I, Iago Read online

  But one of them made a calming gesture, and the others paused. The clump of angry, hostile, male adolescence disbursed, disbanded, and in various stages wandered out of the room for dinner. The bringer of calm helped Brawny Lug to his feet and checked his crown for broken skin.

  I WENT DOWN to the mess and sat alone in the reverberate, dull room, willing myself calm enough to bring bread to my mouth without trembling. Whatever I ate had no taste at all. I only ate because I knew they were staring at me and I wanted to show them I was unaffected by what had just happened. But that was not true, of course, and I did not like to counterfeit.

  After I finished pretending to eat, I walked slowly, with forced calm, back across the hall, up the stairwell, and into our dormitory. I checked the floor for signs of spilled oil, but there was none; my targets had all been packed together tightly. I took the jug of oil, lighter now, and continued to fill the lamps that were arranged on the wooden table. The more I concentrated on not trembling, the more I trembled. This was hell. I would have been less miserable trying to pass myself off as a fop among rich Venetian merchants.

  As I worked, I heard and then saw the octave return, and after them Brawny Lug, with a poultice tied atop his head.

  Behind him was Captain Trevisan.

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched them all line up expectantly, as if for an inspection. I continued to fill the lamp wells, forcing myself to breathe slowly. The captain nodded to them once they were all in formation, and then coughed pointedly in my direction. I looked up, and he gestured to the line with his eyes.

  I set down the jar, and with a curt nod, stood at attention at the near end of the line.

  “Is it true?” the captain asked me, with a gesture to the rest of the youths. “What your colleagues have told me?”

  “What have they told you, sir?” I asked.

  I was treated to a slightly exaggerated depiction of my exploit. It did not seem worth it to explain away the exaggerations.

  “That is true enough, sir.”

  “How much oil did you pour on these men?” the captain demanded coldly.

  I opened my mouth to explain it had been merely splashed, not poured, but before I had uttered a syllable, a triad of the octave insisted, “It was more than that, sir!”

  I looked at the captain and blinked a few times.

  “Shut up,” the captain said to them. “How much?” he demanded, back to me.

  I considered the triad. “Half a jar,” I said, which was more than it had actually been. That undermined their protestation.

  “I will have the supply clerk calculate how much you owe the state of Venice for unauthorized use of lamp oil,” the captain said. “Beyond that, you are to be commended for your excellent handling of a difficult situation.”

  I blinked again. So did the others. “Excuse me, sir?”

  “You’ve not been properly trained yet and you efficiently contained a volatile option,” the captain said, ignoring everyone else in the room. “An option I myself initiated. I am impressed.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, saluting. I felt the blood in my cheeks. My dormitory mates were dismayed. “Sir, may I complete my assigned task?”

  “Yes, soldier,” the captain said.

  It was our first day, and he had called me soldier. I could not have invented a better story to be told about myself.

  FROM THAT MOMENT ON, I was treated with something that might pass as respect. It was a cold respect, but it was better than what I had feared would be the sum of my days at the Arsenal.

  I had a small allowance from my father. It would cover the “unauthorized use of lamp oil” but leave me with no other spending money. I heard heartily whispered rumors that at the end of this first week, there would be a bacchanalian outing to foster our herd instinct. Now I understood the need for that instinct; I was determined to take part in the ritual, even though I considered myself more Apollonian than Bacchanalian.

  DAILY TRAINING WAS intensive and exhausting. The matchlock rifle was our primary weapon. But we were taught how to load, aim, and shoot a variety of guns both heavy and light, and also cannon. We were trained to fire at targets while running and while crouching; these targets were forty paces away from us when we trained with arquebuses and eighty paces while running with muskets, which were lighter. We learned how to shoot at bobbing targets four hundred paces off the shore of the Lido. We learned command terms, drum signals, and how to run a quarter of a mile in formation. We learned how rust-free artillery was made within the Arsenal, and that iron was purchased primarily for mountings and for shot, which came in ten different calibers, each of which we learned to identify by touch. We learned that bullet-deflecting helmets, armor, and swords all came from Brescia, and we learned how to use everything that came from Brescia. We were each assigned a musket from the two thousand kept in stock by the Arsenal. We learned how the cannon foundry operated; we learned how to make gunpowder from the saltpeter of Trevisano, Friuli, and Istria, mixed in lime and boiled with ashes. We learned that as soldiers in the Artillery we took our orders from the secretive Council of Ten—not the Senate or the Great Council.

