I, Iago Read online

  The first person to actually approach me was Roderigo, who rushed to me at once and repeated the welcoming embrace of five years earlier. He lowered his mask a moment to reassure me it was he, and damned if the fellow had not grown even more handsome than he’d been at twenty. I had lost my deftness at discerning fabric, but he seemed to be better dressed than my brother, the great silk merchant. His maroon doublet and breeches were high-and-low velvet, the best kind, I am sure processed from true silk. There was slashing and puffing to show off the taffeta below; even his duckbill shoes were slashed to show the patterned stockings beneath. It was the fussiest outfit I’d ever seen him in.

  “Roderigo, I am pleased to see you,” I said heartily and held out my hand for our secret handshake. “How have the years been treating you?”

  Here I was exposed to a lengthy, happily nervous monologue about Roderigo’s excellent fortunes, a monologue that lasted until the comedy was concluded and was replaced by a group of young men, dressed as women, dancing a ballet. Roderigo was, among our peers, easily the richest nonpatrician merchant, the king not only of pepper but also of nearly any spice used in a Venetian kitchen. His only concern was a Florentine family who was trying to buy the loyalty of his Egyptian connections, but his agents had so far managed to stymie the Florentines. He had not snagged that ginger-haired young lass whom he’d been so enamored of; but since then he had suffered through several other fascinations, none of which had led to marriage. By the time he’d finished the recitation of his thoroughly Venetian life, I was almost through being pleased to see him.

  “And now you must tell me the details of what you’ve been doing,” he finished, slightly breathless. “Beyond what has been reported back to us all over the years by your proud father, of course.”

  I blinked to hide my bemusement at that declaration. My father, proud of me? “I have been soldiering,” I said simply.

  My disinclination to say more than that made my life fascinating. To everyone. Over the course of the next hour, with Roderigo following me as ever like a faithful spaniel, I slowly strolled one side of the hall and was dazzled by the number of gentlemen and even ladies ogling me, to the point of ignoring the transvestite ballet taking place in the center of the room. I heard from all of them how proud my father had been of me, how they’d heard I had mastered both German and Bolognese swordplay, how I had protected our fragile borders while asking nothing in return but the honor of serving my state—an almost inconceivable action for any of them to consider themselves; therefore, all the holier was I, for having volunteered such an unusual course for my life.

  I could not bear the attention and was glad of the mask, even if it failed to hide my actual identity. “This room is so airless,” I whispered to Roderigo, “and I cannot bear the stench of all the perfumes. Is there at least some balcony to retch from?”

  Immediately Roderigo led me past the curtsying male dancers, who were now clearing the floor as a buffoonish master of ceremonies introduced a juggling act. The other side of the hall opened onto a broad balcony overlooking a canal. It was winter, so the canal did not smell, and there was a breeze that cleared my head. Relieved to be out of the crowd, I removed my mask. Roderigo likewise untied his.

  Near us on the balcony was a small flurry of Venetian dandies, also temporarily bald-faced in the moonlight. Beneath their long black robes, their doublets and breeches were as outlandishly slashed up as Roderigo’s, the taffeta and linen as outlandishly puffed out through the slashes. Trying to remember how to behave in polite company, I attempted to take an interest in their conversation. This was a chorus of complaints about a young lady at the party. Roderigo gestured me over to the group, whose members he knew, and was beamingly proud to introduce his soldier-friend.

  The first statement that caught my ears was one of furious indignity: “She’ll never get a husband with that tongue of hers.”

  “I told her that,” complained another. “She said that was fine with her—if she never has a husband, she will never be cheated on.”

  Several laughed; a third man added: “She told me she prefers the company of bachelors, not wooers, because with bachelors she can be as comfortable as she is with all her friends.”

  I smiled to myself. It was obvious what was happening here: the lady in question was a high-class prostitute, trying to find a man to take her as a mistress, and these young dolts had not yet figured it out.

  “She told me,” said a fourth dejectedly, “that men are made of clay and she was not of a mind to be lorded over by a clod of dirt.”

  “She told me,” said a fifth, “that since we’re both descended from Adam and Eve, we must be relatives, and didn’t I think it sinful to proposition my own cousin?”

  I laughed at that. I did not have the money to support a mistress, but this harlot’s banter would be more entertaining than another hour like the one I’d just spent. I wanted to meet her.

  “And what is it about this young lady that so inflames you all to want to wed her?” I asked.

  They all shrugged a foppish Venetian-style shrug.

  “We’re practicing our wooing,” one said, as if it should be obvious. “On all the young ladies here. We practice on them, they practice on us. It’s delightful, harmless, and useful—but this one is so contrary. It’s well known she is a pretty piece of flesh. Why does she even show up at a place known to be a site for flirtation, when she will not flirt?”

  “What you have just described sounds exactly like flirtation to me,” I said knowingly.

  They gave me looks of disapproving disbelief. “Well, she’s right over there. Have at her!” the first complainer suggested. He pointed. I looked.

  A young woman was wearing a black velvet Moretta mask, with a pile of auburn hair coiled on her head. She glanced briefly toward our little group as she exited from the hall. Then she most pointedly took no further interest in us. She crossed past us to the far side of the balcony for air. The men all snickered and energetically gestured me in her direction.

