Items related to The Lion of St. Mark (The Venetians, Book 1)
The first book in an adventurous trilogy
The House of Ziani and the House of Soranzo had been enemies ever since their grandfathers' joint business venture had collapsed more than forty years before. Then, they had chosen not to resolve their differences in the courts. Instead, they each sought to prevail in their rivalry by investing, trading, and manipulating as each battled to dominate and ultimately ruin the other. The fathers passed this legacy on to their sons....
A sleek Venetian fleet plows through stormy November seas, bearing reinforcements to help defend the fabled city of Constantinople against an impending siege by Ottoman Turks. Rescue plans are jeopardized, however, when an age-old bitter conflict flares between two Venetian nobles onboard: The brave naval Captain Giovanni Soranzo thirsts for revenge against the proud marine officer, Antonio Ziani. These two men will survive the sacking of Constantinople and will find their lives bound together in a heroic struggle to save their beloved city.
The year is 1452, and while Italy glories in the Renaissance, Venice is on the verge of an epic war of survival against the powerful Turks, who are intent on conquering Venetian lands, possessing her riches, and utterly destroying the city forever. Now these two patricians, both patriots, must temper their hostility toward each other with loyalty to their beloved republic. Fighting each other when they can, fighting together when they must, Ziani and Soranzo risk their lives to defend Venice---and their honor.
Much more than a war story, this is a tale of Venice, when she was the greatest city on earth and the world's only republic. It is a tale, too, of her people, whose fortunes and very lives were dependent on her success. Admired, envied, hated, and feared, but with her vast wealth and vaunted navy, always respected, she is La Serenissima---the Serene Republic of Venice---and this is her story.
Thomas Quinn combines his expertise on Venice with explosive, page-turning action to give readers an epic novel of struggle and survival.
The House of Ziani and the House of Soranzo had been enemies ever since their grandfathers' joint business venture had collapsed more than forty years before. Then, they had chosen not to resolve their differences in the courts. Instead, they each sought to prevail in their rivalry by investing, trading, and manipulating as each battled to dominate and ultimately ruin the other. The fathers passed this legacy on to their sons....
A sleek Venetian fleet plows through stormy November seas, bearing reinforcements to help defend the fabled city of Constantinople against an impending siege by Ottoman Turks. Rescue plans are jeopardized, however, when an age-old bitter conflict flares between two Venetian nobles onboard: The brave naval Captain Giovanni Soranzo thirsts for revenge against the proud marine officer, Antonio Ziani. These two men will survive the sacking of Constantinople and will find their lives bound together in a heroic struggle to save their beloved city.
The year is 1452, and while Italy glories in the Renaissance, Venice is on the verge of an epic war of survival against the powerful Turks, who are intent on conquering Venetian lands, possessing her riches, and utterly destroying the city forever. Now these two patricians, both patriots, must temper their hostility toward each other with loyalty to their beloved republic. Fighting each other when they can, fighting together when they must, Ziani and Soranzo risk their lives to defend Venice---and their honor.
Much more than a war story, this is a tale of Venice, when she was the greatest city on earth and the world's only republic. It is a tale, too, of her people, whose fortunes and very lives were dependent on her success. Admired, envied, hated, and feared, but with her vast wealth and vaunted navy, always respected, she is La Serenissima---the Serene Republic of Venice---and this is her story.
Thomas Quinn combines his expertise on Venice with explosive, page-turning action to give readers an epic novel of struggle and survival.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
THOMAS QUINN was born in Newark, New Jersey, and is a graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations. After graduating, he worked at Procter & Gamble for seventeen years in various sales and marketing positions, including three years in the United Kingdom. Since then, he has been president of a division of the Irish Dairy Board and vice president of sales for Warner-Lambert Consumer Healthcare and for CIGNA Healthcare. He is currently executive vice president of Swiss Medica, the maker of several innovative over-the-counter medicines.
He resides in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Cathie. They have two grown children, Sara and Tom, and two grandchildren. The Lion of St. Mark is his first novel.
