There weren’t, of course, but if need be, I could forge some quickly, as I had the receipt for the hat. A crown, which would be made by a Jewish goldsmith, who had been happy to tell me and Jessica what the specifications should be.

“All of Venice was almost excommunicated once for selling weapons to the Mamelukes during a Crusade, wasn’t it?”

One of the senators stood now. “Antonio, where were your argosies bound and what was their cargo?”

“Don’t forget to ask Iago about killing the Moor, as that’s a stonking-huge part of the plan.”

The gallery had become very quiet now that the attention had turned from Shylock’s suit.

“It was all Brabantio’s doing, Your Grace,” said Antonio. “We acted at his instruction, thinking it the will of you and the council.”

Iago winced, only slightly, when Antonio had used the term we.

“Then you were trying to draw all of Christendom into a war with the Muslims?” asked the doge, more concerned now that his assassination might have been part of the plot.

“I’m sure they would have poisoned you in a manner that made it appear like a fever, as they did my queen, Your Grace.”

“The fool is right,” said Iago. “We were trying to start a war. And Antonio is right, we knew nothing about any attempt to usurp or harm Your Grace. We are guilty.”

“I’m not,” said Antonio.

Iago walked to Antonio and put his arm around the merchant’s shoulders.

“We two, brothers-in-arms,” said Iago. “For Venice, we thought to bring a war to end a war, for the Genoans would not dare attack us once our ships were flying the flag of the pope. Peace would come with Genoans, and money would flow into the coffers of Venice, as it did in the last Crusade, from all the barons of Europe. And at the end of that Crusade, after we had built a hundred ships with their money, the ships belonged to Venice.”

“Until they were all lost at Curzola by the last doge’s son,” said I.