew the dragon’s glare from Portia.

The prince made his way around the table, reading the placard on each of the caskets.

At the lead casket, he read: “ 
‘Who chooseth me must live and hazard all he has.’
Why, this is more a threat than a promise.”

He then moved to the silver casket. “
 ‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’
But what a man deserves is not always that which he requires.”

The prince stepped to the gold casket
. “ ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’
Methinks that only a bed of gold would be worthy of fair Portia. I would have the key to this one.”

The lawyer shuffled forward and drew a key from his purse and handed it to the prince.

“Take it,” said Portia. “And if my picture lie there, then I am yours.”

The Moor took the key, unlocked the casket, and pushed back the lid.

“Oh hell!” said the prince. “What have we here?” He lifted from the casket a miniature death’s-head. A scroll protruded from the skull’s eye. The prince replaced the skull in the casket, removed the scroll, unrolled it, and read:

“ ‘All that glitters, is not gold;

Often have you heard that told;

But my outside do behold;

Gilded tombs do worms enfold;

Had you been wise as you’ve been bold;

Your answer would be here inscrolled;

Fare you well; your suit is cold.’ ”

The prince stared at the parchment and let it snap back to form. “Then this is all? All of nothing.”

“Make of yourself a gentle riddance,” Portia said, with feigned disappointment, as she turned and looked out over the garden to conceal her grin.

The prince reeled with a flourish of his robes and walked off the terrace, his entourage in rank behind him.

“Draw the curtains, Nerissa.”

“Bit harsh, don’t you think?” said Nerissa. “Three thousand ducats for a death’s-head?”

“Let all of his complexion choose so wrongly.”

A fanfare played from the front of the house as the prince exited.

“I’m going after him,” said Nerissa, hurrying to the door.

“Nerissa! I forbid you to fancy him.”

Nerissa knew that as soon as Portia found the arms of her Bassanio, she’d be cast out on her own. Too many years had she acted as the gentle cushion to the suitors rejected by both Brabantio sisters (like Rodrigo, who evidently had buggered off to Corsica, still in pursuit of Desdemona) and Portia would never allow her more
accommodating
maid in proximity to Bassanio. Nerissa was going to need a cushion herself when Bassanio guessed the correct casket on the morrow. One of twenty wives of a prince seemed like a quite comfortable cushion on which to land.

“Sod fancying him, I just want to have a look at his sun-burnished trumpet.”

“Thou art a hopeless slag, Nerissa.”

“Not true, I am full of hope.”

Jessica and I came down the ramp from the ship so close behind Iago and Rodrigo that I could almost smell the treachery coming off them.

Jessica had, by now, learned to walk without the slightest sway to her hips, while I had minced my steps more fitting to the humble shuffle of a nun, for so was I dressed, in wimple and veil, in such a nun suit as we had been able to fashion from the clothes in Jessica’s rucksack. My beard now shaved and my Jew kit betrayed, the veil was a necessary accoutrement for my disguise; of leper or nun, I chose the latter.