“Genoa? She is a prisoner, then?”

“No, but a prisoner she saw there, she bought there. Word is that for ransom of a prisoner she gave all of your treasure—two thousand ducats’ worth of jewels and gold—all that she took. And in the square there, she did trade a blue and gold ring for a monkey.”

“My treasure? My daughter? My ducats? Two thousand ducats? That ring—that ring was the turquoise my Leah gave me upon our wedding, I would not have traded it for a whole wilderness of monkeys. Tis a tempest of troubles. My daughter! My ducats!”

“And she was dressed as a pirate.”

“My daughter, a pirate! Stick a dagger in me, I am finished. My ducats are gone and my daughter is a pirate.”

“But there is good news, too; other men have had ill luck as well.”

“Other men? Whose bad luck is my good news, unless you say those rascal friends of Antonio who stole my daughter are arrested.”

“It is news of Antonio’s bad luck I bring. Word came in the harbor that one of his argosies, the one bound for Alexandria, was wrecked, the cargo destroyed. His losses are beyond your own. The creditors say he can but break, now.”

“Good. That is good news. I’ll plague him in revenge for letting his men take my Jessica and make a pirate of her, my own daughter, against whom there can be no justice, no satisfaction, so the hammer of justice must fall on Antonio. Yes, good news.”

“But alas, more bad news.”

“Bad news?”

“The gold that you lent Antonio was mine. It will be due as well.”

“Ah, I see good news for you, too, Tubal,” said Shylock, poking a hole in the sky with his finger. “The sympathy you will get when you tell your wife how hard you had to work to hide your smile when you told me I am ruined. I have had better friends, Tubal.”

“You were right,” said the Moor. “They are trying to start a holy war. A Crusade, from which they will profit.”

“So you’ve put Iago in chains and tortured him until he confessed?” I stood on a chair in the general’s war room while a tailor made marks on my new motley with a sliver of soap. The fool suit was too big by a good measure. “Well done, Othello.”

“I have no proof that Iago is involved.”

“Other than he fucking told me, only when he thought I was going to be murdered.”

“You are not always reliable, little one. Drink and grief can cloud a man’s mind.”

“How do you know, then?”

“My fleet in the south stopped one of Antonio’s ships headed for Alexandria. It was loaded to the rails with great beams of French and English oak. The pilot confessed they were bound to be given to a Mameluke general.”