I, Iago Part 24

Ca.s.sIO, DESPITE HIS desperation to restore his reputation, did little but send meek notes to Oth.e.l.lo asking for an audience. I intercepted several of these messages and made sure the general did not receive them-but even those he did receive, he did not answer.

This rea.s.sured me, but not enough, because the lieutentant's sash lay folded neatly on the corner of his desk. Oth.e.l.lo had not yet offered it to me. There was no pressing military business to distract him.

"Why won't he just present it?" I fumed to Emilia one evening as we lay together in our small room. We were being housed in this suite not because of my standing with Oth.e.l.lo, but because of Emilia's with Desdemona. The larger, nicer room that would have been Ca.s.sio's, had he lasted longer than a day-the room that should now have been mine-remained unoccupied.

"He is not thinking like a general, for a change," Emilia said, her head nesting on my shoulder and her hand stroking my chest. "He is completely preoccupied with love, and the world is not requiring him to do otherwise. When circ.u.mstances s.h.i.+ft a bit, and he once again puts his mind to work, trust me, he will give you the sash. And deservedly so. It is a pity about Michele, though."

"I told you he had that weakness back in Venice, and you didn't believe me."

I felt her head move as she nodded. "Yes. Funny how an attractive face can warp a girl's judgment." She tipped her chin up just as I turned my head, and we were eye to eye. She grinned. "Your attractive face warped me right into a marriage."

"Flattery will get you . . . somewhere," I said, satisfied. I reached over to stroke her collarbone. And other things.

DESPITE MY NEARLY effortless success at decommissioning Ca.s.sio, I could not rest easily. Ca.s.sio was still around. I heard a rumor he had spent several days and nights in a wh.o.r.e's house in Famagusta, but then he returned to the Citadel, hoping to reenter Oth.e.l.lo's graces. Until that lieutenant's sash hung over my left shoulder, Ca.s.sio was still a threat.

Having too much time on my hands during that brief, unending week, I ruminated on ways to prevent the Florentine's re-ascent. My scheme had worked so swiftly, I had not fully exploited it: the implied infidelity with Desdemona, for example, had not even been broached.

That, then, would be my emergency plan: if Ca.s.sio showed any signs of regaining favor, then I would worry Oth.e.l.lo into suspicions about his wife's interests in the Florentine.

How to do this? Or more specifically: how to prepare to do this, if required, without drawing undo attention to my plans if they were not enacted? I needed a prop. I needed something small enough to plant on Ca.s.sio, if necessary; something that could have only come from Desdemona.

"You know the handkerchief of Oth.e.l.lo's that he gave to Desdemona?" I asked Emilia the next night, in a falsely casual tone.

"The one with the strawberries?" she replied absently, combing her hair.

"Yes, that one. Do you fancy it? Would you like one like it?"

She smiled. "How very un-Iago-like, to want to ply me with gifts. It makes me wonder what you've been up to that you think you'll need to buy my favor." But then she grinned.

"Do you like it?" I repeated. "Do you think she'd let you borrow it, to get the pattern copied?"

She stopped combing, settled the comb in her lap, and looked at me appraisingly. "You mean that?" she said. "You want to give me such a gift? Why?"

Despite my recent forays into deception, I still was not an able liar, and I most certainly could not lie to this woman. "I cannot give you a reason," I said. "But I think you should, ahem, borrow it from Desdemona."

She smiled, in the mysterious way that women do when men are being dense about Things Female. "She never lets it out of her sight," she said and raised the comb to continue working on her hair. "I doubt she would part company with it for an hour, even. She sleeps with it tied around her wrist."

"That seems a bit extreme."

"Love does that to people." She laughed.

"Well, if she ever decides she can survive without it for a day or two, please alert me. I might have a wife who deserves a trifle of a gift."

She beamed at me, lowering the comb again. "You win points just for desiring to please me," she said, and gestured toward the bed. "Would you like to redeem them right away?"

