Q by Luther Blissett (most recommended books txt) 📖

this one, it’s exactly as though you were holding your money, although it’s actually safe in Fugger’s safe. Then you set off, you travel, avoiding the risk and discomfort of bringing it with you. The minute you want your silver and gold coins back, you just turn up at any branch of the Fugger bank scattered around Europe, and withdraw it by showing your letter of credit. But the point is that, on the basis of the law of credit, you might never need to do that.’

Gotz stops at the sight of my furrowed brow, puts his hands together, searches for the rights words and continues: ‘Right: I’m a spice merchant, you want to buy my goods and you’re carrying the letter of exchange that guarantees your credit with the Fuggers at two thousand florins. You can pay me directly with that.’ He points to the letter in his hand. ‘All you have to do is turn it over and write on the back that you’re transferring your credit to me. From that moment onwards I can withdraw two thousand florins from Fugger’s coffers, because it’s his seal, not yours, that guarantees it. You see? I’m not obliged to trust you, you’re not the one who promises to pay me, it’s enough that I believe in the word of Anton Fugger.’

I turn over the paper and see a series of five or six annotations, all followed by various signatures. On six occasions the letter I am holding has stood in for the metal of the coins, without that money ever leaving the bank’s safe.

‘All clear so far?’

‘There’s something I don’t understand: what does the banker get out of all this?’

Gotz nods. ‘While the letter of credit passes from hand to hand, the actual money is at his disposal. Remember old H�chstetter: he took people’s savings and reinvested it in profitable affairs. That’s what the banker does. Your two thousand florins, along with the money of many other creditors, go to finance the equipment of mercantile fleets, the recruitment of armies, mineral extraction, the maintenance of the princes’ courts and much else besides, to return doubled to the Fugger safes. Fugger has his money in the bank, Fugger lends it to princes and merchants, Fugger invests it again with interest.’ He grants me a moment to realise what he means. ‘The money generates money.’

His silence alerts me to the fact that we have reached a salient point in the exposition. Eloi has stopped smoking, his arms folded. He wears a thoughtful expression. Gotz continues to address himself to me.

‘Now you can understand why Fugger is willing to increase your hoard if you deposit it with him for a long time.’

‘Which is to say?’

‘That he pays you interest too, since effectively by depositing a certain amount in his coffers you have put money at his disposal, thus allowing him to increase the volume of his investments.’

I try to make head or tail of it all. ‘You’re saying that if I deposit my two thousand florins in the bank and leave it there, a year later it will have turned into two thousand one hundred?’

Gotz smiles for the first time. ‘Exactly so. That way the creditors won’t be tempted to withdraw their deposits too frequently, and they won’t leave Fugger exposed to the possibility of money haemorrhaging out of his coffers.’ He points at the letter of credit once again. ‘From that point of view, this piece of paper makes it possible for the sums deposited to keep on growing, because until someone goes and withdraws them, they just stay there growing away in Fugger’s hands.’

I’m starting to feel a little light-headed, the mechanics of it all seems simple enough as Gotz explains it, but I have a sense that I’m inevitably missing something.

‘Mhm, let’s see if I’ve got it. The letter of credit is worth two thousand florins. You can decide to exchange it immediately as though it were money, or keep it and wait for the deposit to grow with interest.’ Gotz follows my reasoning with emphatic nods of the head. ‘Well, I think your choice depends on whether or not you need to use the money immediately.’

‘Very good.’

‘It’s a devilish mechanism.’

Eloi laughs loudly, and finally he speaks: ‘Let’s leave the devil out of this. Things are complicated enough already.’

Gotz grabs my attention again. ‘The whole mechanism is based entirely on the trust that everyone puts in the signature of Anton Fugger. It’s his word that governs the exchanges.’

‘Yes. That’s clear enough.’

‘Fine.’ For the first time he looks to Eloi for confirmation. A little nod from his friend, and Gotz’ pock-marked face turns back to me. ‘Let’s get to the point, then. What would you say if I told you that the letter of credit you’re holding was fake?’

I turn the yellowing sheet over again, take a good look at the signatures, the seals.

‘I’d say it was impossible.’

Gotz reveals his satisfaction. From the little purse at his side he takes an anonymous little black box, a sheet of the same dimensions as the one I’m holding, an ink-bottle and a long goose quill.

He writes slowly, careful not to stain the paper, the scratching of his pen the only sound that fills the silence of his two onlookers.

With the candle-flame he melts two drops from a little stick of red wax, letting them fall on to the paper. Then he opens the little box and takes from it two little lead stamps, which he presses into the hot wax. He turns the sheet over and spreads it out on the table in front of me.

The writing is identical, the same words, the same hand. The stamps are the same, even the signature of Anton Fugger is in the same position, the same faint smears of ink on the consonants, where the hand has pressed down more heavily.

