“What’s the matter?” a tremulous female voice called out from the far side of the plaza. I stopped untying my shirt collar, and spun around to look. Petite, ferocious Bianca stood silhouetted in her doorway, candle in hand, straining to see what was happening. “Who cried out?”
“Who cried out?” I echoed her sarcastically. “Don’t you know your lover’s voice?”
She gasped and darted barefoot across the plaza like a swallow. She skirted the growing pools of blood, circling halfway around Cassio, and then practically throwing herself down on top of him, screaming, “Oh, Cassio. Oh, Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!”
The last thing this situation required was an hysterical woman, especially one I felt both judgmental and protective toward. That was a complication completely uncalled for. How could I get her to go away?
“Be quiet,” I said sharply, and tried to pull her off him. “Cassio, do you have any idea who would have come after you?”
“No,” the Florentine said limply, growing weaker.
“I was coming after you,” Gratiano said idiotically, moving closer in. “But only to send for you to the castle.”
I heard a shuffling noise in the background; glancing around the plaza quickly, I saw that all the yelling had finally garnered some attention. The town watch in livery, and other men in cloaks thrown over bedclothes, were gathering around the edges of the campo, most with lamps or torches, perhaps a score in all. I elbowed Bianca away from Cassio so that she knocked into Gratiano. “My shirt won’t do it, we need a tourniquet. Does anybody have a garter?” I called out to the newcomers. “Is there a sedan chair anywhere? We need a sedan chair to get him up to the hospital.”
“He’s fainted,” Bianca lamented, as if he had just died. She tried to reach over me to get back to him. My clothes were stained with Roderigo’s blood, and now her gown was smeared too. “Oh, Cassio!”
“I think this strumpet protests too much,” I said warningly. “It’s enough to make me suspect her involvement in his injury.” I pushed her away and reached to slap Cassio’s face sharply. “Stay with us, Michele! Hold on yet!” I looked around, aware that I was the only one in control of the situation, but equally aware the situation was beyond my control. I stood up and stepped toward the corpse. “The torch,” I commanded, holding out my hand. Lodovico immediately moved to give it to me. “Does anyone here know this face?”
I could hardly bear to, but I held the torch out so that it illuminated the dead man’s face. When I saw him, so clearly dead and so clearly—despite the absent tresses—Roderigo, I groaned involuntarily. “Roderigo,” I grunted. “Oh, God, no—but yes, it is, it’s Roderigo.”
Gratiano took a timid step closer. “What, Roderigo Rosso, of Venice?” he cried out, amazed. “The spice trader?”
I held the light closer to the corpse but allowed myself to look away. He was dead because Cassio had wounded him past help. You cannot murder a dead man. “Did you know him?” I asked. I would write his mother a letter, telling a beautiful lie of how he met his end. I knew how to lie now; I could at least use that skill for kindness.
“Know him? Of course I knew him! He was my neighbor!”
I blinked several times quickly, stalling for time. If they were neighbors, was there any possibility Gratiano might know something damning about my involvement in Roderigo’s life? “Signior Gratiano, is it?” I said, as if Lodovico had not already mentioned him by name. I bowed. “I beg your pardon, sir, this bloody accident has deprived me of my manners, I’m very sorry. I’m Iago, Othello’s new lieutenant.” It was the first time I had made the claim aloud.
“I’m glad to see you,” Gratiano said indulgently. That anyone could sound indulgent in these circumstances was ridiculous, but the poor frightened noble was clinging desperately to what he knew.
I pressed passed him and back to Cassio. “How are you, Cassio? Stay awake! A chair,” I called to the air at large—and to my amazement, Lodovico was suddenly beside me, with a sedan chair he had dragged into the plaza. It must have come from the slowly growing crowd of watching men. It was primitive by Venetian standards, but nicer than anything I’d seen upon a battlefield: an actual chair strapped to two long poles, but at least the chair had arms to hold on to for balance.
