I, Iago Part 22

"He was just being courteous," Roderigo said glumly.

"Lecherous," I corrected. "He was signaling to her what he intends to do to her later on tonight. They were so close together, their lips were so nearly touching. Their very breath entwined."

Roderigo slowed his pace. I slapped his arm and gestured him to hurry with me. "If he's a Florentine, then I suppose he's capable of anything," he allowed. "For all I know, his family is the one trying to buy the loyalty of my Egyptian middlemen. It is a suspect coincidence that he happens to have come to Venice, of all place-"

"I a.s.sure you, there's nothing to that," I interrupted him briskly. "He came to Venice with ambitions that undo me, not you."

"But knowing this, what shall I do now?" he asked.

"Trust me," I said. "I brought you here all the way from Venice, so you and your intentions are my responsibility. I will put you on tonight's roster for guard duty on the wall. Ca.s.sio is leading the watch, and he doesn't know you anyhow, especially in your disguise. I'll be near you and I'll coach you through everything I'm about to describe. Find some excuse to upset Ca.s.sio-he angers very easily," I a.s.sured him, trying to remember if I'd ever seen Ca.s.sio the least bit angry ever, at all. "Shout at him, or argue with him if he gives you orders, or whatever opportunity comes along."

Roderigo looked queasy. "Well . . . ," he began, and then said nothing else. I knew him well enough: the idea of anything that could result in violence was terrifying to the poor fellow.

"Roderigo, he angers very easily. It really won't take much to stir him up-one sentence and he may very well strike out at you."

"Strike out at me!" He came up short again, and again I tugged his sleeve to make him move along. We could hear, around the bend, the sounds of men unloading cargo from the longboats, calling out to one another in Greek, while Venetian soldiers tried to tell them what to do. If the Cypriots understood the orders, they were pretending not to.

"He won't hurt you," I said. "I promise you that. I'll get him drunk, and his arm will not be steady. And even if he hits you, what then? You'll have a black eye, but you'll also have your ladylove."

"How do you figure?" he asked suspiciously.

"The people of Cyprus are all on edge-they've spent the last months believing they were about to be murdered by Turks. One misstep on the part of somebody in a position of authority, and they'll make such a fuss, Oth.e.l.lo will have to get rid of him. And there you are: your rival for Desdemona's hand is out of the way."

"But she won't pine after him when he's gone?"

I shrugged. "I cannot see why. Her opinion of him will change for the worse when she hears how he's conducted himself." I nudged him as we walked. "So make sure he conducts himself very poorly."

Roderigo nodded thoughtfully, to himself and not to me, as we rounded the final bend. Now we were on level ground, portside, and only a stone's throw from where the longboats to the general's s.h.i.+ps were being unloaded.

"I'm not promising anything," Roderigo said at last, "But I'll go on guard duty, and if the opportunity arises, I'll do it."

"Excellent!" I said, with sincere heartiness. "Go back on up to the Citadel. I'll meet you by the enlisted men's barracks after I've collected his things. I'll make sure you're in the roll for guard duty tonight."

"Thank you, Iago," he said, "and adieu."

Ah, no, I thought to myself, it's I should thank you, Roderigo. You are going to do my dirty work for me.

Chapter 38.

OF COURSE I put myself on guard duty as well. Our watch was to begin at ten bells and it had just tolled nine. The crew before us-all of them Cypriots or Venetians already here-had had a dull watch, as we new arrivals unpacked, settled in, and made ourselves familiar with the layout of the Citadel.

The fortress was a rectangle around a courtyard, with a tower in each corner. The largest tower-housing armor, arms, and munitions-bore the antiquated t.i.tle "castle-keep" and faced seaward. The wing south of this had a ground floor of rooms for armoring, repairing equipment, and magazines; the second floor were offices, and the largest of these, Oth.e.l.lo's. To the other side of the keep, on the north wing, was the closest thing to domestic comfort the fortress offered: a string of rooms equipped with beds and tapestries to house the commander and his officers. Oth.e.l.lo took the room closest to the keep; Ca.s.sio was a.s.signed the room next over; a few rooms were left empty, for Desdemona and Emilia to have at their disposal in the heat of the day; and then, the smallest chamber, farthest from the keep, was to be mine and Emilia's. We were just beside the gateway out of the fortress. The other two wings of the rectangle contained barracks housing, a kitchen, refectory, hospital, and chapel. A pa.s.sageway lead out to a huge walled yard. This was four times larger than the Citadel itself; here were gunnery ranges and a makes.h.i.+ft gymnasium, and room for fencing practice. And trees and shrubs, where soldiers could take the wh.o.r.es who had long ago figured out how to gain easy access to the fortress.

