"If your numbers are few, how fare you in battle? How fill you your table?" It was a question Iago could already guess the answer to. Slaves most likely, as the Ottomans had. And Venetians too, in their fashion. Reaping the profits of an elaborate trade network was only a step removed, and no better. The doings of skeksis and humans indeed weren't very different at all.

He certainly could be brash and vicious, in the right moment. For the right people. But he'd often found that placid geniality was a better mode in which to operate. One can't be a good listener if one was too loud. "Only one Conqueror? What strength and skill in battle he must possess to do the conquering for all your kind. We Venetians are conquerors all, in our little ways. We spread such a great effort out to make work light amongst us, and have more time each for counting money and feasting and prayer." Which also, in their little ways, were all part of the conquering.