“I’m not saying that she does not,” I said quickly. “The heart does not care what the mind knows. She may be yours entirely, in her imagination. But she knows, even better than I do, how impossible it is to pursue.” I could not tell if he was heeding me; he was agitated as he strode across the room, slamming one fist into the other hand. “And so, General,” I said, taking a deep breath, “the most honest answer to your query is that you cannot court her in the Venetian style, because you are not Venetian. She is patrician, and you are not. She is Brabantio’s only child. His heir. Unless some foreign royalty presses a suit for her, she will be married within the Venetian patriciate.”
“That damned obstinate man!” he bellowed.
“If I may say so, Othello,” I said gently, “the fact that he allows her to reject her suitors makes him quite an indulgent father.” Pause. “But not so indulgent that he will reduce his house by marrying her outside the herd, so to speak.”
He stopped moving. He stopped slamming his fist into his palm. He seemed suddenly deflated. He stood by the window, and the moonlight made him nearly blue. “I did not come to Venice seeking a wife,” he said. “I never thought to have one. And I know I will survive if this young lady is never mine. But by heaven it galls me that something so ridiculous would prevent it, when it is for this very same patriciate that I risk my life and well-being.”
I wished I were somewhere else. “They pay you in money,” I said. “They pay their own kind in favors. Desdemona is destined to be such a favor, to somebody—but not to you, General. It grieves me to be the one to tell you that, but I must remind you, you did ask—”
“Yes, Iago, I do not begrudge you the news, I thank you as always for your honesty,” Othello said. “Now leave me, please, I require some time alone to muse upon this. I am very grateful to have been properly informed of my status. I had allowed myself to think I was in all ways appreciated as a man here.”
“I feel sickened that my nation treats you thus. I wish I had the power to change it.”
He gave me a weak smile. “I believe you, Iago. Go, now, and give Emilia my regards. The next time I am summoned to eat at Brabantio’s or anywhere, I will be sure to bring you with me. To help me remember my place.”
I’d never heard such bitterness in that warm, ringing voice.
“WHAT AN EXCELLENT project for you, encouraging a romance you know may never happen,” I snapped at Emilia a quarter hour later. “Never mind that you kept it a secret from me. What other secret meddling do you keep from me?”
Her face reddened against the pale flax of the bedsheets. “I did not think of it as a secret. It was so benign, it was so innocent. You’d have done the same if you were aware of their attraction. Or,” she added cockily, propping her head on one bare arm, staring up at me from the bed, “perhaps you would not have. You might be too jealous for his affections.”
“He may not marry her,” I repeated clearly. “You gave him false hope. And I had to tell him that, because of your feminine meddling.”
She took a breath and looked down. “I’m sorry,” she said. She pushed herself to sit up straighter, looking now more eager than cocky. “Really, I am, Iago. I meant it as a favor to them both, but you’re right, it showed no forethought.”
“So do not do it anymore,” I said, satisfied. I began to unlace my doublet. “With them, with anyone. Do not meddle, Emilia, you are not the meddling sort, and I love you for that, but you’re not good at meddling, so for the love of God, do not interfere, do not scheme. And above all, wife, do not hide things from me! I could have told you weeks ago the danger of your abetting them. Then Othello would not have fallen into such a reverie of false hopes, and he would not be as miserable as he is right now. Do you understand?”
She fell back against the pillow. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a softer voice, eyes closed. “I understand.”
“I did not hear you,” I snapped.
“I understand,” she said louder, opening her eyes to stare at the ceiling.
“Look at me,” I said. “Say it straight to my face, meet my eye and promise me that you will never scheme or interfere in other people’s lives.”
She sat up again and turned to face me, her lovely neck bare and pale in the lamplight.
“I promise,” she said. “Now I feel ashamed.”
