The Serpent of Venice (29 page)

“He were cross,” said Drool.

“He often is,” said Emilia. “Impressive willy wagging.”

“Fanx. Just a peek then?”

“Well, you’ve earned it, haven’t you? But sit down first, love, you’ll frighten the cats.”

Shylock had spent a fretful two months with no word of his daughter, until today, when the two huge Jew brothers, Ham and Japheth, came to his door on a chilly winter morning with a message from his friend Tubal to meet him on the Rialto at noon. The moneylender donned a heavy, fur-lined cloak and hired a gondola with a closed cabin, and was an hour early for the meeting, so he stamped his feet and blew on his hands until he saw his friend ambling over the Rialto Bridge. Shylock rushed to meet him and was breathless from climbing the stairs when they met.

“Tubal, you have news? What of my daughter?”

“Shylock, you rush too much, maybe we should go inside, where it is warm, where you can sit down.”

“I would know now. What of Jessica? Did you find her in Cyprus, as you thought?”

“The news is not so good. I spread the fingers of my sources from the harbor in all directions, with promise of silver for news, but the news did not come o’er the sea from Cyprus as we thought, but from travelers by land, from Genoa.”

“Genoa? She is a prisoner, then?”

“No, but a prisoner she saw there, she bought there. Word is that for ransom of a prisoner she gave all of your treasure—two thousand ducats’ worth of jewels and gold—all that she took. And in the square there, she did trade a blue and gold ring for a monkey.”

“My treasure? My daughter? My ducats? Two thousand ducats? That ring—that ring was the turquoise my Leah gave me upon our wedding, I would not have traded it for a whole wilderness of monkeys. Tis a tempest of troubles. My daughter! My ducats!”

“And she was dressed as a pirate.”

“My daughter, a pirate! Stick a dagger in me, I am finished. My ducats are gone and my daughter is a pirate.”

“But there is good news, too; other men have had ill luck as well.”

“Other men? Whose bad luck is my good news, unless you say those rascal friends of Antonio who stole my daughter are arrested.”

“It is news of Antonio’s bad luck I bring. Word came in the harbor that one of his argosies, the one bound for Alexandria, was wrecked, the cargo destroyed. His losses are beyond your own. The creditors say he can but break, now.”

“Good. That
is
good news. I’ll plague him in revenge for letting his men take my Jessica and make a pirate of her, my own daughter, against whom there can be no justice, no satisfaction, so the hammer of justice must fall on Antonio. Yes, good news.”

“But alas, more bad news.”

“Bad news?”

“The gold that you lent Antonio was mine. It will be due as well.”

“Ah, I see good news for you, too, Tubal,” said Shylock, poking a hole in the sky with his finger. “The sympathy you will get when you tell your wife how hard you had to work to hide your smile when you told me I am ruined. I have had better friends, Tubal.”

“You were right,” said the Moor. “They are trying to start a holy war. A Crusade, from which they will profit.”

“So you’ve put Iago in chains and tortured him until he confessed?” I stood on a chair in the general’s war room while a tailor made marks on my new motley with a sliver of soap. The fool suit was too big by a good measure. “Well done, Othello.”

“I have no proof that Iago is involved.”

“Other than he fucking told me, only when he thought I was going to be murdered.”

“You are not always reliable, little one. Drink and grief can cloud a man’s mind.”

“How do you know, then?”

“My fleet in the south stopped one of Antonio’s ships headed for Alexandria. It was loaded to the rails with great beams of French and English oak. The pilot confessed they were bound to be given to a Mameluke general.”

“Firewood? Scaffolding? A bloody great wooden sphinx? Egyptians love their sodding sphinxes—lions with girl faces and bosoms—right degenerate if you ask me, but . . .” I considered my own experience with the rodgering of mythical beasts and reconsidered my hasty condemnation of the Egyptian sphinx shaggers. “So the lumber is for . . . ?”

“The oak is to build siege engines: catapults, ballistas, and trebuchets. There is no wood strong enough for such machines in Egypt, or in most of the lands of the Muslims. Antonio is selling material to Muslims to build weapons for a war that the Venetians are hoping to push the Christians into starting.”

I looked at the top of the bald head of the tailor, then at the Moor. “Should we, perhaps, present a bit more of a challenge for any spies in your command?”

“He does not speak the language.”

“I see,” said I. To the tailor I said, “Leave loads of slack around the cod, tailor, I’ll need lots of room to expand when your daughter’s doing the nightly knob rubbing for all the blokes in the regiment.”

The tailor glanced up quickly, then went back to his work, marking and pinning. The Moor raised an eyebrow as if to say, “Well?”

“He either doesn’t understand or he’s resolved to his daughter being a slut.”

The tailor appeared to be finished. He smiled and stepped back, gesturing for me to take my kit off and give it to him so he could get to his sewing. He folded my motley and left the room with a bow to Othello and a grin toward me.

“So, a holy war would be on but for your late father-in-law shuffling off this mortal coil and a humble and handsome fool surviving their heinous fuckery most foul. A war setting the church against your own people, Othello.”

“I am not a Muslim, Pocket.”

“Well, you’re not a bloody Christian, are you? And every druid I’ve ever known is on the snowflake side of pale, so I’d say you’re a bit tar-tinted for that persuasion. You’re not a Jew, are you? No, of course not, you don’t have a yellow hat. Unless . . .” I engaged the Moor with a steely yet inquisitive gaze. “Othello, do you have a secret yellow Jew hat?”

