“Relax, Lancelot,” said Japheth. “The threat to our task will not come from the sea, but from such sharks as walk the land, and we are ready for them.” He pulled aside the fringe of his gabardine and I could see a heavy oaken club hanging from his belt. I looked to his brother who grinned as he revealed an identical cudgel that he’d concealed.

I shrugged. “Say, what say ye, just for sport, instead of giving Antonio the gold, you two surprise him by bludgeoning him to pulp, perhaps a few of his cohorts, then we take the gold back to Tubal and have a drink and a good laugh over it?”

Really, what good was it to have two huge Jews with clubs if you couldn’t use them to bludgeon your enemies to meaty paste? Granted, it wouldn’t be the slow, ironic retribution that Shylock was hoping for, but I thought he might recover from the disappointment and would deal somewhat better with a more unpleasant surprise he was about to receive.

“That would be wrong,” said Japheth.

“Wrongish,” said I, making the sign of tipping scales with my hand. “Not like it’s written in stone, is it?”

“Actually—” ventured Ham.

“Oh, all right—it’s like sailing with an ark full of fucking lawyers with you two. Fine, we’ll just deliver the sodding gold and leave Antonio unbludgeoned.”

There were four men waiting in front of Antonio’s house. The boatmen brought their craft into the landing bow first, allowed me to hop off, then backed off, as they had been instructed. I was agile on the tall chopines now, and only someone who was looking for it might have noticed my gait to be unnatural, less nimble than on my own tender feet. I nodded to the four, three I’d recognized from the Rialto that afternoon: Gratiano, the tallest; the handsome one, Bassanio, the one for whom the gold was meant; and two other shorter, rounder fellows who might have been the same person, if not twins, brothers, and although I had seen one of them on the Rialto, I couldn’t have said which one.

“Lorenzo?” I asked the closest.

“Salarino,” said he.

“Then you are Lorenzo?” I asked the other.

“Salanio,” said the other.

I looked from one to the other. “You’re joking?”

“I told you, Jew,” said Gratiano. “We will see Lorenzo later.”

“Right,” said I. “I’m to check the stairwell for more scoundrels, then I’ll be back down to signal for the gold.”

“Top floor.” Gratiano grinned and gestured to the doorway of the nearest building.

Off I went.

“Hey, what did he mean by more scoundrels?” said Salanio, or perhaps the other one, as I entered the building.