None of the Cypriots dared to move in close to us within the piazza; they all stood warily on the outskirts, including the men of the watch, some of them Venetian. Even the patricians’ attendants stood gawking. As Lodovico awkwardly helped me to raise up Cassio, Gratiano kept gaping at the corpse beside him. “Roderigo,” he said, sighing mournfully.
“Yes,” I said brusquely, wanting him to shut up. “Yes, it’s him. Might you help us with the chair, sir?”
Between the three of us—mostly me—we pulled Cassio onto the sedan chair; he was in a twilight state as I curled his fingers around each arm. We were impeded in this process by Bianca’s sobbing hysterically and trying to pull us away from his body so she could throw herself against him. Remembering how he’d spoken of her earlier, I was sickened for her sake—he did not deserve such devotion from a dog, let alone a human being. Between the blood still on my jerkin and the blood smeared onto her, we rendered almost everybody bloodstained.
“Where are my men? Get him up to the fortress,” Gratiano called out, suddenly in charge. His two attendants stepped from the crowd—now perhaps three dozen men—and lifted the sedan to carry it out of the campo. “I’ll go with them and fetch the general’s surgeon,” Gratiano announced. He turned next to Cassio, who was struggling to retain consciousness, and was impeded, once again, by the sobbing prostitute. “Calm down, madam,” he said. “Save your energy.” I took her by the shoulders and pulled her, sobbing, away from the sedan chair as Gratiano pressed, “Cassio, the man you killed tonight was a very dear friend of mine. What malice was between you?”
Michele Cassio was barely hanging on to this world. “Nothing,” he said feebly. “I do not know the man.”
Bianca tried to pull away from me, her slender outstretched grasping arms toward Cassio. “What are you up to?” I asked her sharply. “Gentlemen, take him up. Somebody take that one too,” I added, with a gesture. Nobody wanted to touch Roderigo; there was so much blood, on him and around him. Who would have thought a lily-livered merchant to have so much blood in him?
Bianca continued to struggle against my grip. I would have let her free, but she was hysterical, and the evening was mad enough. I had to frighten her to silence. “You look very pale, lady,” I said in an accusing tone, shaking her. She stared up at me, teary-eyed and abruptly silent. “What have you got to say for yourself? Where have you been all night? You came along quick enough when Cassio was attacked—did you have anything to do with it?”
Shocked, she stared at me even harder, and I was confident that if I let her go, she’d head straight back to her cottage and not come out till morning. I released her. She took one step back toward her home, but then a movement on the opposite side of the plaza caught her eye; she paused, turning to look, and I turned with her.
Pushing through the growing crowd of Cypriot men came a dark-haired beauty whose appearance at this moment made my heart break.
Chapter 49
“WHAT’S THE MATTER HERE?” Emilia cried out. And seeing me, with greater alarm still: “Husband, what’s the matter?”
Oh, no. I would sooner anyone appear this moment but Emilia. As she pushed her way through and came near, I grabbed her to me, to prevent her from seeing Roderigo’s corpse.
“Cassio was attacked,” I said softly in her ear. “Here in the dark. Roderigo was one of the attackers—”
“Roderigo?” she said, flabbergasted. “Our Roderigo? From Venice? Roderigo Rosso?”
“Cassio was very badly wounded,” I said, still gently. Tightening my grip on her arms I added, “And Roderigo’s dead.”
Her entire body shuddered with the shock of it. “Oh no!” she gasped, her hands coming to her face. “Not Roderigo! And poor Cassio! What on earth happe
ned?”
“I’m trying to find out,” I said in a louder voice. “Emilia, will you help me find out where Cassio dined this evening?” I saw Bianca start violently at this, and releasing my wife, I turned on the war widow. “What, do you shake at that?”
She drew herself up straight. She was a fiery little thing. “He dined at my house, but I am not shaking.”
“Did he really?” I said sharply, and took a step toward her, reaching my hand out. “Come with me, then, harlot, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
Emilia was so shaken that she was not thinking very clearly. “Shame on you, you whore!” she snapped at Bianca.
“I am no whore,” Bianca said with saucy bravado, hands on her hips. “I am every bit as honest in my life as you are. Which I realize may not be saying much.”
