I RETURNED TO a fortress full of chaos. First I heard the noise—general shouting, people crying out to one another, servants and lords and soldiers alike. Othello must be on a rampage. What should I do now? How would honest Iago behave?
He would check on the well-being of his wounded colleague Michele Cassio.
I crossed the courtyard diagonally, toward the infirmary stairwell, but I did not reach it: Lodovico and Gratiano came tripping down those same stairs, as lightly as old Venetian gentlemen can trip, and nearly ran into me. “Iago,” Lodovico said, ashen faced, “something has happened in Othello’s chambers, the servants have called us to come. Please help Montano—” He pointed up the stairs, and I saw Montano, still weak from Cassio’s drunken attack, on a stool. He sat upright, but he kept his left arm protectively pressed against the wound in his side.
“Come, Governor,” I said, concerned and urgent. “Lean on me while you walk.” I ran up the steps and offered him my arm. He took it, gratefully, and I helped him to stand.
“Something has happened in Othello’s rooms,” he repeated as we descended the stairs together back into the courtyard. “I heard a woman screaming.”
My blood chilled. Emilia? “Was it the general’s wife?” I asked, and began to pull him across the courtyard.
“I could not tell whose voice it was,” said Montano. I glanced back to make sure Lodovico and Gratiano—who did not know the layout here—were following after. “There was one shriek so loud it echoed around the courtyard, and then everyone else began to shout in alarm and there were too many voices, coming from too many places, to understand what was going on. Finally a servant came into my room and said Cassio had been attacked, and I must come at once. So . . .” He was already out of breath, but I could not slow down; I tightened my grip around his rib cage and walked faster, letting more of his weight rest across my shoulder as he stumbled to keep up. Behind me I could hear Lodovico and Gratiano clucking like worried hens. Useless politicans, I thought. “So I managed to get to the infirmary, and there was Cassio, and badly wounded. He begged me to forgive him for my injury, in case he did not live the night. I was . . . may we slow down?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll take more of your weight.” I shifted so that his armpit was directly above my shoulder, and my right arm moved from his rib to his midriff. He groaned with pain. I relented. “All right, we’ll slow down,” I said. “But not by much.”
“He came into the infirmary,” said Gratiano, upset but clearly relishing the role of storyteller. “Montano did. He saw Cassio and spoke to him and then was going to go back to bed, because he’s weak.”
“But he heard the shriek before he started down the steps,” Lodovico said, taking up the story. “He hadn’t the energy to take the stairs alone. I helped him down to the stool, where he could rest, while I saw how Cassio was doing.”
By now we were across the courtyard and inside the wing of private rooms. Voices were piling toward us in the air—especially a woman’s voice. The outermost and smallest room was the one in which Emilia and I had been staying; the door was open. “Emilia?” I cried out worriedly as we went by it. “Emilia, are you in there?”
“I think she must be in Othello’s room,” said one of the Venetians, I could not tell which one, I was far too distressed and terrified at the notion that Othello had done some violence to my wife. Ahead of us I heard the woman’s voice, Emilia’s voice, wailing on in pain. I almost could not see straight I was so desperate to get to her.
We rushed next past the lieutenant’s room, which I would or would not sleep in tonight, depending on what awaited us ahead. Then guest rooms set aside for the visiting noblemen; then the corridor that ended in Othello’s private quarters.
A group of servants huddled before it, pounding at the door and begging to be let in. “Out of the way!” I shouted. They jumped, and entangled us in their rush to move away from the door.
With most of Montano’s weight upon me, I leaned back and furiously kicked the door. It flew open, and the crowd of us rushed into the room in alarm.
I saw my wife and my general standing some five paces apart, staring at each other with bloodshot, shining eyes, each looking ready to tear the other one apart.