I HAD TO HOPE Roderigo’s fear of Cassio—that he was secretly enmeshed in the Alexandrine black market in pepper—posed a serious threat to Roderigo’s livelihood. Even this would not compel Roderigo to kill Cassio, but it would compel him to think he was up to trying. That’s all I needed. Then everything would work itself out well:
If Roderigo distracted Cassio, I could safely attack Cassio from behind, and wound him in some way that would end his soldiering days without endangering his life—a sliced calf tendon, for example. I knew my skills and dexterity, especially in the dark; I could strike and then disappear unseen. Cassio might strike Roderigo and hurt him a little, but I knew I could get to Cassio before he reached Roderigo.
If Roderigo suffered some small wound? That was no catastrophe. First, it would make a good yarn to tell his sons, when he finally managed to sire some; second, he had it coming to him for being foolhardy enough to come along to Cyprus. Nothing he could say against me would be taken seriously when it was revealed he was personating a soldier. He would likely get just a hand-slap from Lodovico, who would be preoccupied with demoting Othello. Roderigo would be furious at me, so I would have to return all his jewels, and try to convince him the story about Cassio trying to buy the loyalty of Roderigo’s Egyptian contacts was an honest misconception on my part.
Meanwhile, Cassio would be too wounded to remain in the army, and Othello would prove himself too unstable to remain in office. That left the new Lieutenenat Iago in an enviable position.
Yes, this was most tolerable.
WE MET AT MIDNIGHT, half a block from Bianca’s pitiable house; Roderigo, having feasted on his own terror since I’d seen him, had convinced himself he had to put the Florentine down.
“Stay nearby, because you and I both know I’ll probably blunder at it,” he said, his hand on the sheath of a new sword. It matched the dagger he had used earlier. Roderigo had heavily armed himself since arriving in Cyprus.
“I will be right beside you if you need me, brother,” I said and offered him my hand. The memory of our secret childhood handshake overtook my muscles, and I found myself initiating the ritual; Roderigo followed along with me, and a light danced briefly into his eyes that made me confident he could go through with this.
I felt myself the most magnificent theater-prompter. All the actors were in their proper places, and all would do exactly as I intended, at the moment I intended; then the actors would become the audience, for the desired effect would not be what any one of them expected.
“Do not think too much about it,” I said to Roderigo as I slipped away into the shadows. “It’s but a man gone.”
“But a man gone,” Roderigo echoed, trying to look brutishly casual, and failing.
We waited for Bianca’s door to open, Roderigo standing in the market square, ghost-lit by candlelight that came from several windows of surrounding houses, myself secluded. As we waited, I admit, I had the thought that the most convenient thing for me now would be if by some strange chance, Cassio and Roderigo killed each other off. It would simplify everything. Then I could keep the jewels, and be certain of my military status, and never have to worry about either of them realizing they had been made fools of, and by whom, and plot to take revenge.
Such a fantasy does not mean I planned for it to happen that way, or even truly wished it to.
“I hear him coming,” I whispered loudly toward Roderigo as the door to Bianca’s cottage opened. There he was, back-lit, the ostrich feather bobbing.
“I see him!” Roderigo hissed. I prayed he would not make too much a fool of himself. He backed a few steps in the small plaza, as if this would somehow make him invisible.
Cassio, in a chipper mood from dinner, sex, and wine, had his guard down as he strode through the dim campo, in the direction of the fortress. I felt sickened watching him: here even in his deepest disgrace, his pretty face assured that he would have a pleasant enough life, and now on top of that he was about to be made the military ruler of Cyprus, for no good reason but that he’d helped a madman and a pretty ingrate to elope. The man could not even duel correctly. Oh, I hated him in that moment. I hated him more than I had ever hated anyone. I knew Roderigo would not succeed in even scratching him, but for a moment, I really wished my friend could take the Florentine’s head off.
“Die, you villain!” Roderigo screamed. He leapt toward Cassio in the dark and brought his sword down with energy and a complete lack of precision, nowhere near Cassio’s body.
Cassio—however much I liked to think of him enfeebled—was a trained soldier. His instincts were quick and accurate, and he had already drawn his own sword, engaged it with Roderigo’s, and disarmed the Pepper King. He raised his sword again, prepared to kill.
I leapt out from the shadows and lunged at Cassio from behind. I intended a lengthwise cut down the back of his leg. I had not been in battle for months now, had not actually tried to damage human flesh. Perhaps I hesitated.
In the moment between my leaping forward and my reaching Cassio, Cassio himself raised his sword and then arced it so that it sang through the black night air of the campo to slice with thick, breathless meatiness into Roderigo’s midriff. I heard a sickening shriek as my sword began its downward slash at the back of Cassio’s knee. I tightened my grip on my hilt and slammed the blade down the length of Cassio’s lower leg, somehow skirting all the blood. He fell screaming to the floor of the campo, and I dropped my sword and fled down the small side alley where I’d been hiding, his screams of pain echoing behind me.
