The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

My current expedition delivered me to an inimitable backdrop. Even while cloaked by an inky vestment of darkness, with nothing more luminous than a quicksilver moon lighting the periphery, I distinguished the ecclesiastical architecture of a medieval metropolis. Narrow pathways of cobblestone served as exchanging points between Baroque villas and a network of arched bridges and facades crafted by artisans who chiseled marble and limestone as potters sculpted soft clay.

  The majority of these structures provided direct access to the Grand Canal, which flowed like a swath of mercury throughout every visible passageway. As I walked farther along the curvatures of this marshy waterfront, I marveled at a fusion of Gothic and Renaissance-inspired edifices erected seamlessly along the flooded infrastructure. On the water itself, gondolas bobbed in a labyrinth of inlets along a lagoon. I couldn’t dispute my whereabouts now, for there was no other city at any period in history that quite resembled Venice.

  The pathways I set forth upon soon led me into the city’s piazza, where I followed an amber glow of candle lanterns that lit the canals like a thousand shimmering fireflies.

  The glow reflected off St. Mark’s Campanile in the Basilica, almost extending to the peak of its bell tower where a golden replica of the archangel Gabriel scintillated in the moon’s waxen rays. I then passed by the bronze Horses of St. Mark, where all four of these patina-coated sculptures were set into the façade of the Byzantine cathedral.

  I eventually halted my progress at the mouth of an empty corridor, or what I at first assumed was a vacant space. Upon my second inspection of this area, I observed one man perched upon a docking post. He appeared gleeful in his occupation of counting what appeared to be a satchel full of gold coins. The colorless garments he sported dated his existence to the Renaissance Period. His cavalier shirt flapped in a sour breeze wafting off a stagnant patch of water in the lagoon. I presumed his age as no older than thirty. His smarmy visage showed no signs of anxiety. Had he not gesticulated and smiled with such animated delight, I might’ve viewed him as decorative statue commissioned for the square.

  After I angled closer to his position on the docks, however, I detected an almost impalpable mischief festering beneath his brow. It was difficult to perceive this detail with a hindrance of shadows splicing his features, but I ultimately couldn’t assign any other mark to this character’s conduct. His Machiavellian tendencies served to halt me in my footsteps. As he perched on the dock, joyously clinking the coinage in the bag as if it created a sort of tinny melody, I thought that no man I had ever met before or since appeared so thoroughly innocuous and unscrupulous in the same instance. I already surmised that he had an innate but misdirected acumen for ensnaring stooges and noblemen alike into fatal traps of the mind.

  This man’s nefarious reputation might’ve still been an enigma to the Venetians on this eve, but I already recognized him as the diabolical ensign to a gallant but self-doubting general. His covert obsession for disharmony was well studied by me. If this man had the insight to ascertain the revulsion I felt toward him, he might’ve unleashed his brand of maniacal vengeance upon me. But as it presently appeared, he couldn’t perceive me as anything more threatening than a stranger absorbing the aesthetic charm afforded by a stroll along the Grand Canal.

  My movement soon brought me within twenty paces of his position, but I didn’t permit my footsteps any further intrusion on his territory without an invitation. I certainly didn’t wish to meander within impaling distance of the dagger strapped to his hip. I imagined that it was not uncommon to attract thieves when flaunting wealth in the streets after dusk, but this fiend feared nothing. Perhaps there wasn’t anyone residing within this Italian paradise’s boundaries to exchange wits with the man ironically referred to as “Honest” Iago.

  No matter how ardently I loathed Othello’s duplicitous underling, I couldn’t simply ignore his significance to my wanderings. Being the utmost manipulator of his victims’ unguarded emotions, Iago practically impelled me to edge closer to him without extending more than a casual glimpse across the dock. My hesitation distracted him to a degree where he immediately ceased counting the money he filched from Roderigo. He grappled at the coins like an adder plunging its venomous fangs into green prey. Then, while still keeping a safe distance between us, I watched his elongated fingers curl around the satin pouch balanced upon his lap.

  “Hold thy ground, ” he admonished. A malignancy then formed in his eyes like a bulbous disease. “Methinks I spial thy mobled breath, but grize hither and you shall hast mine dagger yerked at your lungs.” Iago already motioned for his weapon before I stated my intentions. He didn’t yet draw the blade, but I dared not turn away from a man who would’ve mirthfully inflicted a fatal wound upon a stranger if for no other motivation than to watch him bleed.

  “Continue as you were,” I said adamantly. “Count your spoils. I assure you, Honest Iago, I seek nothing of what you have.”

