WIP Amnesty
Feb. 7th, 2004 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amand_rEveryone else is doing it, so why can't I?
Yeah, this was for Eng's (or whomever's Slashing the Bard contest AGES ago. Never got to the slash, and I was going to do the WHOLE damn play, and there was going to be mad Iago!Methos/Othello!MacLeod with horrible ending, but I just, never got into it. I liked what I had though...
"Othello is probably the most neatly, most formally constructed of all of Shakespeare's plays."
(Alvin Kiernan)
PROLOGUE:
Iago:
Of tragedies, and other works such as I have no hold
To sense and act upon temptations wholly man made,
And with my words thus, I cause a noble soul
Who, fraught with self-doubt, takes up doubting's blade.
But be not warned, and be not wary of my message here
That I should cause thee peril, or thus alarm,
Or else readers, affrighted, strike themselves with fear
And wonder why I ever meant Him true and vengeful harm.
Worry not, and weep not for the man they call MacLeod;
And struggle not to argue against the caravans and hearse
This end is meant for mourning and my white shroud
For some things are best left in pages and in verse.
For all I do I do in loving, not in strife or vice
And plan of meetings not here, but paradise.
ACTE ONE
Open to Venetian Street:
When the first whispers of him came across the rivers and the water filled streets of Venice, they echoed of his barbarism, and that he ate the flesh of children. There were rumors of his travels and of his lineage. They said that he snatched the babes from their cribs and slit their tiny throats, breaking mother's necks and causing trembling sword filled hands of men and boys to clatter against their armor and the necks of their war-beasts. He was the Death Bringer. He was the leader of their forces into the lands of the North.
And MacLeod was none and all of this.
That he was barbaric, there was no doubt. That he killed the warrior when he slept, this was true. But that he had slain the children of the villages, that was false. MacLeod was wise and terrible; he was noble and frightening. The Venetians whispered of his name in the streets; the very Senators guarded their wives and daughters when he passed.
And so, Iago mused, it was only appropriate that he be caught in the bed of Desdemona, Senator Brabanto's lovely daughter. And even more so that they had wedded in secret, this Scot from the Picts of the North and the delicate flower of the Mediterranean. He wandered the streets, hands in sleeves to find the winding stair to Brabantio's terrace.
"Say," he whispered to his companion, the drunken Roderigo, "that his daughter, this very night, lies with MacLeod."
Roderigo called his cheerful refrain to the window. "Your daughter lies with the Child Slayer! She ruts with the son of the Devil!"
"Say," Iago murmured, "that they make the beast with two backs."
His companion repeated his phrase with glee. "She lies with the beast with two backs!"
"No!" Iago hissed. "Makes! Makes! They *make* the beast with two backs!"
"They make two backs!" Roderigo gumbled, his voice gone shrill with his expended effort. "Two beastly backs!" He turned to Iago. "And what twain backs they be, eh?"
Iago slapped his hand to his forehead and let it be.
"And who are you, telling me things of my child?" Brabantio struggled with his chamber window, curtains flying with the soft and sweetened wind, not marred by the stench of the stream below.
Iago capped a hand over his companion's mouth and called. "I am Roderigo, sir, and that I may know what I do, I call myself a fool of knowing, or knowing's fool."
"You are a fool indeed," Brabantio muttered, "that you should say such things when I know my daughter lies in her chamber, her gentle cheek against her pillow."
"Nay," Iago answered. His companion beat fists against his chest and he ignored them, pulling back against that head in the darkness. "I know that I am not the only fool, for check you your daughter's bed, and see that her flowered sleep not lies there, but in the bed of MacLeod, the Scot. There she unveils yet her bridal shroud, and casts of her bleach'd cloths to toss about in the very rivers that we traverse by day," he warbled. And then, in after thought: "My lord."
Roderigo slapped his hand away finally. Brabantio had left their presence. In the distance, they heard the braying of dogs and the calling of Brabantio to his absent daughter.
The message had done its work; the guards were summoned, and Brabantio, robes in disarray, hastened to his daughter's chamber to find it bare and bed cold. Maidenhead had stumbled out into the night, away from household safe and virtuous, and now slumbered in the arms of a dark and mysterious lord, all in the name of that fool, Cupid.
//That love could be so perilously surrendered,// Brabantio groused to himself, //that she would thrust her good name into his mouth, her will bending to the press of his stubborn one, yes.// That she would take all that her father had given, chaste and pure, and make a mockery of good virtue and therefore render all unto the coldness of the North. He clutched his gown and robes, threading through the garden to the gate. These roses that his daughter had tended had bloomed too early; their fresh and pale light would wither in the frost of the morn.
He sent his messenger ahead, to notify the Senate and the Duke.
"Comeuppance must be made, and Desdemona stol'n back into her too charred and darkened bed. MacLeod must be brought and sanctioned to my hand; I shall not have him in my daughter's foreign land."
********
The villa of MacLeod:
"There is nothing in this world that I have offended," MacLeod persisted, his hands running through his hair. "I have done all that was asked by Lord and Liege, and led the armies to the North to conquer the towers and minarets of the Turks. What could I have done that troubles higher powers so that you rouse me from my sleep?"
