Plot Pivot

I'm afraid I'm still waffling around, but the basic plot line is that a minor German nobleman mortgages his property to go on crusade but unable to raise enough funds, so he marries a merchant's daughter, though he suspects the merchant is a Jew, and uses her dowry to finance the journey. The persecution of the Jews in Germany during the first crusade killed many and forced others to convert, so this is possible.

It is an inauspicious beginning to the relationship, as she is willful and not eager to be her father's pawn, and her new spouse is not interested in her other than producing an heir before leaving.

What happens? I don't know yet. I'm not even sure if the lovely couple will actually get together at the end. At one point I had considered having her husband return from the crusade with a holy relic in his mailed fist, sit at the great table, beg her to bury him with honor and fall silent. She opens his visor to find him horribly dead, eaten away with leprosy. I do like that.

But then some dashing somebody would have to be in the wings the whole time and not sure who that could be, but if she is at home the whole crusade, then a plot must be afoot... something that involves her merchant father with the debacle in Venice, and a whole lot of unladylike behavior on her part to smuggle her family out of the way, or protect that heir she produced, or something. She can stay home I suppose, but I refuse to write the damn thing if I can't write about medieval Venice.

A choice is made

On the historical front, I was all set to go 4th crusade and started my research in a serious way. Now, the 4th one was after the 3rd (funny how that works) where Richard the Lionheart was holding sway and making friends with Saladin. Lots of English in that one. No official involvement by Britain or France in the 4th one because they were too busy fighting each other. But the appeal of the 4th crusade was Venice. Did I mention I was once an Economist. Trade practices make me salivate. And here is Venice in all her glory, poised to become the greatest trading center of the world and the undisputed queen of the Mediterranean because of this baldly muricurial crusade. Dishy, right?

My mind slipped off the nooks and crannies of the history books like an oil slick on glass.

I can't quite figure out why. I even picked up Crossed: A Tale of the Fourth Crusade by Nicole Galland, a decent read, by the way, but to no avail.