Cacao

or

Joseph Ermeler's Travels

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A story in the Knights and Commoners Universe

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Peter Argonis

 

© 2026, by Peter Argonis

 

 

Joseph Ermeler is a wagon master for a powerful merchant house in the age of discovery and is sent to faraway lands, to bring home precious spices. Now a merchant in his own right and returned to the town of his birth, he meets Barbara Bohne, a tempestuous shrew by reputation, but swayed from her man-hating ways by Joseph with the magic of sweet and spicy chocolate. A 17th century love story.

The Chapters

Foreword

I. The Cargo Master

II. The Outward Journey

III. The Spice Islands

IV. A Sharp Woman

V. An Inheritance

VI. A Taste from Heaven

VII. Making Progress

VIII. Betrothed

IX. Nuptials

X. A Dare Gone Wrong

XI. A Surprise

XII. The Richest City in the World

 

 

Foreword

The Fugger and Welser families of merchants and bankers were amongst the most powerful people in 16th to 17th century Europe, who could make or break a Holy Roman Emperor, by lending him money or denying it. They had branches — Kontore — all over Europe, and they moved huge sums of money by issuing Wechsel, money orders, that could be transported without fear of loss. This new form of financing, without the tedious and dangerous transfer of bullion or minted gold, is intricately connected to the Age of Discovery, a euphemism for subjugating and plundering indigenous people the World over, something that required share holders who expected a return on their investments, leaving little room for humanity

Travelling to the Spice Islands, or Malukas, in the early 17th century certainly was a dangerous undertaking, given the rudimentary navigation tools, the hand-drawn and -copied sea charts, the health hazards from scurvy and tropical fevers, poorly constructed ships and the frequent — and understandable — hostility of the 'discovered' peoples. Merchants perished or became well off, whilst the crews of the ships in which they travelled perished, if not during one, then in one of the next journeys. The only people getting rich and living to enjoy the riches, were those who financed the ships and stayed safely at home.

This is the setting for another story in my Knights and Commoners Universe, once again focussing on a commoner, a young trader and merchant who risks his health and life to bring home riches for his boss, a rich merchant and banker. Whilst wintering in Genoa and enjoying the leisure time with a lusty young widow, he gets a taste of hot chocolate, and he decides to add cocoa beans to his staple of trading goods, a decision that will bring him happiness and wealth.

And yes, the movie Chocolat was an inspiration for this tale, too.

 

I. The Cargo Master

Joseph Ermeler gave a sigh of relief. A train of over 20 ox carts, carrying trading goods from the rich Italian ports of Genoa and Venice, was now in approach of the Free Imperial City of Augsburg, and the high walls and turrets were now in clear sight of the weary wagoners and their armed escort of Swiss mercenaries. The whole train was under the command of Jacob Fugger, eldest son of Master Fugger, of Augsburg, the most important merchant of the city and perhaps of all German lands. Joseph was second, for he was the cargo master for the Welser family of merchants, the second-most-important trading house. He and the younger Fugger had a good accord with each other, focussing on getting the precious cargoes through numerous foreign dominions, but also through the towering Alps without paying overly high tolls to the local rulers. It helped that their escort was thirty-men strong and consisting of the feared Swiss landsknechte¹. Their service was costing them dearly, but they could cross through the smaller principalities with only token tolls to pay, for not many of the barons had the men to enforce higher tolls against thirty hardened mercenaries.

There came the younger Fugger.

"Think we can make it inside the walls before dark, Joseph?" he asked. He was more of a skilled trader and less of a leader of wagon trains.

"If none of the wagons breaks down, we shall have supper at home," Joseph answered.

"Think your master will help to finance the journey?"

"I hope that he will, Jacob. There are riches to make with spices and other wares. Think of white china plates, think of black teas!"

"It will be a perilous enterprise."

"Yes, but again, we shall be rich if we return. For you, as your father's eldest son, the risk is higher, but I have nothing to inherit, nothing to warrant a seat in the Guild."

