The Serpent of Venice

by Christopher Moore

  Salarino drew his dagger to intercept the simian if it leapt for his face as it had Gratiano’s, but instead the monkey ran by on its hind feet, wiping its paw on Salarino’s boot before scampering down the canal, then up a drainpipe until it disappeared over the roof.

  “A monkey?” said Gratiano, stunned and hatless.

  “Ha!” said Salarino. “He wiped shit on your face.”

  “Well, he wiped shit on your boot.”

  “He gave me a letter,” said Shylock.

  Gratiano swiped at his face, which was smeared with a dark brown streak. He sniffed his fingers. “It’s not shit. It’s sticky. Smells of pitch.”

  Shylock broke the seal and did not notice that there was a menorah pressed into the wax. “I don’t have my spectacles,” said Shylock. “I can’t read this. What does it say?”

  Salarino snatched the parchment away from Shylock and held it out to catch the last of the twilight. “It says, ‘Don’t be afraid. You are safe.’ ” He tossed the letter into the canal. “Well, that’s a load of monkey bollocks, because you are most definitely not safe. Grab him, Gratzi.”

  Gratiano had taken one step toward Shylock when the serpent came out of the canal right below Salarino’s feet and rose as if she was climbing through water, her front claws stripping the muscles from his arms like gloves while her rear claws sliced his thighs down to the bone before he could fall. The scream Salarino was composing was cut off as the serpent’s tail slashed his throat back to his spine.

  Without a tick she flowed with the fountain of water that had erupted from the canal with her, fifteen feet up the side of the building, describing a great arc as she bounded along the wall over Shylock’s head and dropped, jaws wide, on Gratiano, who was just turning to run. She caught his entire head in her mouth and twisted in the air like a great fish on the line as she fell back into the canal, dragging Gratiano beneath the water’s surface with her. Salarino collapsed into a lumpy puddle of meat and bone and oozed over the edge of the walkway into the canal. A second later, a razored talon broke the surface and pulled the corpse under.

  Shylock stood, shivering, covered in blood and freezing water, watching the canal settle as the red stain spread to the other side.

  “Pie would have been good,” he said to the empty air.

  He kicked Salarino’s dagger into the canal and hurried on his way, keeping his eyes wide open to dry in the cold, afraid to close them lest he see again the thing from the canal in the dark of a blink.

  Antonio found morning stretching deep into the afternoon as he tried to shake off the hangover from his night of debauchery and alibi at Signora Veronica’s. Bassanio had retrieved him from the brothel in the morning and had trundled him home to his apartments, but light, sound, air, and regret were still painful, and they had not yet heard from Gratiano and Salarino about the Jew’s answer for a plea of grace.

  Bassanio had kept the fire going and was boiling all the hope out of a chicken, in promise of some curative soup from a recipe concocted for him as a boy by his nursemaid, but for all his fretting and contrite fussing, he was only making his failure to attain financial rescue from Portia more annoying.

  She had said: “I would pay double, treble, three thousand ducats for a friend of this description, Bassanio, but until I marry the man chosen by the dreaded caskets, I have only the allowance to maintain Belmont. Unless I appeal to my sister, who is away in Corsica, and as you need the ducats in less than a week, word could not even reach her in time. For you, for your friend, I would do all, but I cannot offer a fortune that is not mine.”

  Bassanio looked up from stirring his soup. “Perhaps the Jew will relent. Maybe he has learned to be more kind since his daughter ran off.”

  “Mercy might be more forthcoming had she not run off with our Lorenzo,” said Antonio from under a blanket, where he sat enshrouded on the divan, hiding from the light and other harsh realities.

  There came a light knock at the door.

  “There,” said Bassanio. “That might be Gratiano and Sal now.”

  “Because they are known to always knock timidly before entering,” said Antonio, but the sarcasm was lost on his young protégé.

  Bassanio opened the door.

  “There’s a monkey at the door with Gratiano’s hat.”

  “A monkey?”

  “He says his name is Jeff.”

  “He says that?” Antonio liked monkeys. He almost looked. “The monkey says that?”

