‘Three days ago, shares in the company were trading at one solidus each. Then -’ he paused, taking a sip of his fizzy water – ‘then somebody spread a rumour about an alternative shipment of prepared incense through a trading company based in Athens. The rumour adds that these Athenians have bribed someone in the Lateran into rejecting the myrrh that has already been unloaded in Ravenna, and is on its way to Rome under armed escort. According to my information, the contract is so drawn, that any supposed defect in the myrrh can provide grounds for repudiation.
‘Now that these rumours have taken hold on the market, the share price has fallen by around a quarter. In a very short while, another rumour will be set in motion: that His Holiness has died in Naples.’
I looked quizzically at him. The pope dead? What from?
‘Please be assured, young man,’ the diplomat continued, ‘that His Holiness is alive and well, and – according to information that I have and even the dispensator has not – is at this moment hurrying secretly back to Rome. You see, the volcanic mud cure has done wonders for him, and he wants to be back here to get on with preparing for the consecration. He will arrive tomorrow. However, while it is believed that His Holiness has most unfortunately passed away, shares in the company will drop further, perhaps to a third even of their presently deflated value.
‘Of course, if the death were to be officially announced, the shares would utterly collapse. It took Caesar nine months to get round to confirming Boniface as pope. Bearing in mind what is currently happening in the East, Rome might easily be years without a confirmed universal bishop, were Boniface to die. No pope, you see, no consecration. The dispensator could stand in for a temporary absence – but not to fill a semi-permanent void.
‘But I cannot arrange for such official confirmation.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘you want me to help you buy some shares while they are low?’ I’d picked up some elements of finance from our lavatorial conversations. This was supplemented by the frequently sharp practice I’d seen from the traders who’d accompanied the missionaries to Canterbury, and by my small but select study of mathematics.
Of course, I had other things now on my mind beside making money. On the other hand, the comparative little I’d already picked up had transformed my life – perhaps, I’ll grant, not wholly for the better. And I’d need more if I were to go ahead with my ambitions for the English mission. I was willing at least to hear the man out.
‘You want me to buy shares?’ I repeated.
‘No, Aelric, not shares.’ The diplomat picked up a jewelled relic case and hugged it. ‘I don’t get out of bed to buy shares. We buy options.’
For those of you who have barely followed the above – and if you’re a monk, that’s probably you – I should explain what the diplomat was after. He didn’t want me to go off with him and buy shares in the company. A share, by the way, is part ownership. Even down from one solidus to a quarter of that, you’d need to tie up a lot of gold to make a real killing. What he wanted to buy was the right to obtain shares on a future date at a certain price. We could have that right per go at a tenth of a quarter of a solidus.
Now, let me spell out the meaning of this. For one solidus, you can buy the right to acquire forty shares that, when all the depressing rumours have been discovered, will pass again at one solidus each. You can turn one pound of gold into forty. You can turn five pounds into two hundred. You have to deduct from this any costs beside the exercise price; and there may be special bribes to the Exchange authorities. But the only limit to this rigging of the market is how many options you can buy before you get rumbled. Oh yes, and you need to make sure that you don’t entirely bankrupt the poor fool you get to sell you the things: do that and you may lose your payment up front. I suppose it helps also if you can square enforcement with the authorities.
The diplomat assured me this would be no problem. We weren’t manipulating the price of myrrh – that would have got the Church involved at every possible level to stop our game. We were only manipulating shares in the company that was shipping the stuff in. The Church would be indifferent. The prefect could be trusted to do all that was needed to save himself the trouble of trying any action against us. That, or a straight bribe, would keep matters out of court.
The diplomat had thought of everything. Today was the Hebrew Sabbath. This meant the Jews would be at home praying and counting their gains from the previous six days of labour. They wouldn’t be around to smell the rats we were planning to loose. The market would be hogged by the Africans and a few Syrians. It would be wide open to our assault.
‘Where do I come into this?’ I asked sharply. Was this some elaborate double fraud, with me as the ultimate victim? It was common knowledge in the house that I was in funds.
‘You will buy the options,’ came the reply. The diplomat went over to a locked chest. He fiddled with a key around his neck and withdrew five bags of coin. He emptied one onto the table. I looked at the pile of misshapen lumps I’d last seen in France. They were barbarian versions of the solidus. He’d made sure the gold was pure enough, he told me. But this stuff was so clipped and variable, it would pass purely by weight.
My job was to pose as the son of some rich pilgrim from the barbarian kingdoms. The diplomat would arrive first at the Exchange with a troubled look on his face. He’d ostentatiously buy options on shares at something like their normal value, talking loudly about his invite to the consecration. While he was doing this, his secretary would be got up in hood and gloves to hide his black skin – but not got up well enough – and would be selling actual shares at whatever price he could get. A little into this pantomime, the rumour would pass round that the pope was dead. The market would go into a selling frenzy.
Just into this frenzy, I’d turn up, gawping at the dealers and speaking a mangled, semi-comprehensible Latin. I’d show a written authority to buy options at four shares to the solidus, which by then should be an attractive price. This being said, I’d have several letters of authority – all with different prices, and I’d select which one to use in the precise circumstances. I’d do the business and leave and the dealers would congratulate each other on covering themselves against the official news of the death. No one would think to connect us until it was too late.
‘You have some barbarian clothes?’ the diplomat asked. I shook my head. Those horrid old things I’d worn all the way from Canterbury I’d ceremonially burned outside Rome. Maximin had nagged me that there were poor youths in Rome who’d give their teeth for such finery. Not surprisingly, I’d ignored him. A pity, I now thought.
‘No matter. We can get something from one of that Frankish merchant’s slaves.’ He was referring to another of Marcella’s guests. ‘I’ve got some nice Frankish jewellery you can add to it. You’ll pass as shabby rich in the barbarian mode.’
We turned now to the matter of what was in this for me.
‘A twentieth part of the profit,’ he answered suavely.
‘Not enough,’ said I. ‘Do you suppose these men will simply smile as they hand over their last coppers? I’ve already just avoided a knife in the back. I want half. And I want this in writing. If you try to cheat me, I’ll take your letter to the prefect or the dispensator or the pope himself.’
We started an interminable, circular argument. The diplomat cried that he’d done all the preparation work – months of thought and research, planting of rumours, getting a reputation for himself on the market as a shady and incompetent player. All I had to do was look stupid for a while before lunch. Surely he had a right to the main profit? If need be, he could use someone else.
But I was inflexible. You see, I had time on my side. This morning was the only opportunity, and I’d dawdled much of this already. He’d never get anyone half so reliable in the time that was left. The pope was getting closer to Rome by the hour. How long before this was noticed?
We settled on two-fifths of the profit. I could have held out for the full half, but the diplomat might come up with other schemes that required my involvement. Why be too greedy? While he wrote in his own hand, I dictated a short letter of confession. Show that to the authorities, and his black and distinctly heretical face wouldn’t be welcome in Rome another day. As it was, his exact status in Rome as a Monophysite with no apparent diplomatic interest to represent was somewhat ambiguous. Since he’d taken to the place at least as much as I had, this would be a disaster for him.
30
The financial district of Rome used to be across the river from the main city. Nowadays, the Saracens have destroyed the trade on which the markets relied. Some years ago, a fire took the buildings. When I was first there,
