I, Iago Read online

  My mother was striking in her vermillion pearl-encrusted buratti skirt and black French hood. With her feet strapped into eight-inch-high chopines, she towered above Father. She looked gorgeous as she always did, but—as always—she looked nothing like herself. It had been years since I’d seen my mother without tint of some kind on her face, but I remember clearly from childhood that she was beautiful. I could not understand why a creature of natural beauty, gifted by God, would create a new face for herself, a face identical to all the other painted faces of Venice. As she aged, the lead in the white ceruse had eaten away at her skin, and so more paint was required to hide the damage, and so she resembled my mother less and less. Still I bowed respectfully and offered her my arm; chopines are notoriously difficult to walk in (besides looking ridiculous).

  She took my elbow. But then, as if I had suddenly vanished, she turned away from me to instead accept my older brother’s arm.

  Rizardo was dressed handsomely, although he looked as if he could not breathe, so tightly was he trussed in a bombastic black slashed doublet, red shirtsleeves showing beneath it. He was father’s full partner in the business now but had yet to understand the silk trade with profundity. He had a poor grasp of geography and entomology, both of which happened to be interests of mine; I understood his product and his purpose more than he did. Entomologically, Rizardo did not know a doppi from a galletta; technically, a mangle from a filatoio; chromatically, kermes from woad; the raw silk might be Ardassa from Persia or Ciattica from Spain, it was all one to him. He could barely tell the difference between taffeta and straze.

  But he had been born first, so the burden was on him to make good of it all. Seeing him stand there dressed so handsomely, I felt a pang of envy of which I was not proud. I wished I had his opportunity, for I knew I was prepared for it.

  Although, as I thought more on it, perhaps that was not true. Most likely, given the opportunity, I would have made a dreadful setaiòlo. I recalled suddenly an event when I was seven: Father had received a shipment of bavelle, the worst kind of waste-silk, lower quality even than the local Germans’ drappi da fontego. To his clerk, in my hearing, he groused, “This shit will be good for nothing but stuffing codpieces. I must find some clever way to market it.”

  Moments later, a buyer’s agent came into the storeroom; desperate even then to prove my usefulness, I eagerly informed the man that we had a warehouse full of shit for stuffing codpieces. I was whipped for this transgression. Rizardo would never have made such a blunder. So it was good he was the one who would inherit the business, and not myself. This was true, although mostly what he knew of silk was how to wear it well.

  AS HE WAS doing this evening. He resembled our father greatly—tonight he was a taller, fitter, younger copy of father, from cool grey eyes to black duckbill shoes. I must have seemed a well-dressed servant in comparison, my hair uncoiffed, my face sunburnt from afternoons out shooting in the Arsenal.

  So thanks to me, we were a motley assortment in the gondola, approaching the water gate of Ca’Whomever on the Grand Canal, just north of the Rialto Bridge. It was explained to me on the way, as the gondoliers rowed us through the filthy water of a side canal, that Father had made sure my name had been on everybody’s lips for the past few days—my presence was anticipated at this gathering, and that is why he had “allowed” me to appear “unkempt.” He wanted the shock effect of a “real soldier” at the party.

  “If I handle myself well, I might start a mania for swarthiness among Venetian dandies,” I said sardonically.

  Father did not grasp the humor; my brother did, but did not approve it. My mother looked thoughtful; I suspected she was busy deciding which senator to flirt with first. So there was no further conversation in the gondola.

  At least it was no longer raining.

  Chapter 6

  WE WERE ADMITTED at the water gate by a gaggle of well-dressed servants, all in high-waisted suits made of a black silk tabby that my father had sold their employer earlier that year. Although it did not look like much, I knew its worth, and it staggered me that so much would be spent on downstairs servants’ garb. My father gave me a meaningful look, an eyebrow cocked at one of the servants. I nodded to acknowledge the significance: these were immensely wealthy patrons of Father’s.