I had to find a light and return again immediately, as if I’d just discovered them. And I had to keep them apart. Most of all, I had to see how badly Roderigo was hurt. I could not think clearly what I needed to do beyond that.
I went down the small alley and then followed it into another on the left, which in turn went back to the street that led into the market square. Here was an empty watch-station—the far end of a circuit that featured an alehouse at the other end—and there was a torch lit. I could take this torch and return to the square, as if coming to the aid of both men.
I had not intended Roderigo to be hurt so badly. He was supposed to be able to run off so that I could solicitously look to Cassio, and deliver him to the castle infirmary like the good friend I was. Just as soon as I’d determined that his wound was bad enough to keep him from ever soldiering again.
But now my childhood playmate lay bleeding on the paving stone in excruciating pain, and of course I could not leave him there. I found my feet breaking into a run despite myself, so anxious was I to get back there and keep the situation controlled.
As I approached the square I heard a confusion of voices. Loudest of all was Cassio’s, crying out for a surgeon, for help, for a light, crying out that he was being murdered; under his voice was Roderigo’s, saying almost exactly the same thing, but far more fearfully and tearful.
But there were other voices, and all of them had Venetian accents. As I approached the square, I saw Lodovico and Gratiano huddling together with their small mute collection of armed attendants. They were all at a distance from the two grasping prostrate figures on the ground, watching them as if they were a disgusting, captivating carnival display.
“Help me!” Cassio shouted at them angrily, holding his hand out; Roderigo lay curled on the ground a few yards off, moaning, “If nobody helps me soon, I’ll bleed to death.”
“They might be counterfeiting,” Lodovico warned his companions. “It’s suspicious that they’re both lying there as if they’re wounded. I don’t think we should take a step closer to them until there are more people here to help.”
I’d forgotten how contemptible I found Venetian patricians.
“What’s going on?” I shouted angrily.
“Look!” Lodovico’s companion said, pointing at me as if this were a play and he a child watching it. “Here comes someone now! He’s even got a torch!”
“Who’s there?” I demanded, holding out the torch in front of me and craning my neck to see around it. “Who is screaming?”
“We have no idea,” Lodovico said. “We were just out for an evening constitutional.”
“Help! I’m right here, for the love of heaven!” Cassio’s voice hollered in the darkness. “Help me!”
I held the torch toward his voice. “What’s the matter?” I called out.
“I think that’s Othello’s ensign, isn’t it?” said Gratiano.
“That’s right,” Lodovico said—they really were behaving as if they were watching a play. “His name is Iago, he’s an excellent man.”
Ignoring them, I moved closer to the two prone figures and waved the torch around. “Who’s there? Who’s crying out?”
“Iago?” Michele Cassio gasped. “Oh thank God, Iago, is that you? I’m badly wounded, give me some help!”
I knelt beside him, wondering with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach how Roderigo was now going to fit into all of this. “Lieutenant!” I gasped, moving the torch to examine the wound I’d given him. Bloody gristle glistened in the light; near the top of the diagonal slash, something stringy—perhaps ligament?—showed. I had done an expert job. He would probably never walk again without a crutch. “What villains did this to you?”
Cassio was grabbing his leg, trying to staunch the flow of blood with his bare hands, which were slick and slippery now. He was weakening quickly. “I don’t know,” he grunted. “I struck one, I think he’s here nearby, couldn’t get away.” He gestured toward Roderigo, who was lying in a puddle of his own blood.
“Treacherous villain,” I spat in his direction, and then turned immediately toward the two patricians, wondering what the devil to do. This had suddenly become a nightmare. “Come over here and help us,” I snapped at them.
“Help me! Over here!” cried Roderigo, in a failing voice.
Cassio grabbed my arm and shook it. “That’s one of them!” he said, and with faltering strength, he pushed me toward Roderigo’s form.
I resisted, and so I stumbled, slipping on the blood and landing nearly on top of the wounded man. Almost too weak to speak, Roderigo grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him. I still held the torch aloft, and I could see his face. Too well. His expression hurt my very soul. I remembered his face screwing up into tears that morning by the canal, when we were boys, when he could not believe my generosity for giving him my share of Galinarion’s bounty. That was among my earliest memories of him, and now here he was making the same expression, in this last moment of our lives together.
He had lost a lot of blood. Battlefields teach you how to assess odds, and wounds. Given how far we’d have to carry him, with the burden of Cassio as well, even with the paunchy patricians’ attendants as manpower . . . I closed my eyes and shuddered. He would not make it up to the Citadel alive, and there was no other hospital in Famagusta.
