“Give me ten ducats from the bag,” said Jessica. “I’ll go buy your monkey back.”

“Jeff likes to bite a lady on her bosoms,” said Drool. “Sometimes the bottom.”

I nodded as I handed her the coins. “Do be careful. Leash him, and don’t let him at your hat. He has a weakness. We’ll meet you at the boat, then Drool can row us up the coast and we’ll sleep rough on a beach or something until tomorrow night. I don’t think we’ll stay safely hidden in Genoa with a monkey and this great drooling draft horse.”

“I can’t wait until Lorenzo comes and rescues me from you scurvy rascals,” said Jessica. Then she turned on her heel and walked off to the city.

“Who are Lorenzo?” asked Drool.

CHORUS: On the isle of Corsica, the port town of Bastia, the once captain, Michael Cassio, stripped of his rank, position, and favor of his general, did mourn his fate, and was sulking at a table in his quarters, when Iago visited him under pretense of offering comfort.

“I’ve brought wine!” said Iago, coming through the door without so much as a knock.

Cassio moaned. “No, the devil drunkenness hast lost me my reputation, and in the doing made me despise myself. Never! I shall never drink again. I have lost that part of myself that is immortal, my reputation.”

“I know,” said Iago. “I was just fucking with you. I don’t have wine. Ha, bruised reputation is a false and trifling injury, and one easily mended. The way you wail I would have thought you’d received a real, bleeding wound in the melee. You didn’t, did you?”

“No, no injury. Truth be told, I remember a mass of things but nothing distinctly. I am aggrieved that your second, good Rodrigo, was slain, but it was not I that did the deed. Of that, I am sure. But even that I do not remember is an affront to my good commander, Othello, whose trust I have broken with a single drunken debacle, the damage of which I cannot repair.”

“Good Cassio, as your friend, I wish that such misfortune had not befallen you, but it is not so dire that it cannot be forgiven, your honor and position restored. You did not kill Rodrigo, so what is your offense, a single drunken night? One night of riotous drinking and memory-clouded barking at the moon? Go to the Moor. Ask him, and he will restore you.”

“I have gone, begged, but he denied me.”

“Go to him again. Surely when the heat of anger has cooled and Rodrigo’s true killer is found, Othello will restore you. Who is to say that you were not defending Rodrigo when he was attacked? In fact, say that. The Moor is a soldier, he knows that victory is not always the reward for valiance. Go to him.”

“He will not see me.”