Author's Notebook
While I was researching and writing Saint Mark's Body, I carred a Moleskine notebook constantly. Over the course of a year and a half it filled up with notes, internal debates, character ideas, maps, and sketches. Here are a few imagesfrom it.
I based my merchants' ship, the San Nicola, on a 9th century sailing vessel found off the coast of Bozburun, Turkey. This sketch is taken from the reconstruction by Matthew Harpster, who helped me understand 9th century sailing techniques and ship capabilities.
Here's the calendar showing important dates and travel times. Note that in this time period we are still using the Julian calendar. This means that the days of the week don't line up with our Gregorian calendar, which is important if you note that such and such an event happened on a Sunday. There were some happy coincidences in the timing, for example that based on the travel times and itinerary I assumed, the Venetians make off with the body on December 24th - Christmas Eve!
'Twas the night before Christmas... and yes, I had already decided on the name "San Nicola" by that point. I suppose if you were to blow that calendar up enough, there would be spoilers visible.
Based on numerous sources I made this sketch of Constantinople
from a vantage point across the Golden Horn to help me visualize
the locations better. You can see the San Nicola marked "S.N."
with her sail furled in the harbor.
So, how did I decide on all those travel times for the calendar? Google Earth is a wonderful thing! I assumed a certain average sailing speed based on how I had described the prevailing wind and weather conditions, and used a mileage calculator app to find the distances.
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