  This necromancer of false tidings leered at me as if my intentions were as monstrous as his own. He might’ve speculated on how promptly I identified him under the shroud of this summer night. After all, he donned the colors of this torrid evening like a bandit wearing a mask, but he concealed much more under his flesh than what any thief had ever designed to pilfer.

  “There art but reasons twain for thee to lend thy feet to these waterways at this nighted hour,” Iago deduced. “Both art parlous trades, sir. Apt I am to knowst of which dost thou scour: pugging or tupping ‘til dawn?”

  “If I must be truthful, I’m not searching for another man’s riches any more than I am for a woman’s company,” I responded.

  Iago sniggered distrustfully at my reply, which was a common reaction for a man who uttered lies as often and instinctively as most people inhaled oxygen.

  “Tush, Tush,” he simpered while compressing his palms together as if engaged in a ritual of mock prayer. “I prithee, churl, how you plucked mine name so keenly sans a formal greeting? Hath the noddy Roderigo beteem’d my nature onto thee?”

  “I have no dealings with that fellow. He isn’t aware of my presence here any more than the others you have planned to sabotage.” My bluntness in this discourse startled even me, but I had only a short period of time to convey my bitterness toward his depraved antics. I therefore wasted no false pretenses on Iago.

  “O, prophetic sir, why dost thou send such mistempered words to hent mine ear?

  Judicious to a fault thou art. Unclew knowledge of thy delations now.”

  My objective here beside this crook of hearts was still undetermined, but I realized that I couldn’t learn anything altruistic from his tongue. Not even an entity of divine origin could’ve persuaded this choreographer of cruel intent to refrain from his vindictive vows against humanity. Since I stood no chance to outwit Iago with insincere offerings, I reverted to challenging him with his own brand of hostility. I might’ve even garnered a few extra seconds of his full attention with my frank tactics.

  “Our encounter tonight isn’t an accident,” I informed Othello’s foil. “I will resort to no trickery when speaking to you.”

  As I anticipated, Iago didn’t reveal a heavy outpouring of gratitude for my pledge to proceed without any ploys of deception. Perhaps this made it quite easy for him to tag me as a fool. “Pish! Motley-minded one, unbolt thy intendments. Let you enkindle mine nowl to th’ hurly deeds thou hast assigned unto me.”

  It occurred to me that Iago’s egotistical nature prevented the slightest indication of humility. He was most likely titillated by the possibility of confronting a man who presumed to track the tickings within his brain like the seconds on a tower clock. I was irked by the idea of conceding to any of his demands, but he wouldn’t have tolerated my company unless he believed he could have profited from it one way or another.

  “I know how vehemently you despise the Moor,” I said plainly. “But I can’t claim to understand the precise reason why you’re so bent on destroying Othello, and I also can’t comprehend why Desdemona’s
life and dignity are so inconsequential to you. Even the poor treatment of your own wife Emilia is a mystery to my mind.”

  “Thou shouldst wag thy green tongue more auspiciously, or hast th’ lose organ whittled from thy throat.” Iago drew forth his dagger, and I had no doubt that he would’ve plunged the pointed tip through my torso if coaxed much further in this line of conversation. But I couldn’t back away from him now. His calculating fury, as much as I detested it, was exactly what I had sought to uncover.

  “More than you presently realize, Honest Iago, I know you’re capable of speaking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. But I must be transparent with you. In a short while, you will never see the likes of me again. And I won’t reveal your blackest contemplations. Yet, as much as I’m ashamed to confess my emotions to you, I am not unlike the Moor you plan to decimate. The beast with emerald eyes has bitten both Othello and me.”

  Iago’s eyes transformed in to slivers of midnight. I likened his visage to the manner in which a vulture leered upon ripe carrion. This harvester of havoc suddenly gleaned an advantage in our dialogue. I watched a conniving smile curl his thin upper lip. He now flaunted a discolored grin that chilled the humid air circulating in this lagoon.

  “Thy brain stews with a steamy pestilence,” he chortled. Since Iago now perceived me as too mentally infected to simply murder, he set the dagger at his side. “Had I espied you more keenly when you first footed hither, thy emulous eyne wouldst be not so hidden. A riggish woman hast sneeped at thy heart. Is that not so?”

  “From all the men who I might’ve consulted,” I declared, “I figured you could teach me about jealousy. But to answer your question, I do believe that the monster devouring me does so for a good reason.”

  “O, truepenny, sir! ‘Tis a purpose basted in luxury.”