There was a titter of nervous laughter among the men watching us. Emilia’s eyes widened, and I saw her check an impulse to grab Bianca by the throat. “That’s rich!” she snarled back.
I clapped my hands together. “Enough of this. I must get back to the Citadel and see Cassio attended to. You, lady,” I said, with a threatening look at Bianca, “you better have a story for how you come to know Cassio so well, unless you were part of some plot to take him down. Emilia,” I went on briskly, before Bianca could reply, “run ahead to the Citadel, tell Othello and Desdemona what’s happened here.” She nodded and after a quick squeeze to my hand, immediately ran back the way she’d come. Lodovico followed her, not so quick on his feet. Bianca turned and ran back into her cottage, slamming the door.
I looked around the square. Everyone still here now and still living was unknown to me. “Go on,” I said angrily to all of them. I did not know how many of them even spoke Italian. “The show is over. Go home, leave.”
They did. There was nothing left to see but blood and one dead body. After a few moments, there is little satisfaction to be got from staring at death.
Unless the death is that of your oldest friend. I stood over Roderigo’s dead body and felt angry grief wash over me. The poor fool. I would find something wonderful to say in the letter to his mother. I’d make sure she could mourn for him with dignity.
I turned and looked up toward the fortress above. I could not imagine what was happening up there. Othello seemed to me to be half a world away. Was he still raging like a madman? Had he struck his wife again? Had Lodovico already removed him from his office but not had a chance to say so in the upset of our encounter just now? I sensed I had already done all that was required of me to bring justice to the universe. I had nothing left to do but see how it unfolded. This night would either make me or destroy me: it was out of my hands now.
Chapter 50
I RETURNED TO a fortress full of chaos. First I heard the noise—general shouting, people crying out to one another, servants and lords and soldiers alike. Othello must be on a rampage. What should I do now? How would honest Iago behave?
He would check on the well-being of his wounded colleague Michele Cassio.
I crossed the courtyard diagonally, toward the infirmary stairwell, but I did not reach it: Lodovico and Gratiano came tripping down those same stairs, as lightly as old Venetian gentlemen can trip, and nearly ran into me. “Iago,” Lodovico said, ashen faced, “something has happened in Othello’s chambers, the servants have called us to come. Please help Montano—” He pointed up the stairs, and I saw Montano, still weak from Cassio’s drunken attack, on a stool. He sat upright, but he kept his left arm protectively pressed against the wound in his side.
“Come, Governor,” I said, concerned and urgent. “Lean on me while you walk.” I ran up the steps and offered him my arm. He took it, gratefully, and I helped him to stand.
“Something has happened in Othello’s rooms,” he repeated as we descended the stairs together back into the courtyard. “I heard a woman screaming.”
My blood chilled. Emilia? “Was it the general’s wife?” I asked, and began to pull him across the courtyard.
“I could not tell whose voice it was,” said Montano. I glanced back to make sure Lodovico and Gratiano—who did not know the layout here—were following after. “There was one shriek so loud it echoed around the courtyard, and then everyone else began to shout in alarm and there were too many voices, coming from too many places, to understand what was going on. Finally a servant came into my room and said Cassio had been attacked, and I must come at once. So . . .” He was already out of breath, but I could not slow down; I tightened my grip around his rib cage and walked faster, letting more of his weight rest across my shoulder as he stumbled to keep up. Behind me I could hear Lodovico and Gratiano clucking like worried hens. Useless politicans, I thought. “So I managed to get to the infirmary, and there was Cassio, and badly wounded. He begged me to forgive him for my injury, in case he did not live the night. I was . . . may we slow down?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll take more of your weight.” I shifted so that his armpit was directly above my shoulder, and my right arm moved from his rib to his midriff. He groaned with pain. I relented. “All right, we’ll slow down,” I said. “But not by much.”
“He came into the infirmary,” said Gratiano, upset but clearly relishing the role of storyteller. “Montano did. He saw Cassio and spoke to him and then was going to go back to bed, because he’s weak.”