LUXURIATING IN THE exquisite taste of foreshadow, I found it suddenly easy to be in Ca.s.sio's company as he gave me a tour of the grounds. I decided I would even prod him a few times, as one prods raw beef, to tenderize it for the seasoning to come. Ca.s.sio had a genius for presenting me with such opportunities.

First he insisted we start the watch early-that is to say, when Oth.e.l.lo excused himself to his bedroom with his radiant, eager young bride. Before sundown, the ten o'clock guards were brewing a party inside the tower keep.

"Oh, come now, Michele," I argued with Ca.s.sio, when he told his a.s.sistant to read out the specific posts for each soldier in the armoring room at half-nine. "We're not on duty yet. Oth.e.l.lo just sent us out here so he could take his wife to bed." I winked at him. "Which is certainly understandable. She's succulent, isn't she?"

Ca.s.sio reddened slightly.

Was he enamored of Desdemona? That would make this even easier, not only practically but morally. "The lady is exquisite," he said, with that d.a.m.ned Florentine gallantry.

"And no doubt h.o.r.n.y," I added heartily, strapping on my sword-belt.

He blinked and appeared to be forcing himself to smile. "She . . . I really would not know," he said. Now he was bright red.

"Oh come now, Michele!" I said, slapping his middle with the back of my hand. "That expression on her face? For him, of course, but let's be honest-she looks at everyone like that. Wasn't she flirting with you a bit, while we were waiting for Oth.e.l.lo to arrive? Just a bit?"

He looked disoriented. "Er . . . well, she wasn't not flirting," he said. "But don't take that the wrong way-she is actually extremely modest."

"And that little laugh of hers?" I added.

Ca.s.sio looked almost panicked. How remarkable-perhaps he really was in love with her.

"Our general's wife is a wonderful woman," he said decisively, not looking directly at me.

"Indeed," I said, deciding to let it be. For now. "Happiness to their sheets!" I gestured the still-blus.h.i.+ng Florentine to the far side of the readying room, toward a large stone basin, intended for was.h.i.+ng up. It was filled with local wine, procured by two helpful soldiers in my unit. "Look, Lieutenant! A gift for us from the natives. Brought by a couple of Cyprus lads on duty here at the keep with us tonight-they want us to drink the bride's health." I reached toward a shelf above the basin for some cups.

Ca.s.sio grimaced and shook his head. "Not tonight, Iago. It would not be good for me to drink before I go on guard duty."

"Oh, Lieutenant," I said cajoling as I buckled a greave onto my s.h.i.+n. "Just one cup. It's how they cement friends.h.i.+p here, they'll be insulted if you don't join in. Let's just each have the one cup, and after the initial toast, I'll drink yours with you if you want."

He shook his head. In a lowered voice he explained, "I already had a cup at dinner, in one of the, mmm . . ."

"Bawdy houses?" I prompted. Oh, excellent Florentine! He kept making this easier for me with each pa.s.sing breath. I finished fastening the second greave, then contemplated my armored s.h.i.+ns.

Ca.s.sio made an equivocating sound. "Well, I wouldn't quite call it . . . it's a private home, just the one woman, Bianca, and we were introduced by-"

"Say no more," I interrupted understandingly. "I don't really need greaves, do I? We're just on watch, it's not as if we were going into battle."

"Anyway, I had a drink there-"

"So to speak." I winked and began to unbuckle the greaves I'd just put on.

He frowned at me. "I had a cup of wine. I never have more than one cup a night or the demon gets the better of me."

"You seem fine to me," I said lightly.

"I won't risk it," he said.

"What could possibly happen?" I asked. If he had not already had that first gla.s.s, my tone alone would likely have alerted him: I never spoke like that. "Come now, Michele, everyone's celebrating tonight-the entire watch will probably end up drunk! And I do think these lads will take it amiss if we don't at least toast with them." I put the greaves back on the shelf they'd come from and reached up to a higher shelf for my sallet. "What do you say?"

He grimaced again. "Where are they?"

"Just in the next room, gearing up. Go on and invite them in-they've already got their cups, they're waiting for their lieutenant to invite them, eh?" I grinned at him.

He sighed. "All right, I'll do it, but I want it on record, I don't think it's a good idea."

"Pfft! It's a night of revelry, Lieutenant! These young men will grow old in your service-start your time with them on a happy note, eh?"