  If you placed me in a room with a Venetian lady my own age and told me to be gallant toward her, I doubt I could do it for a thousand ducats. I’d have no idea what would be considered rude, or why; what would be considered humorous, and why. But from that first week in the Arsenal, I knew that I could banter with a bawd. I decided I would banter with this one, in their hearing, and make her laugh not at me but with me. With much hand-clasping and false merriment and several bets placed, I received useless information from them—her name, her father’s name, her father’s family’s name, her father’s family’s business, all of which I was sure was just a front, to disguise the fact that she was a courtesan.

  I retied my mask and brushed imaginary dust from off my soldier’s jerkin, and shared a friendly obscene gesture with the lads, which brought cackles of approval. Then, without the slightest subtlety, walked energetically right toward her.

  She stood serene at the far corner of the balcony, in a funnel-sleeved bodice and red woolen skirt. She wore no pearls nor strands of jewels, nor any of the other fineries outlawed by the state’s sumptuary laws and therefore worn only by the wealthy. There was an elegant simplicity in her dress compared to every other woman at this ball. That was unusual for a prostitute. So was the absence of chopines, those absurd cork-soled shoes that raise a woman a foot above her natural height.

  She heard my approach, of course, and watched me. We had a chance to appraise each other fully from behind our masks, as I took a dozen strides. I could not see her face, and even in moonlight her silhouette was muted, but she had a most impressive shape. Most women present themselves either for the advantage of their curves, or the advantage of their slimness. She had both, and showed off both, yet her gown revealed very little flesh.

  She put her hands on her hips as I stopped beside her; the tilt of her head suggested she was waiting for me to start bantering.

  “Good evening, Emilia,” I said. “That’s your name, I hear. They spent so much time com
plaining about your behavior that they only thought to mention your name but the once or twice.”

  “They?” she replied in an arch voice. “Do they have names of their own?”

  “I think they would prefer me not to tell you their names,” I chuckled.

  “Then they’re cowards,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “Well of course,” I agreed. “That’s why they don’t want you to know who they are. I myself am not a coward, and therefore, if I were to defame you, I would not mind if you knew my name.”

  After the slightest appraising pause, she asked, “What is your name?”

  “I don’t need to tell you that, since I’m not defaming you.”

  “Yet,” she amended.

  “Oh, I think I can refrain indefinitely. The other fellows over there, who do not want me to name them—they’ve already complained about you so thoroughly, I cannot imagine there’d be any new complaints to register.”

  She removed her hands from her hips and now crossed her arms over her chest. These were not the gestures of a high-born lady, and neither were they the manners of a prostitute on the prowl for a gentleman. She had, even in these simple movements, a natural grace, but she moved without any pretensions of femininity. “You really will not tell me the names of the men who defame me?” she asked.

  “Pardon me, but no, my lady.”

  “Then will you tell me, at least, who you are?”

  “Not at the moment, my lady,” I said. I finally grasped an oddity about her: she was speaking without holding her mask. The Moretta mask—commonly worn by women, as it allows a peek at the outline of their face—is usually held in place by a small button clasped between the wearer’s teeth. This allows a lady both hands free for dancing and yet does not muss up her coiffure and cap with a tied ribbon. Which means that when a Moretta-masked lady actually speaks, she must hold her mask up with one hand. Or ideally, she simply must not speak.

  This young woman, however, had tied her Moretta with a velvet ribbon that was close in color to her hair, and then arranged her tresses to cascade over it. Like myself, she wore nothing on her head at all.

  We had been standing in silence as I noticed all this.

  “Are you planning to flirt with me, sir?” she asked, polite but matter-of-fact. “If you intend to, please begin, so we may get it over with.”

  “I hear you are not interested in wooers.”

  “I’m not interested in fools,” she corrected pleasantly.

  “Then what are you doing at this party?” I asked.

  “Possibly the same thing you are,” she replied. “Wishing I had something more fulfilling to do.”

  “You might try a brothel,” I said in a meaningful tone. “The men who visit there know what fulfillment they desire and have well-lined pockets to fulfill your desires in return.”

  She laughed at this, but not the way I had wanted her to. “I have no experience in the matter, sir. Tell me, please: would my desire for intelligent conversation somehow be fulfilled by forfeiting my virginity? And if so, how, exactly?”

  What an ass I was. “You’re not a prostitute,” I said, mortified.

  Now she laughed the charmed laugh that I’d hoped to hear. “That is by far the most original line anyone has used to woo me,” she said, with delight in her voice. “That almost makes me want to dance with you.”

  I had not seen the woman’s face, and truly I did not know who she was beyond her name, but I was smitten with Emilia.

  Chapter 9

  I COULD NOT STOP thinking about Emilia all the next day. Our encounter had ended abruptly when Roderigo, to my fathomless annoyance, came over to introduce himself. In his presence, she almost physically retreated. Shortly after his intrusion, Emilia had excused herself indoors. After that, I could not find her.