The Lion of St. Mark
1The Relief Fleet1452
The sudden plunge into the cold gray sea had filled the youth with such terror he thought his heart would burst from his heaving chest.Now, minutes later, he furiously worked his arms and legs as he struggled to ride up and over another mountainous wave. As he crested, needles of spray ripped from the sea by the howling wind stung his beardless face. Bone-penetrating cold was already sapping his strength--he had been in the frigid water for too long. As he struggled to ponder his fate, the cruel specter of death seeped into his thoughts, pushing any remaining hope of rescue from his mind.Could it be? he thought. Have they really left me behind? Surely, someone must have seen me; heard my cries for help. He yearned for his two older brothers, Giovanni and Pietro, out there somewhere in the dark, beyond his reach. But too much time had passed since the lone flickering yellow lantern on the stern of the last ship had faded into the misty blackness. As the ships had passed him, one after another, no one on board could hear his pitiful cries for help as he desperately splashed his arms in the water, shouting vainly against the raging storm. Young Marco Soranzo was alone.How wild the sea is, he thought, as another relentless wave crashed into his face, burning his nose and throat with its briny taste. Back in Venice, where the shimmering waters of the Grand Canal gently kissed the verystones of his family's stately palazzo, he had never imagined the sea could be so violent. Again, he strained his burning eyes to see a ship's lantern through the mist. He tried with all his might to will one to appear but none did. Marco no longer suffered from the seasickness that had driven him to disobey orders and sneak up onto the slippery deck, where the monstrous wave had surprised him as he was vomiting over the rail. Now, as he fought to stay afloat, his stomach was filled with the nausea of fear.He had become no more than a piece of debris, gripped by the sea in all her power. He struggled to slowly turn in place as he surveyed his watery domain. Towering waves rolled by in the darkness, silhouetted against the misty sky, like grim executioners searching for their next victim. He thought about what it would be like to drown. He shuddered as he thought about being engulfed in a cold, black, silent coffin of water, with his heart still beating, while his mind struggled to deny the inevitability of his fate.But where will I go when I am dead? Is the church right about salvation? Is there really life beyond death? Or is it a cruel fairy tale? What if there is nothing?Suddenly, another wall of water crashed over him, this time driving him under with its terrible force. He instinctively fought his way back to the frothy surface as he coughed salt water from his lungs, gasping for a life-sustaining breath of air. He had reached the limit of his human endurance. He could not take any more pounding."I will choose my own time!" he vainly screamed at the relentless sea.Finally, with his eyes and lungs burning and his heart broken, too cold to go on treading water, his exhausted body surrendered to the irresistible force of nature, dooming his still defiant mind, imprisoned within. As he recalled a few words of a simple prayer his mother had taught him, he slowly filled his lungs with one last deep draught of moist air. Then, with the roaring storm as his only requiem, in the final conscious act of his short life, young Marco Soranzo kicked his feet high above the waves and dove down into the dark, peaceful, eternal deep
Twice, they had searched the ship but they could find no trace of him. Coarse sailors and hardened marines vainly shouted Marco's name as though they were calling a lost dog. They stared into the familiar face of each shipmate they encountered, eerily illuminated by the dim lamplight. Some prayed aloud for Marco to appear while they silently cursed the bad luck that would surely befall the ship if he did not. Everyone knew it was a bad omen to lose a man overboard.Thirty-one-year-old Antonio Ziani, captain of the ship's company of marines, was more concerned than anyone about the missing man. Marco Soranzo was one of his men--and just fifteen years old, with his whole life ahead of him. He had warned the seasick lad, several times, to remain below deck, sheltered from seas that were so heavy, even the surefooted sailors were forced to tether themselves to the rigging and railings whenever they were topside. One marine said he had seen the boy vomiting again, facedown in the bilge. Deathly ill, he had probably staggered up on deck for some fresh air to ease his misery and had lost his balance. The cause did not matter--he was lost at sea and nothing could bring him back now."We cannot take time to go back and search for young Soranzo," shouted Vice-Captain of the Gulf Gabriele Trevisan, above the roar of the storm. "Even if we could, we would never find him in this accursed weather. He is surely drowned by now."As commander of the five Venetian ships, plowing their way through the Aegean Sea to the Venetian port city and naval base at Negropont, Trevisan was under strict orders to make all haste. That is why they were running with full sails--a dangerous maneuver in such a storm.The light from the three-foot-tall iron sea lamp, swinging on the mast, made the saltwater droplets in Antonio's beard sparkle like stars in the night sky."I know, Gabriele," he replied, stoically, through the roaring wind and sheets of stinging spray that swept the deck.At times like this he regretted the lonely responsibility of command. He had never liked visiting the families of men lost in battle or drowned at sea. This time, however, the task would be even more distasteful. Sailing in the ship astern of his were Captain Giovanni Soranzo and Lieutenant Pietro Soranzo. Antonio could only imagine their bitter reaction when they learned that Marco had perished. Worse, how would they react when they realized that they had sailed past the very spot where Marco had probably been swimming for his life, leaving him to drown? He wondered how he would react if he were told his own younger brother, Giorgio, had been lost at sea right under his nose?