  BRAWNY LUG BORE the Christian name Bucello; the fellow who had comforted him, Zanino. Having recovered, Bucello was devoted to proving himself to me. He was amazed that I had bested him, and with such a simple contrivance. Rather than acknowledging himself rash and foolish, he instead saw me as enormously clever and shrewd—so shrewd, I could outmaneuver him, the great Bucello! He never convinced me to engage in active competition with him, but I let him carry on as if we were deliberate adversaries. I let him attribute my small accomplishments over that first week to my attempts to match his muscle. When he did something clever, and then commented loudly that he was encroaching upon my mental abilities, I employed benign silence, which he considered agreement. I would have preferred to tell him honestly what I thought of his mental abilities, but I was also becoming a reluctant student of pragmatism.

  As well as general training, that first week was spent on matchlock drills. The other trainees liked the matchlocks because they were guns—because, when handled correctly, their use resulted in loud noises and then something far away blowing up or shattering. I liked them because the contrivance of them, the way they worked, the science of them, was to me a thing of beauty.

  A matchlock gun is a work of delicately deadly craftsmanship. The “match” is a slow-burning wick made of hemp, which is clamped to the gun by a spring-loaded serpentine lever. Pulling the free end of the lever drops the match end of the lever down into a flash pan, into which the shooter has placed priming powder. The smoldering match ignites the powder; that ignition flashes through a touchhole into the gun barrel, where gunpowder ignites and propels a ball out of the barrel with extraordinary speed in one direction, while kicking the gunner (at least, the novice gunner) stumbling backward and landing inelegantly on his backside as his fellows snort with laughter.

  The final well-thought element within the firearm is that when the lever is released to its original position it sweeps backward, clearing the flash pan of any remaining powder. This greatly reduces the likelihood that the novice gunner will, while falling on his backside, also blow his face off.

  BUCELLO DECIDED EARLY on that my regard for the mechanics of the matchlock was actually a feint, and that all I really cared about was how fast I could reload and shoot. I have no idea what gave him this impression, but he was invested in it. In the enclosed shooting yard outside the barracks, he always chose me as the man to outshoot—and he always did, which made him very fond of me. I endured this, but on our first Friday before the much-anticipated bacchanalian break, I made a bet with him. It was afternoon on a hot, hazy day, and we were still in our training gear.

  “It is a shame our duels are always hampered by other men. Let’s return to the range after the regular drill,” I suggested. “We will come here after mess, before we go into town, and see which of us can hit the target more times within a tu
rn of the glass.” The time-glass measured off a period during which a rapid shooter should be able to load, shoot, reload, and shoot again. “Whoever wins must treat the other to all expenses when we rove tonight.”

  Even if I lost this bet, the arrangement benefitted me: although I would go into debt to fund the jaunt, I’d still be seen in Bucello’s close company all evening. By the week’s end he was clearly the Brawny Lug not only in our company but possibly of the entire Arsenal. A good ally to have, I decided, even if I lost the bet.

  But I did not intend to lose the bet.

  ON THAT FINAL AFTERNOON, we were given one hour of leisure time. Bucello chose to nap, because he wanted to have stamina for a good hearty bacchanalian sort of evening. I immediately corralled Zanino and the others, and suggested that the nine of us use this precious opportunity to practice shooting, so that we might eventually have a hope in heaven of coming anywhere close to Bucello’s speed and accuracy.

