I, Iago Read online

  “The Senate has approved a new general,” the first speaker said. “He is attending tonight, his first public appearance since he was invested, and he is causing heads to turn.”

  “Except for those three drunken louts, I must say he is being very good-natured about the scrutiny he is receiving,” said one of the others.

  “We hear he is not wearing a mask,” Emilia said slyly. “Is that why everyone is staring at him?” And with a marvelously wifely glance at me, she added, “Iago, put your mask back on at once. I told you not to take it off.”

  The men chuckled, and I, pretending for Emilia’s amusement to be henpecked, hurriedly retied my Bauta mask. “It’s true he is not wearing a mask,” said the second gentleman, “but that is not the cause of the consternation. He is of a different race, and his complexion and his dress make him . . . stand out.”

  “We’ve just arrived this moment, so we have not seen him,” I said. “Will we recognize him?”

  “Oh yes,” all four said at once. The first speaker added, with a gesture toward my soldier’s jerkin, “You should introduce yourself to him, he is now your commander in chief.”

  Emilia pretended to find this terribly exciting. “Oh, my goodness, Iago! Behave yourself and you might find yourself promoted to lieutenant before the evening’s over!”

  “Why is he in Venice now?” I asked the man.

  “He’s just been officially invested,” he explained. “He’d been fighting in the Levant, for different armies, but always against the Turks, at least a decade now. Last year, he was hired as captain of a Venetian unit out there. He rose in the ranks quite spectacularly, and after this last embarrassment with Orsini and Sforza, the Senate agreed with the Great Council that he would make an ideal candidate for governor-general. He heads to Rhodes next month—”

  “Really? I’d heard rumors about trying to take Rhodes from the south,” I said.

  “Well then,” said the third gentleman. “If you know about military matters, you should strike up a conversation with him! Poor fellow is being besieged by repetitively meaningless chatter all evening.”

  “Does he speak our language?” the lady asked.

  “It’s accented, but it’s understandable,” the first gentleman said. He turned to me. “The general might enjoy some conversation of things martial, being so entirely out of place at a gathering of this sort.”

  To my side, I heard Emilia take a quick breath in, and her hand tightened around my elbow. “Iago, there he is,” she whispered. “Look at him. How remarkable!”

  I glanced at her—her lower lip was hanging slightly slack behind her mask—then turned to look where she was staring.

  A dozen paces away from us, taller than the handful of people in the way, stood a tall, broad-shouldered man whose skin was nearly the same color as his tightly curled black hair. The dimensions of his features were bizarre by Venetian standards—still he struck me as decent to look upon, although his color startled me. As if to emphasize his darkness, he wore an unusual outfit of brilliant white—a long loose tunic, over loose wide trousers. Heavy, simple gold chains of different lengths hung around his neck, and incongruously, a white kerchief with lace and embroidery was tied around his throat. There was no other decoration to his costume, save the ceremonial red-and-white banner of a Venetian general, which draped from his left shoulder to his right hip.

  “His name?” I asked.

  “Othello,” said the older man, respectfully.

  The General

  Chapter 13

  I WAS CAPTIVATED by the expression on Othello’s face: he was entirely out of his element and yet entirely comfortable to be so. He knew everyone was staring at him, but rather than resenting it or squirming with self-consciousness—as I had done when Roderigo was presenting me to strangers—Othello seemed to welcome it as a benign dare: I am the man charged with keeping your empire intact, so I know you must be decent to me. He was the living embodiment of confidence—genuine confidence, that rare quality that needs no arrogance to bolster it.

  Emilia and I forgot about the people we’d been speaking to and moved together slowly toward him, as if drawn by a magnet, not even realizing we were doing it.

  The party’s host, Signior Gratiano, approached Othello and greeted him warmly. With Gratiano was his famous cousin, Senator Brabantio, whom he introduced. I did not know Brabantio personally, but he (via his personal tailor) was one of my family’s wealthiest customers. I’d heard stories of him from both my brother and Roderigo, and my instinct upon seeing him greet Othello was that he wanted something from the man. Most likely, to shine in his reflected glory.

