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I listened for footsteps, and panic rose in my throat like a scream. Why did Iago engender such fear? I had lived a life infested with villains, Iago was no darker. Still, it was my very frame that shuddered, not my nerve.
“I wonder, Antonio, why do you not marry the fair Portia yourself, and be the senator, rather than own one?”
“I am too old for her, and I hold great affection for Bassanio. I would not stand in the way of true lovers.”
“What a noble and poetic heart you have, good Antonio,” said Iago. “And yet no wife with whom to share it. Enjoy Veronica’s this evening.”
Then the heavy boot heels on the floor and I was down the stairs, three at a leap, sliding on the banister where I could, until I came catapulting out the front door and across the cobbles, nearly plunging into the lagoon. The two Sals caught me, one on each arm.
“Come, come, it’s all clear,” said I to the waiting boatmen and the huge Jews. “Tell Shylock I had other business to attend to.”
I was off the walkway and around the corner and down the lane called Fondamenta Arsenale into the city before Iago emerged from the door.
Onward to find my giant and my monkey! What elation I felt at the prospect of their calls of joy when they found I had rescued them. It had been some time since I had basked in the accolades due a hero, even from a monkey and a great drooling half-wit. They would be balm on my much-abused soul.
TEN
Intrigue Beneath the Bawd
A horrible, shifty-eyed creature was that Pocket—a rascal of the lowest order, he was,” said my former landlady, a nine-toothed crone of roughly nine hundred years in age, and a ghastly judge of character, assigned by the doge to care for dignitaries not housed at the palace. I had asked for separate quarters after Jeff bit the senator’s wife and Drool wandered into the Cathedral of St. Mark next door, sans trousers, during high mass, his great dong swinging in time with the bishop’s smoking thurible.
“A raucous, gutter-mouthed little libertine he was,” the crone went on.
“Is that so?” said I, in my most courteous voice. “I heard that he was much loved in his native land, and the children sang songs of his kindness.”
“Bollocks to that—‘the king of bloody Britain or France,’ he’d say, the lying cur. But the doge liked him, Lord knows why, so I had to put up with him. But I’ll tell you my reckoning: I reckon, wearing that skintight silver-and-black motley, and that cracking big codpiece, I reckon that little one was a deviate. Never saw him with a girl, didn’t even have a go at Signora Veronica’s like the other men of his means, but couldn’t say two words what it wasn’t about bonking this and shaggin’ that—I reckon he was havin’ his way with the neighborhood cats in the night.”
“Perhaps he was being faithful to his lady love,” said I.
“No more constant than a fart on a hot skillet, was that one, just up and taking off one day, leaving the big ninny on his own, and what a state he was in. When the little fool went off, he come to my door three, four times a day lookin’ for him, then asked to have a look at my tits before he’d go away. I’d give ’im a flash, outta good Christian charity, and he’d be on his way—have himself a tug in the courtyard, he would, then be back asking again an hour later. You know, a woman my age don’t get that kind of attention much anymore. It was appreciated. That boy’s as dense as a bloody doorknob, but really, just a big slow lamb. He kept that up for a week till they came and got him.”
“They? The doge’s men? Soldiers?”
“Nah, the doge dropped the little miscreant like a thorned turd once Britain’s queen succumbed. ’Twas some merchants. Wearing fine silks. Young gents, three of them, two round and scruff, one quite tall and smooth. Said the little one had booked passage for the big one to Marseilles to join him.”
“But he went of his own accord?”
“Happy as a duck in water, saying he was going to see his best mate, Pocket, monkey chattering on his shoulder.”
“And are the fool’s things still in his rooms?”
“No, the merchants took everything along, said they were sending it to Marseilles with the big bloke.”
“Thank you, signora. This will help my master, who seeks the fool.”
“You Jews livin’ in luxury out on La Giudecca got no idea what kind of trash we have to put up with here in Venice proper.”
“You haven’t been to La Giudecca, have you?”
