He pulled me with him back to the booth, where he made a great show of placing the single coin in his scales and adjusting the weight. When at last he was satisfied with the heft of our silver, he reached under the booth and brought out a leather bag full of coins-bronze, copper, silver, and gold-and began counting bronze and copper pieces into my hands. The bronze pieces were marked with Greek letters: some with E, some with K, others with M and I. These letters, I supposed, ascribed certain values to the coins; but he counted them so rapidly, I could get no idea what they were.
The Sea Wolves, always keen-eyed for business matters, watched this operation with interest. When the Prefect finished, Hnefi made me give the money to him. "First ten, and now a hundred," he observed, "it seems our silver coins increase their value wonderfully well. Jarl Harald will be hearing of this."
I thought about all the silver we had given the harbour guard, but thought it best not to say anything. Orm needed no reminder, however. "And so will the harbour master, I think."
The Prefect of Law then counted out two more discs, which he gave to Orm and Gunnar. When I held out my hand for one, he shook his head. "It is only for the barbari," he explained, and said that the disc gave them leave to enter the city as often as they liked until the year's end. "But," he warned tartly, "they must use only the Magnaura. All other gates are forbidden to them."
"I understand," I told him. "But tell me, please, which is this Magnaura gate?"
The bald man regarded me with an expression of disgust. "That!" he snapped, flapping his hand at the doorway behind us. "That is the gate you must use. Be off with you!"
He dismissed us then with a curt gesture and settled himself in his chair once more. We continued on our way, moving swiftly past the watching guards. Having purchased the freedom of Byzantium, the barbarians were desirous of discovering just how far this liberty might extend.
Within moments of leaving the gate, we were lost-a fact which did not come to our attention until very much later, however, for we walked the close and winding streets, wandering where curiosity took us, searching for the chief treasure house of the city. What had seemed a simple, straightforward matter aboard the ship was quickly shown to be monumentally complicated when standing in the middle of a road ebbing and flowing with people like a restless tide. Our first attempts to gather our wits provoked angry shouts to get out of the way.
"Move on! Move on!" cried a guardsman who happened by. "You cannot stop here. Move on!"
"He says we must move along," I told the Danes.
"Where should we go?" wondered Gunnar.
"Let us follow that man," suggested Orm, pointing to a fat man trailing a long purple cloak. "He will certainly lead us to a treasure house."
"I am the leader," Hnefi reminded him. "I say we shall go the other way."
Thus we proceeded, progressing deeper into the city until we came to a wide street lined with dwellings which for size and the expense of their construction were not to be equalled. They were very palaces.
"You see!" Hnefi crowed proudly. "I know how to find good treasure. Follow me!"
The greedy Sea Wolves strode boldly, declaring loudly which palace should be raided first and which they thought contained the most wealth-no easy decision, as it happened, for every house we saw seemed to possess a grandeur far exceeding any we had ever encountered, and at each and every dwelling the Sea Wolves stood in the street, gazing at the imposing edifice and swearing solemn oaths that here before them stood what was certainly the chief treasure house of the city. And they were happy in this thought until we came to the next.
One street was lined with mansions two and three floors tall, and where the walls of the lowest floor were blank-faced brick, save for the door, the walls of the upper floors boasted windholes covered with glass. I had never seen glass windholes before, but there they were. And on every house in the street! Many of the mansions, if that is what they were, had ornately carved doors, and painted lintels; one or two of these structures boasted carved statuary affixed to plinths beside the windholes. Many were topped with tiled roofs on the slant, but more grand dwellings had flat roofs from which green foliage could be seen. I had heard that wealthy Romans did this, but I had never encountered such wealth before. If that was not enough, nearly every house possessed another feature unknown to me: an extension of the upper floor which overhung the street. These protuberances-remarkably substantial, many of them-were faced with wooden screens which, I suppose, could be opened to allow the cool evening air into the upper rooms.