//It was not sleep, methinks,// Iago shrugged one shoulder in deference to his lord. "I know not what, and cannot even guess, unless it is the handfasting of your maw to that of Desdemona that causes him such ire." He cast a glance at the Scot, who growled and thundered step down the marbled hallways of his estate's garden tower. "Are you sure and fastly married? Aye, it would be too poor a state indeed if he should choose to render such a union to an unfruitful end."
That dusky brow marred with lines and, his hand held out, he turned the golden ring on one thick finger. Iago watched the gold spin, eyes growing dark with unbent and undisclosed remark.
"I wed her ere I bedded her, Iago," he whispered, his voice light and pleasant, as if he could capture her in his tone, and dance her on his tongue. "Desdemona assured me of her affections, and by my hand, she was a chaste and driven thing; a fury of a wind never touched her that her face were turned so rosy by my will," he murmured.
"Aye, and may well be true," Iago replied, picking a rose from the turret bed. "But this rose was plucked to soon, and by a rougher hand than her father, the Senator Brabantio, intended." He twirled the bloom in his fingers. "And if thy affections do be made of the tenderest mettle, then go, and tell her father that you are of the noblest intention, so that she may not wither in his sight, becoming a dark and unhoused thing, unworthy of her noble name."
MacLeod looked to reply, but the lights shone from the darkened room, within a voice calling, "Ho! My lord!" Iago gave his Lord deference and then followed him into the chamber, met by Cassio and the Duke's officers.
"What say you, Cassio," MacLeod shook his lieutenant's hand grasping firmly the shoulder of his brother at arms. "What is this? Servants of the Duke?"
"Aye, my lord," Cassio replied. "You are called to the hall for some great matters."
"What matters?" Iago watched the eyes darken in the Scot, and noted the creeping flush about his collar.
"Matters, of war, my lord," Cassio told them, wiping his face with a kerchief. "There are galleys from Cypress, and all are fetched but you. The Duke has searched far and wide for your hiding place; I alone have found it just now."
MacLeod twisted the ring on his finger absently. "I have a duty here, and will be with you shortly."
Iago and Cassio watched his leave, and Cassio turned his questioning eyebrow on his kinsman. "What is his business that it keeps us here a moment longer?"
"Roses, boats and sailing," Iago mused, smiling to himself. Cassio frowned, and he nodded. "He has taken a new...journey into this land, dear Cassio."
"I don't understand," Cassio told him, his face turning to a scowl.
"He's wedded," Iago grated out, teeth clenched. "He's turned unto the fount of waters that only you yourself have not yet tasted."
Cassio nodded, slightly, his face reddening. "Who is his bride?" he whispered.
Iago thought to answer, but his lord strode into the room, echoed steps and all. Soldiers rattled to blustering attention at his very glance. Ah, what a fine commander indeed!
"I am ready," he rumbled. His locks were strewn about, but his face betrayed nothing of his illness. //And what illness?// Iago thought. //That illness that comes not from the rats, but from one rat. One rat armed with arrows and a golden bow to shoot them from.//
Iago tucked his hands into his sleeves and contemplated the Highland Scot. He was troubled, yes, and his eyes flashed dark brilliance. But there was a softness about the face, the marking that only a woman can take to man that Iago himself knew too well. He had seen others bear this wound so deep to themselves that it marred them completely, ruthlessness and war stripped away in the wake of such scars that only love could bring. And in battle only these would show, glowing as bright as the North Star, the fierce will of the Scot MacLeod as he tumbled into the fray, his lady's kerchief tuck'd into his bosom so that it marked a target for enemy archers to his very heart
And this both froze and warmed the villain Iago's soul.
Their caravan out into the streets of Venice was interrupted by Brabantio, who stormed the villa, his hands balled fists, his robes half shut and trailing. His guards looked embarrassed to be led by such a knave a man who had almost been cuckolded by his own child. Brabantio's halo-wreathed head whisped in the morning mist; he kneaded his hands and grasped for his sword as he caught sight of the Scot.
MacLeod avoided drawn weapons, and backed a step or two, to rest next to Iago. His face showed no compassion, a good sign. Iago bowed his head and was silent.
"You have stolen my child!" Brabantio roared, his face crimson with his humor. "You have bewitched her in the night, and under her window sent faeries to snatch her wits and her good Venetian judgement!"
"I have done no--" MacLeod started, his hands rising in defense. Brabantio would hear none of it. Tears marked the creases of his eyes.
"But she was of sound heart and pure of soul until you came! Her face was never turned away from the sun so long that she saw yours in the moon! You ravaged her fair spirit with your songs of the North, bent on taking all that I have reared in good faith and pious trust!" Brabantio waved his fists. "You have fed her the sweets of your foul people! You have shown her the darkened realms that allow the demons and the nighthags to prowl their moors and plains, and I will have her back!"
"I did not take her with a song or spell," MacLeod muttered, his face crumpled with grief or fear, Iago could not tell. "I accepted her love as would any suitor, any Venetian suitor--"
"Aye, but Venetian suitor you are none!" Brabantio shouted. "You are a Scot, so little a gentleman as this rose in my hand, far from the edicts and claims of this land, as even so none wilt deny that thou art a plundering raping monster from the North. I will not have my daughter grace your bed, a married whore to bear the children not to walk the streets of day, noble children with a fatherless father! I will reverse her bespelling, and then, Lord MacLeod, you will answer to the judgement of the Senate and the Duke." He waved his hands. "Take him soundly, and we shall see that this dark night unfolds into a lighter dawn."
