Keeping the coin, he handed the saddlebag back to Walo and then made his way into the gloomy shadows beneath the overhang of the deck. Rolls of spare sailcloth lay on a shelf built into the stern. Pushing them aside, he reached his arm into the space, felt around for a moment, tugged, and there was a soft thump as something shifted. It was too dark to see what he was doing, but when he turned to face us he was holding a bundle wrapped in oilcloth.
‘Tools of my other trade,’ he announced cryptically. From the package he extracted a set of small weighing scales, their weights, a soft leather pouch fastened with a drawstring, a tiny flask and a fist-sized object wrapped in a cloth bandage. Unwinding the bandage, he produced a flat stone, smooth and black, and laid it on top of a packing case. He unstoppered the tiny flask, dripped a small amount of oil on the surface of the stone, then wiped it. With quick, firm strokes he rubbed Carolus’s coin up and down on the stone, leaving a thin silver streak.
Next, he tipped out the contents of his leather pouch. A jumble of odd-shaped items rattled out on the surface of the packing case. Some were chunky, others flat or slightly dished, many had jagged edges or were thin strips folded over, twisted, and then hammered flat. They were all a dull grey.
‘The sea air takes the shine off them,’ said Redwald, picking out a flat piece about two inches across, one edge smoothly curved. It took me a moment to recognize a scrap of tarnished silver, probably chopped from a silver platter.
Redwald rubbed it against the stone, leaving a second silvery streak, parallel to the first.
‘See any difference?’ he asked Osric who had been watching him closely.
Osric shook his head.
‘It takes experience,’ Redwald told him. ‘The mark from the coin shows good silver, more than nine parts silver to one of copper. I happen to know that the platter fragment is silver mixed with copper, three parts to one.’
He swept up the pile of broken silver pieces and dropped them into the pouch. ‘As I told you, Sigwulf, the Northmen don’t trust coins. If Ohthere sells you those bears, he’ll want most of his payment in broken silver. And he’ll probably expect a couple of pieces of worked jewellery, something bright and gaudy, that he can trade to the Finna in future.’
He began to wind the bandage back around the black stone. ‘It’s going to be a tedious job demonstrating to him that every one of your coins is genuine. I’m not looking forward to it.’ He grimaced. ‘But first we have to agree a price for those bears.’
*
Next morning, I set out with Redwald and Walo for our meeting with Ohthere. Osric had volunteered to stay onboard the ship and watch over our silver hoard. He claimed that his crooked leg was hurting after the previous day’s walk. But the truth was that he and I were both feeling guilty that Walo had not yet had a chance to get off the ship and see Kaupang for himself.
Once again Kaupang’s street was thronged with customers, and as we made our way through the press of people Redwald drew my attention to two brawny individuals loitering outside one of the small wooden houses.
‘Hired guards. Every year that same house is rented by a dealer in precious gems and metals.’
At that moment the crowd ahead of us hurriedly parted to allow a group of half a dozen men to stride through. They were armed with swords and daggers and their leader was a big, red-faced fellow with a truculent expression. Walo had fallen behind to examine some wooden trinkets on a stall and was in their path. Redwald hastily turned back, grabbed him and pulled him aside. After the group had disappeared into one of the taverns, Redwald explained quietly that the man at the head of the group was a minor jarl, a local lord. His companions were his retainers and it was wise to steer clear of such people as they took offence easily.
A few steps further on, Walo again needed to be rescued. He had halted in front of a display of skins and furs, and the stallholder snapped at him to stop fingering the merchandise. Redwald quickly intervened. ‘That’s a sealskin, Walo,’ he explained.
‘It is like a big otter,’ said Walo, stroking the glossy pelt.
‘He can handle it all he wants, once he’s paid for it,’ grumbled the vendor, an old man with a long, lugubrious face and a heavy scarf wound around his neck despite the warm day.
‘Where did those white skins come from?’ I asked him. In a pile of smaller furs were several pelts that were a soft, lustrous white.
‘Winter fox and hare,’ said the old man.
My hopes rose. ‘Can I obtain these animals alive?’
‘They’re no good to you, Sigwulf,’ Redwald intervened. ‘By the time you get the creatures to the caliph they’ll have turned back to their normal brown. The animals are white in winter only.’