  “Well, no, there’s a collar around his neck, and on it there’s a brass tag, and it says ‘Jeff.’ Oh look, there’s a letter in his hat. Not the monkey’s hat. Gratiano’s hat.”

  “What’s the letter say?”

  “What’s the letter say?” Bassanio asked the monkey.

  “No, Bassanio, read the letter, don’t ask the monkey.”

  “Oh, right. He probably only reads Hebrew.”

  Antonio pulled the blanket off his head and said, “What in the name of Saint fucking Mark are you talking about?”

  The monkey screeched and bounded off down the stairs.

  Bassanio closed the door and turned slowly to his friend, the letter in hand. “I didn’t want to tell you, since they failed so miserably . . . but I hired the thieving Hebrew monkeys of La Giudecca to fix the caskets to win Portia in marriage. See here, the menorah pressed in the sealing wax, that is their sign. Funny, he didn’t have on a yellow Jew hat, but a little black harlequin’s hat. Perhaps it’s a Jewish holiday.”

  Antonio hadn’t thought his headache could worsen. But yes. “Break the seal, Bassanio. What does it say?”

  Bassanio unfolded the letter and read:

  “ ‘Four friends have been taken

  To Death’s savage pool.

  No pound of flesh flayed

  Shall appease a wronged Fool.

  Condolences.’ ”

  Bassanio looked over the edge of the parchment at his bedraggled friend, whose eyes had gone wide. “Ha! The last line doesn’t even rhyme. What does it mean?”

  “It means that the gondolier with Salanio’s dagger lied. He did not receive the dagger from Sal to carry the message to you, and it was not a small Jew he took to Belmont in the night. And Salarino and Gratiano are not going to come through that door with good news.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  No Shit, Shylock

  Shylock did not see us there, in his house, when he entered, so intent was he upon closing the door behind him and locking it, putting a hefty slab of oak between him and whatever was in the outside world. He leaned his forehead against the door and stood there, shivering and out of breath. When Jessica came behind him to wrap a towel around his shoulders, he screamed, and she jumped back.

  “Papa,” said she.

  “Look!” said I. “I’ve returned your loving daughter. Go ahead, give the girl a proper cuddle.”

  “I have no daughter,” said Shylock, his back pressed so firmly against the door that I think it was the first time I had not seen him hunched over. Jessica clutched the towel to her bosom and backed away, trying to squeeze back tears.

  “Thief!” he said to me. “Where are my ducats?”

  “Look, I’ve brought Marco Polo!”

  “Where is my turquoise?”

  “And I’ve brought this monkey called Jeff. Look at his little fool’s kit.”

  “What of my other jewels?”

  “And look at this great drooling nitwit. Bigger even than Tubal’s two huge Jews.”

  “Charmed,” said the ninny.

  “I have seen this monkey,” said Shylock.

  “Jeff,” provided Drool.

  “He gave me a letter not an hour ago.”

  “I know,” said I. “I sent him with the letter.”

  “ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ it says. ‘You will be safe,’ it says. Then that thing, that creature, that monster—”

  “That were the dragon Pocket shagged.”

  “There was no dragon shagging.”

  “Beggi
n’ pardon, sir,” said Drool, conspiratorially behind his hand, as subtle as a war hammer. “A gentleman don’t talk about his dragon sextool adventures, so as not to compromise a lady’s reputation.”

  “That is not what I taught you.”

  “Sor-ry.”

  “She was a mermaid when she shagged me—I thought she was a mermaid. And I was chained up. I’m not even sure it was a proper shagging. Could have been either end, although having now seen the toothy end, I will say she’s not without her amorous skills—”

  “ ‘And even a homely girl can be beautiful when she bears a generous spirit in the dark,’ ” Drool quoted me in my own voice.

  “Deviate,” spat Jessica. “Dragon shagger!”

  Shylock’s eyes widened. “What is this? What is this? What is this? Consorting with monsters that tear the flesh from a man’s bones like he would take off his socks? What are you?”