TWO MORNINGS LATER, Ca.s.sio emerged from his shamed, bawd-laden hermitage and finally took my advice to approach Oth.e.l.lo through Desdemona. So much for my lieutenant's sash, then; Desdemona really did hold enormous sway over her husband's sentiment, and if she argued on Ca.s.sio's behalf, Oth.e.l.lo would give her whatever she asked for.

So I was not happy to see Ca.s.sio, in full red-and-white military regalia, blue ostrich feather bobbing, approach along the lawn from the gate. Two musicians, young men in native costume, followed him, playing a dirgelike tune on mandolin and lute. In this courtyard, protected from both the sea breeze and the town noises, their mediocre playing carried loudly. Oh, heaven, I thought, he may as well be courting her.

"Good morning, stranger," I said, making myself smile. I rose and crossed to meet him, giving him a hearty slap on the arm.

"Good morning, Ensign," he said, with a salute. He gestured to the two musicians, and they stopped playing. "I'm tardy in taking your advice, but now is my last hope for it."

"Never a last hope," I insisted. "Oth.e.l.lo will surely hear you out."

He grimaced. "I was coming here to ask your wife if she would ask her lady to come out to speak to me."

Lo, how the mighty had fallen. Ca.s.sio, when useful to Oth.e.l.lo, had had free access to Desdemona . . . now he was asking my permission to speak to Emilia, to whom he would then ask permission to speak to Desdemona. I found that delicious.

"I was just headed inside," I said, luxuriating in my ability to go where now he could not. "I'll send Emilia to you. However," I added, with a helpful smile, "I think the sad-eyed musicians are a bit much. Pay them for their troubles, and send them off."

"Do you think so? Thank you, Iago." He looked so touched by my offering advice, I almost felt bad for him. "Even among my fellow Florentines, I've never met a kinder fellow."

"That's high praise indeed," I said. "I'll send Emilia to you."

I let myself into the cool, shady rooms where the women were keeping themselves occupied, on the north wing of the fortress. Emilia and Desdemona were doing embroidery together, near an open door that faced out into the courtyard. I knew Emilia disliked embroidery (I suspected Desdemona did as well), and I felt sorry for it. They both looked up eagerly for a distraction. I gestured with a finger, and Emilia happily set her hoop aside and rushed over to me. Desdemona watched her, looking almost envious.

Emilia approached me, leaned in for a kiss; I gave her one on the cheek and whispered, "Michele Ca.s.sio is outside the door." In an even quieter voice, I added, "He wants the lady to help him get his commission back."

Her eyes widened, and she pulled back to meet my gaze. "Oh," she whispered, after a moment. "That's a bit awkward for us, isn't it?"

Thank G.o.d she understood. "He has asked me to ask you to go out to him, so he can ask you to ask Desdemona to go out."

"How Florentine," she said. "I do not suppose I can refuse to see him? Or refuse to carry the message to her?"

In that remarkable moment, I had to make a choice: either let her in on everything I thought and planned, or promise myself she never had an inkling of it. I chose the latter. I loved her too much to enmesh her in any unsavory scheme. And on a less n.o.ble note, I wasn't sure I trusted her not to give something away.

So despite my impulse to say Do exactly as you please, I said instead, with a paternal frown, "Emilia, I appreciate your impulse, but the man deserves to have his appeal."

"Why cannot he have it after you've been made lieutenant?" she shot back. I could see Desdemona out of the corner of my eye sit up a little straighter and c.o.c.k her head with curiosity.

I kissed Emilia's cheek. "The best Ca.s.sio can hope for is a reinstatement as an officer. Oth.e.l.lo will never consider him for lieutenant again."

"When will he consider you for lieutenant?" she asked.

I pulled away from her. "That is a different conversation," I said. "Attend to present business." I walked toward the interior door of the room. Here I paused and looked back. When I knew I had Desdemona's full attention, I concluded to Emilia, "Attend to this matter honorably and honestly, wife."

She saluted me. "You've a n.o.bler heart than I have, husband," she called out, in a tone of admiring sincerity. I bowed my head to Desdemona and departed through a curtain to a corridor.

Chapter 41.

