The Serpent of Venice

by Christopher Moore

  The lawyer shuffled forward and drew a key from his purse and handed it to the prince.

  “Take it,” said Portia. “And if my picture lie there, then I am yours.”

  The Moor took the key, unlocked the casket, and pushed back the lid.

  “Oh hell!” said the prince. “What have we here?” He lifted from the casket a miniature death’s-head. A scroll protruded from the skull’s eye. The prince replaced the skull in the casket, removed the scroll, unrolled it, and read:

  “ ‘All that glitters, is not gold;

  Often have you heard that told;

  But my outside do behold;

  Gilded tombs do worms enfold;

  Had you been wise as you’ve been bold;

  Your answer would be here inscrolled;

  Fare you well; your suit is cold.’ ”

  The prince stared at the parchment and let it snap back to form. “Then this is all? All of nothing.”

  “Make of yourself a gentle riddance,” Portia said, with feigned disappointment, as she turned and looked out over the garden to conceal her grin.

  The prince reeled with a flourish of his robes and walked off the terrace, his entourage in rank behind him.

  “Draw the curtains, Nerissa.”

  “Bit harsh, don’t you think?” said Nerissa. “Three thousand ducats for a death’s-head?”

  “Let all of his complexion choose so wrongly.”

  A fanfare played from the front of the house as the prince exited.

  “I’m going after him,” said Nerissa, hurrying to the door.

  “Nerissa! I forbid you to fancy him.”

  Nerissa knew that as soon as Portia found the arms of her Bassanio, she’d be cast out on her own. Too many years had she acted as the gentle cushion to the suitors rejected by both Brabantio sisters (like Rodrigo, who evidently had buggered off to Corsica, still in pursuit of Desdemona) and Portia would never allow her more accommodating maid in proximity to Bassanio. Nerissa was going to need a cushion herself when Bassanio guessed the correct casket on the morrow. One of twenty wives of a prince seemed like a quite comfortable cushion on which to land.

  “Sod fancying him, I just want to have a look at his sun-burnished trumpet.”

  “Thou art a hopeless slag, Nerissa.”

  “Not true, I am full of hope.”

  Jessica and I came down the ramp from the ship so close behind Iago and Rodrigo that I could almost smell the treachery coming off them.

  Jessica had, by now, learned to walk without the slightest sway to her hips, while I had minced my steps more fitting to the humble shuffle of a nun, for so was I dressed, in wimple and veil, in such a nun suit as we had been able to fashion from the clothes in Jessica’s rucksack. My beard now shaved and my Jew kit betrayed, the veil was a necessary accoutrement for my disguise; of leper or nun, I chose the latter.

  We followed the two soldiers down the dock through the fray of sailors and stevedores resupplying the ships in the harbor. The Genoan fleet had been decimated by a storm on their voyage to attack Corsica. Othello easily turned the remaining force away and had fortified the harbor with archers, ballistas, and catapults ever ready on the breakwater.

  Iago stopped at the street and hailed a soldier on horseback.

  “Ho there, Sergeant, where might I find General Othello? I bring news from Venice.”

  “He is at the Citadel, Lieutenant,” said the soldier, recognizing Iago’s rank from the crest on his dagger. “The general’s second, Captain Cassio, is just round the corner. I’ll fetch him for you and he can take you to the general.”

  The soldier rode off and a minute later Michael Cassio stepped out of a white stucco building across the street and strode across the sunbaked pavers in his high boots to meet Iago. They exchanged salutes. Cassio was taller, younger, more handsome and clear of eye than Iago, the very model of a gentleman soldier, with such a bright and open nature that I shivered to see him standing guileless and unguarded before Iago, who, with the rise of his scar-broken eyebrow when he smiled, revealed the inner turning of gears grinding deceitful plots.

  “Good Iago, you have news from Venice? Another attack on the city?”

  “Nothing so dire,” said Iago. “But I am tasked by the council to deliver my dispatch only to Othello and his lady.”

  “Desdemona,” sighed Rodrigo, casting a wistful gaze to the clouds.

