Chapter 155: The Phasis Accounts

The cabin table was covered with three kinds of receipts, one for what the venture had sold, one for what it had bought, and one for what the Queen’s customs had charged for their trouble, every last one counted in copper.

The Georgian drachm was a copper coin weighing about eight grams, and it was the only money the river town and its customs would accept. The sales alone had brought in nearly two tons of copper, enough to load twenty mules, but the harbor promptly swallowed every coin again, one at a time, in payment for customs, boats, carpets and logs.

The sales went first into the books.

Church goods led the list, as they should in a pious kingdom.

The bishop’s steward and the hill monasteries bought 4 tons of icons and church brasses at 17,000 drachms per ton, paying 68,000 altogether. Sacristans bought 3 tons of incense and gums at 18,000 per ton, paying 54,000 to keep the smoke rising through the year’s feasts.

The Church would pay from its own revenues, so no one needed to worry over whose purse would be opened.

Silk went to the governor for 2 tons at 30,000 per ton, for 60,000 altogether, enough to dress the court and the great houses of the western valleys. A wealthy crown likes to be seen in figured cloth from Constantinople, and this one had the means to indulge itself.

Cheaper goods came next, as river merchants bought 4 tons of glass beads and bracelets for the hill markets, paying 8,000 per ton and 32,000 in all.

Between the governor and the river merchants, 6 tons of plain woolens was split, at 3,500 per ton, for 21,000 altogether.

The monastery finished the list with 2 tons of Lombard linen at 2,500 per ton, paying 5,000 for cloth to be cut into altar cloths and vestments.

Oil, figs and raisins, and wine found no buyers. In all, 523 tons stayed aboard for the northern shore, including all but a single ton of silk, while the red earth and hazelnuts bought at Sinope never even came up for sale.

Twenty-one tons had sold for 240,000 drachms, while one ton of small goods was send out as gifts, leaving 22 tons of space freed in the ships.

The dues came next, and they came off the top.

The Queen’s customs took one twentieth of the sales, or 12,000 drachms. The governor had waived a part of it in return for the misunderstanding with the army, the only line in the books where fear had made the venture money.

Harbor fees cost 600 drachms for each of the nine ships, 5,400 altogether. That left 222,600 drachms in copper remained to spend.

Carpets came first, 4 tons at 24,000 per ton, for 96,000, bought from the Tbilisi merchants. These were knotted-pile carpets from the looms of Azerbaijan, the finest to travel the long road west, and the Rialto had seen precious few of them.

Armenian tingent came next, 1 ton for 36,000, bought through an Armenian dye merchant’s agent. The color came from dried insects gathered on the Araxes plain, the same deep red the dyers of Venezia used to make scarlet.

The Tbilisi gem dealers supplied a tenth of a ton of lapis lazuli at 144,000 per ton, costing 14,400, and a tenth of a ton of turquoise at 96,000 per ton, costing 9,600, as painters wanted the lapis, goldsmiths wanted the turquoise, and both together would have fitted inside a single cask.

Both had come by caravan from the Persian lands and farther east

A Tbilisi drug merchant supplied 1.8 tons of rhubarb root at 21,000 per ton, for 37,800. Apothecaries paid well for this medicine brought across the eastern road, a welcome fact for the seller and for everyone who had paid to bring it west.

Timber brokers who floated logs down the Phasis supplied the cargo’s bulk in 15 tons of Colchian boxwood at 4,200 per ton, for 63,000. The wood grew thick along this coast, and the lagoon’s craftsmen made combs, spoons and bowls from it.

The Tbilisi silk stayed on its stalls. Having just sold silk in Phasis, the venture had little reason to buy more of the same and carry it away again.

These purchases brought considerable value into very little space.

The purchases came to 22 tons for 256,800 drachms, bringing the ships back to 545 tons.

The stones and crimson brought most of their value in almost no space, while the boxwood supplied the weight. The holds were closing like a strongbox, a few gold pieces lying at the bottom beneath a load of kindling.

?? [TRADE OVERVIEW - PHASIS, 1206]

Contacts, Town : Established (Governor’s Steward, Tbilisi Merchants)

Contacts, Church : Established (Bishop’s Steward, Monastery)

Goods Sold : Icons and Church Brasses, Incense and Gums, Silk, Glass Beads, Plain Woolens, Lombard Linen

Revenue : 240,000 Drachms

Goods Purchased : Carpets, Armenian Tingent, Lapis Lazuli, Turquoise, Rhubarb, Boxwood

Expense : 256,800 Drachms (Goods), 17,400 Drachms (Customs, Pilotage and Berth)

Cargo, Departing : 545 Tons

Next Port : Soldaia

?? [TREASURY - HELD CURRENCIES]

Grossi (Venezia) : 61,919 - ~2.2g Silver Each

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

The copper covered 222,600 of the 256,800 drachms owed for the goods, leaving 34,200 to pay, and the balance was made up with 5,700 grossi at the changers’ rate of six drachms to the grosso. Afterward, the strongbox held 61,919 grossi, the 1,488 hyperpyra remained untouched, and not a single drachm was left to carry away.

The ships were loaded with rare goods, yet they still carried 182 tons of wine, 80 of oil, 65 of figs and raisins, and 108 of woolens, all awaiting the next shore.

At dawn, the Georgian boats led the nine keels back over the sandbar to where Zorzi and Zustignana waited, and then the eleven hulls swung their bows north.