“Emilia seems to know him now. Look how she titters and touches his sleeve like a coy maid.”

A vein sprouted on Iago’s temple, he felt it throb with the stress of his subterfuge. “Emilia merely receives the captain on behalf of your lady, I’m sure,” he said. Slut! Slag! Slapper! Prick-pull! Egregious hose-hound most foul, he thought.

“Ah, it is so, for there is the spark of my soul, Desdemona, now.”

At last. “I did not know that Cassio knew your lady, but for some fawning he did upon her at the dock.”

“He knows her. In Venice he carried messages between us when our love was a secret.”

“Ah, she knows him. Look, a friendly embrace. He kisses the air by her cheek in the manner of the Florentines. He kisses the tips of his fingers in salute to her perfection. Ah, he knows her.”

“I said he knows her.”

“And surely he has good reason to seek her counsel, now.”

“You think his intentions not honest?”

“Honest?”

“Aye, honest? Forthright. Honest. Don’t parrot what I say. Speak your thoughts, Iago.”

“Please don’t make me say, General. Cassio is an honest man, for the most part, so if my suspicions are wrong, and they probably are, I would wrong him to speak them. All men are subject to moments of weakness: Cassio said he did not drink, and for the most part, he does not. One slip. A single indiscretion. So may the case be here.”

“A case of what, Iago? For I swear if I find you know something and do not tell me, I will throw you off this very wall.”

“My wife, Emilia, she said that Cassio came to her, asked her to plead his suit to Desdemona, and ask that she would grant time alone with him. I’m sure his intentions are honest. I am suspicious by nature, sir, and I often see offenses where they do not exist.”

“But Emilia is there, with them, as you can surely see.”

“As you say. She was there. For me to speak full my suspicions would only destroy your peace of mind, and for what? I would not besmirch a man’s good name on my habit of mistrust. A man’s good name is the immediate jewel of his soul. He who steals my purse, steals trash, but he that filches my good name robs me of that which enriches him not, yet leaves me poor indeed.”

“Cassio was found out of his mind with drink, vomiting on the mutilated corpse of your officer, Iago, with no recollection of how any of it had come to be. His reputation is ash. Speak.”

“Well, he is very handsome, and there is a certain smooth charisma to him, and your lady is, well, young, and fair, as is he.”

“Fair?”