  “Just the pert and nimble spirit of mirth, at your service,” said I, with a dance step and a bit of a jingle on my hat bells, as Shylock had not yet seen me in my official togs.

  “He did rescue you, Papa,” said Jessica. “They were going to murder you.” The first unstern, ungrowling thing she had said to or about me since she’d learned of Lorenzo. “But he is a thief, and a rascal, and most assuredly a fool.”

  “Look,” said I, trying again for a distraction. “Marco Polo, famed Venetian explorer, under your roof.”

  “Signor,” said Polo, with a slight bow. “Your daughter and Pocket gallantly rescued me from a Genoan prison, when even my own family had been unable to negotiate the terms of my release. I regret that they had to use your treasure, but my family will gladly restore it to you, with interest, as soon as I am able to arrange it.” He really did know how to pour oil upon the churning waters of an angry temper with his bearing. With interest, that simple phrase calmed Shylock, not because he was greedy, but because he thought it was the one thing that allowed him, as a Jew, to participate in this oh-so-sophisticated republic of merchants, and Polo, somehow, had known that. Perhaps years in the courts of mad and murderous Oriental despots had taught him how to best keep his head atop his shoulders.

  “You are welcome in my house, Marco Polo,” said Shylock. Momentarily, the rest of us were not in the room. “My daughter will bring you some wine.” He turned to Jessica.

  “You have no daughter,” she said. “Get your own wine.”

  “Respect! Daughter! You take my gold, run off with this Christian, this scoundrel Lorenzo—”

  “I ran off with this scoundrel,” she said, gesturing in my general direction.

  “Viv eated him,” said Drool.

  “Stop saying that,” said I. “That is not right.”

  “Sor-ry,” said the oaf, hanging his head. “Viv ate him.”

  “He said that before, Pocket,” said Jessica. “He may not be able to find the round side of a barrel, but he does remember what is said, disturbingly well.”

  “Well, I am glad you were not with this Lorenzo, even if it means that you return wearing trousers with this—this—abomination,” Shylock said, waving in my general direction.

  “Abomination? I take your daughter out for a spot o’ sailing, and in the mix rescue a national hero, teach her to speak pirate, and save her from a bloody murder plot, then return her in better than new condition, and I’m an abomination? What ho, respect, Shylock? Wherefore respect, Shylock?”

  “What murder plot?” asked Jessica.

  “Lorenzo was going to use you, take the gold, and cast you in the sea,” said Shylock.

  “No, that’s not it,” said I. “I mean the one that culminated a bit ago with Viv somewhat eviscerating Antonio’s other minions. They would have killed you next to try to break your father’s bond on Antonio.” I frowned my dire frown of truth, I liked to call it, but as I did my hat bells jingled, undermining the dire sincerity of my lie.

  “That’s a wandering wagonload of Jew wank,” she said, looming rather largely over me for a girl of her size.

  “You know excessive use of alliteration is a sign of madness?”

  “Antonio’s ruffians were boasting of it days ago,” said Shylock. “I thought you lost.”

  Jessica stormed up to me, her teeth gritted, her nose only a hairbreadth from my own. “You knew about Lorenzo all along, yet you didn’t tell me?”

  “I was afraid you’d be cross. It’s easy for Shylock, you’re always cross with him.”

  “Well, I’m bloody well cross with you now.”

  “Red tent?” offered Shylock with a cough.

  “Like I’ve been living under one for months,” I replied under my breath.

  “It’s not a bloody red tent!”

  “So to speak,” said I.

  She screamed then, loudly and somewhat protractedly, frightening some of us more than others.

  “If you’re quite finished,” said I from my nest, cradled in Drool’s arms where I had leapt. “I have things I need to attend to.”

  “Well, the dragon’s already fed, so you can tick that one off,” said Jessica, a begrudging smile finding its way to her lips. Sometimes, methinks, a lass just needs to have a proper enraged scream.

  “I need to catch a boat to Belmont, Shylock, if I could prevail upon you for coin for the fare.”

  Shylock shrugged and began digging into his purse.

  “You’re going to give him more money?” said Jessica.