AS I HAD ALL WEEK, I attended to Oth.e.l.lo in his office. Daily he was briefed on the military and civic concerns of Cyprus, and particularly of Famagusta. Most of it was boring, dreary, officious paperwork and committee meetings, not at all what he was used to or cared for. Throughout the week, Marco Salamon, the paunchy Venetian patrician who was Oth.e.l.lo's civic commissioner, was there, and by the end of the week, Montano was well enough recovered from his wound to sit in as well. The meetings were airless and pointless, and as soon as business was attended to, Oth.e.l.lo would excuse himself, with me following him, and spend the rest of the morning with his officers training in arms in the courtyard of the fortress. We all shared mess together in the refectory, and the afternoon was variably spent each day.

THIS MORNING AFTER Ca.s.sio's appearance, the meeting and the boredom were no different. As always, Oth.e.l.lo tried to rush through it, and as always, the gentlemen attending him seemed to want to slow the process down, perhaps because they had nothing more interesting to do with their day. And, as always, I eyed the lieutenant's sash and wondered when he would present it to me.

As it was the end of our first week, I scribed dictation on a summary of events thus far (nothing to report beyond Ca.s.sio's decommissioning, but taking seven pages to do so). Oth.e.l.lo signed it; it was sealed; he gave it to me.

"Iago, give this to the pilot of the s.h.i.+p. Send him back to Venice, with our regards to the Senate as we await further orders from them. I believe the army's presence is useful here, but I do not know that mine is, now that the Turkish threat is past."

I saluted and took the packet from his hand. Why was he calling upon me to do these trivial tasks? Had he not, back in Zara, sent a page boy to deliver messages to the s.h.i.+p? But, of course, those had been secret missives; this was a matter of state. So perhaps it was an enn.o.bling gesture, to show all the officials of the island that I was his right-arm man. The best way to show them would be to give me that sash.

"When you have done that, Iago, join me on the wall works," Oth.e.l.lo was saying as he pushed his chair back. "Come, gentlemen, show me these famous fortifications." The perfumed gentlemen-among them, leathery-faced Montano and a famous engineer named Zuan Hieronomo-showed him out. I handed off the letters to a page boy.

I had no interest in tagging along with the officials as they showed Oth.e.l.lo a fortress he had already thoroughly examined on his own time, with his own engineers. We already knew the main problem with Famagusta: these towers were at angles, not rounded, and (unlike Nicosia) they did not sufficiently project far enough out to allow room to cover flanking fire. Oth.e.l.lo and I together had devised a solution to this, before we had been sent here: wooden curtains that could swing out with artillery attached. Oth.e.l.lo now simply had to persuade Signior Hieronomo that this was Signior Hieronomo's own idea.

To avoid becoming entangled in that conversation, I wandered slowly through the armoring rooms, a level below the general and his sycophants, trying to sort out what to do about Ca.s.sio.

EMILIA WOULD HAVE greeted him and taken his message to Desdemona, because I'd told her to. Desdemona would surely have come outside to hear his plea. She would likely be sympathetic, because she knew and liked him, and of course felt beholden to him for helping carry out her elopement. If she agreed to pet.i.tion Oth.e.l.lo, she would win him over. Completely so: not only to reinstate him as an officer but as lieutenant.

I could do nothing to prevent these events from happening. I could only manipulate their meaning. That meant I'd have to call upon the second, uglier part of my revenge fantasy, and make Oth.e.l.lo question Desdemona's motives. I felt my gut clench at the thought.

I need not convince him they are actually lovers, I told myself, only that there is cause to be . . . a little wary. A man so rapturously in love is naturally jealous and insecure-I had been so with Emilia. If I'd had a close friend back then, what words from a confidant would have caused me alarm? Such words, if I could summon them, I'd use with Oth.e.l.lo, of Ca.s.sio.

Besides, I rea.s.sured that small part of me that quailed at my intentions, Ca.s.sio does seem taken with her; this may well be an honest warning bell I 'mringing.

I TIMED THINGS WELL and found Oth.e.l.lo on the parapets having just bid good day to the magistrates.

"The artillery curtains?" I asked, catching my breath.