I opened my eyes and shook my head slightly, as if this would somehow calm him. It did not, of course, because he understood the meaning of the gesture. He sobbed, and grabbed my leather jerkin weakly. “No,” he begged.
I put a finger to his lips and whispered, “Shshshsh.” I would tell his parents some beautiful lie about his death. Over my shoulder, I sensed more than saw or heard the others looking over at us. How could I explain this? What if Roderigo, in the terror of his last moments of conscious life, blurted something out that gave too much away? I couldn’t risk that. He was dying anyhow; he need not take me with him.
I tossed the torch away from me; it lay spluttering, but still lit, on the pavement. I reached over to Roderigo’s right side, for his new Cyprian sword lying just out of his reach. He is dying anyhow, I told myself again. It was the truth. You cannot murder a dead man. I grabbed him by the bloody shirtfront and lifted his limp body off the pavement. “I will meet you someday in heaven, and explain why I am doing this,” I whispered into his ear.
I STABBED MY oldest friend straight through the heart with his own blade.
I bent over close to him again from the intensity of the thrust, and his last conscious act was to grab the back of my head and pull it closer to his mouth. “Damn you, Iago,” he grunted tearfully. “You inhuman dog.”
I felt him shudder and then his grip released. I was so glad I could not see his face now, with the torch away from us.
“Kill men in the dark!” I shouted at his inert form, and let him go, trying to ignore how heavily his head smacked back down on the paving stones. I felt a dreadful pressure behind my eyeballs. “Where’s the rest of the thieves? Why is this town so quiet? Somebody cry murder! There’s murder in the streets!” I shouted, standing up. I spun around, Roderigo’s sword in my hand, and pointed it directly at Lodovico and his companions, who were still cowering. “Who are you, anyhow? Are you here for good or evil?” I had not just murdered my oldest friend.
“Don’t you know who we are?” Lodovico quailed. I had not just murdered my oldest friend.
I lowered the sword. “Signior Lodovico?” I said. I had not just murdered my oldest friend. You cannot murder a dead man.
“He, sir,” Lodovico replied tremulously. “And Signior Gratiano.”
“I beg your forgiveness,” I said, bowing slightly, awkwardly. With the sword I pointed to the living wounded. “Cassio’s here, hurt by villains.”
“Cassio!” said Gratiano. “This is Michele Cassio?”
I ignored them both and returned to Cassio’s side. I had not just murdered my oldest friend. “How are you, brother?” I asked in a hollow voice, a hand on Cassio’s shoulder.
“My leg’s cut,” he grunted in pained response. “It feels like it has been cut in half.”
“God forbid,” I said. “Gentleman, light, get the light! I’ll bind this with my shirt.” As Lodovico scampered around the edges of the bloody scene to retrieve the torch, I reached for my collar to begin to untie my shirt. I had not just murdered my oldest friend. I would bind Cassio’s leg. I would carry him myself up to the hospital in the fortress, and later, I would send somebody to collect the corpse of the stranger who had tried to murder him, but whom he—Cassio—had killed in self-defense.
“What’s the matter?” a tremulous female voice called out from the far side of the plaza. I stopped untying my shirt collar, and spun around to look. Petite, ferocious Bianca stood silhouetted in her doorway, candle in hand, straining to see what was happening. “Who cried out?”
“Who cried out?” I echoed her sarcastically. “Don’t you know your lover’s voice?”
She gasped and darted barefoot across the plaza like a swallow. She skirted the growing pools of blood, circling halfway around Cassio, and then practically throwing herself down on top of him, screaming, “Oh, Cassio. Oh, Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!”
The last thing this situation required was an hysterical woman, especially one I felt both judgmental and protective toward. That was a complication completely uncalled for. How could I get her to go away?
“Be quiet,” I said sharply, and tried to pull her off him. “Cassio, do you have any idea who would have come after you?”
“No,” the Florentine said limply, growing weaker.
“I was coming after you,” Gratiano said idiotically, moving closer in. “But only to send for you to the castle.”
I heard a shuffling noise in the background; glancing around the plaza quickly, I saw that all the yelling had finally garnered some attention. The town watch in livery, and other men in cloaks thrown over bedclothes, were gathering around the edges of the campo, most with lamps or torches, perhaps a score in all. I elbowed Bianca away from Cassio so that she knocked into Gratiano. “My shirt won’t do it, we need a tourniquet. Does anybody have a garter?” I called out to the newcomers. “Is there a sedan chair anywhere? We need a sedan chair to get him up to the hospital.”
“He’s fainted,” Bianca lamented, as if he had just died. She tried to reach over me to get back to him. My clothes were stained with Roderigo’s blood, and now her gown was smeared too. “Oh, Cassio!”