  Shylock shrugged. “He saved you, and he saved me, and I will charge him interest. I will write this up, fool.”

  “Ah, writing your own loans again. How do you like the spectacles?” He had fetched them from his desk and fit them on his nose.

  “They are serviceable.” He also betrayed a weak smile, a rare gem upon the surly Jew. “But you will do nothing to deprive me of my revenge.”

  “Good Shylock, have I not told you before, I’m but the weapon of your revenge?”

  “Aye, he’s a wickedly dangerous marauder, cradled like a frightened lamb in the arms of his great lummox,” said Jessica. She tweaked my nose and turned on her boot heel with a flourish. “I’ll bring us some wine, Signor Polo,” she said. “Then Papa and I will take you home to your family.”

  “You cannot go out in those clothes,” said Shylock. “A good Jewish girl does not wear pirate—”

  Jessica reeled on him with the same fierceness in her eye she had shown right before the scream.

  Shylock turned away and pretended to have something important to do in the opposite direction. “Fine, fine, dress like a pirate. I am just glad your mother cannot see you thus . . .”

  “I’m telling you, Iago, the fool is alive. Even if the note had not mentioned a fool, the monkey was called Jeff. How many monkeys called Jeff, dressed in motley, can there be in Venice?”

  Antonio paced his apartments while Iago sat calmly at his table, cleaning his fingernails with his dagger. They’d let him out of irons after only two days at sea. The sailors whose job it was to keep him had been persuaded that their prisoner might, indeed, become their new commander. With Othello and Desdemona dead, and Cassio burdened with his duties in Corsica, no one could even figure out how the council could prosecute the charges. By the time they’d reached Venice, he’d walked off the ship with his weapons restored, and only the promise that he would appear before the council on the appointed date.

  “I don’t believe it. Calm yourself, Antonio, I control the orbit of the spheres of fate. With Othello dead, we may yet see your protégé as senator and our plan will go forward.”

  Antonio had always been frightened of Iago, his rough certainty and willingness to violence was out of place in the genteel world of commerce, where battles were metaphors and triumphs measured in profits, but now, after his time in Corsica, Antonio also feared the soldier had gone quite mad.

  “They found pieces of Salarino and Gratiano in the canals today,” said the merchant. “Pieces of them. And the note came due the day after they were to remove Shylock. I
have to answer Shylock’s suit before the council tomorrow. He’s going to cut out a pound of my flesh.”

  “Gentle Antonio, the Council of Venice will never allow the Jew to collect his bond. A Jew? No more than they would prosecute me for actions against the Moor. We are Venetians, they are outsiders. Justice favors the favored sons. If it comes to it, I have a plan for your trial that will play for both our interests. You cannot imagine the force that has come to my aid, the creature conjured into being by my hatred for the Moor.”

  “Yes, yes, so you’ve said.” Antonio had, without intent, been moving away from the soldier the entire time they had been talking, until he was nearly standing with his back at his own door, the stairwell being the only way to find further distance, short of leaping out a window. “But you said, too, that Brabantio had been eaten as if by some creature, and this—thing—this thing of darkness, it killed your friend Rodrigo. You saw it.”

  “I was going to kill Rodrigo anyway. My hatred simply anticipated my desires. Ah, perhaps it was such with Brabantio as well—the imp of my ire anticipating the need to have the old man out of the way before I even knew it myself.”

  Antonio put his hand on the door latch before he answered. “Because the imp of your ire couldn’t have thought of a better way to bollix up our entire venture than by killing the essential partner? I tell you, Iago, the little fool is alive, and he works, even now, against us. My good sense tells me that your tale of a creature is a false vision, a hallucination brought on by handling that infernal sticky potion of Brabantio’s, but a false vision did not put ragged pieces of my friends in the canal. A hallucination did not put a fool’s head in the casket at Belmont to thwart Bassanio’s marriage to Portia. Your grand and powerful hatred did not send a note ticking off my dead friends like so many sausages on a shopping list. I tell you, Iago, the fool lives, and he works his revenge against us.”

  Iago sighed. “Well, we shall just have to kill him again.”