  Given the mix of people at that fete, my guess was that Emilia was from a comfortable family but not a wealthy one, that she was likely destined to be the wife of a middling merchant; who owned a house but not one that fronted on a canal; who owned a business but was not known for being especially clever at it; who had a social presence but not one that made him any kind of wit. She, of course, wanted more than that for her future, and so she was fiercely scaring off all potential suitors of that ilk. This was the biography that I invented for her over the course of the following day. I conveniently forgot how entirely mistaken I’d been with the previous biography I’d invented for her, in which she was a whore.

  LATE IN THE DAY I was informed by my brother that we were going to another masked ball that evening. This one was really prime, he explained; there would be senators and patricians, and only a few of the richest merchants in the city were invited. It was hugely significant, an enormous honor, that our family was welcome. (My mother had arranged the invitation, possibly by seduction.) I did not want to go, because I doubted Emilia would be there. But with gritted teeth, I agreed to attend, and again put on my military jerkin.

  With the usual finery and elegance and personalized gondola and obsequious servants waiting for us, the usual broad marble staircases and ornately painted murals and alabaster handrails, with the usual smell of candles and the sounds of sackbuts and cornets and lutes, the usual delighted greeting from Roderigo, I found myself in yet another ballroom, this one at least as large and fine as the one to which Father had taken me the day he informed me I was to join the infantry.

  In fact, for all I know, it was the same ballroom and the same senator. After five years of living in army barracks I could not make myself care about any of this frippery. Shortly before our arrival there had been fireworks in the adjoining campo, followed by a human pyramid; the guests had only just been ushered back into the hall, and now everyone was eagerly awaiting a Ruzante comedy about peasants performing improper acts with livestock. Actual livestock—although nothing larger than a goat—was being herded into one corner of the marble-floored room, and to cover the moment, the sackbut player was doing a solo rendition of a Willaert piece, the effect being that of an amorous weasel.

  I looked around, hoping to see her, but Roderigo was the only figure I could recognize. He and my brother were among the few nonpatrician merchants who “deserved” to be at this masque, which meant excellent business opportunities for them.

  THE NEXT HOUR was excruciating. Emilia wasn’t there; I could feel her absence in my lungs. Despite my mask, my identity was no secret; I was identified by scores of people I had never met. I was treated as if I were an exotic feathered bird, and Roderigo was being subtly congratulated for having tethered me. On top of which, I had to watch some very bad actors pretend to do questionable things to goats while speaking trippingly in verse. The goats smelled almost as bad as the actors did but were more authentic in their performance. This was followed (to cover the cleaning up of goat scat) by a Luzzaschi tune, which did nothing to improve my mood.

  At about the time I felt I needed a vat of wine to regain my humor, Roderigo eagerly steered me toward a dining table that had just been set up near one wall. More notably, he was steering me toward a large gentleman in an extravagant half-mask and expensive velvet costume. The fellow was already tucking into the gilded oysters making up the first course of the feast. “You will never believe who this is,” Roderigo whispered delightedly in my ear, “or how he treats me now.” And then raising his voice, he held out an arm and declared, “Tasso! Such a joy to find you here tonight!”

  It was the nasty fellow from the neighborhood militia who had mocked him, five years earlier, and then falsely claimed that he could get him gunpowder. Tasso looked up from the oyster he’d been contemplating, recognized the speaker’s voice, and smiled. With a small salute, he returned, “My darling Roderigo, the evening would not be complete without you.”

  “Look whom I have brought.” Roderigo preened and presented me before himself as if I were a shy child. This gesture caught the notice of those just taking their seats around the table and—again—I found myself the center of attention among str
angers.

  “Tasso,” I said quietly, with a bow of my head. Grudgingly, sensing it was what Roderigo wanted, I sat beside the fellow, and Roderigo sat to my other side. That Tasso now seemed friendly toward Roderigo did not impress me. In fact, given my mood, and my conditioned impulse to protect hapless Roderigo, I found Tasso’s behavior highly suspect.

  The expression revealed in the lower half of Tasso’s face suggested I was exactly the man he’d been waiting five years to greet. “Iago!” he cried and held out his thick arms wide in greeting. “Welcome back to society!”

  “Good evening, Tasso,” I said coldly, without leaning toward his intended embrace. “Are you still lying to my friend Roderigo here? I am a master swordsman now, you know. I’ll run you through if you ever try again to cheat this man.”

  The crowd of masked, cloaked figures had taken their seats. They tittered, and several even politely applauded. That was odd.

  Tasso immediately laughed the hollow Venetian laugh I dislike. “What a loyal friend you are, Iago, to bear a grudge over a little jest five years dead! Keep this fellow close to your heart, Roderigo, do you hear?”

  “It has nothing to do with Roderigo’s heart; I am making a comment on your character,” I retorted in a somber voice.

  Tasso paused unsurely, aware that a score of masked faces were staring at the unmasked half of his face. How, I wondered, were they going to eat their oysters while wearing masks and gloves?

  Finally, Tasso shrugged and declared, “My business is in ships, dear Iago. There is no way I could possibly cheat my good friend Roderigo even if I wished to, which I do not.” He brought the gilded oyster to his mouth and triumphantly devoured it.