Tim Severin - Sworn Brother

Again I exercised caution. Something about Brithmaer's attitude sent me a warning signal.

'I'm sorry,' I said, 'I have no idea. I don't know what it is used for or how much precious metal is in it.'

'Neither did the illiterate barbarian who brought it in to me,' said the old man. 'For him it was just a pretty bauble, and because his wife or mistress could not wear it as a brooch or hang it round her neck as a pendant, he couldn't find a use for it.'

'So why did you buy it?'

'Because I could get a bargain.'

Brithmaer dropped back the lid of the chest. 'Enough. I presume that your job is to be here at the exchange so that, when a merchant or a sailor comes in with something similar, you are on hand to assess whether the queen would like to add it to her jewellery collection. If you go to the front office, my clerks will find a space for you.'

So began a long, tedious spell for me. I was not born to be a shopkeeper. I lack the patience to sit for hours gazing vacantly out of the door or, when the weather allows, to stand in the street, hovering to greet a potential customer with an attentive smile. And because it was the start of winter and the sailing season was at an end, very few ships were working upriver with cargoes from the Continent. So there were very few clients. Indeed there were almost no visitors to Brithmaer's exchange, except for two or three merchants who seemed to be regular customers. When they arrived, they did not deal with the clerks in the front room but were shown directly to see Brithmaer in his office in the back. Then the door was firmly closed.

Whenever the boredom got too great to endure, I would slip out of the building, stroll down to the wharves and find a spot out of the wind. There I would stand and gaze at the waters of the Thames sliding past me with their endless patterns and ripples, and I would mark the slow passage of time by the inexorable rise and fall of the tideline on the river's muddy foreshore, and ache for Aelfgifu. She never sent me word.

By mid-December I was so racked by longing to see Aelgifu that I asked Brithmaer for permission to look through his existing stock of jewellery for items which might catch the queen's eye. He sent me to Thurulf with a note telling him to show me the inventory in the strongroom. Thurulf was glad to see me. We had adjacent rooms at Brithmaer's home, but each morning went our separate ways — I to the exchange, Thurulf to the workshop floor. Once or twice a week we met up after working hours and, if we could avoid Brithmaer's attention, slipped out of the house to visit the taverns by the docks. We always timed our return to be outside the heavily guarded door to the mint when Brithmaer's two night workers reported for duty, and we entered — unnoticed, we hoped — with them. The night workers were both veterans of the moneyer's bench, too old and worn-out for full-time labour. One had an eye disease and was nearly blind, so he sat at the bench and worked by touch. The other was stone deaf after years among the din of hammers. The men spent a few hours each night at their well-remembered places at the workbench, in lamplight, and I would often fall asleep to the patient clink, clink of their hammers. The general opinion was that it was an act of charity for Brithmaer to give them part-time employment.

'What are you doing here at this time of day?' said Thurulf, obviously pleased when I showed up mid-morning with Brithmaer's note. He was glumly counting up the contents of the bags of the old-issue coins stored in the strongroom before they were melted down for new coinage. It was a job he particularly loathed. 'The bags never seem to grow any less,' he said. 'Goes to prove that people are hoarders. Just when you think you've cleared the backlog, another batch of old coins comes in.'

Thurulf put aside the wooden tally stick on which he was cutting the number of bags of coin, a notch for each bag. Locking the door behind him, he took me to where the jewellery was kept. At the far end of the minting floor was the workroom for the craftsman who cut the faces of the striking irons. He was a suspicious, surly figure and unpopular with the other workers, who resented that he was paid far more than them. I never learned his name because he only came to the mint one day a week, went straight to his workroom and locked himself inside to get on with his job.

'There's not enough work in preparing striking irons to keep a craftsman employed, even one day a week,' explained Thurulf, relishing his chance to display his moneyer's expertise. 'When all the striking irons for a new coin issue have been made, another full set of irons won't be needed until the king decides a new design for his coin, and that might not be for several years. In the meantime the work is mainly repairing and refacing damaged and worn-out striking irons. So my uncle decided that his craftsman might as well make and repair jewellery during his extra hours.'

Thurulf pushed open the door to the workroom. It was a cubbyhole equipped with the same sort of heavy workbench that was used in the main workshop, a small crucible for melting metal and an array of punches and engraving tools for cutting the faces of the striking irons. The only difference was the large iron-bound chest tucked under the bench. I helped Thurulf tug this out and heave it up on the bench. He unlocked it, rummaged inside and

And produced jewellery, which he spread out. ‘It’s mostly repairs,' he said, 'replacing a missing stone in a necklace, tightening up the mounts, mending a clasp, straightening, cleaning and polishing an item so that it will catch the customer's eye. A lot of what is here is rubbish — imitation gold, low-grade silver, broken odds and ends.'

He picked through the better pieces on the bench, and selected a handsome pendant, silver with a blue stone set in its centre and an attractive pattern of curved lines radiating from the mount. 'Here,' he said, 'you can see how this pendant is hung on a chain through that loop. When my uncle acquired the piece, the loop was cracked and flattened and our man had to reshape and solder it. Then he went over the decoration lines again with his engraving tool — they were a bit faded — and made them more distinct.'

I took the pendant from Thurulf. It was easy to detect where the mend had been done and the scratches of the new engraving. 'Your man's not very skilled, is he?' I commented.

'Frankly, no. But then most of our clients aren't too discerning, said Thurulf blithely. 'He's a working engraver,, not an artist. Now look at this. Here's something he could repair if only he had the right stones to fill the holes.' He handed me a necklace made of red amber beads strung on a silver chain. After every third bead a crystal, the size of half a walnut, was held in a fine silver claw. Like nuggets of smooth, fresh ice, the crystals threw back the light from flat surfaces cut and polished on them. Originally there had been seven crystals, but now three of them were missing, though the silver mounts remained. Had the necklace been entire, it would have been spectacular. As it was, it looked like a gap-toothed grin.

'I thought you said your uncle's workshop made jewellery,' I commented.

'Nothing complicated,' Thurulf replied, lifting a leather pouch from the chest and unfastening the drawstring. 'This is what we specialise in,' and he pulled out a necklace.