  “His lady?” said Cassio. “Then this is not news of war?”

  “You will know at Othello’s discretion, Captain, but I am bound by orders.”

  “Quite so.” Cassio tossed his head toward a great stone-and-plaster fortress that loomed over the town. “The Citadel is a short walk. I’ll take you myself. I’ll send a cart back for your things.”

  “Pardon, good captain,” called Jessica, in her best boy voice. “Could you spare a moment for a word with this holy sister of mercy?”

  I had retreated to the edge of the dock by a great mooring post. I peered out into the harbor, looking not at the ships and birds diving overhead, but for a shadow beneath the turquoise waves, and there, perhaps three hundred feet out, she swam. I closed my eyes and looked for the blue patterns of her thoughts, but there were none. Spare this one. Leave him his head, I thought. Not this one. Could she hear me? For Cassio’s sake, I hoped so.

  “Yes, Sister?” said Cassio, stepping up beside me.

  “Act as if nothing is out of order. Iago must not see you react. I am simply asking for shelter for myself and the boy,” I said in my own voice, undisguised.

  “What?”

  I stepped back from the edge so only Cassio could see my face, then raised my veil, winked, grinned, and held my finger to my lips to signal silence.

  “You know me,” said I. “I am the fool Pocket.”

  “You stood for Othello before the council.”

  “I am here to help the Moor again. I must see him, but on our lives, Iago and his friend cannot know my true identity. Do you trust me?”

  He nodded, just a twitch.

  “Fine then, old mother,” Cassio called, rather more loudly than was required. He headed back to Iago. “You and the boy may follow us to the Citadel, give blessings to and receive alms from the lady and her retinue.”

  I thought back to when I had first met Cassio, on that night when Brabantio had led us through the streets of Venice to the palace of the doge, to accuse Othello of bewitching his daughter.

  “I’m going to dive in and begin the killing,” I told Cassio. “If I fall, stain the canals red with their blood until the city shatters with the cries of their widows and orphans.”

  “Or, if you’d put one of those daggers up, you can lean on me and we’ll follow them to the doge’s palace as Othello commanded.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose we could do that, too, if you’re going to be a little nancy about it. But if I have to stop to be sick, carry on with the killing and the weeping widows.”

  By the time we reached the palace, many of Brabantio’s mob had wandered off, having realized that the Moor was not going to be immediately hanged, and that, indeed, there were a half dozen well-armed men and a queasy fool with a quiver of daggers who would prefer the Moor remain unhanged.

  We entered the main hall of the doge’s palace, where the doge sat on a dais in the center of the Council of Six; one chair sat empty: Brabantio’s.

  “Ah, valiant Othello,” said the doge as he stood and opened his arms to welcome the Moor into the hall. “We must straight employ you against the Genoans, who have moved on to Corsica.” The doge then spied Brabantio, who stormed into the room, robe flying, slamming a great walking staff into the floor as if he half-expected the earth to open and unleash Venice’s wrath upon the Moor. “Welcome, gentle signor,” said the doge. “We lacked your council tonight.”

  “And I yours, but I have been tending a broken floodgate of o’erbearing sorrows.”

  “What is wrong?” asked the doge.

  “My daughter! O, my daughter!”


  “Dead?”

  “Tart,” I answered. “Although a tasty bit of talent, to be sure.”

  “She is not!” protested Brabantio. “She’s bewitched by this heathen.”

  “Tartish,” I relented.

  “Fortunato, what have you to do with this?” asked the doge.

  “I speak for the Moor,” said I.

  “He does not,” said the Moor.

  “What have you to say of this, Othello?” asked the doge.

  Othello addressed the group of them now. “Most potent and reverend signors, that I have taken away this man’s daughter is true. I have married her.”

  “It’s true,” said I. “I witnessed the ceremony.”

  “Never!” shouted Brabantio. “Never would a maiden be so bold, to fall in love and marry something she feared to look upon. She would not have gone against her nature as such, without the Moor hid in her drink cunning mixtures to enchant her blood that wrought this imprudent judgment upon her. She’s enchanted by magic, I tell you.”

