free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Venetian Crete
have abducted her in the time-honoured fashion of western Crete. No
wonder the Venetians were staggered at his father’s proposal.
Molino, however, proved a master of dissimulation. His shocked
expression might have been due to gratified amazement. After consulting
with his wife, he accepted the proposition, and the betrothal
took place at once, Kandanoleon gave his son a gold ring. The boy
kissed the girl and placed the ring on her finger. The wedding was
arranged for the Sunday after the next. Molino would send for a
notary and three or four gentlemen from Canea, while Kandanoleon
was to bring not more than 500 of his friends and relations. He departed
suspecting nothing.
Next day Molino went down to Canea. He bought the customary
presents for the groom and sent them up to Meskla. He sent dressmakers
to his house at Alikianos to prepare the bride’s trousseau. And
he paid a call on the Venetian rector of Canea.
The day before the wedding Molino returned to his house with
about fifty friends, to prepare for the festivities. They slaughtered and
roasted a hundred sheep and oxen. On the Sunday morning Kandanoleon
and his son Petros arrived, with some three hundred and fifty
friends and one hundred women. The merrymaking began as soon as
the marriage contract was signed, Molino’s servants had orders to let
the wine flow. The guests ate and drank, danced and sang. The Venetians
appeared to be keeping pace. By sunset not one Cretan was left on
his feet. All lay where they had fallen in swinish stupor, and their hosts
too were scattered around the courtyard in what looked like a profound
sleep.
It was feigned. ‘When night fell, the rector came out of the city
[Canea] with the army and the nobles and two hundred who had disembarked
from the galleys silently and in good order.’ For Molino in
Canea had begged the rector not to miss this opportunity of avenging a
personal insult to his dignity as a Venetian noble and a Catholic, and of
chastising the unruly and rebellious Orthodox. He had demanded a
punishment such as would serve as an example to posterity. The rector,
sending for reinforcements from Candia and Rethymnon, had marshalled
1,700 foot and adequate horse.
‘The signal was given with two rockets, and they answered from the
tower [Molino’s house] in the same way, and the forces from the city
proceeded to the tower and succeeded in arresting all the Cretans as
they slept so deeply, and bound them hand and foot with ropes brought
for the purpose. And they were bound as they slept, without realizing it,
like sheep!’
29