Salve Venetia, gleanings from Venetian history; vol. I

by F. Marion Crawford

But he was destined to be a soldier. Scarcely had he reached his destination when Patras was threatened by an army of ten or twelve thousand Cypriotes and Frenchmen, horse and foot; so, at least, says Carlo’s grandson the bishop, in not very good Latin. The bishop of Patras turned at once to Zeno and placed under his command the small force of which he could dispose, being about seven hundred riders. With this handful of men, against odds of fifteen to one, Carlo kept the enemy at bay during no less than six months, without losing one man, and so harassed his adversaries that they abandoned the enterprise, made peace, and retired. Yet, as if whatever he did must lead always to more fighting, his success made him an object of envy to many, and especially to a certain Greek knight, named Simon, who had the audacity to accuse him of treachery. Thereupon Zeno challenged his calumniator to single combat, and the day and place of meeting were named. The duel was to be fought in Naples, under the auspices of Queen Johanna, of evil fame. It was in vain that Carlo’s friends besought him to forgive Simon, and his friend the bishop exhausted his eloquence in trying to reconcile the two. The hot-blooded young Venetian preferred to throw up his ecclesiastical benefice; and seeing himself thus free to marry, since he had not yet actually taken orders, he forthwith espoused a noble and rich lady of Clarentia, who was very much in love with him, and whose fortune at once supplied the place of the large income he had forfeited.

He was obliged to leave his bride almost immediately in order to meet his antagonist in Naples, and as the Neapolitan kingdom was distracted by wars he had some difficulty in reaching the city. To his surprise, and probably not much to his satisfaction, the Queen chose to treat the quarrel as something more like a question of law than a point of honour; a regular inquiry took place, Simon was declared to have been wholly in the wrong, and was ordered to pay all the expenses to which Zeno had been put on his account, and Queen Johanna forbade the duel.

His honour being now cleared beyond all possible calumny, he returned to Greece and was at once named governor of a province, though he was not yet twenty-three years of age, and his subsequent career might have been more peaceful than it turned out but for the sudden death of his wife. Her relations, or the Duke of Achaia, promptly cheated him of her dowry, and he once more turned his face towards Venice, a good deal saddened and nearly penniless.

RIO DELLA GUERRA

And now, during the term of his mourning, he seriously thought of bettering his fortunes in some permanent way, by following the example of so many of his countrymen and engaging in trade. As a first step, he made a good marriage with a daughter of the Giustiniani family; soon afterwards he left his native city to establish himself in the East as a merchant, and he spent seven years away from home, partly in the ‘city’ of Tanais, which I take to be the modern Rostov, at the mouth of the Don, and partly in Constantinople.

Now at that time the rightful Emperor Calojohannes, who had been friendly to the Venetians, was kept a close prisoner by his son Andronicus, who had dethroned him, and favoured the Genoese. Calojohannes was shut up in a certain fortress which overhung the sea, and was guarded by a captain who was responsible for him. Andronicus probably did not know, however, that this captain’s wife had in former times yielded to the seductions of Calojohannes, and was still devoted to him. It now occurred to the captive Emperor that she could safely convey letters between him and Zeno, whose father had received many favours at his hands in former years, and who would certainly be willing to help him now.

The ‘little woman,’ as the bishop calls her, succeeded in her dangerous errand, and it is needless to say that the mere suggestion of a perilous enterprise instantly fired Zeno’s imagination. With incredible speed and with absolutely marvellous skill, he won over no less than eight hundred Greek soldiers who promised to obey him implicitly when called upon, and to be secret. The latter obligation was not hard to perform, as they would certainly have lost their heads if they had not observed it.

All being ready for the bold stroke, it only remained to bring the Emperor safely out of prison before attempting a revolution, of the success of which the sanguine Zeno had not the slightest doubt. This was not exactly an easy matter, and Carlo undertook it himself. The Emperor’s bedroom had one window high above the water, from which escape must have been considered impossible since it was not protected by any grating. Beneath this window Zeno came on a dark night by agreement with the captain’s wife, and a rope was let down from the Emperor’s chamber. The rest was child’s play to the athletic young Venetian, and in a few moments he was in the presence of Calojohannes. But he had not counted upon the hesitating character and the soft heart of the man he wished to set free. With many tears the unhappy captive expressed his gratitude to Zeno for risking his life in such an adventure; but two of his sons were in the power of his third son, Andronicus, who would not hesitate to murder them on learning that the Emperor had escaped, and Calojohannes was not willing to sacrifice the children he loved for the sake of a few short years of life on the throne.

Carlo answered that there was no time for weeping and hesitating, and that Calojohannes should have considered these matters sooner; that if he would climb down the rope at once Zeno was ready to do all he had promised, and more also, but if not, Zeno would refuse to have anything to do with the matter again. The Emperor continued to hesitate and to shed tears, and Zeno left him at once.