The big merchant ship lazily strained at her anchor chain; barely rolling in the shimmering gray water. It feels good to be dry for the first time in days, thought Antonio, as he ran his fingers through his beard. Like many Venetians, his light brown hair and fair skin contrasted markedly with that of southern Italians from Rome and Naples.He was a patrician, a nobile--a member of the ruling class of the Serene Republic of Venice--La Serenissima. Like his father, and all his fathers before him, Antonio's pride in his family's heritage was matched only by his devotion to the Republic. Every thought and action was driven by values purposefully and carefully instilled in him by his forebears. He was bound by honor, law, and custom to serve in any capacity the Republic deemed fit. If he refused, he could be fined, have his property confiscated, or even suffer imprisonment.More than any other country in the world, Venice had fused rank and privilege with responsibility. The day he had first heard about the mission to go to Constantinople's defense he had volunteered for the dangerous undertaking. Only a coward, he reasoned, would wait to be ordered to go. Of the seven hundred Venetians on board the five ships, more than one hundred were nobili.The voyage from Venice had been miserable in the rough, raw November weather. As he gazed across the tranquil harbor in the dim twilight, he fixed his steel-gray eyes upon Negropont's massive crenellated city walls. He welcomed the steady deck under his feet, afforded by the sheltered anchorage and the passing of the storm, as he studied the battlements. He wondered how Constantinople's compared to them.Nagging thoughts of young Soranzo haunted him. He had not caused his loss, but the sense of responsibility he felt, as the boy's commanding officer, weighed heavily on him. Marco had not died a glorious death in battle--the ideal of every Venetian who went to war. Instead, his life had been wasted. Soon Antonio would have to face Marco's older brothers and tell them the tragic news. Most men would accept the boy's fate as the fortunes of war, but his gut told him that they would not. Captain Giovanni Soranzo was proud, uncompromising, and vindictive--the very qualities that, in war, made him such a formidable foe. Pietro, his other brother, he imagined would also be made of the same tough stock.The House of Ziani and the House of Soranzo had been enemies ever since their grandfathers' joint business venture had collapsed into mutual recriminations more than forty years before. Then they had chosen not to resolve their differences in the courts. That only would have resulted in unacceptable compromise. Instead, they each sought to prevail in their rivalry by investing, trading, and manipulating as each battled to dominate and ultimately ruin the other. The fathers passed this legacy on to their sons.The fleet had reached Negropont; on the island of Euboea, in under three weeks--faster than expected. Located between Athens and Constantinople, it would be their only stop on the voyage. Tomorrow, after reprovisioningwith food and fresh water, they would quickly depart on the final leg of their journey with the morning tide. Vice Captain Trevisan was not even going to take time to repair the damage caused by the storm.As daylight faded, Antonio gazed across the harbor at the four other ships riding on their anchor chains with their crimson and gold flags hanging limply from the masts, like shrouds in the still evening air. He looked down at his feet and thought about the series of events that had placed him, at that moment, on the little square of wooden deck so far away from the comforts of the Ca' Ziani, his family's palazzo back in Venice.Two years earlier the Byzantine emperor, John VIII, had died before he could convince his people that Constantinople, virtually all that remained of his Byzantine Empire, could not survive without support from the West. The West's resolve to honor an agreement it had solemnly made to help defend the city, in return for accepting Roman Church doctrine, died with him. His son, Emperor Constantine XI, was unable to improve the situation. Constantinople was now more vulnerable than she had been at any time since 1204. Then, crusaders on the way to the Holy Land, led by the blind doge of Venice, wily, old Enrico Dandolo, had sacked the city in a shameless display of greed that would forever stain the Republic's honor. But now, thought Antonio, Venice would redeem her honor and atone for her past sins by helping