"But I am already called to the Duke," MacLeod answered. "His soldiers and messenger here had been sent before you came. We were away to there until I saw you."
"Then all shall be rectified in council," Brabantio scorned. "My claim cannot be less than that of which the Duke seeks from your dark hide. We'll away to there and he shall chide."
***
The Duke's Council Chamber:
"With all these conflicting reports," the Duke mumbled, "there can be no clear course of action." He shuffled his papers on the large wooden table. "What say you again? I read a hundred forty galleys."
"My lord, the Turks send a hundred seven by my last count," informed a senator.
"And two hundred by mine," added another senator. The two glared with the impatience that only insecurity and competition could rouse in men's hearts. "And the Turks send them up to Cypress, no matter what the count."
The Duke sighed, heavy hearted and duty leaden. "'Tis true no matter what the count, they sail indeed." He reached for his goblet and signaled to the new messenger, who had just stepped into their hall, light footed and silent. "What news?"
"My lord," the sailor began, "I am here from Angelo to inform you that Turkish preparations have been made for Rhodes."
"Rhodes?" asked the first senator. He furrowed his brows. "What is Rhodes to them that they turn course and sail there instead of Cypress? Surely the latter is a more gleaming gem in their eyes."
The Duke held his hand. "Cypress is more attractive, I think, but these skillful Turks would most assuredly exercise their clever skills to persuade us to guard Rhodes and leave the other more open and free to rape. It is Cypress they want. This is merely a decoy."
They waited as another messenger came into view, small and timid; sweat glistened on his brow, and his breath came labored and gasping.
"My lords, the Ottomans sailing for Rhodes have joined another fleet, perhaps thirty in count. Together they old fleet and new branched backwards in their travels to make for their new goal, the anticipated Cypress." He bent at the waist and rested his hands on his knees. "Signior Montano prays that you believe him thus."
The duke paced, wine in hand, musing at papers from top and bottom. "Then Cypress, as we discussed, is the target they desire." He furrowed his brows. "Is there not a gentleman to send forth with a galley?"
"Nay, my Lord, they are for Florence," answered the senator, sipping from his own wine distractedly. His eyes slid and shifted in their sockets, a wont to targets to settle upon, all but his Grace. There must have been a distraction in the name of sound, for those spheres flew side to side and towards the heavy cedar door, drinking in the sudden stream of persons who flooded into the room.
The Duke raised heavy eyes from the top of the master table, centered on the figure in the
middle of the fray who towered above them all. His mouth drew up into a quirk of his humour, sighing as situations that had until this second had no solution knitted themselves complete and flawless.
"My valiant MacLeod! I must employ your senses and abilities straight away against the perpetual vile Ottoman!" He held his arms out to MacLeod, brushing fingertip to those brawny shoulders, touching light the velvet that was dusted with the morning dew. His face alight with the seeming thought of assured victory, his thoughts twisted elsewhere when Brabantio, face flushed and quivering with suppressed angst stepped into his vision. "Why, Brabantio! I did not see you in the crowd. You were missed among our good council this night."
Brabantio coughed lightly. "And I missed thy worthy and generous council, My Lord. I had not heard of thy summons, were I was out of my bed on another matter so tiresome and engulfing that it makes the general problems and tirades of the Ottoman seem a mere whisper of irritating wind." His eyes darted to the Scot, narrowing and face reddening as if he had just at that moment renewed a picture of his dear child in the arms of the man before him.
Iago caught his drunken friend, Roderigo, on the edge of the fray, and watched, eyes bright with unkempt interest at the proceedings. Things did not bode well for any simple plan no, and things, he foresaw, would have to plummet forward with all haste and complication of MacLeod were to fall into his hand so brusquely as was once planned.
Iago watched the Duke raise his eyes, the little edge of golden circlet shifting in the folds of his generous and wizened brow. "Oh no, Brabantio? What could trouble thy soul so?"
Brabantio threw his hands about, flailing, setting loose fury and humor so dark and wild Iago thought that perhaps this once they would explode into insensible litany, a dark enough humour to colour any shading of goodness in him.
"My daughter, my Lord!" He sat heavily at a chair that was offered to him, leaning towards the duke over papers and maps. "I have a daughter, as fair as any other noble daughter-- no, no, more fair. In this I do not lie. That her mother came from the very crown of heaven to bless me with her presence, I have no doubt. That is to say, my Lord, I *had* a daughter..."
The senators watched the show with interest. "Dead?" one of them called.
"Nay nay, not dead as that her body lies aground yet. Bespelled my Lords, bespelled!" Brabantio's hands fluttered and scraped the edge of the table. His face painted horror and fury into his eyes so fine that even Iago, the passive, began to doubt his very spirit. "There is no sense that could have lulled her spirit, arched and beautiful in this purity, to descend, to stoop into the arms of indecency without being of darkness and devilry!"
The Duke clucked his holy tongue, shaking his head. "Tis folly, tis true, if you speak so of it." His hand reached out to still the twitching ones of his companion. "Tell me, whosoever be involved in this most foul thing, and we shall bring him here and proceed to lay down the fullest of the law, even if it is my own son that has torn such a lovely girl from her holier senses."
