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“Oh, that one time he did throw a wobbly with the money changers in the Temple, which, not to herniate the bloody metaphor in this little scenario, would be you fucks, and for it, you, you bloody Italians, nailed him to a tree. Shylock is a Jew, but you papists use your Jesus like I use my bloody puppet stick here.” I bobbed Jones before them.
“You lead in with his ‘suffer the little children come unto me,’ when it’s convenient, but the whole time you got your vengeful Old Testament God right behind, like a wicked dagger hidden in the small of your back, ready to smite the first flailing fuck that works against your interests.” I drew one of my daggers, as quick as a cat, and made as if I was dirking some imaginary foe.
“Did you just compare yourself to the Holy Trinity?” asked one of the council indignantly.
“Don’t be literal, Senator, people will think you thick. But in a word, yes. And you would be well advised not to ask to see the Holy Ghost in my trinity, as she’s got two sides, and one of them is a wet nightmare of dark destruction that makes your Othello look like a bloody parade princess.”
Only then, in front of the council, Iago and Antonio constrained, did it occur to me, why, exactly, Vivian had not attacked me like all the others.
“So Shylock may be a vengeful, greedy bastard,” said I. I grinned at Shylock to assure him I was on his side. “But not because he’s a Jew, any more than the lot of you are shiftless, greedy tossers because you are Christians. You all share the same god: gold. Your faith follows fortune, and would deny him fortune for his.”
“Yes! Yes!” said Shylock, coming forward now, leaving Antonio still tied to his chair, straining to turn to watch the proceedings. “I am deprived justice because I am a Jew? Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands?”
“Hath not a Jew shoes?” said the puppet Jones. “If you count them, are they not two Jew shoes? If you dye them blue, are they not two blue Jew shoes? If they, too, make the sound of a cow, are they not two blue Jew moo shoes?”
“That is not what I am saying!” said Shylock.
“I thought we were just asking about Jew kit. Proceed,” said Jones.
“If you prick us, do we not bleed?” said Shylock. “Ouch!”
“That would be a yes,” said I.
“Why did you poke me?” Shylock held his arm where I’d barely touched him with my dagger.
“Hardly worth toting three sharp daggers about if you can’t use them during question time, is it? To the point, Your Grace, you use your faith as a tool to exclude this Jew, the same way these two scoundrels and Brabantio were going to use it to foment war. A Crusade. They poisoned my queen, they told me their plan because they thought I would never live to tell anyone.”
“He has no proof,” said Iago. “You have no proof.”
“That Antonio sits bound there now,” said I, “is proof. The three thousand ducats he borrowed from Shylock was to finance his protégé Bassanio’s marriage to Portia so he could influence the council.”
The council members whispered among themselves.
“Is this true, Antonio?” the doge asked.
Antonio had returned to us during my rant, although he’d gone pale and seemed he would faint again at any shock. “It is true that I borrowed the money to finance Bassanio, but because he loves Portia, and I wanted him to be happy.”
“So out of kindness you put yourself in peril for a friend,” said the doge with the hint of a smile. “?‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,’?” the doge quoted to me. “Release Antonio from his bonds.”
The bailiffs moved quickly, released the merchant, and restored his shirt to him.
“I see,” said I, nodding, watching Antonio rub the blood back into his wrists. “You have lovable friends, indeed, Antonio. I have recommended them to a dark lady I know, who very much enjoyed their humors. Oh, and your friend as well, Iago—I think you saw her flirting with your friend Rodrigo in Corsica.”
Whatever Antonio was going to say, he stopped before it left his gob, and he looked at Iago as if the soldier would have some explanation.
“The fool is mad with grief,” said Iago. “Who knows what drunken depths he has sunk into since we last saw him? Pray, let us end this his raving, dismiss this court, and send good Antonio on his way.”
“Aye,” said I. “Let justice be done, let us get on with our day. Let Iago’s treason to his commander and Antonio’s treason to the church and the state be forgiven, as is your way, and let them get on with bringing you into a bloody war that the Venetian people neither want, nor can afford.”