“I don’t want you to feel ashamed,” I said uncomfortably. I turned away from the bed as I pulled off my shirt. “But I want us to trust each other, and I cannot trust you if I think you are likely to do something like this again.” I glanced at her and saw her eyes filling with tears; in a moment she would be crying, and then I would not be able to think clearly. “Emilia, I love you very much. I believe we have a marriage of true minds, a marriage to be envied by all others. In large part it’s because I trust you to be as smart and honest and industrious as I am. You have a clever mind, and I adore your clever mind, but for the love of God, do not use it to make mischief, even if you think the mischief’s innocent.”
“Shall I apologize to the general?”
I shook my head. “That will just humiliate him.” I hung my shirt on a wall peg. “Let it go. Brabantio himself has no idea of any of this and will surely call Othello to supper again. He will likely ask us to go with him. We will all go on as before, sans secret romance. I’ll wager we all dine there tomorrow night.”
AND INDEED, NEXT DAY, an invitation arrived. We all took a gondola to Ca’Brabantio for supper. That night we met a handsome young Florentine soldier newly graduated from Castelvecchio in Verona. His name was Michele Cassio.
The Florentine
Chapter 23
AT DINNER, I learned three things about Michele Cassio. First: he was good at math, something he wanted all of us to know. Second, he did not partake of wine, something he did not want us to notice—but his glass remained untouched all evening. Third, he embodied every stereotype I’d ever heard about the men of Florence: he was an attractive, charming fop.
His face was handsome, in a classic, even rugged, Roman-soldier way. He had excellent teeth and beautiful long lashes. He was tall, broad-shouldered and slim-waisted; his carriage was immaculate; his dress was amended with niceties far more expensive than a soldier’s purse could probably afford. He was exceptionally charming to Emilia and Desdemona, holding Desdemona’s chair for her and offering a discreet comment on the sweetness of her perfume. He greeted both ladies by pressing three fingers to his lips and then opening his hand toward them; he then kissed both ladies’ hands in an extravagant, Florentine manner and smiled at them both within an inch of decency’s limit. I did not know Desdemona well enough to read her, but Emilia—Emilia, of all women, who was never charmed by any gallant of Venice—seemed charmed by him. He uttered Florentine small talk with a Florentine accent and it made my wife—my wife—giggle. Perhaps her giggle was politely veiled mockery, but perhaps it wasn’t. And anyhow, when had I last elicited a giggle from her? What could I do to make her giggle that way later, more intensely than her passing giggle now? For a moment I was distracted, worriedly inventing an answer.
Michele was not a soldier masquerading as a fop, but quite the other way around: the man, at twenty-three years, had never seen battle. He had only served in a sleepy garrison along the borders of Terraferma. Yet I cannot deny it: when he entered the room, his whole bearing suggested grandeur; his jerkin looked sculpted onto his body, and his sword hung at his side with some inexplicable extra gallantry (until Brabantio’s majordomo requested he remove it).
Othello had heard from me, for years now, of the rivalry between Venice and Florence. Even as political allies, we enjoy hating each other: Florence is the only city-state in Europe that comes close (but not very close) to the cultural richness of Venice, and naturally feels the need to demean La Serenissima, as if that could somehow make them superior. We return the favor by demeaning them. Over decades this has calcified into absurdity. In Venice we have “fool Florentine” jokes, and I am sure the Florentines have
“fool Venetian” jokes, although no doubt those are not as funny. Lest you think my nativity gives me bias, consider this: Florentines from Machiavelli right up to Giannotti have been preoccupied with the study of Venice, while no Venetian writers of note have expressed the slightest interest in examining Things Florentine (except for Marco Foscari back in ’27, who didn’t like them anyhow). The men of Florence all were prissy, overdressed, effeminate, lacking manly valor despite their pretty looks, and valuing their tailors above their armorers. Even more than the Venetians, I mean. The extra feather in Michele’s hat—a long, curling ostrich feather dyed bright blue—was to me the embodiment of his native frivolity. On the other hand, he was proper, almost stiff, within his gallantry, as if he were playing an overwrought part at which he was very familiar and well rehearsed.
