Had you been wise as you’ve been bold;

Your answer would be here inscrolled;

Fare you well; your suit is cold.’ ”

The prince stared at the parchment and let it snap back to form. “Then this is all? All of nothing.”

“Make of yourself a gentle riddance,” Portia said, with feigned disappointment, as she turned and looked out over the garden to conceal her grin.

The prince reeled with a flourish of his robes and walked off the terrace, his entourage in rank behind him.

“Draw the curtains, Nerissa.”

“Bit harsh, don’t you think?” said Nerissa. “Three thousand ducats for a death’s-head?”

“Let all of his complexion choose so wrongly.”

A fanfare played from the front of the house as the prince exited.

“I’m going after him,” said Nerissa, hurrying to the door.

“Nerissa! I forbid you to fancy him.”

Nerissa knew that as soon as Portia found the arms of her Bassanio, she’d be cast out on her own. Too many years had she acted as the gentle cushion to the suitors rejected by both Brabantio sisters (like Rodrigo, who evidently had buggered off to Corsica, still in pursuit of Desdemona) and Portia would never allow her more accommodating maid in proximity to Bassanio. Nerissa was going to need a cushion herself when Bassanio guessed the correct casket on the morrow. One of twenty wives of a prince seemed like a quite comfortable cushion on which to land.

“Sod fancying him, I just want to have a look at his sun-burnished trumpet.”

“Thou art a hopeless slag, Nerissa.”

“Not true, I am full of hope.”

Jessica and I came down the ramp from the ship so close behind Iago and Rodrigo that I could almost smell the treachery coming off them.

Jessica had, by now, learned to walk without the slightest sway to her hips, while I had minced my steps more fitting to the humble shuffle of a nun, for so was I dressed, in wimple and veil, in such a nun suit as we had been able to fashion from the clothes in Jessica’s rucksack. My beard now shaved and my Jew kit betrayed, the veil was a necessary accoutrement for my disguise; of leper or nun, I chose the latter.

We followed the two soldiers down the dock through the fray of sailors and stevedores resupplying the ships in the harbor. The Genoan fleet had been decimated by a storm on their voyage to attack Corsica. Othello easily turned the remaining force away and had fortified the harbor with archers, ballistas, and catapults ever ready on the breakwater.

Iago stopped at the street and hailed a soldier on horseback.

“Ho there, Sergeant, where might I find General Othello? I bring news from Venice.”