  “Or his crashing huge cock!” offered the puppet Jones, who I had retrieved on my way out the door.

  The doge said, “There is no proof of this.”

  “No, I’ve seen it,” said I. “It swung out of his robe last week and nearly concussed the landlady’s dog.”

  Another senator stood and spoke then. “Othello, speak, did you by indirect and conjured courses subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?”

  “I beseech you, signors, send for the lady at my quarters, and let her speak of me before her father. If, after hearing her, you find me in foul report, then take not only my office, but my life, for I would give both gladly if I had sinned so.”

  “Fetch Desdemona,” said the doge.

  Othello nodded to Cassio, who sent a brace of soldiers to fetch Desdemona.

  “Until she comes,” said Othello, “I do confess the vices of my blood, and that the lady doth dwell in my love, as I in hers, but not by enchantment. You know her father found favor in me, and oft did invite me to their home and question me for the story of my life. I spun it, even from my days as a boy, out to the room, and while Desdemona pretended to serve, she devoured my story with a greedy ear. Of moving accidents and hairbreadth escapes, of being sold into slavery, and my redemption from it, of my travels, from vast deserts to the mountains whose heads touch the sky, of cannibals and cutthroats, of battles I had fought, and pains that had been inflicted on me. My story done, she gave me for my troubles a world of sighs. She swore it was strange, ’twas passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful, and she wished that she had not heard it, for with my story I had wooed her heart. She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them. This is the only witchcraft I have used.”

  “I think this would win my daughter, too,” said the doge. “Good Brabantio, perhaps you should make the best of this situation—”

  “Really, it was the storytelling and not the enormous willy?” I looked to my codpiece, which, under the circumstances, seemed a bit overstated. “Here she is,” said I, seeing Desdemona glide into the hall. “Let’s ask her.”

  Brabantio waved Desdemona forward. “Let her speak. Destruction on my head if she confesses her part in this wooing. Tell them, daughter, to whom do you owe obedience?”

  “My duty is divided,” answered Desdemona. “To you I am bound for life and education, and for those I give you honor and gratitude. I am, and shall always be your daughter, but Othello is my husband, and like my mother preferred you to her own father, so I must give honor to my husband.”

  I had heard nearly the same speech from my own Cordelia to her father, thus setting in motion the shifting of a half dozen kingdoms. Desdemona’s spark and passion brought a lump to my throat.

  “Then it is true. You have married him?”

  “Under the church and the republic, as well as in my heart.”

  “It cannot be legal!” said Brabantio to the senate. “He is not Venetian, and under the law he would inherit my seat on the council. He must be Venetian born or the marriage is not legal.”

  The senators looked around at one another and finally the doge spoke. “We will have to consider your suit, Brabantio. The city’s charter says nothing about a senator having to be a Venetian, only that he be elected by citizens of his district. It was you, yourself, that proposed the law that a seat could be passed down to heirs. It does not specify that a senator must be Venetian born.”

  “But when the law was passed, all senators were Venetian born, so it is implied in the law. When I go to the butcher to buy a duck, must I also tell him I want a bird? We know because it is a duck, it is a bird implied.”

  “He has a point,” said the senator sitting closest to the doge.

  “Oh bollocks,” said I. I stumbled to the middle of the floor. “Complete bloody bollocks. If ducks are birds, then Othello is a Venetian by the same rule, because he is known as such.”

  “Fortunato—” The doge stood as if he thought he might direct me from the floor.

  “Just listen, Your Grace. You all know how I came to Venice. Not as the wee broken fool you see before you, but as a diplomat, an emissary from the ruler of six countries. Spokesman for an empire.”

  “His queen is dead—,” said Brabantio.

  “Shut the fuck up, thou glistening dog knob!” said I, perhaps more sternly than was called for. “I have the floor.”

  The doge gave Brabantio a savage glare and the senator went silent.