Brabantio hung his head shaking silently, and the sigh that shuddered from his lips was almost audible, but for Iago's perfect hearing. //Devilrous wonder, that,// Iago seemed to think into the head of the aged senator. //Accuse he who is the evil here, and watch how the brows raise on the head of the most loved man in this chambre.//
"Your Grace, he is already here, this Scot here, who you yourself have only just embraced as if he were Venice's favorite son. Wilt thou relinquish him into my state of consequences?" Brabantio's words were ill-worded, loaded with challenge. The Duke took them harshly, a little movement from his chest showed signs of deepest shock and fondest fury, when he turned his face to fully pick out MacLeod from the gaggle of them all.
"What does this news bring to your heart, MacLeod? Can you add anything to this sorry tale and horrid account?"
"He can say nothing!" Brabantio hissed. " Not thing that but it is true!"
"My Lords," came the deep and heart tearing reply. "My masters and majors, and your most Graciousness, I have done what this man claims when he says that I have taken his daughter. I have wedded her, and in this she is no longer his." MacLeod raised his velvet-coated arms and extended his fingers outward, touching the air. "Please, permit me to speak."
Iago and all present watched the man unfold, an unseen feeling roiling out from his into the presence and very incense of the air. His eyes seemed to widen past their ability, making them a dark and glassy subject of study indeed. His lips, a point of highest interest for Iago, opened with bated breath and spoke, sound moving as pronounced Italian danced from those stubborn muscles with the stubbornness of a rusty squeezebox.
"I cannot speak," MacLeod began, voice soft, barely worthy of the same chest that Iago knew let loose the Celtic war bellows in the heat of battle. This love had taken and muted, placing a soft-man (or woman) made bit into the hollow of his throat, changing trumpet to flute, warrior's horn to shepherd's pipe. Iago watched him damn himself again with those words of love, his own mouth working to try to suck them from the air before any else could hear them.
"I am a warrior, and that I have spent years in the tented areas of battle, only coming from the trenches of war some nine months ago, I profess this does short me in the ability to express things in this manner. I know not of gentle tongues, of laudes and oratory skills fine enough to come from the mouths of you mean who make it your practice." He paced a few to the left, sweeping the senators with his breadth of arm's gesture. "I know only that I can tell you the tale of all Brabantio claims--how I drugged, how I charmed, what conjurations I performed to win his daughter."
Brabantio spluttered, rolling eyes and slackjawed mouth forming words his lips had not yet formed the sound with which to pronounce them. Finally, "Such admittance, from this man who claims not to have stolen my daughter! For I know, I know, of powders that seize the eyes and draw them thus--" he pulled his vision to MacLeod with his hand. "And I know of potions that render hearts in satiable and insensible. He has deceived her thus! One dram of coltsfoot and comfrey to blind, another of the dragon's tongue to deceive! I charge you thus, look here, know these things..."
"Then it is you who deceive her and not I, for I know none of thus," MacLeod purred, his eyes wide.
The Duke, so long taxed by foreign wars, and not this new battle brought to the very table of conflict threatening to breach his little patience for the matter, motioned silence from all in the room.
"Brabantio, to 'charge' such things as you allot is no truth in itself; you rely in trivial accusations. Harder, less airy proof is required for such a stance as yours." To the troubled Othello, he added, "How didst thou seize the lady's affections, noble Scot?"
[cut]
"They say you cannot die, and that all men whose ranks you command receive you with the highest pride. And for these reputations and commendations we do charge you to return Northward to Cypress, to take them up in arms and defend those lands that we shall still yet call our own."
The Duke sat down with a sigh. "As for my own thoughts, MacLeod, I do say that you are wise indeed, and of your people, you do hold yourself highest in my sight."
MacLeod bowed uncertainly, his face flushed with praise. "You do me too well in words, my Lord."
[cut, though I imagine they sent him north, with his new wife.]
[Then I started on Act 2, knowing that I was going to frame the whole thing in a sort of past present thing, wherein the thing being played out in real life was going to be the plot of othello as Methos was reading it in RL, and then my head exploded.]
ACT TWO
"I wooed thee with my sword
And won thy love, doing thee injuries."
A Midsummer Night's Dream I I 16-17
Open, Joe's bar, Seacouver:
"The recent poor weather over the Pacific Ocean has led to the destruction of several of the Turkish fleet ships heading for the northern waters. Several planes have been either lost or hopelessly delayed in the struggle to regain lost oceanic waters near the NorthWest border of the States and Alaska. State officials..."
"What are you reading?" Richie clapped a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of intent reverie.
Methos tossed the newspaper on the table and sat back. He watched Richie pull the chair out for Tessa intently, eyes never leaving the boy's face. "Nothing of importance," he muttered.
"But Adam, your eyes were glued to the page," Tessa rang out, her voice sounding bell-like. "I hope we didn't disturb you too much."
Methos managed a rattling laugh. "Nope, not important. How go things in the land of the blissfully married? Speaking of which, where is your husband?"
Tessa let Richie take a seat and order them drinks before sighing. "Oh, Duncan's plane was delayed. One second it was all set to arrive behind us, and the next.." She waved her hand. "I hate these things. I hope nothing has gone terribly wrong." Her beautiful face twisted into one of fear. "I know it's silly to worry, but I can't help it sometimes...