Ca.s.sio glumly began to walk toward the door. We were in the larger armoring room, with ancient arrow slits that looked out into the harbor; it was nearly dark now, but a chandler had lit it well with torches, and the light bounced dully off all the metal armor. Ca.s.sio plastered a smile upon his lips, threw open the door into the smaller gearing room-and gasped. Then bowed.

Montano, the governor of Famagusta, stepped into our gearing chamber, with at least five Cypriot guards behind him. I had not planned that. The stars were aligning fortuitously in the heaven of my invention. Ca.s.sio would not only get drunk-he'd get drunk in front of Cyprus's highest civilian authority.

"Sir!" I called out to Montano, bowing deeply. Ca.s.sio scrambled to imitate me (which was ironic, since I was using his flowery Florentine bow).

Regal, leathery-faced Montano was in high spirits: his island had just been spared battle, and his rule had just been lightened by the appearance of the military. If any man had reason to get pickled tonight, it was Montano. He was destined to be my ally, however accidentally: as Ca.s.sio rose from his bow, Montano gleefully grabbed him by the ear and half-poured, half-tossed the contents of his bra.s.s cup into Ca.s.sio's mouth. Sputtering from the shock of it, Ca.s.sio pulled away and turned into a corner to hack his lungs clear.

"Be a man, Lieutenant Ca.s.sio!" Montano laughed to his backside. "Take your liquor like a soldier!"

The group of fellows behind him laughed with him. So they were all drunk. That would make this so much easier. Every detail of this enterprise just kept getting easier.

"The wine!" I announced, gesturing grandly toward the stoup. "Bring your cups and let's toast to our general!"

SOMEHOW, IT WAS suddenly an hour later, and a score of us had all moved up onto the wall walk by the keep, in the breezy early-summer night . . . and Ca.s.sio was as drunk as any of them.

But he was not quite drunk enough.

I tried to remember the drinking songs of my a.r.s.enal days; they were all immensely stupid, but the very simplicity of the tunes made them easy to recall. One of them went: "A soldier's a man; a life's but a span; why, then, let a soldier drink. Some wine, boys!"

"An essellent song," Ca.s.sio informed me, nearly falling against me. Hm. Perhaps he was drunker than I realized.

"I learned it from an Englishman; they're the biggest sots of all."

"Really?" Ca.s.sio asked as his b.u.t.tocks slid down the stone parapet and found their way to the stone floor of the wall walk.

"Oh, absolutely," I a.s.sured him, as if we were discussing fencing techniques. "The Danes, the Germans, the Dutch-they're all heavy drinkers, of course, but not one of them could ever hold his own against an Englishman. Speaking of drink, your cup is empty, Lieutenant-hey, boy! Fill the lieutenant's cup here!" I called out to the only other person on the walls beside myself who was not soused: Montano's page boy. He was scurrying around with a large pitcher of wine, keeping all the cups full.

Ca.s.sio watched the wine go into his gla.s.s with the fascination of a dim-witted child. He was almost endearing in this state. "Why . . . how . . . so tell me . . . you said the English drink a lot?"

"Oh, yes," I a.s.sured him. "A Brit can drink a Dane under the table, and the Germans who try to keep up with him end up puking all over themselves. And the Dutch-there's a compet.i.tion that gets very ugly . . ."

Ca.s.sio's attention had wandered already. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, having immediately lost his thought. Then with a suddenly renewed vigor, he sat up straight, held his cup high, and cried out, "Give me some wine and let me speak a little! To the health of our general!"

"Here here!" Montano said from a stone's toss away down the wall walk, where he had been singing an equally idiotic drinking song in Greek. "I'll drink a cup to him with you, and raise you another cup!" The page boy, halfway between the two men, hesitated, deciding whose cup to refill first. He chose Montano's.

To keep Ca.s.sio's attention distracted, I began another drinking song, this one filthy; it demanded a toast at the end of each verse, and with his first drink, Ca.s.sio announced this was the most exquisite song he had ever heard in the whole of his life.

Was he drunk enough? I considered signaling to Roderigo to move in for the end-game, but Ca.s.sio startled me by suddenly leaping to his feet-without falling over. "There are souls who must be saved!" he announced, out of nothing, to everyone in hearing distance. By now the party included guardsmen who were supposed to be dispersed along the whole of the Citadel's wall walk. "And there are souls who must not be saved," he added, for clarity.

Since I was the closest man to him, a number of men looked to me, as if my response would tell them how to mark their own responses.

"True enough," I said.

"I," said Michele Ca.s.sio grandly, "hope to be saved."