"Why, yes, my friend," Oth.e.l.lo said with his winning grin. "Signior Hieronomo is a wondrously inspired engineer-he intended a notion of moveable artillery curtains. Wasn't that clever? You and I, Iago, we should brush up on our engineering skills, then perhaps we would think of such clever things."

"Well done, General," I said. "You are learning how to navigate Venetian waters."

"Fencing?" Oth.e.l.lo said.

With remarkable offhandedness I suggested, "Soon enough, but perhaps we might first repair to the ladies' wing and say good morning to our wives?"

He grinned. He always grinned in matters regarding Desdemona. I doubted we would catch Ca.s.sio still there, but it was worth the try.

We strolled the wall walk around the keep tower and turned onto the wing that housed the bedrooms. Just as we turned the corner, I saw, bobbing in the air below, a bright blue ostrich feather.

Chapter 42.

THE OSTRICH FEATHER bobbed nervously in the opposite direction from us, and disappeared out of the fortress gate.

Oh, I liked the looks of that.

"Huh," I said, as if to myself. "I don't like the looks of that."

"What did you say?" Oth.e.l.lo asked, taking a longer stride and craning his neck to see farther around the corner.

"It was nothing," I said dismissively. "I just . . . no, it was nothing."

"Was that Michele Ca.s.sio down there? Talking to my wife?" Oth.e.l.lo asked.

"Ca.s.sio?" I said, in a surprised tone. "I think not, the fellow down there darted off as if he were guilty of some crime."

"I think it was Ca.s.sio," Oth.e.l.lo said thoughtfully.

Emilia looked up and waved to me at that moment; Desdemona, following her gaze, held both of her hands up to her husband. We were two floors up, but near the external stairs that could take us down to the courtyard level. We began the descent.

"Good morning, General!" Desdemona called out sweetly. "I've spent the morning being courted here by a suitor who is languis.h.i.+ng in your displeasure."

Again, the heavens were surely working for me. Were I playing G.o.d myself, it would not have occurred to me to make Desdemona use the word suitor.

Oth.e.l.lo stopped so abruptly I b.u.mped into his shoulder. "Whom do you mean?" he asked.

She gave him an exaggerated look implying he should know better. "Your lieutenant Ca.s.sio, of course." She gestured to the scraggly lawn around her. "Join us, and bring your witty ensign there."

I avoided Emilia's eyes at the use of both these ranks, and followed Oth.e.l.lo down the stairway to stand near the ladies. Desdemona, smiling like a mischievous kitten, moved toward Oth.e.l.lo and held out her hands toward him, in a coquettish invitation to embrace her.

"My good lord," she purred as his hands came to rest on her shoulders. "If I have any power to move you, give Ca.s.sio his position back."

Oth.e.l.lo's smile faded. He removed his hands from her shoulders and turned away. Desdemona, undeterred, immediately sidestepped to remain in front of him, and now she placed her hands on his broad shoulders.

"He wors.h.i.+ps you, Oth.e.l.lo. He made a terrible mistake, and he's very sorry for it. Do not reprehend. I have absolute faith that he will never make that mistake again, and since he has no other weaknesses at all, I beg you to call him back."

Oth.e.l.lo glanced at me. I shrugged, as if this matter had not the slightest thing to do with me. The general looked back at his wife. "Was that him, just now?"

"Yes," she said. Oth.e.l.lo looked at me again, more abruptly, and this time I met his gaze, as if I were suspicious. "He was so upset about his situation that he's left part of his grief with me. Please, love, I beg you: call him back."

Oth.e.l.lo frowned and brushed her hands from his shoulder; he turned away from her, toward me, looking stern. "Not now, sweeting, some other time."

Smiling angelically, she sashayed sideways once more to stay directly in front of her husband. "Will it be soon?" she asked adorably.

Oth.e.l.lo sighed and smiled at her despite himself. "Only because it means so much to you, love."

"Perhaps tonight, over supper?" she suggested. "Shall we invite him to dine with us?"

"No," Oth.e.l.lo said, a stern parent. "Not tonight."

"Tomorrow at dinner?"