Yeah yeah, there it is.
Yeah, this was for Eng's (or whomever's Slashing the Bard contest AGES ago. Never got to the slash, and I was going to do the WHOLE damn play, and there was going to be mad Iago!Methos/Othello!MacLeod with horrible ending, but I just, never got into it. I liked what I had though...
"Othello is probably the most neatly, most formally constructed of all of Shakespeare's plays."
(Alvin Kiernan)
PROLOGUE:
Iago:
Of tragedies, and other works such as I have no hold
To sense and act upon temptations wholly man made,
And with my words thus, I cause a noble soul
Who, fraught with self-doubt, takes up doubting's blade.
But be not warned, and be not wary of my message here
That I should cause thee peril, or thus alarm,
Or else readers, affrighted, strike themselves with fear
And wonder why I ever meant Him true and vengeful harm.
Worry not, and weep not for the man they call MacLeod;
And struggle not to argue against the caravans and hearse
This end is meant for mourning and my white shroud
For some things are best left in pages and in verse.
For all I do I do in loving, not in strife or vice
And plan of meetings not here, but paradise.
ACTE ONE
Open to Venetian Street:
When the first whispers of him came across the rivers and the water filled streets of Venice, they echoed of his barbarism, and that he ate the flesh of children. There were rumors of his travels and of his lineage. They said that he snatched the babes from their cribs and slit their tiny throats, breaking mother's necks and causing trembling sword filled hands of men and boys to clatter against their armor and the necks of their war-beasts. He was the Death Bringer. He was the leader of their forces into the lands of the North.
And MacLeod was none and all of this.
That he was barbaric, there was no doubt. That he killed the warrior when he slept, this was true. But that he had slain the children of the villages, that was false. MacLeod was wise and terrible; he was noble and frightening. The Venetians whispered of his name in the streets; the very Senators guarded their wives and daughters when he passed.
And so, Iago mused, it was only appropriate that he be caught in the bed of Desdemona, Senator Brabanto's lovely daughter. And even more so that they had wedded in secret, this Scot from the Picts of the North and the delicate flower of the Mediterranean. He wandered the streets, hands in sleeves to find the winding stair to Brabantio's terrace.
"Say," he whispered to his companion, the drunken Roderigo, "that his daughter, this very night, lies with MacLeod."
Roderigo called his cheerful refrain to the window. "Your daughter lies with the Child Slayer! She ruts with the son of the Devil!"
"Say," Iago murmured, "that they make the beast with two backs."
His companion repeated his phrase with glee. "She lies with the beast with two backs!"
"No!" Iago hissed. "Makes! Makes! They *make* the beast with two backs!"
"They make two backs!" Roderigo gumbled, his voice gone shrill with his expended effort. "Two beastly backs!" He turned to Iago. "And what twain backs they be, eh?"
Iago slapped his hand to his forehead and let it be.
"And who are you, telling me things of my child?" Brabantio struggled with his chamber window, curtains flying with the soft and sweetened wind, not marred by the stench of the stream below.
Iago capped a hand over his companion's mouth and called. "I am Roderigo, sir, and that I may know what I do, I call myself a fool of knowing, or knowing's fool."
"You are a fool indeed," Brabantio muttered, "that you should say such things when I know my daughter lies in her chamber, her gentle cheek against her pillow."
"Nay," Iago answered. His companion beat fists against his chest and he ignored them, pulling back against that head in the darkness. "I know that I am not the only fool, for check you your daughter's bed, and see that her flowered sleep not lies there, but in the bed of MacLeod, the Scot. There she unveils yet her bridal shroud, and casts of her bleach'd cloths to toss about in the very rivers that we traverse by day," he warbled. And then, in after thought: "My lord."
Roderigo slapped his hand away finally. Brabantio had left their presence. In the distance, they heard the braying of dogs and the calling of Brabantio to his absent daughter.
The message had done its work; the guards were summoned, and Brabantio, robes in disarray, hastened to his daughter's chamber to find it bare and bed cold. Maidenhead had stumbled out into the night, away from household safe and virtuous, and now slumbered in the arms of a dark and mysterious lord, all in the name of that fool, Cupid.
//That love could be so perilously surrendered,// Brabantio groused to himself, //that she would thrust her good name into his mouth, her will bending to the press of his stubborn one, yes.// That she would take all that her father had given, chaste and pure, and make a mockery of good virtue and therefore render all unto the coldness of the North. He clutched his gown and robes, threading through the garden to the gate. These roses that his daughter had tended had bloomed too early; their fresh and pale light would wither in the frost of the morn.
He sent his messenger ahead, to notify the Senate and the Duke.
"Comeuppance must be made, and Desdemona stol'n back into her too charred and darkened bed. MacLeod must be brought and sanctioned to my hand; I shall not have him in my daughter's foreign land."
********
The villa of MacLeod:
"There is nothing in this world that I have offended," MacLeod persisted, his hands running through his hair. "I have done all that was asked by Lord and Liege, and led the armies to the North to conquer the towers and minarets of the Turks. What could I have done that troubles higher powers so that you rouse me from my sleep?"