I look into Gotz’ face, trying to imagine what on earth kind of person I have before me. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

‘Yes, they’re both fake.’

‘How did you get hold of the stamps?’

He stops. ‘All in good time, my friend. Now take a good look at those two letters.’

My eye moves from one to the other a few times. ‘They’re identical.’

‘Not exactly.’

I look more carefully. ‘On this one there are marks in the right margin, at the bottom, but they’re almost invisible.’

‘That’s right. It’s a secret code. The code that the exchange agents who work for Fugger in his branches scattered around Europe use to communicate among themselves. The first mark indicates the branch that issued the letter of credit, that is, where the money was paid in. The scribble you see there, for example, tells you that the money was deposited in Augsburg. The second is the personal signature, also in code, of the agent who wrote the letter, in this case Anton Fugger in person. The third sign shows the year in which it was issued.’

‘How come you know the code?’

Gotz pretends not to have heard the question. ‘If you turned up with an uncoded letter at one of the Fugger agencies, you’d be arrested immediately. However good you are at reproducing the signature of a Fugger agent, unless you know the code you can’t fake a letter of credit.’

‘So how come you know it?’

Silence. We stare at each other.

Eloi encourages him: ‘Tell him, Gotz.’

He sighs. ‘I spent seven years as a Fugger agent in Cologne.’

My mind is racing, I’m confused. I turn back to Eloi. ‘Is that the deal? Faking letters of credit and make off with Fugger’s coffers?’

Eloi laughs. ‘More or less. But it isn’t as simple as that.’

Gotz speaks again. ‘Fugger and his agents know their biggest creditors personally, they’re ones they do their most lucrative deals with. They also have a fairly precise idea of the circulation of exchanges passing through the ports between the Baltic and Portugal: that’s their realm, and never forget it. Antwerp is right in the middle of the commercial traffic: it’s their base. So tomorrow, if some stranger in need of a few bob turned up with a letter giving him fifty thousand florins’ credit, it wouldn’t be easy for him to get out with that sum. You have to take care. Gently does it.’

Gotz is skilled at it, if he was cheating me he wouldn’t make it so complicated. But now I’ve got to know what we’re really talking about.

‘How much?’

Without hesitation: ‘Three hundred thousand florins in five years.’

I gulp at the thought of such an unimaginable amount of money: a strike against the wealthiest bankers in the whole of Christendom.

‘How?’

He nods, I’m still here, and that in itself is a good sign.

‘I’ll explain it to you now.’

*

‘Before you do anything else, you’ve got to set up a cover operation. What do you know about goods trafficking?’

‘I robbed a merchant on the road to Augsburg and killed three pirates near Rotterdam. I’m sure it’s profitable, but it seems to be a risky business.’

Gotz looks pleased. ‘Great. Another thing these bankers do is insure cargoes, because with the times being as they are the merchants have difficulty shouldering all the risks themselves.’

‘Go on.’

‘Imagine you’re a merchant who has the chance to do an important deal on an exchange of goods with someone in England. You’ve bought refined cane sugar from factories in Antwerp and Ostende, and you’re selling it on in the markets of London and Ipswich. It’s a very lucrative deal, and you plan to develop it as best you can. You’ve hired two boats, but the owner has asked you to take on all the risks of the transport, ships included. What do you do to protect yourself?’

I think about it for a moment and work out what the answer is: ‘I go to the Fugger office in Antwerp and tell them my story, so that I can insure the cargo and the ships.’

Gotz’ little black eyes don’t move. ‘Are you up for it?’

‘What about the cargo and the ships?’

Eloi butts in: ‘The first cargo of sugar lands safely in London. The second time, the cargo destined for Ipswich and the two ships transporting it will be ambushed by pirates from Zeeland.’

Gotz goes on. ‘So you can legitimately claim back the fifteen thousand florins of insurance.’

I think about it calmly, until everything is clear: ‘And then?’

‘Rather than withdrawing the cash, you get him to write to you in letters of credit confirming your intention to pursue the activity and continue as an agency customer. And in fact you’ll ask the Fugger agent to place your letters on a fixed sum of deposit for three years, so that whoever calls them in at the end of that term will receive a considerable amount of interest, but not before.’

‘Three years?’

‘To take your time. The later our letters are called in, the better it’ll be for us. Because during those three years you’ll go about your business with letters of credit attesting to your savings in the Fugger safes, but in the meantime you’ll also start to circulate the false ones that I’ll supply you with. We’ll use all the letters, the real ones and the fake ones, to buy goods in a wide range of markets, and then we’ll exchange them for hard cash. Part of that will be deposited back in the bank. That’ll be enough to keep relations with the agency alive, and attest to the fact that our commercial enterprise is moderately prosperous. The rest will be a very well-deserved prize for our cunning.’

‘How can you be sure they won’t spot you straight away?’

‘That’s my job. It’s just a question of