I, Iago Read online

  The city of Venice boasts approximately one whore for every seven male citizens. Of course, many of their clients are foreigners, traders, or sailors; and many of the prostitutes are mistresses who live better than proper wives. In other words, we were doing something common, regular, and normal. However, it was something I had never yet done. And I suspected this was true of most of my fellow cadets, although all of them were determined not to be perceived as virginal.

  Bucello most definitely had been to brothels; we’d heard stories all week about it after curfew. The stories were boring. I was libidinous as any youth my age; I hoped the act of fornication would be at least as tremendous as my elaborate self-abusing fantasies. And yet Bucello’s coarse depictions of the women, their body parts, his body parts, their body parts together . . . it aroused no envy or licentiousness in me at all, only a peculiar sense of embarrassment for him. He lacked the poetry to appreciate the greatest mystery of life, which he seemed to consider just a pleasurable mechanical exercise. Listening to his tales of whoring was like listening to a description of a thunderstorm by a person who is both blind and deaf, but who happened to be standing outside and therefore got wet somehow.

  Too poor to enjoy the pleasures of the properly licensed whores of the Rialto, we made do with this small brothel in the Castello district. The room stank from the New World weed, tobacco. The smoke left a sticky residue, looking almost occult in the lamplight.

  Bucello sat at the head of a creaky wooden table; sensing he was the captain for the evening, the women clustered to him, dressed almost exactly like patrician ladies, except for the exposed nipples. The other cadets angled to sit close to Bucello. I remained standing, watching them. To cover my awkwardness, I imagined myself a tactician, reading my fellows and their behavior. By the time they settled, there was only one stool left, and it was at the foot of the table. All the cadets leaned away from it, toward Bucello and the women.

  “Come, friend, sit by me!” Bucello said buoyantly. He bodily lifted one of the bawds from off her stool and placed her on his own lap, to much delighted yelping from her and envious clucking from the others. “Here is a free seat! Put your buttocks here!” He patted what had been her perch. The others in our party exchanged glances, surprised and put out that I had somehow, since dinner, earned Bucello’s affection. With my arms crossed and an expressionless face, I sat beside him. I did not like the smell of the place. This was not what I had been expecting of a brothel.

  One of the women, wearing white ceruse with vermillion cheeks and lips, her eyelashes fashionably thinned and trimmed so that she resembled a painted fish, leapt at the opportunity, quite literally: she placed herself on my lap in imitation of her friend’s position on Bucello’s. I was less ample of lap than he, and so she balanced herself by throwing one arm around my neck. She was doused in a suffocating perfume, a cheap imitation of the suffocating perfumes my mother and her kind wore. Reflexively I pulled my head back, which tightened her grip around my neck.

  “Shy one, are you?” she asked with a leering smile. The other males, wanting to put me in my place, assured her that I was not only shy but also other things that were not manly. She tipped her head to grin sassily at them from one corner of her eye but returned her cooing attention to me. “You from Terraferma, then? Never seen a city girl?” She winked and ran a plump pink tongue over painted lips.

  Acutely nervous, I retreated to the only mental safety at my disposal: words. “A city girl? I rather think you are more of cunt-ry girl, no?” I said.

  The bawds giggled; the young men cackled in their velvet jerkins, suddenly looking stupid.

  “As a matter of fact”—she grinned—“I do know a little of country matters.”

  “Clever boy,” said one of the older whores; another snorted, “Not that clever. He’s not the first to jape that way.”

  “Excuse my lack of originality,” I said to my detractor. It was bizarre to have captured the attention of the table, given as I was the least groping or eager-faced of any man there.

  “I think he is shy,” my lap-perch insisted.

  “I am not shy, I’m just not forward,” I corrected politely. And then added, as the words occurred to me (with some amazement at myself), “I prefer to come in a more rearward fashion.”

  The bawds all exchanged looks and then burst into hilarity. The youths, who had yet to manage to say anything directly to the women they intended to ride, looked almost scandalized.

  “Where did you learn to talk like that?” the woman on Bucello’s lap gushed.