//It was not sleep, methinks,// Iago shrugged one shoulder in deference to his lord. "I know not what, and cannot even guess, unless it is the handfasting of your maw to that of Desdemona that causes him such ire." He cast a glance at the Scot, who growled and thundered step down the marbled hallways of his estate's garden tower. "Are you sure and fastly married? Aye, it would be too poor a state indeed if he should choose to render such a union to an unfruitful end."
That dusky brow marred with lines and, his hand held out, he turned the golden ring on one thick finger. Iago watched the gold spin, eyes growing dark with unbent and undisclosed remark.
"I wed her ere I bedded her, Iago," he whispered, his voice light and pleasant, as if he could capture her in his tone, and dance her on his tongue. "Desdemona assured me of her affections, and by my hand, she was a chaste and driven thing; a fury of a wind never touched her that her face were turned so rosy by my will," he murmured.
"Aye, and may well be true," Iago replied, picking a rose from the turret bed. "But this rose was plucked to soon, and by a rougher hand than her father, the Senator Brabantio, intended." He twirled the bloom in his fingers. "And if thy affections do be made of the tenderest mettle, then go, and tell her father that you are of the noblest intention, so that she may not wither in his sight, becoming a dark and unhoused thing, unworthy of her noble name."
MacLeod looked to reply, but the lights shone from the darkened room, within a voice calling, "Ho! My lord!" Iago gave his Lord deference and then followed him into the chamber, met by Cassio and the Duke's officers.
"What say you, Cassio," MacLeod shook his lieutenant's hand grasping firmly the shoulder of his brother at arms. "What is this? Servants of the Duke?"
"Aye, my lord," Cassio replied. "You are called to the hall for some great matters."
"What matters?" Iago watched the eyes darken in the Scot, and noted the creeping flush about his collar.
"Matters, of war, my lord," Cassio told them, wiping his face with a kerchief. "There are galleys from Cypress, and all are fetched but you. The Duke has searched far and wide for your hiding place; I alone have found it just now."
MacLeod twisted the ring on his finger absently. "I have a duty here, and will be with you shortly."
Iago and Cassio watched his leave, and Cassio turned his questioning eyebrow on his kinsman. "What is his business that it keeps us here a moment longer?"
"Roses, boats and sailing," Iago mused, smiling to himself. Cassio frowned, and he nodded. "He has taken a new...journey into this land, dear Cassio."
"I don't understand," Cassio told him, his face turning to a scowl.
"He's wedded," Iago grated out, teeth clenched. "He's turned unto the fount of waters that only you yourself have not yet tasted."
Cassio nodded, slightly, his face reddening. "Who is his bride?" he whispered.
Iago thought to answer, but his lord strode into the room, echoed steps and all. Soldiers rattled to blustering attention at his very glance. Ah, what a fine commander indeed!
"I am ready," he rumbled. His locks were strewn about, but his face betrayed nothing of his illness. //And what illness?// Iago thought. //That illness that comes not from the rats, but from one rat. One rat armed with arrows and a golden bow to shoot them from.//
Iago tucked his hands into his sleeves and contemplated the Highland Scot. He was troubled, yes, and his eyes flashed dark brilliance. But there was a softness about the face, the marking that only a woman can take to man that Iago himself knew too well. He had seen others bear this wound so deep to themselves that it marred them completely, ruthlessness and war stripped away in the wake of such scars that only love could bring. And in battle only these would show, glowing as bright as the North Star, the fierce will of the Scot MacLeod as he tumbled into the fray, his lady's kerchief tuck'd into his bosom so that it marked a target for enemy archers to his very heart
And this both froze and warmed the villain Iago's soul.
Their caravan out into the streets of Venice was interrupted by Brabantio, who stormed the villa, his hands balled fists, his robes half shut and trailing. His guards looked embarrassed to be led by such a knave a man who had almost been cuckolded by his own child. Brabantio's halo-wreathed head whisped in the morning mist; he kneaded his hands and grasped for his sword as he caught sight of the Scot.
MacLeod avoided drawn weapons, and backed a step or two, to rest next to Iago. His face showed no compassion, a good sign. Iago bowed his head and was silent.
"You have stolen my child!" Brabantio roared, his face crimson with his humor. "You have bewitched her in the night, and under her window sent faeries to snatch her wits and her good Venetian judgement!"
"I have done no--" MacLeod started, his hands rising in defense. Brabantio would hear none of it. Tears marked the creases of his eyes.
"But she was of sound heart and pure of soul until you came! Her face was never turned away from the sun so long that she saw yours in the moon! You ravaged her fair spirit with your songs of the North, bent on taking all that I have reared in good faith and pious trust!" Brabantio waved his fists. "You have fed her the sweets of your foul people! You have shown her the darkened realms that allow the demons and the nighthags to prowl their moors and plains, and I will have her back!"
"I did not take her with a song or spell," MacLeod muttered, his face crumpled with grief or fear, Iago could not tell. "I accepted her love as would any suitor, any Venetian suitor--"
"Aye, but Venetian suitor you are none!" Brabantio shouted. "You are a Scot, so little a gentleman as this rose in my hand, far from the edicts and claims of this land, as even so none wilt deny that thou art a plundering raping monster from the North. I will not have my daughter grace your bed, a married whore to bear the children not to walk the streets of day, noble children with a fatherless father! I will reverse her bespelling, and then, Lord MacLeod, you will answer to the judgement of the Senate and the Duke." He waved his hands. "Take him soundly, and we shall see that this dark night unfolds into a lighter dawn."
