The Serpent of Venice

Polo looked at the well of the boat, as if ashamed. “I sold another such box to a merchant on the Rialto.”

  “Antonio Donnola?”

  “He said his father was dying with a tumor and was in great pain.”

  “His father has been dead for years.”

  “I am sorry,” said Polo. “I didn’t know.”

  “Not to worry,” said I. “No way you could know. Nor that your creature had grown up. I expect we may be seeing her soon.”

  Polo shuddered. “Do you wonder why she didn’t slay you?” Then, before I could answer, his gaze strayed over my shoulder. I heard a rhythmic slapping sound coming from the bow and I looked over my shoulder to see Drool standing in the boat, his back to us, twitching and laughing in a low, breathy giggle.

  “Drool! What are you doing?”

  “Havin’ a bit of a wank.”

  “In the middle of your bloody rescue?”

  “Just a wee one,” said the oaf.

  “It was a constant the whole time we were captive,” said Marco Polo.

  “You had yourself off for three months solid?”

  “There weren’t nothing to read.”

  “You don’t know how to read.”

  “Yeah . . . ,” said Drool.

  I turned to Polo. “Why didn’t you just tell him to stop?”

  “In my travels I have learned to be respectful of other peoples’ cultures.”

  “What culture?”

  “Well, he’s English, isn’t he?”

  “Nonstop wanking is not part of English culture.”

  “It helps if you tell him a story,” said Polo. “Distracts him.”

  “It helps if you beat him about his great empty melon with a puppet stick,” said I. “Drool, stop that and sit down. You’ll fall in the water and Viv will eat you.”

  With an alarmed tremor, Drool sat down. “Proper threat works, too,” I said to Polo.

  “You’re English as well, no?” asked the explorer.

  “Full blood, noble-born bastard of Blighty, I am, at your service.”

  “Hard to tell with everyone having the same accent. I can row for a while, if you need a respite.” Polo again raised the inquisitive eyebrow. “Some time to yourself . . .”

  “That is not part of English culture!”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh, right, part of the national health, innit? ‘Here’s a leech and two tosses a day, and the bloody queen thanks you for your loyalty.’ ”

  “Apologies,” said the Venetian. “I only know your apprentice, and he—”

  “Look, there’s Jessica on the breakwater,” said I. “Drool, put that away and take the oars.”

  CHORUS: The Moor, a storm of suspicion conjured in his mind by Iago, did burst into his lady’s bedchamber to confront his enemy—fear—the fear of losing his love to another. And Desdemona, the only one who had ever brought that sweet, soft calm of love upon his warrior’s brow, could only his solace deliver.

  “Lady! Desdemona!” said the Moor, throwing the door open and back on its hinges. “I would have words with you!”

  CHORUS: When he spied the veiled figure reclining on the bed, he screamed, a yip most manly and not at all like the sound that might chirp from a small dog that’s been trod upon. The general, in that instant, hopped back through the door, his sword rattling against the doorjamb as he went, and became the very model of a man ready to bolt.

  “Who are you?”

  “Oh, brash general, I am but a helpless nun at the mercy of your rough barbarian ways.”

  “Desdemona?”

  She tossed the purple veil back. “Well, who else would it be, silly?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “It’s Pocket’s nun suit. He said you’d find it saucy.” She put wrist to forehead and leaned back on the pillows in feigned distress. “Oh no, thou rough pirate, please do not ravage me and have your dread and disgusting pleasures on my nubile body.” She squinted in fear, and thrashed her head in denial, while sneaking a bit of a peek to see how her nun bit was playing.

  “I do not find this saucy. The fool knows nothing of my desires.”

  “Not wearing any knickers . . . ?” She pulled the hem of her gown up a bit. “Helpless nun, no knickers . . . ?”

  “There are no purple-and-green nuns. The fool made that up.”

  “But the no knickers bit is true.”

  “No.” Othello crossed his arms, resolute.

  “Totally naked nun . . . ?” And in two deft moves, but for the wimple and veil, she was.

  “No.”

  “Fine, then, what did you want to have words about?” She sat up, cross-legged on the bed, elbow on her knee, chin in hand. “Well?”

  “I don’t remember,” said the Moor.

  “Well, close the door and come to bed, love, you’re tenting your robe, the servants will be scandalized. Emilia will be jealous.”

  “Jealousy!” said the Moor. “That was it! A green-eyed monster!”

  “Oh no, thou raging lunatic, I am but a helpless nun,” said Desdemona, quivering in her most naked distress, since apparently this was how Othello wanted to go with the bloody game.

  Bested, the Moor shrugged, closed and latched the door, and went over to the bed.

  “A green-eyed monster that mocks the meat it feeds upon . . . ?” Othello mumbled.

  “Why not?” said Desdemona, taking her turn to shrug. “We can do that.”