  “In the Low Countries, of course,” I said, which delighted them all over again.

  With that reference, I had now exhausted my repertoire of euphemisms for nether regions and sexual matters in general. However, emboldened by their approval, I decided to risk invention. “A cunning little wench there worked me stiff as we groped for trout in a peculiar river.”

  What in hell did that mean? Yet it was welcomed as though it were fraught with especially filthy innuendo. The bawd on my lap ground herself against me, bare nipples and all—the perfume really was atrocious—and moaned suggestively. “This fellow is a catch,” she informed her cohorts. “And tonight . . .”—here she pressed her face right up into mine until I could see the places where the white paint creased—“tonight he is all mine to dance with.” On the word dance she thrust her hips yet farther into my lap, which was frankly quite uncomfortable.

  Still, it was enthralling to have such power. The bawd who’d settled on Bucello’s lap, realizing she had not, in fact, picked the leader of our pack, sidled until she was nearly at the end of his knees and put a proprietary hand on my bawd’s shoulder. “Surely you’d like to snatch more than one dance,” she purred at me.

  “Hey, I thought you were dancing with me!” Bucello complained. Immediately, she turned her tinted, ringlet-framed face back to him and smiled reassuringly.

  “Of course, darling, but a quiver can hold many arrows.”

  “I’ve got the biggest arrow here,” Bucello said, defensively, and the fellows round the table all laughed and hear-heared him, relieved the lecherous talk was finally comprehensible to them.

  “I rather think I’d like him all for myself,” said my aromatic lap-weight, eyeing me. “You’re a rare horn to catch, fellow. You’ve got a special something—” and again she leaned in toward me; her breath, at least, was not so bad; I think she had recently been chewing mint leaves—“worth dying over,” she said suggestively, pretending to whisper but really speaking very loudly. “Or even dying under.” As before, the bawds all giggled knowingly; the youths all sniggered with a rising level of awkwardness.

  Despite my lack of sexual desire for this woman, the energy of the moment was addictive, and I decided to swim with the current.

  “So you want to be buried with your face upward?” I asked her archly and actually dared put a finger on her left nipple.

  God in heaven, that changed everything. Now I had to have her.

  “Unless, as you said, you prefer the rearward fashion,” she said breathily.

  “Not necessarily between the sheets,” I said. “There I prefer more standard entrances and exits.”

  “And exits and entrances,” she said, quickly, rocking her hips toward mine with the syllables. Suddenly it was not nearly so uncomfortable.

  “And entrances and exits,” I said, encouragingly.

  “And exits and entrances,” she said more quickly, rocking still.

  “Enough of this!” Bucello bawled, interrupting. “No pleasure listening to dirty talk—I’d much rather dirty action! So, Iago, my friend, either you must do it to her here on the table, or take a room upstairs and let the rest of us get on with our own dirty work!”

  Before I could even think to answer, the white-faced whore had jumped off my lap and was tugging at my hand to make me rise. “Come along, then, darling,” she crooned. “Time to make the beast with two backs.”

  Chapter 5

  TRAINING TO
BE a bombardier verged on blissful.

  For three months my life consisted of daily musters, rising before dawn, marching in formation, learning strategy, endless practice sessions (although not so endless, really, as they rationed our gunpowder almost to the grain). I was a talented student of the academic elements of warfare; I was natural at strategy and tactics; I could decipher some of the greatest battles Venice had ever won; in class exercises I made the same decisions that, it turned out, the best generals in our history had made.

  I came to know and understand this about Our Serene Republic: having expanded our holdings to nearly infinite multiples of our original landmass, both to the west on Terraferma and of course east across the Empire da Mar, we were now simply trying to maintain said holdings, and keep them safe. We were conquerors until we’d conquered all we needed; now we were trying to protect and preserve it. In becoming a military man, I was promising to quietly guard all that my forefathers had not-so-quietly conquered. There would be no glamour to the profession, despite the romantic patina the Republic invested in our military glory.

