Chapter 158: The Soldaia Accounts

The heap on La Contessa’s cabin table stood three seals deep, yet no sheets agreed on the accounts. The customs house, the weigh-house, and the sworn measurers had inspected the same ships, casks, and bales, but each had arrived at a different sum, all stamped in wax and all wrong by a few tons.

Caterina ended the quarrel with a single audit.

Soldaia reckoned prices in hyperpyra, the convoy masters paid in weighed silver by the pouch, and the changers at the harbor converted every ounce into hyperpyra. The Cumans’ notched sticks lay in their bundle at the end of the table, the only tally in the whole port that no one had stamped three times.

As for the sales, the town bought the smallest lots and paid the highest prices.

The church and the monasteries bought the 3 tons of incense and gums at 270 hyperpyra a ton, 810 in all, since the liturgy burned incense by the pound.

Meanwhile, archon’s steward paid 460 for the single ton of silk, a lot small enough for a household with more estates than ready coin.

What remained went up the road. The convoy masters paid in northern money, backed by silver the Rus houses upriver had advanced against the goods, while the grassland took its own share through raids and tolls.

They bought the 4 tons of icons and church brasses at 280, 1,120 in all, for Rus monasteries and cathedrals, where the work surpassed the local artisans. Then the 8 tons of glass beads and bracelets at 125, 1,000, for the chiefs’ wives and the river markets, and the 4 tons of small goods at 205, 820, for the riders’ knives, shears, and needles.

The 80 tons of olive oil sold at 46, bringing 3,680 for church lamps and kitchens that cooked on fast days. The 182 tons of wine fetched 22 a ton, 4,004 in all, for communion cups and princely cellars.

As for the 65 tons of dried figs and raisins, both fetched 26, bringing 1,690 for monastic fast tables, where a fig in Lent was considered a feast.

The cloth went last, and the buyers took every scrap. Steppe riders who wore felt bought all 108 tons of the plain woolens, at 53 a ton, 5,724 in all, to pay the chiefs’ tolls, give gifts along the steppes, and sell in the Rus towns.

They also took all 56 tons of Lombard linen at 31, bringing 1,736 for shirts and altar cloths, a little cheaper than Phasis because the Rus wove their own.

The ten lots came to 511 tons and 21,044 hyperpyra, leaving 511 tons of stowage empty.

Below, the carpets, the lapis, the red earth, and the rest of the Phasis and Sinope goods lay untouched, never offered for sale here and reserved for the west.

The dues came off the top, one office at a time. The customs house took a twentieth of the sales, 1,052, and the sworn measurers took a hundredth, 210.

The weigh-house charged a hyperpyron for every ton that crossed its scales, outward and inward, taking 511 for the 511 tons going out and the same 511 coming back. Mooring and berth cost 4 hyperpyra per keel for nine keels, 36, including the first rope.

The total came to 2,320 hyperpyra, a little more than a tenth of the sales.

That left 18,724 hyperpyra to spend.

The road had yielded little that year, and the dear goods came down in small bales. Caterina bought every skin and every lump of amber offered for sale, then filled the empty tons with whatever the north and the valley could supply in bulk.

The wagons just down from the northern forests yielded half a ton of sable and marten skins at 5,000 a ton, 2,500 in all, the dearest fur the road carried. They would line the gowns of Venezia’s patricians and the Latin court at Constantinople.

The same wagons yielded 2 tons of gray squirrel skins at 1,800, bringing 3,600, the common lining of cloaks throughout the west. The brokers’ tally brought in half a ton of amber at 1,200, worth 600 for prayer beads and jewels, and a ton of walrus ivory, the fish tooth of the northern sea, at 900 for combs, hilts, and gaming pieces.

Those four tons were goods the Rialto could find nowhere else, carrying 7,600 hyperpyra of the voyage’s money in one corner of a single nave.

The bulk filled the rest, 70 tons of Rus beeswax at 20 a ton, 1,400 for church candles at Constantinople and the altars of Venezia, along with 90 tons of steppe hides at 30, 2,700 for the leather trades of both cities.

The valley farms behind the ridge wall sold 347 tons of grain through the tally men at 6, bringing 2,082 for a capital whose grain route the Bulgarians controlled.

The purchases came to 511 tons for 13,782 hyperpyra, bringing the holds back to full capacity at 545 tons.

The naves took the grain down to the keelson, with the hides and wax above it, while the sable went into cedar chests on top of the lot, a prince’s ransom riding on a peasant’s supper.

The surplus came to 4,942 hyperpyra, which was put in the strongbox.

?? [TRADE OVERVIEW — SOLDAIA, 1206]

Contacts, Town : Established (Archon’s Steward, Sworn Measurers, Weigh-House)

Contacts, Church : Established (Monasteries)

Contacts, Road : Established (Cuman Convoy Masters, Veteran Caravan Owner)

Goods Sold : Incense and Gums, Silk, Icons and Church Brasses, Glass Beads, Small Goods, Olive Oil, Wine, Dried Figs and Raisins, Plain Woolens, Lombard Linen

Revenue : 21,044 Hyperpyra

Goods Purchased : Sable and Marten Skins, Gray Squirrel Skins, Amber, Walrus Ivory, Beeswax, Hides, Grain

Expense : 13,782 Hyperpyra (Goods), 2,320 Hyperpyra (Customs, Weighing, Tally and Berth)

Cargo, Departing : 545 Tons

Next Port : Constantinople

?? [TREASURY — HELD CURRENCIES]

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

Hyperpyra (Latin Empire) : 6,430 - ~4.1g Gold Each

Soldaia had paid, and a Venetian notch now stood on the sticks of the Rus road. The holds were full, the strongbox held 6,430 hyperpyra, and Constantinople lay ahead, a city that needed everything, then twice as much.

The Latin court wanted furs, the Patriarch’s churches wanted wax, and the hungry quarters wanted grain. Eleven ships were coming, and whatever a ruined court still had to sell would go aboard those same ships for a second voyage through the market.

At dawn, the ropes came off the bollards. Zorzi and Zustignana took the seaward screen while La Contessa led the naves past the harbor, and the fleet turned southwest by the compass under the Lion, leaving the smoke of the wagon yard rising behind it.