  NINETEEN

  Well Met in Corsica Once More

  Jessica stood at the rail of the poop deck in her white blouse, canvas sailor’s trousers tucked into her high boots, and the red silk scarf she’d bought in Genoa tied around her head, her dark curls spilling down past her shoulders. I must admit, she made for the most fair and fit pirate I had ever seen, despite her surly mood. We were two days from landing back at Corsica and she had not spoken to me since we’d retrieved her from Genoa and she’d found out about my spending her father’s gold.

  I approached her cautiously, but not so quietly I would startle her. Truth be told, I did not like her standing so close to the rail, for although I had not seen her since she presented herself to Drool and me, I could feel the dragon out there, following. I’d tasked Drool to look after Jessica, and he had followed her around the ship like an enormous slobbering puppy. He sat with his back against the rail, watching her, his gaze as vacant as the cloudless sky above.

  “It was my only recourse, Jess. Polo saved Drool, kept him alive, no doubt. And his family will repay you the ransom when he returns to Venice. It is little more than a loan.”

  “And will he repay my mother’s ring, which I had to give for your fucking monkey? My father’s turquoise wedding ring.”

  “To be fair, you are not blameless, you did steal the treasure first.”

  “What will I tell Lorenzo when he comes to Corsica? He may be waiting for me even now. That money was for our life together.”

  “Viv eated him,” said Drool.

  “What?” said Jessica.

  “Nothing,” said I.

  “Viv eated Lorenzo,” said Drool. And then, before I could stop him, in a perfect imitation of my own voice, the natural recited the story of how Viv had taken Lorenzo and Salarino, word for word as I had told the tale to Marco Polo.

  Jessica turned to me, tears welling in her eyes. “What is this?”

  “Well, the ninny has the story all wrong. He was wanking the whole time I told it.”

  She took me by the shoulders and shook me. “What is this? Where is Lorenzo?”

  Tears poured down her cheeks and my heart broke again for her, for it was that hope in her eyes that I had so dreaded, that she was casting on me like the leaden yoke of the one-eyed guilt swan. Is it the fault of a girl bright with the light of romance that she falls in love with a rascal? Is the love any less pure? Any less heartfelt? Any less painful when lost? It would serve no purpose to paint Lorenzo as the scoundrel I knew him to be. “Drool has that bit wrong, love. Lorenzo is
no more, but he was killed by his cohort, Salarino, while trying to save me from being murdered.”

  “Lorenzo is dead?”

  I nodded, opening my arms to her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because of this,” said I, brushing a tear from her cheek. I told my story again, for the third time in four days, except in this version, Lorenzo was a hero, and it was his love for the fair Jessica that spurred him gallantly and courageously to face down an armed assassin, to rescue a nameless messenger, simply because he had carried the words from his love. And after he fell, the serpent rose out of the canals and struck down Salarino in vengeance. She did not question the existence of the serpent, or my sanity for saying it was so, for she had tended the wounds left by the creature and they fit like puzzle pieces. She believed.

  I sat there, at the rear of the ship, holding her while she wept, until the sun had boiled well into the sea.

  Soon after, in Corsica, Iago found his wife in the Citadel’s laundry, folding Desdemona’s linen on a table near the great central cauldron, in which steamed a gigantic simpleton, rather than the usual load of shirts and trousers.

  “I thought I was finished with you,” said Emilia. “Or you with me. It was agreed.”

  “I need you to arrange for Desdemona to meet Michael Cassio in his quarters.”

  “Not bloody likely. But I’ll arrange to meet Michael Cassio in my quarters anytime you’d like, though.”

  “Woman! You are here by my leave, and on my order, I can remove you—from the world of the living if I so wish it—and no one would look twice for you, thou worthless trollop.”

  “Bit of a knob, innit?” said the giant in the cauldron.

  “Who is he?” said Iago. In Venice, Iago had never seen Drool. Didn’t know he was the fool’s apprentice.

  “He works in the stable. The stable master said he smelt of shit and so sent him in here to have a good hot bath. Stand up, love.”

  The giant unfolded in the raised cauldron and great cascades of soapy water ran off him as he stood, naked, his enormous erect dong swinging in a wide arc at Iago’s eye level like the loose boom of a sailing sloop.

  Iago backed away from the swaying beam and looked at his wife. “Did you put him in that state?”

  Emilia fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly. “Possibly.”

  “Emilia’s got smashing knockers, she does,” said Drool.

  Iago raised his hand as if to backhand Emilia and felt himself suddenly yanked into the air by that selfsame hand—held high and squirming as he tried to draw his sword and Drool turned him so they were looking eye to eye.

  “I fink you should fuck off now, sir.” He dropped Iago, who landed in a heap on the slippery stone and struggled to roll over so he could get to his sword.

  With the same meaty paw he’d used to lift Iago, the giant snatched up a boat oar the laundress used for stirring the cauldron.

  “Would you like to bugger a soldier, puppet?” Emilia asked Drool.

  “Yes, please, mum.”

  She crouched down until she was face-to-face with her husband. “You might want to do as the boy says and fuck off, now, husband.”

  Iago scrambled to his feet, snatched a handkerchief from the table, and ran out of the laundry, roaring with frustration as he went.

  “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, per
haps, 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.