“I’m a proper Christian,” she said, as if that was an answer. “But I hear you lot roll in your money and laugh like madmen. I’m told there’s not a speck of good Parma ham on the island, though.”
“Well, that last is true.” I flipped her a coin. “From the little fool. For your trouble.”
I began to walk away. “But this is a gold ducat,” said she.
“Aye.”
“I don’t make this in two months.”
“Perhaps you misjudged this Pocket.”
She tucked the coin into her skirts then ducked into the courtyard and closed the heavy gate before anyone spotted the glitter of her gold. (I am a trained thief. One can’t expect me to ride in a boatload of gold and leave it unmolested. One ducat. What is one ducat?)
Had they murdered Drool and Jeff? Surely if they had just drowned them, the old woman would have gotten word. It was fully dark now, a windless night, and Venice took on the feeling of a city paved with black glass, the odd lantern, torch, or candle reflecting in the canals like distant windows into hell, the crescent moon throwing silver scythes across the water where it could find its way between buildings.
I made my way along the cobbled walkways and over the narrow bridges from my old apartments to the Grand Canal, then down the wide promenade that lined it, past palaces and the closed market booths of the Rialto, to Veronica’s, which lay down one of the more narrow canals on an open market square. The signora was a courtesan of the highest order, a Florentine, they said, who entertained the nobility of church and business in the sumptuous upper floors of a five-story building. The lower three floors were little more than a bawdy house with fine draperies, but it was patronized by the rich merchant and political classes, who sneered at tattered street harlots on their way to have their knobs gobbled by the broken bawds’ younger sisters. Here Jessica’s Lorenzo was supposed to meet his friends from Antonio’s entourage.
A young blond whore stood in the arabesque arched entryway, her dress of bloodred silk rolled down to her waist, her nipples rouged and attending a chill I did not feel in the sultry night air. Only in Venice could a whore wear silk, a cloth rare enough to be reserved for royalty in other territories.
“Shag a virgin, five shillings. Sail you off the edge of the world for six,”* she called by routine, bored. The archway was lit by two oil torches, but she waved a small storm lantern as well, as if gondolas might have to navigate through the clear night to find her. “Hey there. I’m not supposed to service Jews, but it’s a slow night, so I’ll have you off on a stand-up around the corner for five shillings.”
“The virgin price?”
“Why not? Was a virgin three times tonight already, innit?”
“Right, well done. You know Lorenzo?” I asked. “One of Antonio Donnola’s men?”
“Lorenzo? Short fellow with the pointy black beard? He’s fit enough but usually light a shilling or two for a shag, so stands about drinking. Right, he’s inside with his mates, but you can’t go in there with that yellow hat o
n.”
“Would you fetch him for me?”
“What’s it worth to you?”
I had only two pennies left from the bread money I’d begged from Jessica. I held the coppers forth, took off my hat, and bowed. “Tell him I’ve a message from Jessica, if you would be so kind, milady.”
“I suppose,” she said, taking the coins and making them disappear with the alacrity of a magician. “You know, you’re not so bad. If you’d trim that beard and have a meal or two, I’d have a go at ya.”
“For five shillings, of course?” said I, with a smile.
“Well, I’m not a bloody charity, am I, love?”
“I am honored merely to be considered,” said I. Another bow.
“Watch my lantern. I’ll be right back. Don’t chase away any customers. And if you suck anyone off in the alley, it’s three shillings, and I get half.”
“A fair offer from a lady most fair,” said I.
She winked, set her lantern on the step, then pirouetted, and off she went through the inner double doors, deeply touched by my charm. As I used to tell Drool, “Treat a whore like a lady and a lady like a whore and even a great stumbling dolt like yourself shall sail on the slippery seas of passion.”
“So you can shag ’em in a boat, right, Pocket?” asked the oaf.
“Yes, it will work in a boat as well,” said I, patient teacher to hopeful student.
“But not up the bum?” asked Drool.
“No, not up the bum, never up the bum, you great horse-cocked ninny. You could kill someone with that thing. Never up the bum!”