to defend the city.As damaging as John's death had been to the Byzantine cause, a second death was far worse. The Ottoman Turkish sultan, Murad II, had died just after John VIII. With him died any hope of peace between the Byzantines and the Turks. His son, Muhammed II, had sworn to take the city. Just twenty-one, he was known to his subjects as Hunkar--"Drinker of Blood." On his accession, he immediately built a massive fortress, called "Cut-Throat Castle," on the western shore of the Bosphorus, just north of Constantinople.Its powerful guns allowed him to stop and tax all shipping into and from the Black Sea--a major source of commercial traffic for the West. Venetian merchants with considerable trading interests there were outraged at his piracy.Antonio had been present in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the Great Council Chamber, when news exploded into the room that the sultan had seized a Venetian ship that had tried to run his gauntlet without paying the tax. The sultan had beheaded the crew and impaled the brash captain alive on a wooden stake as a warning to others not to evade the toll. Antonio knew and admired the late Captain Rizzo and was sickened and enraged, as many Venetians were, at the sultan's wanton barbarity.A motion to abandon the Byzantine capital to her fate was quickly defeatedin the Pregadi, Venice's senate, by a vote of seventy-four to seven. Instead, Venice would send help. Wise men said Venice had more to lose by walking away from her responsibilities than by defending her trading interests. They reasoned that if the sultan perceived any weakness in the hearts of the Venetians, it would only be a matter of time until the Republic's own Greek possessions would fall to the Turks and their valuable monopoly on trade to the spice-rich East would be irreparably damaged. Now the time had come to pay for the privilege of being born a Venetian noble. Antonio would fight for his country and his fortune.Vice-Captain Trevisan's orders were to help the city's defenders, without antagonizing the sultan further. It seemed to Antonio that these instructions conflicted. There were about seven hundred sailors and marines on board the five vessels, carrying a precious cargo of arms, armor, and money to fund bravery or bribery as the situation called for. Including those already in the city, there would be about a thousand Venetian defenders altogether, once their small fleet arrived. The sultan would quickly understand the Republic's intentions. How could one thousand armed Venetians not antagonize the sultan? He had just impaled one Venetian alive just for evading his damned toll!Trevisan emerged from the doorway under the fighting castle at the stern."I have sent word to all the officers to come aboard for a council of war. Before they arrive there is something I want to discuss with you."He looked hard into Antonio's eyes. "It was my fault, not yours, that young Soranzo was drowned. I made the decision to not turn back and search for him. Leave it to me to break the news to the boy's brothers.""I appreciate your intentions, Gabriele, but I still feel partly responsible. I failed to ensure that he remained safely below deck where he belonged.""Why let this unfortunate event cause trouble between you and Captain Soranzo? Marco was the only one who disregarded your orders and went up on deck." Trevisan smiled ironically. "Many of us will die before this is all over. In the end, the loss of one marine, though it seems important now, will not matter. And if the Soranzos both survive, time will lessen their grief as it does for all those who experience such a loss.""Time does repair one's grief, but they will be at the peak of their anguish at the very time that we all must think of nothing but accomplishing our mission. The tragic news may divert their attention from what is most important.""I know there has been bad blood between your families in the past, butnow we must think of nothing but saving Constantinople. To this end, I have no doubt that they will do their duty as you will do yours."Trevisan placed his hand firmly on Antonio's shoulder."I am fortunate to have such an honorable man to command my marines.""To deserve that honor you speak of, I must do my duty and be the one to inform them, as distasteful as it will be.""Very well, then. As you wish, I will leave it to you."He had served with Vice-Captain Trevisan two years before, when they were sent to destroy a nest of Albanian pirates, near Corfu, but it was his position as a ...