“But he heard the shriek before he started down the steps,” Lodovico said, taking up the story. “He hadn’t the energy to take the stairs alone. I helped him down to the stool, where he could rest, while I saw how Cassio was doing.”
By now we were across the courtyard and inside the wing of private rooms. Voices were piling toward us in the air—especially a woman’s voice. The outermost and smallest room was the one in which Emilia and I had been staying; the door was open. “Emilia?” I cried out worriedly as we went by it. “Emilia, are you in there?”
“I think she must be in Othello’s room,” said one of the Venetians, I could not tell which one, I was far too distressed and terrified at the notion that Othello had done some violence to my wife. Ahead of us I heard the woman’s voice, Emilia’s voice, wailing on in pain. I almost could not see straight I was so desperate to get to her.
We rushed next past the lieutenant’s room, which I would or would not sleep in tonight, depending on what awaited us ahead. Then guest rooms set aside for the visiting noblemen; then the corridor that ended in Othello’s private quarters.
A group of servants huddled before it, pounding at the door and begging to be let in. “Out of the way!” I shouted. They jumped, and entangled us in their rush to move away from the door.
With most of Montano’s weight upon me, I leaned back and furiously kicked the door. It flew open, and the crowd of us rushed into the room in alarm.
I saw my wife and my general standing some five paces apart, staring at each other with bloodshot, shining eyes, each looking ready to tear the other one apart.
Chapter 51
EMILIA’S FACE WAS whiter than I’d ever seen it. What had we interrupted? Where was Desdemona? What had I saved Emilia from by my appearance? That whoreson lunatic!
“Emilia!” I shouted. Both of them started violently and turned to face us.
“What’s happened?” Montano said as I released him. “General?”
Emilia glared at me. I had never seen such rage on that face. “Oh, are you here too, Iago?” she asked, her voice sharp with sarcasm. “What in hell have you been up to, that men must lay their murders on your neck?”
“What murders?” I asked as Gratiano, entering behind me, demanded, “What’s the matter?”
Emilia ignored the nobleman, her enraged attention entirely on me. “Disprove this villain,” she demanded, pointing at Othello. “He claims you told him his wife was unfaithful. I know you never said such a thing. So tell me what you really told him.”
A sinking feeling pulled my stomach to my ankles. I could not lie to her. If my very life depended on it, I could not do it. “I
only told him what I thought,” I said. “That’s all I did. He demanded me to tell my thoughts. He took from that what he himself considered to be true.”
“But did you ever tell him she was false?” Emilia demanded impatiently, her outstretched hand still pointing furiously toward Othello.
There was no way out of it, then. She commanded, I obeyed. Please, for the love of the angels, I thought, let me get her alone somewhere to explain all this. She will understand why it was necessary, and also why it does not put Othello’s sins upon my shoulders.
“I did—” I said, as if I were about to add a modifying thought. But she cut me off with rising, vengeful fury:
“You told a lie, Iago!” she screeched, sounding as much confused as furious. “You told an odious, damned, wicked lie.” Her arm still limply held out toward Othello, she shook her head at me. “With Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?”
Othello was invisible to me; so were the men beside me and behind me; so were the walls and candles of this chamber; so was the rumpled bed. Emilia knew that I was lying; Emilia did not understand the significance, the importance, the brilliance and genius of what I had been up to. All she saw was a single, simple lie, and she was ready to condemn me for it. She would not condemn me so if she understood the bigger history here. How could I distract her until I had the chance to explain it all to her alone?
“With Cassio, yes,” I said calmly. I could not lie to her. I could only beg her to stop asking questions I didn’t want to answer. “Emilia, enough of this, leave now. Stop your tongue.”
I thought I’d seen her rage at its worst already; I was wrong. A dozen times as much fury and the grief reddened her face. “I will not stop my tongue!” she shouted at me, spittle flying with each consonant. “I am honor bound to speak now!” She ran to the crumpled bedsheets and with a billowing gesture, she swept them all off of the bed—
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