Chapter 152: The Sinope Accounts

The receipts sorted themselves into buyers and currency.

Sinope’s trade was conducted through the archon’s steward, who bought provisions for a garrison and a household, and the town’s merchants, who bought whatever they could take inland and resell at a higher price.

All payments came in hyperpyra, the gold the harbor trusted, while every grosso remained locked in the strongbox. The steward’s table claimed the larger share, and with the garrison still recruiting, the uniforms arrived before the soldiers who would wear them.

Plain woolens went first, 6 tons at 50 hyperpyra per ton, making 300 in all, to be cut into cloaks and shirts. Lombard linen followed, 2 tons at 35, for another 70, while 1 ton of silk went at 400 for the lord’s household.

The steward’s purchases came to 770 hyperpyra for 9 tons.

The town’s merchants bought for resale elsewhere. They paid 460 hyperpyra for 2 tons of incense and gums at 230 per ton, planning to carry the whole lot inland and sell it dearer in the Sultan’s country.

In such a trade, the profit lay at the end of the road, in the hands of buyers the venture might never encounter.

The sacks of incense left the pier for the hills, and for the next hour the waterfront smelled like a cathedral, while icons and church brasses went back into their crates after a single inspection, saints and all.

A coast at war had better uses for its money than holy images.

The glass beads, figs, raisins, and most of the woolens found no buyers either. The city made its own wool and the coast grew its own fruit, leaving little reason to pay for goods already available at home.

The old stock stayed aboard for the shores beyond, all 533 tons of it.

In total, 11 tons changed hands for 1,230 hyperpyra, while one ton of small goods went out as gifts for the harbormaster, his clerk, the steward, and the gate. The gifts brought in no revenue, but they still opened a ton of cargo space.

The empire, too, collected its share, by one tenth of every sale amounting to 123 hyperpyra, while anchorage cost another 45, at 5 for each of the nine keels at the berth.

The galleys lay outside the piers and paid no currency.

The money completed a round, leaving the garrison’s purse to finance the venture before returning to the throne’s chest, ready to be paid out again to the mercenaries who were supposed to wear the shirts.

Once the due and anchorage had been deducted, the takings stood at 1,062 hyperpyra.

For a small trade, it was a respectable return.

Then, it came the next part, and the empty space in the ships gaped like a nest of hungry fledglings, waiting for them to bring it supper.

The cargo brought aboard would be the goods Sinope could produce that were scarce or valuable elsewhere, each lot a wager on a market the fleet had yet to reach.

Red earth led the list, 5 tons at 80 hyperpyra per ton, making 400 in all, purchased from the men who had brought it down from the interior in bags.

It was sinopis, the pigment that lend the town its name, and the hope was that painters and apothecaries in Venezia would pay a premium for earth bearing that name.

Red earth of much the same color lay beneath half the hills around the Mediterranean, but this particular lot carried Sinope’s name with it, making the quantity worth buying even if the expected return remained modest.

Hazelnuts filled the rest, 7 tons at 21 hyperpyra per ton, for 147 in all, purchased through the hill farmers of the soldier-landlord.

The Pontic nut kept well inside its shell on a voyage, and the hope was that buyers in Constantinople and Venezia would take to it as readily as they took to figs.

The sacks and bags went down into the naves, while the sailors who handled the pigment came up through the hatches with red hands.

Wax and honey remained on the stone beside the pitch, naval supplies, and salt fish. A hold had to pay its way ton by ton, and pitch and naval supplies offered too little return to justify the space, while salt fish was worse, for it spoiled in a warm depot.

The last ton of nuts went below, and the naves became a little lower at their moorings.

The two lots accounted for 12 tons and 547 hyperpyra.

The ships were back to 545 tons, carrying 533 tons of old stock and 12 of new goods. The throne’s due fell on sales, not purchases, one small mercy in a business that offered few.

The venture had received 1,230 hyperpyra and paid out 123, 45, 547, and 20, leaving 1,488 in the strongbox, 495 more than it had held before Sinope.

A short stay made for a short page.

?? [TRADE OVERVIEW — SINOPE, 1206]

Contacts, Town : Established (Archon’s Steward, Greek Merchants)

Goods Sold : Plain Woolens, Lombard Linen, Silk, Incense and Gums

Revenue : 1,230 Hyperpyra

Goods Purchased : Red Earth, Hazelnuts, Books

Expense : 567 Hyperpyra (Goods and Books), 168 Hyperpyra (Throne’s Due and Anchorage)

Cargo, Departing : 545 Tons

Next Port : Phasis

?? [TREASURY - HELD CURRENCIES]

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

Hyperpyra (Constantinople, Sinope) : 1,488 - ~4.1g Gold Each

Of the 567 hyperpyra spent on goods and books, 20 paid for a psalter, a gospel book, and a word-list, all in Georgian, purchased from the monks of a monastery above the town.

The monastery had more vellum than bread, and vellum made a poor soup, so one of the monks brought the three books down to the berth himself. He crossed himself twice, then accepted the money regardless.

The next harbor was Phasis, in Georgia, where the river met the sea. The Greek merchants called it the river of the ram’s fleece.

Vito bought the books for the simple reason a merchant who could set his own price in the language of Georgia would have no need of a dragoman to do the speaking for him.

The Argonauts had sailed to the end of this coast in search of a single fleece, while the venture meant to seek the wool of an entire kingdom.

At dawn, the lines came off the bollards and the bows swung east. By then, the archon’s word about the fleet was already traveling ahead of it across the coast.