Tuesday 5 November 2019

The Lords Of The Night

Poul Anderson, Rogue Sword (New York, 1960), PROLOGUE.

Lucas, on the run from an enraged husband in Venice at night:

"...wondered with increasing desperation what to do. Sunrise would trap him as certainly as the men of the Signori di Notte." (p. 11)

Signori di Notte? Lords of the Night? Yes. See here. Previously I read this novel without benefit of the Internet so that such a reference would have remained opaque.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Dang, another detail I don't think I noticed in my previous readings of ROGUE SWORD, "The Lords of the Night." A special Venetian court operating during the night hours and combining the powers of courts and police.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Having anything resembling a real police force was unusual in a European medieval city; probably Venice had both classical and Byzantine influences on its institutional structure.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

My hasty online googling into Venetian history makes me that was the case!

Ad astra! Sean