Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade

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Overview

In the year 1202, tens of thousands of crusaders gather in Venice, preparing to embark for Jerusalem to free the Holy City from Muslim rule. Among them is a lowly vagabond Briton, rescued from damnation by a pious knight who burns with zealous fire for their sacred undertaking. And so they set sail, along with dedicated companions—and with a beautiful, mysterious Arab "princess" whom the vagabond liberates from a brutish merchant. But the divine light guiding their "righteous" campaign soon darkens as the mission sinks ever deeper into catastrophe, disgrace, and moral turpitude—as Christians murder Christians in the Adriatic port city of Zara, tragic events are set in motion that will ...

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Overview

In the year 1202, tens of thousands of crusaders gather in Venice, preparing to embark for Jerusalem to free the Holy City from Muslim rule. Among them is a lowly vagabond Briton, rescued from damnation by a pious knight who burns with zealous fire for their sacred undertaking. And so they set sail, along with dedicated companions—and with a beautiful, mysterious Arab "princess" whom the vagabond liberates from a brutish merchant. But the divine light guiding their "righteous" campaign soon darkens as the mission sinks ever deeper into catastrophe, disgrace, and moral turpitude—as Christians murder Christians in the Adriatic port city of Zara, tragic events are set in motion that will ultimately lead to the shocking and shameful fall of Constantinople.

Impeccably researched and beautifully told, Nicole Galland's Crossed is a stunning tale of the disastrous Fourth Crusade—and of the hopeful, brave, and driven who were caught up in and irrevocably changed by a corrupted cause and a furious battle beyond their comprehension or control.

Editorial Reviews

Booklist
“A tasty fictional stew, mixing elements of twelfth-century culture together skillfully to produce a veritable reading feast . . . .The combination of vicious politics, mysterious doings, betrayals, and double-dealing, added to a leisurely but engaging plot, will keep those pages turning.”
Booklist on Revenge of the Rose
“A tasty fictional stew. . . . A veritable reading feast.”
More Reviews (8) Fewer Reviews
Martha's Vineyard Times
“[A]t once an idiot’s guide to the tangled geopolitical landscape of 13th century and a clear and stern indictment of contemporary events...Thick with delectable historical details.”
Martha's Vineyard Times on CROSSED
“[A]t once an idiot’s guide to the tangled geopolitical landscape of 13th century and a clear and stern indictment of contemporary events...Thick with delectable historical details.”
New York Post
“[A] funny (really!) look at this disastrous Crusade through the eyes of a wacky Welshman, a pious knight and his half-brother and an Arab princess (who isn’t what she seems) they hope to return to her Egyptian home. It’s a raucous road trip set in the 13th century.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“A wallop of a first novel—entertaining and engaging.”
San Francisco Chronicle on The Fool’s Tale
“A wallop of a first novel—entertaining and engaging.”
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
“[A]ttention to detail and humor keeps the novel both exhaustive and hilarious...Nicole Galland is exceptionally well versed in the fine nuances of storytelling and illustrating the combustible nature of mixing religion, commerce and war.”
Publishers Weekly

The unnamed hero of this epic historical adventure, an itinerant musician from Britain, joins the Fourth Crusade in Venice where his fate becomes inextricably linked with those of Gregor of Mainz, a steadfast German knight; Gregor's father-in-law, marquis Boniface of Montferrat, leader of the Crusade; and Jamila of Alexandria, an Arab princess the musician rescues, unaware that she is really a "Jewess" who is trained in the healing arts. Unable to finance the massive undertaking, the Crusaders are continually diverted from their goal-the liberation of Jerusalem. As mercenaries, they first sack the Christian city of Zara and lay siege to Constantinople. The musician, Jamila and the increasingly disillusioned Gregor try to do good, but find themselves thwarted by the villainous Boniface and the tragic inevitability of 13th-century realpolitik. Despite characters that fail to engage fully and dialogue that fails to sell the period, the novel still succeeds in being a true guilty pleasure, a rousing shout-out to those past masters of bestselling historical fiction, Frank Yerby, Samuel Shellabarger and Lawrence Schoonover. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Kirkus Reviews
A holy war is derailed by opportunism and profiteering in this witty chronicle of the Fourth Crusade. Galland (Revenge of the Rose, 2007, etc.) takes as her narrator a wastrel known only as the Briton, who trails an enemy to Venice intending murder followed by suicide-his own. Instead, he finds himself in the camp of Gregor of Mainz, a saintly German knight who is readying an army with Venetian financing for debarkation to the Holy Land. Unexpectedly, the Briton finds an incentive to live: Jamila, a widowed Saracen princess whom he rescues from the Venetian merchant who kidnapped her. He vows to return her to the Middle East, but the crusaders must first earn their war chest by invading Zara, Venice's rival across the Adriatic. Loath to fight their fellow Catholics, a splinter group of knights negotiate a peaceable surrender, but Zara is sacked anyway. The Briton, whose ironic perspective is enough to keep us slogging through 600-plus pages, gains entree as a musician to meetings at which Venetians, prelates, Franks and Germans wrangle over strategy. The army is ordered on another detour, to unseat an imperial usurper in Constantinople. The Venetians expect full reimbursement from the new emperor, Alexius, but a delay in payment forces the army to winter in Constantinople. It turns out that Jamila is Jewish. Her late husband's brother, Samuel, is the patriarch of Constantinople's Jewish community, and he needs a wife. The Briton and Jamila are in love, but she dutifully agrees to marry Samuel. Alexius and other pretenders to the throne are wiped out by the crusaders' former ally, Mourtzouphlos. His accession causes an impasse that will nullify the crusade, with tragic consequences for theEastern Empire and its reluctant Western invaders. The pace drags, but Galland's astute rendering of political intrigue make for an ultimately rewarding long march. Agent: Liz Darhansoff/Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060841805
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 2/5/2008
  • Pages: 672
  • Sales rank: 578,409
  • Product dimensions: 5.30 (w) x 7.90 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