The Moor laughed, a raucous cough of a laugh, then said, “No, fool, there are no gods in my philosophy. I learned my way of looking on the world from an old slave I was chained to on the galley. From the farthest east, he was. He taught me that as I suffer, so do all, and if any suffer, so do I, that we are all part of one, that in any moment my dark skin connects me to all things, light and dark, and all things, light and dark, are part of me, so to do harm to any man, any creature, is to be ignorant to my own nature, to do harm to myself and all other things. That is what I believe.”

“Really? How did that work as a pirate?”

“Reality is oft uncooperative.” He shrugged.

“Aye, well said, Moor!” I laughed then. I suppose his philosophy has served him as well as mine, which until Cordelia, after having been much maltreated during my childhood in the church, amounted to surrendering to being dragged trippingly through life by a savage willy, stopping occasionally to thwart injustice, rescue the distressed, or have a snack.

“So your mates sank Antonio’s ship, eh?” I inquired.

“No, they reported that it is most difficult to sink a ship that is hold-to-rail filled with seasoned oak.” The Moor dazzled his pirate grin then. “But I am told it was two days burning to the waterline and was still smoldering on the horizon when my ships departed.”

“You don’t think the doge’s council might get their knickers in a knot about you sinking a Venetian merchant ship?”

“What can they say? The pope forbids Christian nations from trading with the Mamelukes, by threat of excommunication. My ships were enforcing a papal bull. Saving souls.”

“Well, if that’s not the duck’s very nuts, pirate business by Christian bull? Jessica will be thrilled.”

“Then for your part of our bargain, fool. You told the girl about her fiancé as you promised?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. She knows.”

“And she hates you now, I presume.”

“I didn’t tell her that he was a scoundrel, or that he was slain by my hand, but instead that he died gallantly defending me from his murderous friends.”

The Moor considered it, looked at me askew, as if doubt was pushing his pointy beard to the door. “I think you have more affection for her than you would say.”

“There’s no room for that. My heart is full of grief for my Cordelia and a desire for revenge. She’s an annoying reminder of the folly of having hope.”

Othello went to a chair at the table and sat down, a heavier weight than commanding a navy seeming to fall on his brow all at once. He said, “I do not understand women, Pocket. I have these many years in the field come to understand the nature of men, but women are yet a puzzle. Desdemona confounds me.”

“Ah, so she moors the Moor, so to speak. I had a tryst with a tart who confounded me, left me tied in a dungeon once for two days, starkers, without food nor water. Just ask her to loosen the ropes next time she confounds you.”

“
Confound
does not mean ‘tie up.’ I mean she confuses me.”

“Oh. Well, that’s different, isn’t it. But I have known many women—many women indeed, and it is in their nature to confound us, Othello. They are all by their natures lovely lunatics. But among them, Desdemona is more lovely and less loony.”

“Is she so lovely if she is untrue?”

“Desdemona?”

“Yes.”

“Untrue to you? Cheating with another?”

“Yes.”

“Bollocks!”

“Yet I have my suspicions.”

“You have no proof?”

“Others have made comment.”

“If this is about the nun suit, that was my idea entirely.”

“Not the nun suit. The nun suit was—”

“Smashing! I knew you’d like it. You should have her confound you while wearing the nun suit—say stern things to you in Latin while shagging your bloody brains out.”

“
Confound
does not mean that!”

“Fine. So you would accuse your lady of being untrue—your lady, who did throw all of Venice away for you, stood up to the most powerful men in the republic, for you, Moor;
she
you would accuse, without any evidence but the comment of another, yet Iago, who you know to be a villain, a cutthroat, and a traitor—for him you need proof beyond my word? Respect my judgment in this, Othello, if in nothing else, or thou art a fool.”

“I saw her on the balcony talking to Michael Cassio. She came to me, made a case for me to forgive him.”

“That is because she is kind, and just, and forgiving, and has been wrongly judged for mere appearances, because she loves you, she wishes you to be kind, and just, and forgiving as well. You will have to get your own moniker, Othello, the
Black Fool
is mine, but thou art surely a fool.”

The Moor let his head slip from his hands and his forehead thumped against the table. “I am a fool,” he said.

“You can’t switch sides now that I’m winning.”

“No, you are right, I am surely a fool. I have wronged my love with my suspicions. I don’t know what to do. I am a warrior, my speech is rough and not so polished as yours.”

“You always say that, but I think we both know you could talk the tits off a tavern tart.”

“I mean that asking forgiveness is not in my experience. What did you do when you wronged your Jewess?”

“First, she’s not
my
Jewess, she’s
a
Jewess, and I did not, strictly speaking, wrong her, although she
is
angry at me for delaying telling her about Lorenzo.”

“And yet you were merely trying to spare her pain.”

“Exactly! And she’s still somewhat unhappy that I spent all of her father’s gold.”

“For which the Genoans freed an important prisoner.”

“Which apparently does not hold the weight for her it does for you and me. Speaking of such. Let me fetch the Venetian I rescued.” I went to the wide double doors.

“Forgiveness?” the Moor insisted.

“It’s best to blame it on your monkey, if possible. Now, let me get the Venetian.”

“Aren’t you going to put on some trousers first?” asked the Moor.

“He’s just outside, waiting on a bench with Drool.”

“All this time he has been waiting?”

“Well, he’s been in prison with Drool for three months, a few minutes on a bench isn’t going to send him round the bend.” I peeked out the door and called, “You two, come in. The general needs to see you.”