The Voyage of the Evangelist
is a fictional blending of two events which appear in the historical record for the eastern Mediterranean Sea in 828 CE. First, two Venetian merchants, anchored in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt, smuggled the remains of St. Mark out of that city with the aid of two Coptic churchmen by hiding them under palettes of pork in the hold of their galley which the Moslem guards would not touch, and took them back to Venice where they were ultimately installed at the Piazza San Marco in St Mark's Basilica. The trip back to Venice was perilous and St. Mark performed a variety of miracles to ensure a safe journey home. Second, an Arab warrior named Abu Hafs, previously forced first out of Spain, and then again Alexandria, led an invasion of Crete, created an emirate and allowed a safe harbor for piracy to thrive
Using these stories, I have attempted to portray the Mediterranean world of late antiquity, and particularly the conflicts between the remaining Roman Empire at Constantinople, their chronic Arab enemies in Africa and Asia, and a Venice led by a merchant class attempting to build a new empire based on trading with both. There are twenty substantial characters propelling the plot, men and women of various ages and ethnicities, with different attitudes towards slavery, political allegiances and issues of religious faith, particularly the then prevalent obsession with relics.