  And that sat fine with me. I loved what I was doing, and I loved that I could do it well. I wished to join an artillery unit on Terraferma or better yet da Mar, perhaps Corfu or Cyprus; I wished to practice what I’d learned until I was invincibly talented, and then (full-time bombardiering being hard to come by in times of peace) become a master teacher. I grew fond of my own instructors, basking in their approval, especially that of Alvisio Trevisan; approval of any sort to me was both alien and thrilling. Crowing reports of me had been sent home by my superiors. I never crossed the city to go home myself; I wanted to return fully fledged, entirely reborn into this new identity of mine: Iago Soranzo, Master Gunner.

  And then, too soon, I was a formal graduate of the Alberghetti Family’s Bartolomeo da Cremona training program at the Arsenal. I was now a qualified artilleryman. My captain declared I had great potential as a future commander.

  VENICE IS A PLACE of pomp and circumstances, where every possible opportunity for ceremony is studiously observed and acted on, but there was little fanfare when we graduated from our training. Soaked by sheets of cooling rain, skirting the flooded Piazza of San Marco, I returned home, lugging my leather satchel—the weight of which was much less burdensome to me than it had been three months earlier.

  A servant at the water gate took my soaked cloak and offered me a cloth to dry my head. I was summoned instantly to Father’s study, that same study where there was only the one chair, and cushions at his feet. I did not sit. I was pleased, excited, and most of all relieved: I had done our family proud, and I’d done it in the most exciting branch of the military. The cavalry, even the navy, now paled in comparison.

  Father, dressed as usual in black velvet with a surcoat to ward off the damp, somehow managed to look up at me as if he were looking down at me. “Welcome home, son,” he said, without sounding welcoming. His grey eyes turned to scan a piece of paper. When he set it on the desk, I saw the state seal printed on it in red and, feeling strangely nostalgic, I recognized the personal insignia of Captain Trevisan. It was a letter of commendation.

  Father, having read it, did not look impressed or even interested. My stomach clenched a little. Somehow, I thought my transformation would have effected a transformation within him too. But he was the same cold man who did not know quite what to do with this extra son he’d spawned.

  “I am glad,” he said, “that you have redeemed the memory of your brother’s life. You were worthy of that task, from all that I have read in reports home from your instructors. Indeed, your gun-master seems to think you have some kind of genius.”

  I flushed with pride. That Captain Trevisan had described me thus, and my father was forced to acknowledge, to my face, that it had been said about me—this was enough. It made me Somebody. To dismiss me, now, was to dismiss the judgment of an expert.

  But Father was not dismissing anything. “This esteem of your instructors is a good thing,” he allowed, instead. “It may help the master plan.”

  Oh, dear. “What . . . master plan?”

  “It will make it easier to place you well when you transfer to the army,” Father said.

  I had to repeat this phrase to myself at least twice to make sure I understood it. The army—by which he meant the infantry—and the artillery are two different branches, and the army is essentially a standing guard. There is no glory or excitement in it; members of the army simply guard what our more ambitious predecessors won for us. The artillery, although likewise a defensive force, at least teems with innovation.

  “Why on earth would I leave the artillery to join the . . . heaven help me, the army?” I demanded, feeling my hands clench without my permission. I crossed to a window and looked out at the dismal rain. “Perhaps the cavalry, if you’d loan me the money to buy a horse, or better yet the navy, but if you will excuse me, Father . . . the army? The infantry? The infantry is nothing but garrison guards. Their very goal is to not be useful. I would end up guarding some half-remembered castle on some half-remembered hill town on the mainland. Why would I want that, when I have a signed letter from the captain of the—”

  “Because it will be seen as a gesture of great loyalty to the Republic,” Father said. “The infantry is desperately in need of recruits. You are a bit of a hero this week. Temporarily, of course, but enough so that if you enlist, and we make sure others hear about it, you may start a current flowing, and increase the rolls—a turnabout in the army’s fortunes that will be forever associated with Iago son of Niccolo Soranzo.”