IT WAS INTERESTING that he did not touch the wine. More precisely, he put his glass to his lips at just the right moments—toasting our host’s health, and so on—and even wet them, but took in so little that the serving boy never once refilled his glass.
“Michele has come to us to assist in strategy against the Turks, in our Cyprus defense,” Brabantio explained. He said this directly to me. I realized, with a shock of displeasure, that he was explaining it only to me because Othello already knew it. How, and why, did the general know something I did not? I was his constant aide, far more than was Lieutenant da Porto; he made no decision without at least thinking aloud in my presence. And now Venice had imported some Florentine to work beside the general, and I knew nothing about it?
I smiled tightly. “The general did not mention it,” I said.
“Surely I did, Iago!” Othello said, about to ladle some soup into his mouth. He set the spoon back down in the bowl. “Do you not remember we were talking about needing new defenses in Famagusta? And moving men back there, now that our Terraferma border is more secure again?”
“Of course I remember those discussions, General,” I said, trying to sound casual, and trying not to obviously pitch my volume in Michele’s direction. “I was your chief adviser in these matters. But I do not recall your wanting to bring in a specialist for anything. What are you, sir, an engineer?” I asked the Florentine.
“A strategist,” Michele corrected me with a complacent smile. “I studied under Marco Sapegno and wrote a text that has been quite highly regarded, on the matter of transporting men and materiels most efficiently over land, as compared to over water.”
I almost laughed out loud; Othello, recognizing the expression on my face, gave me a warning scowl in which I sensed some shared amusement. “How remarkably useful to our particular scenario,” I said. “May I assume you wrote this text specifically in the hopes of gaining General Othello’s attentions?”
Michele sat even more upright than he already was, and his face registered surprise. “Not particularly; what makes you ask?”
“There are few armies but Venice’s that need such a particular accounting of resources,” I said. “It is not as if you were, say, writing a manual on the use of cannons, which could be of use to nearly every army in the world.”
“I was aware that Venice might find my talents useful,” the young man said, with that same smile. “But Genoa would too, as well as Spain. I did not write the article for Venice, but I am very happy to present it to Venice.”
“So. You are a theoretician,” Othello said congenially. It’s a good thing he said it then, or else I would have done so in a less congenial tone. “You study and comment on what you have learned by studying, and then you pass the information on to men of action like myself and Iago here, to act on it.”
Michele’s face reddened, hearing in the words a slight that Othello did not mean (but which I would certainly have meant, were I the speaker). “That is one way to look at it,” he acknowledged. “Although I pride myself on being a disciplined soldier as well. I am in fact finishing my training here in Venice.”
“So I have heard,” Othello said. Another thing I myself had not heard. “Well, Iago and I will look over your text tomorrow, and I am sure when you are ready for actual soldiering, I would be happy to have you in my unit. Although you will not be able to dress like . . . that.” There was a gesture toward the ostrich feather. As an outsider, Othello said it without malice, as a simple statement of fact; as Venetians, the rest of us around the table exchanged barely suppressed snickers. Even Brabantio, bless him.
“I want to read this article as well,” declared Brabantio. “Then I can report to the Senate. Tomorrow we shall all four convene to review it. I work from home tomorrow, so come at ten, and we will examine it then.”
MICHELE WENT WITH US back toward the Arsenal; like myself and Emilia, he was staying at the Dolphin. His departure from our hosts was elaborate and full of complicated gestures involving both of his wrists, most of his fingers, and at one point an elbow; he showered so many compliments on Desdemona’s beauty that she looked embarrassed by the time the gondola finally pulled us away from the beautifully sculpted water gate.
“You know she will wed a member of the Venetian aristocracy,” Othello informed Michele as soon as we were out of earshot of Ca’Brabantio.
“Who?” Michele said absently, then immediately smiled and bowed his head. “Ah, the lady Desdemona. Yes. I am from a titled family myself and I know how these things work.”
“She cannot marry you,” Othello insisted conversationally, with satisfaction. “Even if you are good stock. You are not good Venetian stock.”
