Jessica turned to me, tears welling in her eyes. “What is this?”

“Well, the ninny has the story all wrong. He was wanking the whole time I told it.”

She took me by the shoulders and shook me. “What is this? Where is Lorenzo?”

Tears poured down her cheeks and my heart broke again for her, for it was that hope in her eyes that I had so dreaded, that she was casting on me like the leaden yoke of the one-eyed guilt swan. Is it the fault of a girl bright with the light of romance that she falls in love with a rascal? Is the love any less pure? Any less heartfelt? Any less painful when lost? It would serve no purpose to paint Lorenzo as the scoundrel I knew him to be. “Drool has that bit wrong, love. Lorenzo is no more, but he was killed by his cohort, Salarino, while trying to save me from being murdered.”

“Lorenzo is dead?”

I nodded, opening my arms to her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because of this,” said I, brushing a tear from her cheek. I told my story again, for the third time in four days, except in this version, Lorenzo was a hero, and it was his love for the fair Jessica that spurred him gallantly and courageously to face down an armed assassin, to rescue a nameless messenger, simply because he had carried the words from his love. And after he fell, the serpent rose out of the canals and struck down Salarino in vengeance. She did not question the existence of the serpent, or my sanity for saying it was so, for she had tended the wounds left by the creature and they fit like puzzle pieces. She believed.

I sat there, at the rear of the ship, holding her while she wept, until the sun had boiled well into the sea.

Soon after, in Corsica, Iago found his wife in the Citadel’s laundry, folding Desdemona’s linen on a table near the great central cauldron, in which steamed a gigantic simpleton, rather than the usual load of shirts and trousers.

“I thought I was finished with you,” said Emilia. “Or you with me. It was agreed.”

“I need you to arrange for Desdemona to meet Michael Cassio in his quarters.”

“Not bloody likely. But I’ll arrange to meet Michael Cassio in my quarters anytime you’d like, though.”

“Woman! You are here by my leave, and on my order, I can remove you—from the world of the living if I so wish it—and no one would look twice for you, thou worthless trollop.”

“Bit of a knob, innit?” said the giant in the cauldron.

“Who is he?” said Iago. In Venice, Iago had never seen Drool. Didn’t know he was the fool’s apprentice.