  Now I saw what this was about: Father was boot-licking someone in the Senate whose duty was to increase infantry recruitment. What better offering to make than his own son?

  “But, Father, there are no need of more recuits,” I argued. “The enlisted soldiers spend their lives standing about doing absolutely nothing but holding pikes and asking who goes there at some fortress gate. We have a hard time hiring mercenaries to do something so dull. What does it profit me, or Venice, for me to spend my life like that?” I took a deep breath, heart pounding, and declared firmly, “I am ambitious for a better lot.”

  Father sighed and gave me a long-suffering, oh-but-you-are-petulant-Iago look. “We have friends in places that matter, you know,” he said. “I will ensure you are positioned to become a petty officer in no time at all.”

  I bristled. “I thank you, Father, but as I have now proven, my own abilities mark me. I do not need political favors to rise in life.”

  “I have already spoken to the commisioner of Tirano on Terraferma, and he has agreed to tell the captain that you will be joining their company,” Father continued, as if I had said nothing.

  For a moment I was speechless. “You cannot make me do that,” I finally said. And then, outright defiance for perhaps the first time in my life: “I will not do it.”

  “They are relying on you, Iago. If you don’t go, I will look foolish and unreliable in the eyes of Senator Brabantio, who is not only my most indulgent customer but also particularly good at sending new business my way. If I look foolish or ungrateful to him, it will have immediate and profound effects on the fortunes of our house. Frankly, it could ruin me. You will obey this plan or you will be disowned.”

  Hardly recognizing myself in my behavior, I laughed scornfully and met his eye. “Are you telling me you’ve placed your future in my hands?” I said. “I don’t believe that. You have given me the power to destroy your industry? I’ll pretend for a moment that you mean it, and so I must ask: why would you do something so rash, Father?”

  Astounded by my resistance, he looked angry—a rare show of any emotion from him. “Because I wished to bask in the pride of knowing you would do the right thing. I wished the satisfaction of believing that were I ever to be in a position to depend upon you to look out for my interests, you would do so. It breaks my heart to see that I am wrong.”

  I considered this a moment, then announced: “That is twist
ed beyond all reason.” My heart was pounding; no member of our family had ever censured him this way.

  “Is it?” Father challenged. “To test one’s son’s character as he enters into manhood? How is that twisted? Is that not rather a commendable and affectionate action for a father?”

  I collected myself. “You have exaggerated the danger you would be in, were I to disobey you. I do not know why. You have invented high stakes, to play some mental game with me. It’s like something that Florentine writer liked to gush about.”

  “All the more your goodness in obedience, then,” Father said. I blinked, trying to make sense of this. This must be dotage.

  “Very well,” I said with a grim sigh. “Tell me what brainless blind obedience I must honor, to keep intact your years of meticulous industry and skill.”

  Father’s mood was instantly reformed, which further suggested to me this was the infirmity of an aging mind. “There is a ball tomorrow night,” he said. “My good friend the senator will be there. He will introduce us to the regional commissioner, who will in turn introduce you to the regional captain, and you will discuss with him your future. As I understand it, the pope is far too interested in Tirano, and we are trying to raise a standing army at the border.”

  I barely suppressed a groan. The pope! Not even an interesting adversary like the Turk! This was why I had decided never to join the infantry: I would be guarding some place on the edge of civilization that Venice had once conquered and now needed to keep docile, in order to support our extravagant life at home. It was hard to imagine anything less noble. But: the patriarch was still the patriarch, however much I wished he wasn’t. The fear of bringing shame upon the family stifled my will to resist him further.

  THE BALL WAS being thrown in honor of someone I did not know, who was being feted by someone else I did not know. After months of dressing myself in simple cadet’s garb, I found it irritatingly fussy to be trussed up by a servant in velvet and silk. I refused wearing a ruff, declaring it un-Venetian. I also resisted the slashed breeches; the servant protested, first to me and then to my father. Father did not care about my lower limbs, as long as I covered my torso with a silk shirt and my red-and-white jerkin bearing the winged lion of Venice. I was happy to comply.