Michele gave the general a quizzical, polite smile. “But I have no interest in the lady,” he said. “I hope I did not appear to be paying court to her.”
“No more than you were courting my wife,” I said archly.
“Your wife?” Cassio’s eyebrows shot up.
“Iago!” Emilia laughed and batted me with her fingers. Emilia was not the finger-batting type. “Pay no mind to him, sir. He is jealous of me.”
“I would be too, if I had such an exquisite lady to call my own,” Cassio said gallantly. “But please know, Ensign Iago, I have no designs on the lovely Emilia, and I admit I did not realize she was your wife.”
In the gondola’s shimmery lamplight, Othello, Emilia, and I all tried to read one another’s expressions without being read ourselves.
“You thought she was the general’s mistress,” I said, with a rueful smile. “Did you not?”
“I apologize if I have offended somehow,” Cassio deflected and turned his attention solely to Emilia, kissing his fingers and then gesturing toward her with them. “In Florence we take enjoyment in the presence of attractive women.”
To my immense gratitude, in the wavering torchlight from the bow of the gondola, Emilia gave me a knowing look, and kissed me on the cheek.
Our lovemaking that night was exquisite.
Chapter 24
MICHELE CASSIO WAS, INDEED, excellent at math. He had calculated things precisely that it was my duty to know in general. His attention to detail was almost cowing—albeit it was abstract detail, idealized detail, theoretical armies and numbers and ships and harvests and bags of burlap. But given the Platonic ideal of people and objects he was working with, he had thought through a great deal. There was some kind of working brain behind that handsome face and bobbing blue ostrich feather.
Over the course of two dull hours, in Senator Brabantio’s study, Michele read aloud his own text, in which he listed the exact amount of weight each soldier’s provisions should weigh (assuming no man cheated and brought extra—such an assumption did not enter into his figuring), and how that would affect the speed of a boat when freighted, compared to the speed of a wagon train over various terrains, adjusting for the extra but varying weight and mass of, for example, horse feed or ballast for the ships. His algebra was quietly elegant. While he said nothing revolutionary, he reaffirmed what Othello, Othello’s civilian superintendent Marco Salamon, myself, and the Senate had suspected: that we should keep all our cavalry on Terraferma and move only men to Cypr
us.
But his calculations also showed us that we should move them with more supplies than we would have anticipated. The extra tonnage, freighted, would in the end cost us less resources and manpower than sending an extra ship later with additional supplies.
At the risk of sounding ungracious, that was the only thing of value we gained in two hours of narcotic verbiage.
FAR MORE INTERESTING than listening and responding to Cassio’s figures, to me at least, was our one interruption. Brabantio’s majordomo knocked and, upon invitation, opened the door, carrying on a tray a large silver box, like a casket or a Byzantine reliquary. “This arrived for your daughter, sir,” the majordomo said dryly. “Will you accept it on her behalf? The gentleman awaits personally in his gondola for an answer.”
Brabantio rolled his eyes and made a grunting sound. His manner suggested this sort of thing happened nearly every day. I noticed Othello tense and crane his head to get a better look at the thing.
“Let me see it.” Brabantio sighed. “I need a respite from all these calculations.”
The majordomo set it on the desk before the senator. I barely suppressed a gasp. The casket had gold chase-work on it, and the gold outlined a stylized pepper tree, which had become the emblem of a certain childhood friend of mine.
That casket was from Roderigo.
“Aha,” Brabantio said dryly, holding up the gift and examining it from all sides, as if he were a farmer checking the health of a piglet. “That spice merchant again, I see.” He handed the casket back to the majordomo. “Of course we won’t accept this. The man is not even a patrician, for the love of angels, why does he think I would let him near my daughter?”
I felt Othello’s bright black eyes swivel in their sockets toward me; I met them with my own and as compassionate a look as I could muster. Inside, though, I was strangling sad bemusement: poor Roderigo, now the richest citizen-merchant in all Venice, still pined for women he would never have.
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