Chapter 149: The Constantinople Accounts

The receipts took until the end of the second week to sort, because the sales had gone three ways and the money had come in two currencies. Zeno’s seal covered half the papers, pressed into the wax with solemn.

The podestà paid in grossi, while everyone else paid in hyperpyra.

Zeno had claimed seventy parts in every hundred of each lot named in his offer, at nine-tenths of the price, paid in silver on delivery.

The dyed woolens amounted to 70 tons at 828 grossi per ton, making 57,960, while the iron came to 98 tons at 207 per ton, or 20,286.

Lead added another 35 tons at 248 grossi per ton, for 8,680.

Copper brought 21 tons at 538, for 11,298.

And tin came to 17.5 tons at 994, for 17,395.

The five lots totaled 241.5 tons and 115,619 grossi, the silver counted out of iron-bound boxes for a merchant who meant to carry the goods inland under his name and sell them to the Greek houses.

It was the first silver the venture had earned in Constantinople, with not a promise accepted in its place.

The remaining thirty parts went to Caterina’s buyers at the full price, paid in hyperpyra through the branch’s accounting room. They were Latin households whose stewards still had hard coin, along with the few Greek houses that had traded with the Contarini under the old emperors.

The dyed woolens brought 2,400 for 30 tons at 80 hyperpyra per ton, while the iron brought 840 for 42 tons at 20 per ton.

Lead brought 360 for 15 tons at 24 per ton, copper 468 for 9 tons at 52, and tin 720 for 7.5 tons at 96, making 103.5 tons and 4,788 hyperpyra.

There was also a couple tons of small goods sold at 210 per ton for 420, while the other six tons stayed aboard for the future harbormasters. The Greek buyers had thus taken 105.5 tons for 5,208 hyperpyra, enough to close that part of the accounts without dispute.

The Latin Patriarchate bought the 12 tons of altar goods through Zeno’s steward at 330 hyperpyra per ton, for a total of 3,960, though Morosini never showed his face.

The vestments, chalices, censers, candles, and missals went off to a city where the altars had been stripped, and the churchmen needed them more than the men who had taken the silver.

The sales left 186 tons aboard for the far shore, 120 tons of plain woolens, 60 of Lombard linen, and 6 of small goods.

The venture had sold 359 tons of cargo and taken in 115,619 grossi and 9,168 hyperpyra, worth 221,051 grossi at the changers’ rate of 11.5 grossi to the hyperpyron. The ships had less to carry, while the strongbox had more to show for it, those were the two results worth writing down.

At the full price, Zeno’s lots would have fetched 128,478 grossi, but selling them for nine-tenths of that meant surrendering 12,859, the price of keeping on good terms with the man who held the keys.

The alternative meant weeks of chasing brokers, idle ships, and the sea closing in November. Those delays would have cost more, and there was no reason to pay extra merely to feel virtuous about a better price.

The venture sold while it could.

The branch took its twentieth of the buyers’ sales, amounting to 260 hyperpyra, as agreed at the green door, while quarter dues, charged at one part in a hundred on the declared cost of the goods, came to 2,250 grossi on the 225,000 grossi valuation.

Porterage, warehouse space, and the brokers’ retainers swallowed another 1,950, so the city had taken its share, the branch had taken its share, and the men who bore the risk had to make the next part pay.

The new cargo to be bought followed one rule, the scarcest and dearest goods went aboard first, since Constantinople had little left to sell, and bulk filled the space they left behind.

Every lot was a wager on a coast none of the merchants had ever seen, which made cautious choices necessary but offered no certainty about what awaited at the other end.

Silk came first, 4 tons at 260 hyperpyra per ton, costing 1,040, bought from Greek houses selling their wardrobes to pay for bread, in the hope that a coast ruled by lords would pay for cloth its people had never owned.

The Venetian spice importers at Perama supplied 8 tons of incense and gums at 1,800 grossi per ton, for 14,400, on the assumption that every church in the north burned incense by the pound.

Greek monastic houses across the Mese sold 8 tons of icons and church brasses at 150 hyperpyra per ton, for 1,200, while Greek workshops supplied 12 tons of glass beads and bracelets at 100 per ton, another 1,200.

The expectation was that a shore following the Greek rite would want its own saints and lamps, while a land without glassworks would trade furs and wax for beads.

Every Greek seller demanded hyperpyra, because gold could go wherever a hungry household might have to flee, and no one wanted to learn the value of local promises only after reaching the far end of the sea.

Bulk filled the rest, and the men who owned it were among the greediest merchants in the city. The oil men of Kontoskalion and the fig dealers of Psamathia had spent the winter keeping their storehouses full while bread grew dear and market stalls stood empty.

They had turned down every offer, holding out for prices a hungry city couldn’t pay, and the wine importers at Perama had done the same with their casks.

The venture’s money arrived, then suddenly every jar was for sale. No one in the trade blushed, as if hunger had been a curse for the city and a blessing for the merchants’ patience.

Olive oil came to 80 tons at 36 hyperpyra per ton, or 2,880, while dried figs and raisins amounted to 65 tons at 19 per ton, or 1,235, enough to keep the porters at Psamathia counting until they lost their place beyond the fortieth ton.

Wine supplied the filler and the largest single lot, at 182 tons.

Greek merchants sold 20 tons at 18 hyperpyra per ton for 360, while the Venetian importers at Perama sold the other 162 tons at 200 grossi per ton, for 32,400.

Among the casks was Cretan wine, now bought back at a profit for someone else to endure. If a city would sell its saints by the pound, it would sell its wine by the jar, and more cheaply too.

The purchases totaled 359 tons, costing 7,915 hyperpyra from the Greek sellers and 46,800 grossi from the Venetian sellers. The 32 tons of silk, incense, icons, and glass took nearly four parts in ten of the money, while the 327 tons of oil, fruit, and wine accounted for the other six.

The holds were full again, with the 186 tons retained from the earlier cargo and 359 tons newly purchased, bringing the total to 545 tons and leaving every ship sitting low in the water.

The display recorded the figures in its usual flat hand.

?? [TRADE OVERVIEW — CONSTANTINOPLE, 1206]

Contacts, Quarter : Established (Marino Zeno, Podestà)

Contacts, Church : Established (Latin Patriarchate)

Goods Sold : Dyed Woolens, Iron, Lead, Copper, Tin, Altar Goods, Small Goods

Revenue : Approximately 115,619 Grossi, 9,168 Hyperpyra

Goods Purchased : Silk, Incense, Icons and Church Brasses, Glass, Olive Oil, Dried Fruit, Wine

Expense : Approximately 46,800 Grossi, 7,915 Hyperpyra, 260 Hyperpyra (Branch Share), 4,200 Grossi (Dues and Handling)

Cargo, Departing : 545 Tons

Next Port : Sinope

?? [TREASURY — HELD CURRENCIES]

Grossi (Venezia) : 67,619 — ~2.2g Silver Each

Hyperpyra (Latin Empire) : 993 — ~4.1g Gold Each

The first stop had ended well, with the holds full, 67,619 grossi in the strongbox, and 993 hyperpyra waiting beneath them.

Behind every figure stood 215,000 grossi of other people’s silver and another 49,650 owed to free men, all committed to eleven hulls bound for a coast without a fondaco or even a price list.

Sinope came next, then a third harbor chosen as the test, and finally Soldaia, the back door marked on the monk’s chart. The first stone of the fortune had been laid, and the rest had to be built across the water.

The Black Sea would decide what belonged in it.