  The excellent thing about a matchlock is the slow-burning match. This means that once one has loaded the priming powder into the pan and the rest of the powder and shot into the barrel, one can fire the gun eventually. Over the past few decades, since the matchlock was introduced as standard equipment, thousands of miles of hemp-wick have burned across Europe to no end at all, except to keep muskets available for shooting when the need might arise.

  This means that if one convinces one’s fellow cadets that they must practice shooting their guns, and then offer to clean their guns for them after, one suddenly has access to a group of rifles that one may load and prepare with slow-burning fuses ready to be fired, at one’s convenience, later on.

  My offer to clean the guns was explained as my wish to make up to all my mates for having splashed the lamp oil on their hair and clothes. That had been a time-consuming nuisance for them to clean, after all. They accepted my offer, gave me ritual permission to handle their weapons, and thought the world of me for it.

  Then they all went over to mess to eat and fortify their bodies for the orgy to come.

  I lay their weapons close together on the ground by my own. I doused my own hemp cord on both ends but did not load my gun. I loaded and lit a slow match on half the other guns, then scrupulously cleaned the remaining five of powder, but put slow-burning fuses on them anyhow, and these smoldering but impotent five I set at the end of the row.

  There were a series of straw bales at one end of the gunnery range; from the small wooden shed beside them I grabbed two paper targets, and tied them around two of the bales. I thanked Minerva several times that Bucello had a poor sense of smell, because burning fuses have a distinct odor, and there was nothing in the yard to disguise it.

  “There you are, fellow!” Bucello’s bullish voice erupted from a corner between two buildings and echoed briefly around the yard. “Missed you at mess!” He was carrying his assigned firearm in one hand.

  “Good evening. I’ve set up the targets. Let’s shoot from over there where my gun is lying.”

  “What’s all the rest of that, then?” he asked, pointing vaguely to the row of firearms lined up neatly close together.

  “It seems I am to clean everyone’s guns for them.”

  “Bad luck at dice, was it?” he said, assuming that it was and therefore not caring that I did not answer him. He laughed. “Can’t say I see any sign of your luck improving now.”

  “My luck? No,” I agreed. “You won’t find me relying on luck any time again soon.”

  “Well, let’s at it, then,” Bucello said as we arrived beside the string of weapons. “I received permission from the captain for a round of target practice, so he will understand why our powder is short tonight. Have we a time-glass?”

  I had one by my gun, the sand emptied into the lower chamber. I gestured to it.

  “And just to be thorough about it, let’s show each other that our guns are in an equally unready state,” he added.

  I immediately picked mine up and offered it to him for his inspection. He gave me a good-mate smile and handed his to me. I accepted it and glanced at its works cursorily. There was no powder in the flash pan, no powder nor projectile in the barrel, and no hemp cord in the serpentine.

  Having established that each other’s gun was as far from battle-ready as it could be, we swapped the weapons back. We shifted them to our left hands and inverted the time-glass together, then sat it on the ground. Bucello’s demeanor immediately shifted to focused, precise, humorless soldier. He grabbed for his supply of cord in the pouch at his hip.

  I lay down my weapon on the paving stones, reached for Zanino’s gun—the closest preprepared one in the row— and raised it up. These were light muskets, to be shot without support. I rested the butt against my shoulder and pulled the serpentine down, touching the hemp into the flash pan. With a sizzle, the powder lit; Bucello looked up from cutting his hemp, surprised; his eyes widened as he saw I was already taking aim at my target. The musket kicked back against my shoulder as the ball erupted from the barrel with a roar; a blink later, before the bouncing echo died, it scorched a hole into the straw bale on the far side of the courtyard.

  I smiled, lay down the heated gun, and raised up the one lying next to it. Bucello wore amazed confusion on his face as his hands expertly, automatically cut his hemp cord and began to thread the cord into the serpentine, even as the rest of his attention was distracted. “What . . . ,” he began, then stopped; he could not manage speech.

  I flipped the lever on this musket too and aimed. A second explosion shredded the late afternoon peace, and a second hole scorched my straw bale. As I set the second gun down on the paving stones, I explained politely, “We never specified we had to use our own guns to shoot.” After the briefest pause, I added, to be precise, “Or use the same gun for all the shots.” I picked up the third gun and steadied it against my shoulder.