  “. . . must come to my house,” Brabantio was saying as we reached hearing distance. “My wife has passed, alas, and my only child is shy as a kitten, so will likely not come out of her rooms, but that will give us a chance to speak more freely. I wish to hear your stories—your life has apparently been quite remarkable.”

  “Tomorrow Othello will not remember Brabantio’s name,” I predicted quietly as we watched.

  “Especially since he cannot even see his face,” Emilia commented. Then, glancing around at all the masks: “Or anyone else’s.”

  Inspiration struck. “Guess what I am going to do.”

  “Shall I untie it for you?” she asked, and reached up for the ribbon to my mask.

  “I love how well you know me,” I whispered to her.

  “And I love knowing you,” she whispered back. “You go on. I’ll watch. Call me over if you think it’s proper, otherwise I shall wait to meet him.”

  The perfect wife. I had the perfect wife.

  Glowing with the pleasure of having the perfect wife, and cocky (or trying to feel cocky) about being the only other unmasked person in the room, as well as the only other military officer, I strode toward the general.

  Othello, seeing my military jerkin, grinned—yes, a grin; an innocent, open, trusting, childlike grin, revealing intensely white teeth. Even his lips and gums were dark, which only made his teeth the whiter. The kerchief tied around his neck, I saw now, was emblazoned with embroidered strawberries, and looked out of place. Ignoring Brabantio, he held out both arms toward me; when I offered my right hand to shake, he clasped my entire arm up to the elbow.

  “A fellow officer!” he declared. “And you even have your own face!” He laughed. It was a warm, deep laugh, like friendly grunting. His accent was unfamiliar, although I was used to many accents from spending most of the past decade living with foreign mercenaries. “I do not recognize you, friend, from my investiture ceremony.”

  “I was not present for it, General,” I said. “I was en route back to Venice from being stationed at Corfu.”

  “Corfu!” he said, his eyes lighting up—the whites looking almost opalescent against his skin and irises. “I was at the Siege of Corfu. I was barely a child. That shows you how old I am, eh? What is your name, my friend?”

  “Ensign Iago Soranzo, General,” I said, and bowed.

  “Iago,” he said, almost eagerly. “I do not mind being in a strange place where I am stared at, this I am used to. But I do not like having no other military men about me, it makes me feel almost naked, as if I did not have my sword. You will accompany me for the remainder of the evening.”

  I tried not to look dazzled by his order. I had never been addresed by any officer above a captain in the whole of my military career. “General, of course, it would be my honor,” I replied.

  “I am sure you know these gentlemen?” Othello said, referring casually to Gratiano and Senator Brabantio.

  “I have the honor of knowing who they are,” I said carefully, extremely aware that I had just usurped them both.

  “Gentlemen, this is Ensign Iago Soranzo. Iago, introduce yourself.”

  He was using me to be reminded of who they were, which he had no doubt forgotten in the blur of names.

  “Signior Gratiano, it is an honor to meet you,” I said, bowing my head. “And likewise, Senator Brabantio.”
I said both names slowly and distinctly, then looked up at Othello and almost winked.

  He gave me an openly conspiratorial grin. “Excellent, well done, Iago,” he said. “Very polite man. I like that in an officer. And now, Signior Gratiano and Senator Brabantio, it has been an honor to meet you, and Senator Brabantio, I would be honored to be a guest in your house, and Signior Gratiano, I thank you for this marvelous party you are having for me, where nobody has any faces, and now I need a moment with my ensign to discuss military matters.”

  He called me his ensign. His ensign. It was said lightly, in the moment, to excuse himself from yet two more aging patricians he was tired of being ogled by, but still . . . my heart raced. “Come, Iago,” he said, as if we had been friends for years. “Let us get some fresh air on the balcony and talk about the fortifications on Corfu.” He took my arm and plucked me along with him. I glanced over my shoulder and gave Emilia an amazed look.

