“No doubt, sweet Portia, and your brash nature and unfounded self-confidence shall further convince all that you are the better man.”

A servant appeared in the doorway then, and cleared his throat.

“Lady, a visitor at the door for you. He asks that you meet him at the servants’ entrance.”

“A gentleman?” said Portia. “Well, show him into the foyer and I will make an entrance.”

“No, lady, not a gentleman, and the caller is for Miss Nerissa. He is a clown.”

“A clown?”

“Yes, mum. The visitor wears the motley of a fool. He would not give his name.”

“I’ll be right down,” said Nerissa.

She was gone for perhaps half an hour, in which time Portia noticed that she was having a particularly difficult time choosing shoes for dinner.

When she returned, tears streaked Nerissa’s face. “Portia, oh lady, I’m so sorry. Your sister.”

“What? What, Nerissa?”

“Desdemona is dead.”

As the gondola from Belmont glided up to the landing at Shylock’s house, I could see one of Tubal’s huge Jews, I know not which, eclipsing the doorway. Not alarming in itself, except I could see his heavy club dangling from a lanyard at his wrist, and we had approached at such an angle that I could see the other huge Jew poised at Shylock’s side door, ready to shoulder through it.

“Not a word,” said I to the gondolier. “Throw my bundle on the landing after me.” I plopped a coin down by his feet, and ran the length of the boat, leapt, and landed on the cobbles, coming up from a roll with one of my daggers in hand just as Jessica was opening the door.

I sent the dagger flying into the back of the thug’s knee, and when he bent over in pain, I sailed feetfirst over his back, into the house as Jessica stepped back in alarm. I had landed on my hip on the table, which I slid across, drawing another dagger as I landed on my feet.

“Drool! Side door!” I called, just as the side door exploded inward and banged back on its hinges. I sent the dagger straight to the oaf’s thigh and he tumbled into the house, leading with a long butcher knife. Drool had been sitting by the fire and now stood over the huge Jew as surprised as if he’d just discovered a live snake in his breakfast porridge.

I turned to face the attacker I’d wounded at the door. My friend Kent had taught me that, as a rule, with men of great size, it was more important to stop them first, rather than try to kill them in one blow.

I held my third dagger by the blade, poised to throw. “This one in your eye, boy,” said I. “Do twitch and I will send thee to a porkless Hebrew hell with stunning swiftness.”