  A resplendent, broad set of stairs, coated with gold leaf, led up to the main hall, which was easily four times the size of ours. It was warm from the heat of so many bodies; it smelled of clashing perfumes; the lamplight was too uneven to flatter anybody. Musicians were playing some piece by Francesco Landini in a corner, but it was not yet the time to dance. People were mulling, so that they could show off their finery and jealously eye one another as romantic rivals.

  Near to our entrance, I saw Roderigo’s mother. She was usually inclined toward older gentlemen in her flirtations, but this evening found her hand in hand with a fresh-faced youth. He was young enough to be her son.

  In fact, he was her son.

  I hardly recognized Roderigo. We had been out of each other’s sights for not so very long, but he had made a stylish and successful transition to young Venetian foppery. I mostly recognized him by his stance: his neck pulled slightly in, like a nervous turtle, gave him an elegantly long, even regal, bearing from the back, but from the side it had provided him with double chins from about the age of twelve. Nonetheless, he’d always been a handsome boy, and now he was a handsome youth. One of those who had no need of styling, his hair was so naturally of the perfect kind of curl. He wore an outfit whose fabric I recognized as waste silk from my father’s stores. His family was in the spice trade, but they had never been prosperous, and now they were surely short of cash, if that is what they dressed their only son in.

  Still, nobody but their family and ours knew the silk was waste, and it had been cleverly cut so that he looked well dressed, almost as well as my brother (which is no small thing—all of us, as a family of silk merchants, were expected to use our haberdashery as advertisment). Roderigo’s doublet ran to a low point in front, and the tight sleeves, in signature Venetian style, had stripes running in circles down his arms.

  I could not decide whether or not I wanted to speak to him. The boy in me rejoiced at a familiar face, but the man I was becoming, especially tonight while still fuming about Father’s actions . . . I would spare Roderigo my foul mood. So I thought perhaps I would not call out to him.

  However, immediately upon arrival, I received the attention of the entire room, for I was the only sun-kissed guest; had I painted my face in streaks of green and orange I would hardly have been more alien to them.

  Roderigo’s face lit up. He cried out, “Iago! My dear Iago! What a soldier you’ve become!” and was already toward me, his suddenly-long legs halving, quartering, eighthing the distance between us until his hands were around my shoulders embracing, a kiss on either cheek. On instinct, as he released me, I offered him my right hand palm-forward, and he (with a delighted little vocal tic) responded with our secret handshake.

  “How do you, Roderigo? You look remarkably well.”

  “Do you think so?” he said, sounding pleased. He had the look of a spaniel in his eye, and I realized, with a sinking feeling, that he still worshipped me as if we were boys. I did not want that responsibility; I was not worthy of it.

  “What are you doing with yourself these days?” I asked. I glanced around, hoping to see people drinking, so that I might ask them where they’d found libations. But Roderigo seemed able to block my view no matter which way I turned.

  “I have started working with Father,” he said proudly. “I have convinced him that we should not simply sell at retail the wholesale pepper we buy so dear, but we should enter into the trade itself and become partners with a larger venture. I have a scheme to monopolize the Tellicherry pepper crop, which is superior to the Malabar pepper that the Portuguese have been cultivating on Java.” Lowering his voice: “I have made connections with some Arab heathens to help me smuggle it from India by
way of Alexandria. As long as none of those accursed Florentines outbid me for the Egyptians’ loyalty, I am a made man.”

  For a moment I was speechless. Speechless. This was infinitely beyond the ambition of the boy I had grown up with—or for that matter, almost anyone I knew. He beamed at me, seeking my approval.

  “Good heaven,” I said. “That would be a most remarkable undertaking.”

  “Would be? No, it is—we are now six months into it, and already we have earned back the money we borrowed—including the atrocious interest Tubal charged us. We are being very thrifty—perhaps you recognize the fabric of my coat—but I expect that by the end of Advent, we will be well enough along in our profits that I may buy my own house.”

  I blinked. “Here in Venice, you mean?”