  She mimed applause, gave me a quick wave, and swiftly moved toward a group of women about her age, excitement in her step. I loved that woman.

  I followed Othello out through heavy tapestries onto the broad, chill, well-lit balcony. “Thank you, Ensign, for freeing me,” he said and released a long sigh. “My goodness, there is no air in that room at all.”

  “I am honored to be of service to you, General,” I said. “I hope you do not find them rude.”

  “Not rude, no, just a little . . . uninspiring, eh?” He glanced at me, grinned, nudged me with his elbow, and laughed that amazing bass laugh. “Do you not find it is hard to return from a battleground and spend all day around such men?”

  “I’ve never—” I stopped myself. I was about to say “I’ve never been in battle,” but that seemed an unwise thing to tell one’s commander in chief, when one’s commander in chief had just taken such an interest in one, and one was ambitious. “I have never enjoyed these kinds of gatherings, even before I was in arms,” I said instead.

  He looked surprised. “So you are from here?” he said. “A Venetian? A Venetian who is actually in the Venetian army!” He chuckled. “I would not have guessed that. You do not seem like any of the others.”

  “Why not?” I asked, a shade eagerly.

  “Well, first, you have a face,” he joked. “This makes you much more trustworthy than anyone else in here.”

  “Well, more trustworthy than the other men, let’s say.” I wanted him to meet Emilia. I wanted to show them off to each other. “There is a woman in here even more trustworthy than I am.”

  He grinned again. “Ah, so there is a Lady Iago?”

  “There is,” I said.

  “She has a good husband?”

  “I hope so,” I replied.

  “Good.” He took a deep breath and turned back to look into the room. “They will be expecting me in there. I mean this, Ensign Iago: stay beside me for the evening. I require it for my sanity. I apologize now if you must hear the same comments and stories seven hundred times in one night, but you will be doing your general a service. Are you up to it?”

  “Absolutely, General.”

  “They will be staring at us, Iago,” he warned, as if he found it amusing.

  “They have stared at me plenty over the years,” I said, cockily.

  He gave me a delighted grin. “Ah. Later, I must hear why this is true. But I think this means we will get along just fine, you and I. Come, let us begin.”

  We walked back into the ballroom. A ballet had just begun, entirely deserving of our neglect.

  OVER THE COURSE of the evening I learned many things about the general. Some of my knowledge came from listening to his politely repeating and repeating and repeating certain details of his life to everyone who asked, so that they could the next day make a casual comment to their friends about how well they knew the great Othello. As we watched acrobats, jugglers, clowns, and another ballet; as we ate (he asked me to sit beside him) a supper of fifteen courses, including peacock, pheasant, crab, and rabbit.

  From these talks, I heard mostly about the battles he had been in; but he spoke too about his rambling as a solo mercenary offering his sword. These travels had taken him from empty deserts to floodplains to sprawling mountains, where he’d crawled through enormous caves in search of rumored treasure. He claimed he had battled cannibals in eastern Scythia—men who, wearing the scalps of their conquered enemies on necklaces, gave the appearance of having heads protruding from their chests. That story was usually enough to make the other guests smile wanly and excuse themselves.

  But some of what I learned was for my ears alone, muttered quietly to me between partridges, pigeons, and pine nut cakes. These moments made the evening heady to me, heady almost as the night I first danced with Emilia. Othello trusted me with intimacies he had not even shared with the senators who promoted him. One example: for all his martial victories, there was one pivotal battle he had lost. He had been vanquished, taken captive, and sold into slavery. He’d earned his freedom after years of toil, and after being forced to swear an oath that he would never again fight against the tribe who had enslaved him. That was far to the east of here, east even of the Levant. It was in honor of that oath that he had come west, seeking to be a soldier in these far-off Mediterranean climes.

  More remarkable to me than any of the remarkable things about his life, the great man asked me to talk about my own life. He must have been bored with talking ceaselessly of himself; still, as he heard my relatively tepid history, he seemed to take a genuine interest. When we were between gaggles of attempted sycophants, he coaxed from me details of my military background.

