“Fine then, old mother,” Cassio called, rather more loudly than was required. He headed back to Iago. “You and the boy may follow us to the Citadel, give blessings to and receive alms from the lady and her retinue.”

I thought back to when I had first met Cassio, on that night when Brabantio had led us through the streets of Venice to the palace of the doge, to accuse Othello of bewitching his daughter.

“I’m going to dive in and begin the killing,” I told Cassio. “If I fall, stain the canals red with their blood until the city shatters with the cries of their widows and orphans.”

“Or, if you’d put one of those daggers up, you can lean on me and we’ll follow them to the doge’s palace as Othello commanded.”

“Well, yes, I suppose we could do that, too, if you’re going to be a little nancy about it. But if I have to stop to be sick, carry on with the killing and the weeping widows.”

By the time we reached the palace, many of Brabantio’s mob had wandered off, having realized that the Moor was not going to be immediately hanged, and that, indeed, there were a half dozen well-armed men and a queasy fool with a quiver of daggers who would prefer the Moor remain unhanged.

We entered the main hall of the doge’s palace, where the doge sat on a dais in the center of the Council of Six; one chair sat empty: Brabantio’s.

“Ah, valiant Othello,” said the doge as he stood and opened his arms to welcome the Moor into the hall. “We must straight employ you against the Genoans, who have moved on to Corsica.” The doge then spied Brabantio, who stormed into the room, robe flying, slamming a great walking staff into the floor as if he half-expected the earth to open and unleash Venice’s wrath upon the Moor. “Welcome, gentle signor,” said the doge. “We lacked your council tonight.”

“And I yours, but I have been tending a broken floodgate of o’erbearing sorrows.”

“What is wrong?” asked the doge.

“My daughter! O, my daughter!”

“Dead?”

“Tart,” I answered. “Although a tasty bit of talent, to be sure.”

“She is not!” protested Brabantio. “She’s bewitched by this heathen.”

“Tartish,” I relented.

“Fortunato, what have you to do with this?” asked the doge.

“I speak for the Moor,” said I.

“He does not,” said the Moor.

“What have you to say of this, Othello?” asked the doge.

Othello addressed the group of them now. “Most potent and reverend signors, that I have taken away this man’s daughter is true. I have married her.”

“It’s true,” said I. “I witnessed the ceremony.”