  He nodded with delight. “Possibly even build a new one. I have a canny instinct to judge the pepper harvest, even though I have never been to see it myself. And I am learning how to speculate fearlessly. You would not believe how much I have learned since we last played our pranks together, Iago.” This was not bragging—he was yearning to impress me.

  He succeeded. My mouth had fallen slack with astonishment. Here was I, thinking myself so mightily changed because I knew how to shoot a musket, while little Roderigo was becoming Pepper King of the Mediterranean.

  “So this spice trade,” I said, trying to reclaim my calm, “it seems you have a nose for it.”

  His face wrinkled with laughter. “Oh, you are such a witty fellow, Iago! How I have missed your wit! I know all about your great adventures, lately and to come, but tell me—while you are back at your parents’ home, before you go off to guard our borders, we must get together and have a drink and catch up on old times. I am sure that we could entertain each other mightily.”

  “I am not remotely entertaining,” I assured him. “But it sounds as if you are, so I will willingly get drunk with you. As long as you get a little sun on your face. I cannot have a serious conversation with a man so pale. Roderigo, my friend, you look like a prostitute.”

  He laughed sheepishly. The partygoers around us pulled their lips back into transparently fake smiles. Then they moved away, perhaps afraid they might be commented upon with equal frankness.

  As a space cleared around us, a new look came into Roderigo’s eye. He lowered his voice and leaned in close to me. “I really do crave a word with you. It has to do with your new skills, in fact.”

  “What new skills?” I asked. He gestured to my face, which only confused me further, until I realized this was a reference to my “rough soldier” appearance. “You need a good artilleryman?” I jested.

  He leaned in closer, his eyes darting nervously about the room. “In fact, my friend,” he whispered, “that is exactly what I need.”

  For one fantastic moment I thought he was going to ask me to lead a raucous expedition into the land of pepper trees, shooting all his adversaries as we went, and offering me a share of his great empire as recompense.

  But no. “You see,” he said, “I am now of an age when I may be called up for militia duty,” he began. I nodded; this was true for every citizen. “And I am an absolute catastrophe at shooting. I make a damned fool of myself every first Sunday, when compulsory practice is summoned. I haven’t the knack for it. I am a fine dancer, so it is not a lack of coordination, just a lack of that kind of coordination.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said.

  “I want to hire you to tutor me,” he said.

  A tempting offer, but impossible to follow through on. “Gunpowder is extremely expensive, Roderigo; it is rationed by the Council of Ten.”

  “I can pay for it,” he countered instantly. “I have been squirreling money away for this exact purpose.”

  “It’s not a matter of money,” I explained. “It just isn’t done. Letting private citizens buy gunpowder would be like letting them buy state secrets. Even if I were in charge of the magazine dispensary, I could not give you any. It is not available for private use. And”—for I could see this idea already forming in his face—“if you were to try to either make it yourself from scratch, or buy it from some foreign source, you’d find yourself in dreadful trouble. You would probably be put in prison for suspected sedition.”

  His handsome face puckered into a frown. “Then what am I to do?” he lamented. “Every month I pray the campo will be flooded and the muster cancelled. It’s not my fault that I’m inept, but I am punished monthly for my ineptness by all our neighbors, at the drills! I am tormented by some of them with looks and comments almost daily. It’s humiliating, but more than that: if I am ever called up for active duty, let God watch over our Republic while the likes of me are on call to protect her.”

  “Hear, hear,” said a sarcastic voice behind me. Roderigo’s face pinkened.

  “Iago, this is Tasso,” he said without enthusiasm, pointing to someone approaching from behind me. “The subcaptain of our neighborhood militia training. Tasso, this is Iago, who has just graduated from—”

  “I know where he’s graduated from, and it is an honor to meet you, sir,” Tasso said, as if Roderigo had just evaporated. He was as tall as Roderigo but twice his weight; his eyes were close-set and he was fashionably pale. “I have heard about your inspiring decision to throw yourself in with the infantry. I can’t say I would have the humility to do such a thing in your place, especially if I had your tremendous skills in gunnery.”