  Bucello’s face darkened. “You conniving devil!” he shouted as I fired. He tossed his half-prepared gun to the ground and furiously crossed past me, to grab the next gun in the row. I did not stop him; I wanted him to have one round. He glared at me, stomped back to his position, and aimed the weapon as I picked up the fifth—and last—fully loaded musket. My fourth shot followed so near on his first, it could have been an echo.

  I bent, as if to reach for the next gun, the first of the powder-less and shot-less ones, but he shoved me aside and snatched it up instead—and while he was there, he grabbed the next one too. That left three unarmed weapons in the row. I turned back to my own assigned weapon, the nuances of which I was more familiar with, and with my adequate but unremarkable skills, I prepared it for a shot. As I was recapping my powder horn, Bucello gave up trying to fire the gun he held and finally thought to check its readiness. With a disgusted grunt he hurled it clattering down beside his own, picked up the other gun he’d grabbed, and checked it for a wick. It had one, but no powder or ball. By the time he’d discovered that, however, I was ready to fire my own weapon, making it my fifth shot.

  “Time has run out,” I observed laconically, in the silence after the explosion.

  “You devil!” Bucello shouted at me, red-faced.

  And then, to my immense relief, he burst into laughter. “You devil, you!” He slapped me on the shoulder so ferociously I nearly dropped my gun, and I had to stagger to keep from falling to my knees. “I knew you could not beat me honestly, but that’s a very clever way to beat me with a trick!”

  “What trick?” I demanded innocently. “We both had naked muskets. We both fired from the preloaded stash—you are as complicit as I am there. In the end, I am the one who fired the most, and the only one who fired his own gun.”

  “Yes, and all because you’re a conniving bastard,” Bucello said heartily.

  “Bucello, call anyone to view the evidence,” I said, straight-faced. “Your gun is clean. Mine has just been fired. So clearly, you fired a gun that was not yours into your target, while there is no proof I used any but my own weapon.”

  “The o
ther guns are warm!” Bucello laughed. “Their fuses are lit. They have clearly just been fired, and there are balls lodged in your target to prove it!”

  “But, Bucello, the guns will be cool soon. Perhaps they were shot this afternoon, then left untended by their neglectful owners. All those balls could have come from my own gun. While the ball in your target clearly came from not-your-gun. Did one of your fellow soldiers give you permission to touch their weapon, or must I turn you in for unauthorized use of a firearm?”

  Bucello laughed harder, his face approaching the color of his maroon breeches. “You are wasted in the military, fellow!” he declared. “You really should become a lawyer!”

  “Do you concede the match, then?”

  “I do on one condition,” he said, containing himself. “That we tell nobody else what you have done here. Do not worry, I’ll cover your expenses tonight,” he said quickly. “This is very clever, what you’ve done. If we tell the others, you will never get away with it again. If we do not tell the others, then it is our secret, and you can try this prank on someone else, but I’ll be in on it, and I shall put a wager on your head and make a lot of money from it. Which I’ll share with you, of course.”

  If he’d demanded I keep it secret to save his pride, I would never have agreed, but amused by his suggestion, I offered him my hand, and even joined with him when he laughed again. His slight to my brother’s haplessness, I decided then, was slight enough.

  And so I set off for my first night of debauchery arm in arm with my bosom friend, Bucello the Brawny Lug, who treated me to everything a young soldier in training might ever fantasize about.

  PARDON, ARE YOU expecting me to describe the debauchery? But a gentleman does not do such things.

  Perhaps a little bit.

  Donning the clothes we’d been wearing the day of our arrival, we all went to a house near the Arsenal that did not front on any canal. On the main floor there was presented to us overpriced turgid wine, bad instrumental music, and flamboyantly clad women with breasts exposed to below the nipple who danced about the room, and sang, and then sat on men’s laps for a few moments, before taking them upstairs to very small rooms, doing their business, and sending them on their way.