“I think this strumpet protests too much,” I said warningly. “It’s enough to make me suspect her involvement in his injury.” I pushed her away and reached to slap Cassio’s face sharply. “Stay with us, Michele! Hold on yet!” I looked around, aware that I was the only one in control of the situation, but equally aware the situation was beyond my control. I stood up and stepped toward the corpse. “The torch,” I commanded, holding out my hand. Lodovico immediately moved to give it to me. “Does anyone here know this face?”
I could hardly bear to, but I held the torch out so that it illuminated the dead man’s face. When I saw him, so clearly dead and so clearly—despite the absent tresses—Roderigo, I groaned involuntarily. “Roderigo,” I grunted. “Oh, God, no—but yes, it is, it’s Roderigo.”
Gratiano took a timid step closer. “What, Roderigo Rosso, of Venice?” he cried out, amazed. “The spice trader?”
I held the light closer to the corpse but allowed myself to look away. He was dead because Cassio had wounded him past help. You cannot murder a dead man. “Did you know him?” I asked. I would write his mother a letter, telling a beautiful lie of how he met his end. I knew how to lie now; I could at least use that skill for kindness.
“Know him? Of course I knew him! He was my neighbor!”
I blinked several times quickly, stalling for time. If they were neighbors, was there any possibility Gratiano might know something damning about my involvement in Roderigo’s life? “Signior Gratiano, is it?” I said, as if Lodovico had not already mentioned him by name. I bowed. “I beg your pardon, sir, this bloody accident has deprived me of my manners, I’m very sorry. I’m Iago, Othello’s new lieutenant.” It was the first time I had made the claim aloud.
“I’m glad to see you,” Gratiano said indulgently. That anyone could sound indulgent in these circumstances was ridiculous, but the poor frightened noble was clinging desperately to what he knew.
I pressed passed him and back to Cassio. “How are you, Cassio? Stay awake! A chair,” I called to the air at large—and to my amazement, Lodovico was suddenly beside me, with a sedan chair he had dragged into the plaza. It must have come from the slowly growing crowd of watching men. It was primitive by Venetian standards, but nicer than anything I’d seen upon a battlefield: an actual chair strapped to two long poles, but at least the chair had arms to hold on to for balance.
None of the Cypriots dared to move in close to us within the piazza; they all stood warily on the outskirts, including the men of the watch, some of them Venetian. Even the patricians’ attendants stood gawking. As Lodovico awkwardly helped me to raise up Cassio, Gratiano kept gaping at the corpse beside him. “Roderigo,” he said, sighing mournfully.
“Yes,” I said brusquely, wanting him to shut up. “Yes, it’s him. Might you help us with the chair, sir?”
Between the three of us—mostly me—we pulled Cassio onto the sedan chair; he was in a twilight state as I curled his fingers around each arm. We were impeded in this process by Bianca’s sobbing hysterically and trying to pull us away from his body so she could throw herself against him. Remembering how he’d spoken of her earlier, I was sickened for her sake—he did not deserve such devotion from a dog, let alone a human being. Between the blood still on my jerkin and the blood smeared onto her, we rendered almost everybody bloodstained.
“Where are my men? Get him up to the fortress,” Gratiano called out, suddenly in charge. His two attendants stepped from the crowd—now perhaps three dozen men—and lifted the sedan to carry it out of the campo. “I’ll go with them and fetch the general’s surgeon,” Gratiano announced. He turned next to Cassio, who was struggling to retain consciousness, and was impeded, once again, by the sobbing prostitute. “Calm down, madam,” he said. “Save your energy.” I took her by the shoulders and pulled her, sobbing, away from the sedan chair as Gratiano pressed, “Cassio, the man you killed tonight was a very dear friend of mine. What malice was between you?”
Michele Cassio was barely hanging on to this world. “Nothing,” he said feebly. “I do not know the man.”
Bianca tried to pull away from me, her slender outstretched grasping arms toward Cassio. “What are you up to?” I asked her sharply. “Gentlemen, take him up. Somebody take that one too,” I added, with a gesture. Nobody wanted to touch Roderigo; there was so much blood, on him and around him. Who would have thought a lily-livered merchant to have so much blood in him?
Bianca continued to struggle against my grip. I would have let her free, but she was hysterical, and the evening was mad enough. I had to frighten her to silence. “You look very pale, lady,” I said in an accusing tone, shaking her. She stared up at me, teary-eyed and abruptly silent. “What have you got to say for yourself? Where have you been all night? You came along quick enough when Cassio was attacked—did you have anything to do with it?”
Shocked, she stared at me even harder, and I was confident that if I let her go, she’d head straight back to her cottage and not come out till morning. I released her. She took one step back toward her home, but then a movement on the opposite side of the plaza caught her eye; she paused, turning to look, and I turned with her.
Pushing through the growing crowd of Cypriot men came a dark-haired beauty whose appearance at this moment made my heart break.