An award-winning screenwriter, Nicole Galland is the author of the novels The Fool's Tale, Revenge of the Rose, and Crossed. She lives on Martha's Vineyard with her husband, actor Billy Meleady.

Read an Excerpt

Crossed
A Tale of the Fourth Crusade

Chapter One

From San Nicolo, that sweltering sandbar of an island off the coast of Venice, rose a strange tent city milling with ten thousand unwashed soldiers and their unwashed squires, whores, cooks, priests, horses, heralds, armorers, and smiths. They called themselves pilgrims, having taken the cross, having sworn to carry out the pope's wishes. This meant they were going to an unknown desert, to wrest an unknown city from its unknown inhabitants.

Their transports and warships, waiting in the lagoon—heavy, strong, capacious, lethal—had been built by the Venetians, would be sailed by the Venetians, and at this moment were being stocked with food and water by the Venetians. In two days, the army and its fleet would finally—finally—set sail, after a season of political and financial delays, to do great good for Christendom.

But before they decamped, this would be the site of a gruesome murder-suicide, of such ferocity men would speak of it in fearful whispers, crossing themselves, for years to come.

At least, that was my plan.

As with so many things in this life, I was mistaken.

I leapt from Barzizza's boat when the water was ankle-deep, trudging angrily through the oily green until I had splashed myself to dry land and the edge of the army camp. Venice was mostly paving stone and water; this was the first time in a month I'd been on living soil. Earth felt comforting under my bare wet feet, but I didn't want comfort—I wanted death, and was panicked at the thought of being cheated of it. I'd learned half a dozen languages, taughtmyself to play music I did not like, and eaten food I could barely stomach, grown my beard and my hair, and woken up every day forcing myself to go on, for three years, to prepare for my exquisite, redemptive death—a death I now feared I'd been robbed of.

I had no weapon, just a spit of iron small enough to fold my hand around: a spike with a hook on one end, stolen from Barzizza's house, some sort of fishing spear. I don't remember how I learned which pavilion was the high commander's or what trick I used to distract the guards at the door, but the trick was fast accomplished; I was still seething as I scrambled inside, I could still hear my heartbeat pulsing in my temples as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

There were only two men in this cool, open space: the army commander himself and a large young knight kneeling to his right, presumably his bodyguard. Both wore tunics decorated with broad gold braids. They were whispering together. Neither was the man I wanted.

"Where are the English?" I shouted.

The two men started, stared at me; the knight lumbered to his feet, grabbing for the dagger in his belt, as the leader responded, in a droll voice, "They are in England, I imagine."

So it was true, what Barzizza had told me; this final trek had been for nothing. A howl of humiliated rage escaped me. Across my mind flashed the journey back to Britain. I would never survive that. My one chance for revenge had been illusory; my intended victim had never even been in reach. With the warped logic of despair and rage, I decided then that I would still forfeit the one life that was yet mine to take: my own.

Both of the men staring at me now were armed. This would be simple, then: I had only to hurl myself upon the leader, and the bodyguard would kill me instantly.

When you know this one is your final heartbeat, time slows for a final savoring of the senses. In less than a blink I noticed more about my surroundings than I had in years: the feel of the woven-grass mats under my feet; the elaborate, bright decorations on the tent walls; the smell of rose water and woolly must that pervaded the pavilion; the commander's aristocratic handsomeness; the likable face of the young man who was about to skewer me. He had both sword and dagger in his belt; I wondered which he would use.