  “I’m not sure I have the humility myself,” I returned. “I seem to be doing it anyhow.”

  “I mean, if it were Roderigo here, it would not be such a loss, eh?” the fellow continued, elbowing Roderigo as if it were a drollery they shared. Roderigo’s expression revealed he did not find it droll. “Poor fellow was born without a feel for a musket.”

  “So he says. We were seeking solutions to that when you interrupted us,” I said. “Would you like to help us seek a solution, or are you merely here to mock someone whose skills, in one arena, do not measure up to yours? If you believe this gathering should be to mock those of lesser abilities in gunmanship, then I offer to mock you.”

  Tasso reddened. “Oh, no,” he said with a forced chuckle. “Totally at your disposal to assist our mutual friend here.”

  “Can you buy your way out of it?” I asked, returning my attention to Roderigo. By the way he was looking at Tasso, this man must be among the worst of his harrassers. A protective tribal instinct forged of childhood bonds welled up in me.

  Roderigo shook his head. “If my circumstances were different, I would not care so much; I can endure being made to look a fool. But my life, Iago, my life is such that I must not appear foolish now, for the sake of a particular young lady.”

  Added Tasso, with a nasty little smile, “It is a most unfortunate coincidence for Roderigo that the young lady’s brother is captain for our militia unit.”

  “Ah,” I said. How humiliating for Roderigo that his infatuation was so public. I kept my expression carefully neutral.

  But not as neutral as I meant to. “Wipe that look off your face!” Roderigo hissed in a horrified voice. “They’ll be able to tell we’re talking of them.”

  My eyes widened. I glanced around the party. “Where’s the girl?” I asked as the cornet sounded the start of some quaint estampie dance.

  “Do not look about like that,” Roderigo ordered through clenched teeth. “They are eyeing us right now—I am sure it surprises them that I am friends with a soldier. Do not let them see you looking.”

  Another reason he had been so glad to see me: reflected credibility. I had no idea I was so useful. I wished I could have somehow aided him, but what could I do? “I would offer to speak to your captain and try to get your name out of the duty roster, but since that captain is the brother—”

  “Oh, heaven, don’t do that!” He made a wincing face, blinking very nervously toward Tasso. “No, Iago, I have no interest in shirking my duty. I ask only that you would help me to learn to be a better shot. I’d pay you ve
ry well.”

  “Oh, is that what you are pestering him about?” Tasso said. “Rigo, my dear friend, I can help you out with that. I would be happy to give you private lessons. I know the people to talk to, to get gunpowder on the sly.”

  Roderigo’s face expanded with amazement at this announcement. “Really?” He breathed out, willing to immediately forgive whatever injustices the fellow had done him. I was angered on his behalf but forced myself to smile.

  “Now you see, if I were a typical Venetian,” I said, “here is what I would shift to do. I would tell Roderigo that he was like a brother to me, perhaps even call him a nickname I had never thought to use before. Say, Rigo. I would promise him that I knew the right people, and I had merely to grease a few palms, and we’d end up with the gunpowder, the gun, the match and balls, and permission to practice someplace private. Roderigo would ply me with gifts of thanks. Then, over the course of the next few weeks, I would go to fewer parties where he might be a guest, but each time we interacted, I would maintain a hint of a promise—enough to ensure his continued material show of gratitude—but each time slightly less so than the last time. And eventually I would simply vanish from his sight for a while, until he understood that there was nothing I could do for him, and he would be too shamed to ask again. Then—keeping the gifts I’d earned with all my promises—I would once again brazenly frequent the same gatherings as he, only this time I would somehow never manage to find time for him.” I smiled warningly at the red-faced Tasso. “But I am not a typical Venetian,” I went on, “and so instead I told him immediately that I cannot help him, because that is the only honest answer to be given here.”