  “So you are well trained in gunnery and also swordplay?” he said, looking thoughtful, and ignoring a new ballet—the third of the evening, this one depicting the birth of Venus—as the trestle tables were cleared from supper. “It’s rare to find these two skills, advanced, in a single man.”

  “I would leave it to the general to decide if I am indeed skilled, but yes, I have had expert tutelage in both arenas. I suppose my father’s tyranny is to thank for that, however accidentally.”

  Othello looked at me from the corner of his eye, and smiled. After two hours in his presence I’d seen him smile more than anyone I knew in Venice, with the possible exception of my wife. “I learned something when I was captive,” he said. “It is under the thumb of the worst tyrant that we can achieve our best potential. Never were my arms so strong as when I was enslaved. Never did I learn to work harder on an empty stomach than when they tried to starve me. When we are pushed against our will, Iago, it not only sharpens our will but also teaches us new strengths. I welcome hardships for this very reason. I sense we are alike that way.”

  Every injustice, inconvenience, and misfortune that ever befell me paled in contrast to what this man had lived through. Yet he considered us alike. It left me speechless.

  “I would see you with the sword and with the matchlock,” he announced. “Tomorrow in front of the Sagittarius building.”

  “The Sagittari—” I began in confusion; then I realized he meant a particular building just inside the Arsenal gate. The lintel there, unlike the usual unadorned Arsenal gateways and doors, was carved with a fanciful depiction of the zodiac sign Sagittarius: a centaur armed with bow and arrow. This building had once been the crossbow magazine. It had recently been converted to quarters for high-ranking officers, and no doubt included Othello’s temporary lodgings.

  “I would be honored,” I said, bowing my head. “Name the time, and I will be there.”

  “I do not attend the churches here, but let us wait until the bells toll after mass so we do not offend anybody’s sensibilities.” He had been watching my face more intently than I realized, because after a pause—and another grin—he added, “I do not go to church here, so you are wondering if I’m an infidel.”

  “I am curious,” I admitted. “I’m sure the entire city is.”

  “I think the answer depends on whom you ask,” he said with amused archness.

/>   “Where are you from, then?” I tried.

  “I was a child in Egypt, but that is not my race,” he said. “Still I learned many things from that great people, although the Turks have subjugated them. I have especially much fondness for their women,” he added with a laugh.

  “What is most worth the fondness? Or the fondling?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes a moment and smiled. “The land that gave us Cleopatra teems with infinite variety.”

  “I think you’ll find the same in Venice,” I offered. “Or so I recall from my bachelor days.”

  “What, no recent expeditions? Your wife keeps you happy, then?”

  I began to reply half a dozen different ways. None of them did justice to Emilia, and several of my answers would have been, although titillating to Othello, disrespectful to her. So finally I just said, “Yes,” emphatically.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Spoken like a man in love!” he announced. “I have never felt this thing, but I recognize it when I see it. May I meet the lady whom you orbit?”

  He had asked to meet my wife. This was going very well, without a moment of deliberate strategy all evening. The stars must be aligned, I thought, for this to happen. I glanced around the room and saw Emilia talking to . . . oh, dear—Roderigo had found her. He was speaking to her with great excitement, no doubt about his mercantile successes in the two years we’d been gone to Corfu.

  I turned to the general. “If you will excuse me from your side a moment, I will fetch her.”

  “By all means,” he said. “But do it quickly or I shall once again be asked to tell that story about what happened in Aleppo.”

  The hall was growing crowded—so crowded that the dancing acrobats had to be replaced by more static entertainment. Perhaps word had spread around the city that the new general was available for ogling. I pushed my way through to Emilia, wondering how quickly I could excuse myself from Roderigo.

  “Iago, my brother!” Roderigo cried out as I approached. He gave me the usual earnest hug and double kiss as an Agostini tune began in the background. “Your lovely wife has grown even more beautiful in your time away, and I see you have already made friends with our fearsome new general. What a time this is for you! It is also such a time for me! I must tell you—”