“What war?” said the doge. “Even if there was some plot, as you describe, a single member of the council could not bring us to war, nor the general of our forces.”
“But they don’t know that, Your Grace. These two nitwits, in all their conspiring, didn’t know the one part of the plan that their dead partner knew.’?”
I pulled a parchment from my jerkin and handed it to the bailiff. “I found this, in Brabantio’s study at Belmont.”
“What is it?”
“It is a very detailed receipt of an order for a hat, Your Grace.”
The bailiff looked over the paper and nodded, handed it to the clerk, who also nodded.
“Tell me, Your Grace, does anyone else wear a great gold-trimmed codpiece on his head like you?”
“The ducal corna may be worn only by the doge, and each is buried with him.”
“Then why do you think Brabantio was having one made?”
The doge looked to the others on the council. “Did you know of this?”
They were all innocent babes tumbling out of the bulrushes with surprise.
“Your clerk can confirm that is Brabantio’s hand, I assure you. In his study you will also find a bill of lading for the cargo on Antonio’s recently lost ships. Oak from France and England, slaves from above the Black Sea, steel and finished blades from Toledo. All bound for Alexandria and Damascus. To the hands of the Muslims.”
“There are no such bills,” said Antonio. “Brabantio had nothing to do with my cargo.”
There weren’t, of course, but if need be, I could forge some quickly, as I had the receipt for the hat. A crown, which would be made by a Jewish goldsmith, who had been happy to tell me and Jessica what the specifications should be.
“All of Venice was almost excommunicated once for selling weapons to the Mamelukes during a Crusade, wasn’t it?”
One of the senators stood now. “Antonio, where were your argosies bound and what was their cargo?”
“Don’t forget to ask Iago about killing the Moor, as that’s a stonking-huge part of the plan.”
The gallery had become very quiet now that the attention had turned from Shylock’s suit.
“It was all Brabantio’s doing, Your Grace,” said Antonio. “We acted at his instruction, thinking it the will of you and the council.”
Iago winced, only slightly, when Antonio had used the term we.
“Then you were trying to draw all of Christendom into a war with the Muslims?” asked the doge, more concerned now that his assassination might have been part of the plot.
“I’m sure they would have poisoned you in a manner that made it appear like a fever, as they did my queen, Your Grace.”
“The fool is right,” said Iago. “We were trying to start a war. And Antonio is right, we knew nothing about any attempt to usurp or harm Your Grace. We are guilty.”
“I’m not,” said Antonio.
Iago walked to Antonio and put his arm around the merchant’s shoulders.
“We two, brothers-in-arms,” said Iago. “For Venice, we thought to bring a war to end a war, for the Genoans would not dare attack us once our ships were flying the flag of the pope. Peace would come with Genoans, and money would flow into the coffers of Venice, as it did in the last Crusade, from all the barons of Europe. And at the end of that Crusade, after we had built a hundred ships with their money, the ships belonged to
Venice.”
“Until they were all lost at Curzola by the last doge’s son,” said I.
Iago laughed and waved me off like an annoying insect. “There was no greater time for Venice than when all of Christendom was united against a common enemy. We wanted that glory again for Venice. War is the lifeblood of this merchant republic. Every ship we build expands the influence of our ideals, takes the thought of our way of government and free trading to the heathen parts of the world. Every sword forged feeds the children of the armorer, trains his apprentice, gives tithes to the church, which feeds the poor, pays the baker, the fisher, the farmer. Raises them up from hunger, gives them purpose and glory, serves their souls and blesses the nation and its markets. There is no greater act of kindness, than war. There is no higher act of love for the republic, than to make war. For this, Antonio and I are guilty. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa. Upon your good mercy, gentlemen.” Iago went to one knee and bowed his head, Antonio, a second late, followed his lead and dropped to one knee.
“Well, that’s a bloody great bundle of bull bollocks!” said I. “You love your wars for the coffers, but for the warrior and the widow, the orphan and the owned, you’ve not two dry fucks to give.”
“Quiet, Fortunato,” said the doge. “Let us confer.”