"But I am already called to the Duke," MacLeod answered. "His soldiers and messenger here had been sent before you came. We were away to there until I saw you."
"Then all shall be rectified in council," Brabantio scorned. "My claim cannot be less than that of which the Duke seeks from your dark hide. We'll away to there and he shall chide."
***
The Duke's Council Chamber:
"With all these conflicting reports," the Duke mumbled, "there can be no clear course of action." He shuffled his papers on the large wooden table. "What say you again? I read a hundred forty galleys."
"My lord, the Turks send a hundred seven by my last count," informed a senator.
"And two hundred by mine," added another senator. The two glared with the impatience that only insecurity and competition could rouse in men's hearts. "And the Turks send them up to Cypress, no matter what the count."
The Duke sighed, heavy hearted and duty leaden. "'Tis true no matter what the count, they sail indeed." He reached for his goblet and signaled to the new messenger, who had just stepped into their hall, light footed and silent. "What news?"
"My lord," the sailor began, "I am here from Angelo to inform you that Turkish preparations have been made for Rhodes."
"Rhodes?" asked the first senator. He furrowed his brows. "What is Rhodes to them that they turn course and sail there instead of Cypress? Surely the latter is a more gleaming gem in their eyes."
The Duke held his hand. "Cypress is more attractive, I think, but these skillful Turks would most assuredly exercise their clever skills to persuade us to guard Rhodes and leave the other more open and free to rape. It is Cypress they want. This is merely a decoy."
They waited as another messenger came into view, small and timid; sweat glistened on his brow, and his breath came labored and gasping.
"My lords, the Ottomans sailing for Rhodes have joined another fleet, perhaps thirty in count. Together they old fleet and new branched backwards in their travels to make for their new goal, the anticipated Cypress." He bent at the waist and rested his hands on his knees. "Signior Montano prays that you believe him thus."
The duke paced, wine in hand, musing at papers from top and bottom. "Then Cypress, as we discussed, is the target they desire." He furrowed his brows. "Is there not a gentleman to send forth with a galley?"
"Nay, my Lord, they are for Florence," answered the senator, sipping from his own wine distractedly. His eyes slid and shifted in their sockets, a wont to targets to settle upon, all but his Grace. There must have been a distraction in the name of sound, for those spheres flew side to side and towards the heavy cedar door, drinking in the sudden stream of persons who flooded into the room.
The Duke raised heavy eyes from the top of the master table, centered on the figure in the
middle of the fray who towered above them all. His mouth drew up into a quirk of his humour, sighing as situations that had until this second had no solution knitted themselves complete and flawless.
"My valiant MacLeod! I must employ your senses and abilities straight away against the perpetual vile Ottoman!" He held his arms out to MacLeod, brushing fingertip to those brawny shoulders, touching light the velvet that was dusted with the morning dew. His face alight with the seeming thought of assured victory, his thoughts twisted elsewhere when Brabantio, face flushed and quivering with suppressed angst stepped into his vision. "Why, Brabantio! I did not see you in the crowd. You were missed among our good council this night."
Brabantio coughed lightly. "And I missed thy worthy and generous council, My Lord. I had not heard of thy summons, were I was out of my bed on another matter so tiresome and engulfing that it makes the general problems and tirades of the Ottoman seem a mere whisper of irritating wind." His eyes darted to the Scot, narrowing and face reddening as if he had just at that moment renewed a picture of his dear child in the arms of the man before him.
Iago caught his drunken friend, Roderigo, on the edge of the fray, and watched, eyes bright with unkempt interest at the proceedings. Things did not bode well for any simple plan no, and things, he foresaw, would have to plummet forward with all haste and complication of MacLeod were to fall into his hand so brusquely as was once planned.
Iago watched the Duke raise his eyes, the little edge of golden circlet shifting in the folds of his generous and wizened brow. "Oh no, Brabantio? What could trouble thy soul so?"
Brabantio threw his hands about, flailing, setting loose fury and humor so dark and wild Iago thought that perhaps this once they would explode into insensible litany, a dark enough humour to colour any shading of goodness in him.
"My daughter, my Lord!" He sat heavily at a chair that was offered to him, leaning towards the duke over papers and maps. "I have a daughter, as fair as any other noble daughter-- no, no, more fair. In this I do not lie. That her mother came from the very crown of heaven to bless me with her presence, I have no doubt. That is to say, my Lord, I *had* a daughter..."
The senators watched the show with interest. "Dead?" one of them called.
"Nay nay, not dead as that her body lies aground yet. Bespelled my Lords, bespelled!" Brabantio's hands fluttered and scraped the edge of the table. His face painted horror and fury into his eyes so fine that even Iago, the passive, began to doubt his very spirit. "There is no sense that could have lulled her spirit, arched and beautiful in this purity, to descend, to stoop into the arms of indecency without being of darkness and devilry!"
The Duke clucked his holy tongue, shaking his head. "Tis folly, tis true, if you speak so of it." His hand reached out to still the twitching ones of his companion. "Tell me, whosoever be involved in this most foul thing, and we shall bring him here and proceed to lay down the fullest of the law, even if it is my own son that has torn such a lovely girl from her holier senses."