1The Relief Fleet1452
The sudden plunge into the cold gray sea had filled the youth with such terror he thought his heart would burst from his heaving chest.Now, minutes later, he furiously worked his arms and legs as he struggled to ride up and over another mountainous wave. As he crested, needles of spray ripped from the sea by the howling wind stung his beardless face. Bone-penetrating cold was already sapping his strength--he had been in the frigid water for too long. As he struggled to ponder his fate, the cruel specter of death seeped into his thoughts, pushing any remaining hope of rescue from his mind.Could it be? he thought. Have they really left me behind? Surely, someone must have seen me; heard my cries for help. He yearned for his two older brothers, Giovanni and Pietro, out there somewhere in the dark, beyond his reach. But too much time had passed since the lone flickering yellow lantern on the stern of the last ship had faded into the misty blackness. As the ships had passed him, one after another, no one on board could hear his pitiful cries for help as he desperately splashed his arms in the water, shouting vainly against the raging storm. Young Marco Soranzo was alone.How wild the sea is, he thought, as another relentless wave crashed into his face, burning his nose and throat with its briny taste. Back in Venice, where the shimmering waters of the Grand Canal gently kissed the verystones of his family's stately palazzo, he had never imagined the sea could be so violent. Again, he strained his burning eyes to see a ship's lantern through the mist. He tried with all his might to will one to appear but none did. Marco no longer suffered from the seasickness that had driven him to disobey orders and sneak up onto the slippery deck, where the monstrous wave had surprised him as he was vomiting over the rail. Now, as he fought to stay afloat, his stomach was filled with the nausea of fear.He had become no more than a piece of debris, gripped by the sea in all her power. He struggled to slowly turn in place as he surveyed his watery domain. Towering waves rolled by in the darkness, silhouetted against the misty sky, like grim executioners searching for their next victim. He thought about what it would be like to drown. He shuddered as he thought about being engulfed in a cold, black, silent coffin of water, with his heart still beating, while his mind struggled to deny the inevitability of his fate.But where will I go when I am dead? Is the church right about salvation? Is there really life beyond death? Or is it a cruel fairy tale? What if there is nothing?Suddenly, another wall of water crashed over him, this time driving him under with its terrible force. He instinctively fought his way back to the frothy surface as he coughed salt water from his lungs, gasping for a life-sustaining breath of air. He had reached the limit of his human endurance. He could not take any more pounding."I will choose my own time!" he vainly screamed at the relentless sea.Finally, with his eyes and lungs burning and his heart broken, too cold to go on treading water, his exhausted body surrendered to the irresistible force of nature, dooming his still defiant mind, imprisoned within. As he recalled a few words of a simple prayer his mother had taught him, he slowly filled his lungs with one last deep draught of moist air. Then, with the roaring storm as his only requiem, in the final conscious act of his short life, young Marco Soranzo kicked his feet high above the waves and dove down into the dark, peaceful, eternal deep
Twice, they had searched the ship but they could find no trace of him. Coarse sailors and hardened marines vainly shouted Marco's name as though they were calling a lost dog. They stared into the familiar face of each shipmate they encountered, eerily illuminated by the dim lamplight. Some prayed aloud for Marco to appear while they silently cursed the bad luck that would surely befall the ship if he did not. Everyone knew it was a bad omen to lose a man overboard.Thirty-one-year-old Antonio Ziani, captain of the ship's company of marines, was more concerned than anyone about the missing man. Marco Soranzo was one of his men--and just fifteen years old, with his whole life ahead of him. He had warned the seasick lad, several times, to remain below deck, sheltered from seas that were so heavy, even the surefooted sailors were forced to tether themselves to the rigging and railings whenever they were topside. One marine said he had seen the boy vomiting again, facedown in the bilge. Deathly ill, he had probably staggered up on deck for some fresh air to ease his misery and had lost his balance. The cause did not matter--he was lost at sea and nothing could bring him back now."We cannot take time to go back and search for young Soranzo," shouted Vice-Captain of the Gulf Gabriele Trevisan, above the roar of the storm. "Even if we could, we would never find him in this accursed weather. He is surely drowned by now."As commander of the five Venetian ships, plowing their way through the Aegean Sea to the Venetian port city and naval base at Negropont, Trevisan was under strict orders to make all haste. That is why they were running with full sails--a dangerous maneuver in such a storm.The light from the three-foot-tall iron sea lamp, swinging on the mast, made the saltwater droplets in Antonio's beard sparkle like stars in the night sky."I know, Gabriele," he replied, stoically, through the roaring wind and sheets of stinging spray that swept the deck.At times like this he regretted the lonely responsibility of command. He had never liked visiting the families of men lost in battle or drowned at sea. This time, however, the task would be even more distasteful. Sailing in the ship astern of his were Captain Giovanni Soranzo and Lieutenant Pietro Soranzo. Antonio could only imagine their bitter reaction when they learned that Marco had perished. Worse, how would they react when they realized that they had sailed past the very spot where Marco had probably been swimming for his life, leaving him to drown? He wondered how he would react if he were told his own younger brother, Giorgio, had been lost at sea right under his nose?