  “I traveled across Europe to come here, to speak my queen’s will to Venice, because of one man: Othello. O’er all the world, the legend of the Moor saving your city is prologue to the power of your empire. Who will ship their goods with Venice, send their soldiers to war with Venice, if Venice cannot protect her ships? The world knows that the spine of the mighty Venetian Navy is that brilliant general, the Moor, Othello, who saved them from the Genoans when he was five times outnumbered. In all the known lands, princes speak the name of Othello in the same breath with Venice, and see the city’s esteem in his sword. Brabantio tells you Othello is not a Venetian, but I tell you that there would be no Venice without Othello. The Moor is a Venetian because he is the father of Venice—he gave it life. Even tonight, with wind of trouble on another sea, you call for the Moor to defend your city. Would you be so base as to boast of your city of laws, your republic that is fair to all, so all may be equal to trade here, and not accept this brave general into its bosom? I tell you, Senators, to the world, to those with whom you would trade, with those who you would call to war, Othello is Venice.”

  There was quiet around the room as the senators fidgeted. Brabantio’s eyes burned with hatred for me. I had played his own card against him, the war. The bloody Crusade he had lobbied for, but had not been able to get passed by the council. I had thrown it on him: Your daughter or your war, Montressor.

  “The fool makes good sense,” said the doge to Brabantio.

  The Montressor seemed to shrivel, from glaring rage to a beaten man—worn and exhausted. He shuffled to Othello and Desdemona, placed their hands in each other’s and held them there. “God be with you. I have another daughter, this one is yours, and to me, is daughter no more.”

  Tears leapt from Desdemona’s eyes and she turned her face into the Moor’s shoulder.

  The doge came down from the dais, took the newlyweds in his arms. “Venice blesses your marriage and declares Othello a Venetian, subject to and protected by all the laws of the republic.” He released them and stepped back. “But we must save the celebration of your wedding, for now, brave Othello, you must quickly take forces to Corsica. We have word the Genoans intend to move on Bastia, our port there, and you must turn them back.”

  “I will go, Your Grace, but before I do, I would see that Desdemona is cared for in the manner to which she is accustomed.”

  “She is no longer welcome under my roof,” growled Brabantio.

  “Then perhaps Your Grace has room in t
he palace,” said Othello.

  Desdemona stepped away from the Moor, glared at her father, then addressed the whole chamber. “I would have a say in my future, if you please. I, too, am a Venetian, and I would be at my husband’s side. It is true that he won me by tales of his battles, so I would be with him while he does these deeds that drew my affection. I would go to Corsica with him.”

  “But, beloved,” said Othello, “I must leave on a fast galley tonight, a warship, which has no accommodation for a wife, and the need for haste allows no time for you to gather your things.”

  “I will see her to Corsica,” came a voice from the back of the mob. Iago stepped forward.

  “There will be new battles, Iago,” said Othello. “You will be needed at Arsenal to fit men to ships.”

  “I will send my own wife to be Desdemona’s handmaid, and see her returned to your arms in Corsica. You know her, Desdemona.”

  Desdemona squeezed Othello’s arms. “I’ve met Emilia. She is of good character and will be good company.”

  “So be it, then,” said the Moor. “Cassio, ready five fast ships. We are for Corsica on the tide.” Then the Moor turned to the council. “Signors, I thank you for your faith, and for this lady; I will keep both on my life.”

  He offered his arm to Desdemona. As she turned to leave she mouthed “Thank you” to me and smiled.

  I was left standing in the middle of the hall, hung a bit out to dry, I thought, so by way of exit, I pumped the puppet Jones in the air and marched out. “You ungrateful fucks!” I shouted. “If it weren’t for Othello the Genoans would have sacked the city and you’d all be speaking bloody Italian.”

  “We are speaking Italian,” said Brabantio.

  I reeled to face him. “Can you imagine the pounding farewell shag Othello is giving your daughter even now, Montressor? I’ll wager you can hear the moaning all the way to the Rialto Bridge.”

  In retrospect, given the walling up and whatnot, I might have been imprudently harsh with the Montressor.

  So of course, Desdemona was overjoyed at seeing me when Jessica and I arrived at the Citadel. Well, not precisely when I arrived. We came in behind Iago and his friend.