I also noticed, in that flicker, that I was interrupting something significant. Although the knight had been kneeling, there was an informality between them, as if they were kin. The lord looked oddly relieved by my interruption—until I raised the spike above my head and threw myself at him.

The young man was quick for one so large, but he was nowhere near as quick as I was, and I realized that I could accidentally kill the lord. The lord cringed, but he did not move to protect himself, trusting his knight. I myself did not trust his knight, and as my hands descended, I shirked, pulled back a hair, so that the hooked point of the spike just missed the lord's skull and only my knuckles glanced off his bald brow; by then the knight had me, huge left paw grabbing me around the throat, huge right one shoving the dagger point against my liver. So this was it: I was over now, finally and despite everything. Suddenly I was flooded with euphoria, and involuntarily, I grinned at him—my executioner, my liberator. His hair and beard gave his face a golden glow. I literally loved him more than my own life.

Our eyes locked; all my weight rested in his clenched left fist around my throat, the knife at my gut, as I waited for him to plunge it in.

He didn't.

He yanked the blade away and shoved me hard to the matted ground, where I choked on a mouthful of straw.

Something had gone horribly wrong: I wasn't dead.

The knight said something in a garbled language to the lord, who answered similarly. There was a brief debate, which to this day I cannot remember understanding. Listening in stunned outrage, I gradually recognized it as a Lombard dialect I was familiar with; at that point they could have been speaking in my native tongue and it would have sounded like so much nonsense. I was removed from my own skin, too dazed to understand what was happening.

Crossed
A Tale of the Fourth Crusade. Copyright © by Nicole Galland. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Customer Reviews

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 6, 2008

    A very fun read

    I found this novel quite enjoyable, with a fast moving, exciting plot and sparkling characters. Galland is a notch above most historical fiction writers, who spend time with the same hackneyed plots and unbelievable endings. Galland brings an intelligence to historical fiction, and lots of bawdy humor as well. The story of the 4th crusade is far more entertaining than I remembered--full of plotting, intrigues, deception and greed. It defiantly shows that Galland re-traced the whole route, as this makes the scenes come alive. I usually don't read fiction, but liked that I could learn so much about a historical event while enjoying myself. I found this book a lively read, and would recommend it.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted July 6, 2011

    Entertaining and informative!

    I love reading Historical fiction and this book did not dissapoint. I learned a lot about the Fourth Crusade, and enjoyed the characters and plots that Galland invented. I was entertained and informed.

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  • Posted January 26, 2011

    This book has made me angry.

    I like to read historical fiction because I believe that it often gives me more depth, more understand and additional details regarding historical events. I bought this book because I have long been interested in the Crusades. The Fourth Crusade was a particularly tragic and a highly political series of events that I thought I would enjoy learning more about.

    The book follows the generally well understood core events of the Fourth Crusade as advertised. My anger comes from the dialog and fleshing out of those events. I did not think I was about to receive a long, long lecture of the superiority of basic Jewish beliefs. Indeed, basic Jewish beliefs were not in any way central to what happened in history around these events. Instead of being illuminated, enlightened or educated about these events, I felt I was being patronized and proselytized into the superiority of Jewish thought. Yes, the Fourth Crusade was and is a case study in the dangers of conflicting agendas, values and pressures. No, it was not the basic moral degeneracy of Catholic thinking when compared to Jewish thinking.

    This author had a choice between going deeper or painting the events as a bunch of shallow, silly Catholics running wild in spite of all the good Jewish advice which was handy. She chose the easier path. For her.

    To me this book is a big, patronizing miss.

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  • Posted December 9, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    entertaining historical thriller

    The nomadic musician left Britain to tour the continent, but when he reaches Venice he decides to join the Fourth Crusade. There he meets resolute believer Germanic knight Gregor of Mainz, the intrepid warrior¿s father-in-law the leader of the crusade Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, and in disguise as an Arab Princess Jewish healer Jamila of Alexandria, whom the wanderer rescues. However, a lack of capital slows down the crusaders from achieving their goal to retake Jerusalem. To keep their quest alive, they first sack the Christian city of Zara and surround Constantinople. As the musician, Jamila and Gregor try to perform good deeds the crusaders have other desires enflamed by Boniface, who plans to use his expendable force to gain increased power and wealth. --- CROSSED is entertaining historical thriller that looks deep at the way leaders manipulate their supporters for avaricious reasons. The musician without a name and Jamila are developed enough to bring the thirteenth century to life. On the other hand Boniface seems so one dimensional and a cruel nasty sort, one must wonder how he lined up support. Gregor steals the show as he changes from idealistic zealot to disillusioned realist. --- Harriet Klausner

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 18, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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    Posted December 5, 2008

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 10, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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