The Fourth Crusaders besieged and entered Contstaninople in 1203;
they enthroned a puppet who stalled when he found that he was unable to pay them;
in January, 1204, Alexius, the deposed Emperor's son-in-law, seized the palace, then resisted the Crusaders for three months;
when Alexius fled, the Crusaders plundered the city, leaving "'...a broken shell.'" (p. 93);
the Eyrie will hijack wealth that the Crusaders would have stolen;
Havig is told that he will scout first and that those who lose their wealth will be compensated and protected;
an airplane takes Havig from the Eyrie in North America to the radioactive ruins of Istanbul;
in spring, 1195, he enters Constantinople with forged documents and gold pieces as a Scandinavian Catholic pilgrim and finds a room in a good inn;
before joining the Eyrie, he had visited Constantinople in 1050.
Anderson seamlessly blends fiction with history.
See There Was Time.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One thing I think Anderson should have mentioned was how the Byzantines, alas, perpetrated an appalling massacre of Venetians living in their Empire in the early 1180's. This atrocity lay behind the Venetians diverting and egging on of the Fourth Crusade to attack and sack Constantinople. Let me say at once that what the Byzantines had done some 20 years before did not in the least justify the Venetians own crime, but it explains why they were so vengeful.
Sean
The Venetians had a well-deserved reputation for never forgetting a grudge.
Incidentally, the Eyrie has terrible organizational problems. It should have occurred to someone that it was virtually impossible to prevent someone like Havig from -checking- on what they said. Never lie to someone who can check your claims.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I agree with what you said about the Venetians! The Republic was hard, grasping, and frequently ruthless--meaning all their neighbors disliked it. Qualities we see in Anderson's novel ROGUE SWORD. But that did not justify the Byzantines massacring so many Venetians--expulsion would have been better.
And, once you pointed it out, you made a good point about the Eyrie. Which means Caleb Wallis should have followed a policy of strictly saying the truth to people like Jack Havig.
Sean
Yup. Total honesty is impossible, but from a strictly pragmatic point of view, you should tell the truth as a general policy and only break the rule for good, considered reasons -- and keeping the long-term consequences in mind.
Frederick the Great once remarked that a sovereign should only break promises and violate treaties if there was some immense reward within reach for doing so, and in any event only once or twice in a long reign.
He pointed out that if you did it all the time, you'd become an impossible nuisance and/or threat to all your neighbors, and they'd gang up to destroy you.
Yup. Total honesty is impossible, but from a strictly pragmatic point of view, you should tell the truth as a general policy and only break the rule for good, considered reasons -- and keeping the long-term consequences in mind.
Frederick the Great once remarked that a sovereign should only break promises and violate treaties if there was some immense reward within reach for doing so, and in any event only once or twice in a long reign.
He pointed out that if you did it all the time, you'd become an impossible nuisance and/or threat to all your neighbors, and they'd gang up to destroy you.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
And Frederick the Great found out the HARD way that even breaking a solemnly agreed to treaty only ONCE could be very dangerous. His grabbing of Silesia from Maria Theresa and the Habsburg Empire after the death of Charles VI led to many years of war which nearly destroyed Prussia. Not only were the Habsburg Empire his enemy but so was Russia. Despite many defeats the Austrians and the implacable Empress Elizabeth of Russia came very close to crushing Frederick II in the Seven Years War. Only the accident of Empress Elizabeth dying at the very moment Frederick was at almost his last gasp saved him!
Sean
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