  “I’ve come for your bona fide insight, Most Honest Iago, because I know that you’ve skillfully bred this creature so that it may skulk rampantly through a noble man’s mind. But on the other side of things, what you’ve created you must also be able to destroy. Though my request contradicts your base nature, I beg you to teach me to satisfy the monster’s cravings.”

  “Nay, lowt, such a beast’s appetite cannot be sated. It gorges within all men, ravenous to th’ final morsel of dignity.”

  The proposal that I so beseechingly expressed onto this minion’s ear was countered by a malicious titter. Iago rubbed his hands together as if kindling a fire between his palms. His knuckles whitened as the pressure between his fingers intensified.

  “O, thou shallow-witted mome,” he said. “’Tis a dribbling chore to un-seed a pasture prior sowed. You wouldst hast better fortune to snatch ripe figs from a tree in th’ season of Janus.”

  “But there must be some way to stop it,” I insisted. “Nothing that exists within us can thrive without consent.” I presumed Iago’s amusement only increased because he had most likely never greeted a man who seemed so callow-minded in his assertions. The longer I remained in his presence, the more contrived empathy he spewed in my direction.

  “Content you, sir,” Iago resumed, “and mark these offerings to thy memory. Accept no impawn to this matter: only what shifts canst be shifted. Likewise, th’ monster that juts on thy tender heart shall not be quelled by even a general most palmy.”

  “If I am to believe that,” I conjectured, “then I am a doomed man. I won’t be able to salvage my marriage anymore than Othello will be capable of saving his own.”

  “What wilt thou do?”

  “I must stay away from my wife long enough to sort through my anger. I cannot bear to think what I’d do to her in a moment of unchecked passion.”

  “Nay, thou canst not rely on such dull apprehension. Whereof thou dost perpetuate when compassion mews up thy invention. Fie, ‘tis but a cowish loon who flees a capricious housewife’s favors.”

  “But I don’t have all the evidence I need to accuse her,” I said, attempting to convince myself as much as the villain who sat before me. “Despite what I now believe, there’s a slight chance that she’s innocent of my insinuations.”

  “Zounds! And angels’ wings mayst be clipped beneath the weeds of which I don. Sir, be not meacock in thy nature. ‘Tis more prudent to taketh aim on a stale hiren and be right, then ‘tis to dally like a natural and be wrong.”

  “I can’t give jealously that much power over my actions, Honest Iago. On the other hand, if my wife is telling me the truth, she’ll never treat me as before. I’ve already severed our trust.”

  “Alas, poor cur, unjust deeds doth a hoard of maggots breed. Thy unpregnant progress hath potch’d her from your fat fingers. Be she Pucelle or a drabbing strumpet matters not to thee. Inland speculations now dint thy rigged ruminations. You must prest thyself for what must be quashed.”

  “You speak of murder as if it is your common mistress,” I returned. “But I am not sorry to admit that I am unlike you.”

  “S’blood! You rile me as the collied one doth. Ingest the medicine in quantities to convoy th’ creature! Anon thou shall mark a scathful force untraded to your history. In every tarriance, th’ lady rook you cling to loffes beside her lover double-backed in thy sheets.”

  The image Iago cast in my brain inflamed my ears like a scorpion’s stinger, but I couldn’t permit his polluted observations to sully my judgment. There was nothing more I needed to coax from his shrewd lips. Of course the archfiend chuckled demonically at my plight, but what did I really hope to achieve by conversing with a man who deemed consorts as a scourge against humanity? I didn’t believe it was possible for me to despise Iago anymore fervently than I had before encountering him in Venice, but he far surpassed any of my preconceived notions of repugnance.

  Yet my loathsome thoughts couldn’t be attributed entirely to Iago. Perhaps I detested him so zealously because I espied glimpses of my own frailties within him. I then conjectured that it was conceivable for me to imitate the ensign’s vengefulness, just as it was plausible for any man throttled by rejection and shame. But could I truly physically or mentally punish the woman I loved? Did Rachel’s crimes of carnality justify an action Iago would’ve surely lauded? After all, even the most righteous and steadfast among us yielded to persuasions of the flesh on occasion. I sometimes earnestly felt that a dearth of opportunity provided the strongest link in fidelity’s chain. But if even the slightest fissure revealed itself in this bond, the unfettered entity of lust awakened like a hibernating beast to devour what remained of untainted love.

  In these seconds, my hatred for everything that encompassed me was unrivaled. Apparently, like Iago, I wasn’t entirely what I appeared to be to everyone. I departed Venice’s ancient aqueducts with a fetid breeze lodged in my nose. But even this rank scent couldn’t float above the odors of deception permeating my mind.

  Chapter 40

  11:35 A.M.