The Serpent of Venice

Despite being uncommonly pretty, like many working-class girls, Emilia had married the first fellow with a means of support who showed an interest in her. Also, like many poor girls, both plain and pretty, she found herself bound to a man who was, despite a handsome aspect and mercurial charm, a vicious scoundrel. She had hoped when the war with Genoa escalated that she might be mercifully widowed, but instead of doing the proper thing and perishing like most of Venice’s forces at Curzola, Iago had the annoying luck to have been serving under Othello, defending the city, and had not only survived, but in his more grandiose moments (which were many) claimed that credit for saving the city had been stolen from him by “that upstart crow,” Othello. Then she thought fate had smiled upon her side when Iago volunteered her to serve Othello’s wife, Desdemona, in Corsica, putting a sea between her and her husband, yet here he was, in her chambers, in need of a favor.

“I hope you are not here to ask me to do my bawdy business—the monkey has a nosebleed and the circus, sir, is closed.”

“As it has been for three years solid, wife,” said Iago.

“Fine, do your will, I’m sure you will be the one blessed man whose willy does not turn black and drop off after taunting the crimson curse. Don’t mind my praying as you perform your disgusting deed.”

“No, I am here to ask you to prevail upon Desdemona to speak with Michael Cassio, and to arrange that they might have a private place to speak—on Desdemona’s balcony, perhaps.”

“And why would you have me do that?”

“Because Cassio is a fine officer who has made a simple mistake, yet he is denied the audience to ask forgiveness of his general.”

“You would have me prevail upon my mistress on behalf of the fine officer you have previously referred to as an ‘addlepated accountant,’ that ‘bum-brained bean counter,’ and that ‘flouncing fucking Florentine’? ”

“He has flounced, upon occasion, but I have new, kinder eyes toward him, for all men, since the death of my good friend Rodrigo.” Iago looked off to the corner in the way he imagined would a strong man trying to avoid tears.

“I am sorry about your friend, Iago. He will be missed.”

“Oh yes, of course you will miss him,” said Iago, shrugging off his grief as easily as an unpinned cape. “Miss him in your bedchamber.”

“You’re mad.” Emilia sighed and started to walk away.

Iago grabbed her arm and spun her around. “I remember, you showed him favor, made eyes at him when you saw him before.”

“Favor? I said he didn’t seem to be a complete knob. That is not favor, that is just a kind comparison to everyone else with whom you keep company. Despite what you might think, Iago, I am not shagging every man I meet just because I am not shagging you. I am not shagging you because you are you, and I am not shagging them because they are not my husband. There is no sodding shagging going on.”

“So you say.”

“So it is. What do you want, Iago?”

“I need you to prevail upon Desdemona to receive Cassio.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“Nothing. A brother-in-arms.”

“Bollocks. What’s in it for me?”

“It would suffice as the wifely duty you would owe me in other ways.”

“For how long?”

“For a month.”

“Forever.”

“Unfair.”

“Well, fuck off then.”

“Fine, forever.”

“Have him here in an hour. I will show him to the lady’s balcony.”

“I shall. Adieu, foul harridan.”

“Good-bye, husband.”

It was well past noon, hours since she’d left us, when Jessica appeared on the breakwater and waved a red scarf, signaling for us to row in and pick her up. We’d taken the boat out several hundred yards and pretended to be fishing to avoid the Genoan patrols. She had a great cloth flour sack slung over her back and her hair was down in long curls.

“Where’s Jeff?” I inquired, before the boat had landed. “And where is your hat?”

“Jeff is in the sack, having a go at my hat.”

There did seem to be more than a bit of movement and chatter coming from the sack than would have been produced by a more contemplative monkey.

“Well, your disguise is completely useless without the hat. Even with the pirate boots and the blousy shirt it’s clear that you’re not a boy.”

“I don’t need a disguise in Genoa, as no one here gives a lazy toss whether I’m a girl or not. And besides, it was either let him have at the hat in the sack, or try to wear it while he was having at it; either way, some hat fucking was going to get done. This seemed more discreet.”

“Yes, Jeff always had a taste for fine millinery.”

“Jeff!” cried Drool. “Me wee mate! Oy, Jeff!”

“It was my hat,” said I. “Perhaps he was just overjoyed at my scent on it.”

“Oh, he’s a right bundle of joy,” said Jessica, holding out the bag, which was still twitching rather rhythmically. “I brought some bread, cheese, and wine, since you said we were going to stay on a beach tonight, so I hope you don’t mind if Jeff is overjoyed all over your supper along with a fair flinging of rhesus feces.”

“Well, come aboard then. You can sit up here with me to balance the load.”

Drool rowed slowly forward until Jessica was able to catch the bow of the boat. She handed me the twitching flour sack, pushed us off, hopped in the boat, then sat down on the bench next to me.

“Which rather forces the question,” said she, “of who the fuck is that fellow sitting at the back of the boat?”

“Neptune’s salty balls! There’s a stranger in our boat!” I exclaimed, then revealing what is widely known as my most charming and lap-dampening smile, I said, “Alas, I jest. That, my pretty pirate, is Drool’s cellmate from prison. A Venetian, like you, Jessica.” I was laying it on a bit thick, before I had to get to the bit about paying the ransom. “May I present the trader and explorer Marco Polo.”

An hour after leaving Emilia, Iago was walking the high battlements with Othello, under the pretense that he would need to know the particulars of the fortress if he were to fill the void left by Cassio’s banishment.

“Who is that on the balcony, there?” asked Iago. A man and a woman, her back to them, the man facing.

“It appears to be Michael Cassio,” said Othello. “I will have him removed. There was no subtlety in my wishes. He was released from the brig on the condition I would not suffer his presence.”

“But, my lord, Cassio is an obedient officer even in his shame, for it was your presence you forbade him, and this, like his presence at the murder of Rodrigo, is merely an accident. See there, he is here to see your lady.”

“That is not my lady. Desdemona has no gown of that color. That is Emilia.”

“Slut!” Iago spat out with urgent pressure, as if a bee had flown into his mouth.

“Beg pardon?”

“I mean, Cassio does not know my wife, and those are your lady’s quarters.”

“Emilia seems to know him now. Look how she titters and touches his sleeve like a coy maid.”

A vein sprouted on Iago’s temple, he felt it throb with the stress of his subterfuge. “Emilia merely receives the captain on behalf of your lady, I’m sure,” he said. Slut! Slag! Slapper! Prick-pull! Egregious hose-hound most foul, he thought.

“Ah, it is so, for there is the spark of my soul, Desdemona, now.”

At last. “I did not know that Cassio knew your lady, but for some fawning he did upon her at the dock.”

“He knows her. In Venice he carried messages between us when our love was a secret.”