Brabantio hung his head shaking silently, and the sigh that shuddered from his lips was almost audible, but for Iago's perfect hearing. //Devilrous wonder, that,// Iago seemed to think into the head of the aged senator. //Accuse he who is the evil here, and watch how the brows raise on the head of the most loved man in this chambre.//
"Your Grace, he is already here, this Scot here, who you yourself have only just embraced as if he were Venice's favorite son. Wilt thou relinquish him into my state of consequences?" Brabantio's words were ill-worded, loaded with challenge. The Duke took them harshly, a little movement from his chest showed signs of deepest shock and fondest fury, when he turned his face to fully pick out MacLeod from the gaggle of them all.
"What does this news bring to your heart, MacLeod? Can you add anything to this sorry tale and horrid account?"
"He can say nothing!" Brabantio hissed. " Not thing that but it is true!"
"My Lords," came the deep and heart tearing reply. "My masters and majors, and your most Graciousness, I have done what this man claims when he says that I have taken his daughter. I have wedded her, and in this she is no longer his." MacLeod raised his velvet-coated arms and extended his fingers outward, touching the air. "Please, permit me to speak."
Iago and all present watched the man unfold, an unseen feeling roiling out from his into the presence and very incense of the air. His eyes seemed to widen past their ability, making them a dark and glassy subject of study indeed. His lips, a point of highest interest for Iago, opened with bated breath and spoke, sound moving as pronounced Italian danced from those stubborn muscles with the stubbornness of a rusty squeezebox.
"I cannot speak," MacLeod began, voice soft, barely worthy of the same chest that Iago knew let loose the Celtic war bellows in the heat of battle. This love had taken and muted, placing a soft-man (or woman) made bit into the hollow of his throat, changing trumpet to flute, warrior's horn to shepherd's pipe. Iago watched him damn himself again with those words of love, his own mouth working to try to suck them from the air before any else could hear them.
"I am a warrior, and that I have spent years in the tented areas of battle, only coming from the trenches of war some nine months ago, I profess this does short me in the ability to express things in this manner. I know not of gentle tongues, of laudes and oratory skills fine enough to come from the mouths of you mean who make it your practice." He paced a few to the left, sweeping the senators with his breadth of arm's gesture. "I know only that I can tell you the tale of all Brabantio claims--how I drugged, how I charmed, what conjurations I performed to win his daughter."
Brabantio spluttered, rolling eyes and slackjawed mouth forming words his lips had not yet formed the sound with which to pronounce them. Finally, "Such admittance, from this man who claims not to have stolen my daughter! For I know, I know, of powders that seize the eyes and draw them thus--" he pulled his vision to MacLeod with his hand. "And I know of potions that render hearts in satiable and insensible. He has deceived her thus! One dram of coltsfoot and comfrey to blind, another of the dragon's tongue to deceive! I charge you thus, look here, know these things..."
"Then it is you who deceive her and not I, for I know none of thus," MacLeod purred, his eyes wide.
The Duke, so long taxed by foreign wars, and not this new battle brought to the very table of conflict threatening to breach his little patience for the matter, motioned silence from all in the room.
"Brabantio, to 'charge' such things as you allot is no truth in itself; you rely in trivial accusations. Harder, less airy proof is required for such a stance as yours." To the troubled Othello, he added, "How didst thou seize the lady's affections, noble Scot?"
[cut]
"They say you cannot die, and that all men whose ranks you command receive you with the highest pride. And for these reputations and commendations we do charge you to return Northward to Cypress, to take them up in arms and defend those lands that we shall still yet call our own."
The Duke sat down with a sigh. "As for my own thoughts, MacLeod, I do say that you are wise indeed, and of your people, you do hold yourself highest in my sight."
MacLeod bowed uncertainly, his face flushed with praise. "You do me too well in words, my Lord."
[cut, though I imagine they sent him north, with his new wife.]
[Then I started on Act 2, knowing that I was going to frame the whole thing in a sort of past present thing, wherein the thing being played out in real life was going to be the plot of othello as Methos was reading it in RL, and then my head exploded.]
ACT TWO
"I wooed thee with my sword
And won thy love, doing thee injuries."
A Midsummer Night's Dream I I 16-17
Open, Joe's bar, Seacouver:
"The recent poor weather over the Pacific Ocean has led to the destruction of several of the Turkish fleet ships heading for the northern waters. Several planes have been either lost or hopelessly delayed in the struggle to regain lost oceanic waters near the NorthWest border of the States and Alaska. State officials..."
"What are you reading?" Richie clapped a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of intent reverie.
Methos tossed the newspaper on the table and sat back. He watched Richie pull the chair out for Tessa intently, eyes never leaving the boy's face. "Nothing of importance," he muttered.
"But Adam, your eyes were glued to the page," Tessa rang out, her voice sounding bell-like. "I hope we didn't disturb you too much."
Methos managed a rattling laugh. "Nope, not important. How go things in the land of the blissfully married? Speaking of which, where is your husband?"
Tessa let Richie take a seat and order them drinks before sighing. "Oh, Duncan's plane was delayed. One second it was all set to arrive behind us, and the next.." She waved her hand. "I hate these things. I hope nothing has gone terribly wrong." Her beautiful face twisted into one of fear. "I know it's silly to worry, but I can't help it sometimes...
Yeah yeah, there it is.
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