You won't be, I thought; aloud, I said, in an agreeable tone, "And so do I, Lieutenant."

"Me too, me too!" shouted some dozen voices around us in the flickering torchlight. Ca.s.sio, ignoring them all, held up his hand to me. "Very sorry, Iago," he slurred, "but you'll not be saved before me, cuz I'm a lieutenant and you're jus' an ensign, and the lieutenant comes first."

I tried to keep a disinterested look on my face but I could not do it; I could feel my eyes blaze. So he wanted to talk about that, did he? I was more than ready. "Indeed?" I said softly. "And exactly how did you come to be lieutenant, my friend?"

Ca.s.sio was drunk, but not quite drunk enough to miss my tone. He waved his hand unsteadily before him, as if dismissing a very large insect. "No more o' that," he said, and hiccupped, and then giggled at his hiccupping. He looked up and noticed that men were staring at him. "D'not think, gentlemen, that I'm drunk," he slurred. About to lose his balance, he fell onto me, his long arm draping across my shoulders. I grimaced broadly; but, good soldier that I was, I held him up. Ca.s.sio giggled at me affectionately. "Thiss my ensign," he said, gesturing to me. "Thiss my right hand." And with a giggle, holding up his free arm: "And thiss my left hand! See, not drunk."

He pulled himself off me to show he did not need me for balance; immediately he slumped backward against the wall where he'd been sitting.

The guards with us, not quite as drunk as he, but pretty close, applauded him and went back to their cups.

"I tol' you," Ca.s.sio said, and gestured for the page boy to come to him. Ca.s.sio handed the boy his cup, then used the page's shoulder for balance to raise himself. "n.o.body here is 'lowed to think I'm drunk, yes?" And he staggered off, reeling, through the open door into the keep.

Without looking at Roderigo, I signaled for him to follow after Ca.s.sio. Then I turned my attention away; I could not afford to be infected by Roderigo's fear, which I was sure was eating him alive right now.

Their lieutenant absent, the guards looked around at one another uncertainly. Montano, the Cypriot leader, had sobered up a bit over the past hour, perhaps from all the singing. He moved closer to the keep door. "All right everyone, come, let's set the watch! Disperse," he called out. He glanced at me and with one expressive eyebrow, summoned me to step closer. I did. With a second expressive eyebrow, he gestured at the door through which Ca.s.sio had just staggered away.

I nodded with rueful understanding. "Ca.s.sio is a soldier worthy of Caesar," I said quietly. The soldiers were all spreading out along the wall walk, but there were two stationed right here at the keep entrance, and I wanted to appear as if I didn't want them to hear me. "He has just the one vice, but it rules him often. Honestly, in confidence, I beg you: it worries me how much Oth.e.l.lo trusts him."

"Is he like this a lot?" Montano asked.

I nodded and bit my lip regretfully. "Every night-he can't sleep if he hasn't soused himself up. I feel for him, but it is a serious problem."

Montano looked incredulous. "Oth.e.l.lo knows this?"

I made a face. "I probably have not been as direct with him about it as I should be, as Michele is a friend of mine."

Montano-older, wiser, and tipsier than I-shook his head in gentle chastis.e.m.e.nt. "I have heard about you, Iago, how you are always blunt and honest, and do the right thing, and stand by your words. It is precisely somebody like you who must tell the Moor that his lieutenant is a sot."

"I cannot do that to Ca.s.sio. My intention is to cure him of the evil, before Oth.e.l.lo even knows about-"

My pathetic attempt at sycophancy was cut short by a shrill cry within the keep: "Help! Heeelllp!" squealed a painfully familiar voice.

A moment later, Roderigo came flying out the keep door onto the parapet, Michele Ca.s.sio close on his heels, sword drawn, tripping over his own heels. His drunken state was possibly the reason Roderigo was still alive.

The two men guarding the keep door stared as their superior stumbled past them hurling names at Roderigo, too slurred to even understand; Roderigo, wide-eyed, bald and bewhiskered, looked like a confused bat that had been cornered by a snake. He gave me a beseeching look as he scampered around this open spot on the wall walk. I was afraid he'd try to hide behind me.

"What's the matter, Lieutenant?" Montano demanded, stepping up to Ca.s.sio.

"This knave talked back to me!" I think is what Ca.s.sio said; it sounded more like: "Thisnaytawbatomeee." The two guards exchanged amazed looks and snickered. Montano gestured sharply, and they stopped.

"I didn't!" Roderigo cried, now trying to curl up into a perfect circle right there in the middle of the walk.