The big merchant ship lazily strained at her anchor chain; barely rolling in the shimmering gray water. It feels good to be dry for the first time in days, thought Antonio, as he ran his fingers through his beard. Like many Venetians, his light brown hair and fair skin contrasted markedly with that of southern Italians from Rome and Naples.He was a patrician, a nobile--a member of the ruling class of the Serene Republic of Venice--La Serenissima. Like his father, and all his fathers before him, Antonio's pride in his family's heritage was matched only by his devotion to the Republic. Every thought and action was driven by values purposefully and carefully instilled in him by his forebears. He was bound by honor, law, and custom to serve in any capacity the Republic deemed fit. If he refused, he could be fined, have his property confiscated, or even suffer imprisonment.More than any other country in the world, Venice had fused rank and privilege with responsibility. The day he had first heard about the mission to go to Constantinople's defense he had volunteered for the dangerous undertaking. Only a coward, he reasoned, would wait to be ordered to go. Of the seven hundred Venetians on board the five ships, more than one hundred were nobili.The voyage from Venice had been miserable in the rough, raw November weather. As he gazed across the tranquil harbor in the dim twilight, he fixed his steel-gray eyes upon Negropont's massive crenellated city walls. He welcomed the steady deck under his feet, afforded by the sheltered anchorage and the passing of the storm, as he studied the battlements. He wondered how Constantinople's compared to them.Nagging thoughts of young Soranzo haunted him. He had not caused his loss, but the sense of responsibility he felt, as the boy's commanding officer, weighed heavily on him. Marco had not died a glorious death in battle--the ideal of every Venetian who went to war. Instead, his life had been wasted. Soon Antonio would have to face Marco's older brothers and tell them the tragic news. Most men would accept the boy's fate as the fortunes of war, but his gut told him that they would not. Captain Giovanni Soranzo was proud, uncompromising, and vindictive--the very qualities that, in war, made him such a formidable foe. Pietro, his other brother, he imagined would also be made of the same tough stock.The House of Ziani and the House of Soranzo had been enemies ever since their grandfathers' joint business venture had collapsed into mutual recriminations more than forty years before. Then they had chosen not to resolve their differences in the courts. That only would have resulted in unacceptable compromise. Instead, they each sought to prevail in their rivalry by investing, trading, and manipulating as each battled to dominate and ultimately ruin the other. The fathers passed this legacy on to their sons.The fleet had reached Negropont; on the island of Euboea, in under three weeks--faster than expected. Located between Athens and Constantinople, it would be their only stop on the voyage. Tomorrow, after reprovisioningwith food and fresh water, they would quickly depart on the final leg of their journey with the morning tide. Vice Captain Trevisan was not even going to take time to repair the damage caused by the storm.As daylight faded, Antonio gazed across the harbor at the four other ships riding on their anchor chains with their crimson and gold flags hanging limply from the masts, like shrouds in the still evening air. He looked down at his feet and thought about the series of events that had placed him, at that moment, on the little square of wooden deck so far away from the comforts of the Ca' Ziani, his family's palazzo back in Venice.Two years earlier the Byzantine emperor, John VIII, had died before he could convince his people that Constantinople, virtually all that remained of his Byzantine Empire, could not survive without support from the West. The West's resolve to honor an agreement it had solemnly made to help defend the city, in return for accepting Roman Church doctrine, died with him. His son, Emperor Constantine XI, was unable to improve the situation. Constantinople was now more vulnerable than she had been at any time since 1204. Then, crusaders on the way to the Holy Land, led by the blind doge of Venice, wily, old Enrico Dandolo, had sacked the city in a shameless display of greed that would forever stain the Republic's honor. But now, thought Antonio, Venice would redeem her honor and atone for her past sins by helping to defend the city.As damaging as John's death had been to the Byzantine cause, a second death was far worse. The Ottoman Turkish sultan, Murad II, had died just after John VIII. With him died any hope of peace between the Byzantines and the Turks. His son, Muhammed II, had sworn to take the city. Just twenty-one, he was known to his subjects as Hunkar--"Drinker of Blood." On his accession, he immediately built a massive fortress, called "Cut-Throat Castle," on the western shore of the Bosphorus, just north of Constantinople.Its powerful guns allowed him to stop and tax all shipping into and from the Black Sea--a major source of commercial traffic for the West. Venetian merchants with considerable trading interests there were outraged at his piracy.Antonio had been present in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the Great Council Chamber, when news exploded into the room that the sultan had seized a Venetian ship that had tried to run his gauntlet without paying the tax. The sultan had beheaded the crew and impaled the brash captain alive on a wooden stake as a warning to others not to evade the toll. Antonio knew and admired the late Captain Rizzo and was sickened and enraged, as many Venetians were, at the sultan's wanton barbarity.A motion to abandon the Byzantine capital to her fate was quickly defeatedin the Pregadi, Venice's senate, by a vote of seventy-four to seven. Instead, Venice would send help. Wise men said Venice had more to lose by walking away from her responsibilities than by defending her trading interests. They reasoned that if the sultan perceived any weakness in the hearts of the Venetians, it would only be a matter of time until the Republic's own Greek possessions would fall to the Turks and their valuable monopoly on trade to the spice-rich East would be irreparably damaged. Now the time had come to pay for the privilege of being born a Venetian noble. Antonio would fight for his country and his fortune.Vice-Captain Trevisan's orders were to help the city's defenders, without antagonizing the sultan further. It seemed to Antonio that these instructions conflicted. There were about seven hundred sailors and marines on board the five vessels, carrying a precious cargo of arms, armor, and money to fund bravery or bribery as the situation called for. Including those already in the city, there would be about a thousand Venetian defenders altogether, once their small fleet arrived. The sultan would quickly understand the Republic's intentions. How could one thousand armed Venetians not antagonize the sultan? He had just impaled one Venetian alive just for evading his damned toll!Trevisan emerged from the doorway under the fighting castle at the stern."I have sent word to all the officers to come aboard for a council of war. Before they arrive there is something I want to discuss with you."He looked hard into Antonio's eyes. "It was my fault, not yours, that young Soranzo was drowned. I made the decision to not turn back and search for him. Leave it to me to break the news to the boy's brothers.""I appreciate your intentions, Gabriele, but I still feel partly responsible. I failed to ensure that he remained safely below deck where he belonged.""Why let this unfortunate event cause trouble between you and Captain Soranzo? Marco was the only one who disregarded your orders and went up on deck." Trevisan smiled ironically. "Many of us will die before this is all over. In the end, the loss of one marine, though it seems important now, will not matter. And if the Soranzos both survive, time will lessen their grief as it does for all those who experience such a loss.""Time does repair one's grief, but they will be at the peak of their anguish at the very time that we all must think of nothing but accomplishing our mission. The tragic news may divert their attention from what is most important.""I know there has been bad blood between your families in the past, butnow we must think of nothing but saving Constantinople. To this end, I have no doubt that they will do their duty as you will do yours."Trevisan placed his hand firmly on Antonio's shoulder."I am fortunate to have such an honorable man to command my marines.""To deserve that honor you speak of, I must do my duty and be the one to inform them, as distasteful as it will be.""Very well, then. As you wish, I will leave it to you."He had served with Vice-Captain Trevisan two years before, when they were sent to destroy a nest of Albanian pirates, near Corfu, but it was his position as a ...
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- PublisherThomas Dunne Books
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 0312319088
- ISBN 13 9780312319083
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages336
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: NEW CONDITION. Dust Jacket Condition: NEW DUST JACKET. First Edition, First Printing. //NO REMAINDER MARK//NO PREVIOUS OWNER MARKS OF ANY KIND (no names or inscriptions, no bookplate, no underlining, etc) //NOT PRICECLIPPED// NEW MYLAR COVER// the author has also provided a date (2005) in addition to his signature. There is no inscription, just the signature and date. .SIGNED AND DATED BY THE A. Seller Inventory # 0022807
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US$ 55.00
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THE LION OF ST. MARK (THE VENETI
Published by
Thomas Dunne Books
(2005)
ISBN 10: 0312319088
ISBN 13: 9780312319083
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Hardcover
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Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 1.37. Seller Inventory # Q-0312319088
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US$ 61.68
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