"So you would undertake that journey, friend Joseph?"

"Yes, and I shall put up all my savings for the enterprise."

"I shall speak to my father. With you as cargo master, he will join the cartel."

"That would help to convince Master Welser. Will you lead the enterprise?"

Fugger shook his head. "It is time I married and stayed in Augsburg, Friend. The undertaking will have to be in your able hands."

"Would that it will, Friend Jacob!"

As they came closer to the walls of Augsburg, Joseph thought more about the proposal they would present to their masters. The Genoese merchants, with the help of their navy, planned a trading journey to the far-away Spice Islands or Maluka Islands, to buy spices from the Portuguese who ruled one of the larger islands. On the return, the merchants would visit Portuguese Goa, on the west coast of the huge Indian peninsula, where they would trade for spices, but also for goods, such as precious China plate from the Chinese Empire. According to the Genoese merchants, profits would be staggering for those who survived the journey.

The trading flotilla would comprise at least three carracks², each armed with twelve falcons³ and more, mighty guns, and just as many culverins⁴. There would be regular Genoese soldiers on board, in addition to the sailors, and Joseph understood that the merchants — if tempted — would not be averse to some freebooting. That, he would keep to himself.

Dusk was on the city, when the iron tyres of the ox carts rumpled over the old cobble stones of the Wertach Bridge Gate, and then onwards to the warehouses. Since most of the populace had finished the day's work, many of the city's folks lined the narrow streets as the carts made their way. When they passed the large house of the Welser family, Joseph saw his master, Martin Welser, standing at a first floor window and waving to him. Joseph stood in his stirrups and bowed to his master, but then, the distribution of the wares and goods took his whole attention. Servants of the Fugger and Welser families rushed to take care of his mount, and others led the Swiss to their quarters, whilst workmen laboured to push the loaded wagons into the warehouses, to be unloaded on the morrow.

Joseph himself was led to his quarters in the back of the Welser House where servants had prepared a hot bath for him. After cleaning himself from the travel dust and sweat, and clad in fresh garments, he was summoned to his master.

"Master Welser asks for you, Joseph!"

The voice of the young apprentice merchant was full of importance, and Joseph gave the boy a grin.

"Then I had better heed the summons," he answered, leaving his rooms and following the youngster.

He found Master Welser in his private quarters and sitting at a laid table.

"Sit, Joseph, and sate your hunger and thirst," he invited him, giving him a benevolent smile. After all, Joseph had served the Welsers for a long time and well.

It was over fifteen years before that Joseph had been apprenticed to Martin Welser, the merchant, and he had risen to cargo master in the Welser House.The city of Augsburg was as much home to him now as any other place, and more so than the small town of his birth, Heidingsfeld, a week's travel to the north. At thirteen years, the man who had sired him, a merchant himself, had taken him to Augsburg to be apprenticed.

If truth be told, it was solely for the peace in his house that Judokus Ermeler had shipped the boy to faraway Augsburg, for the lad was a constant bone of contention between Judokus and his wife, who did not take kindly to the fact that Joseph was her husband’s sole offspring and born to their maidservant. When Joseph’s mother died of a rotten tooth, Judokus took the boy in to teach him trading. Magda Ermeler had made both males' lives a living hell until Judokus had caved in. Once a deal had been struck with the Welsers, Judokus gave his son five Ducats gold as a farewell gift and loaded his wagon with merchant goods for the long ride home.

For five long years, young Joseph had learned the basics of trading — accounting, weighing, and writing — whilst doing the menial chores expected of a lowly apprentice. His good handwriting and his easy command of numbers soon brought him to the attention of the patriarch of the family, Martinus Welser. When his apprenticeship ended, Joseph took to the road as a journeyman merchant for five years, getting as far as Venice and Genoa, where he worked for the wealthy merchants of those seaports. He returned to Augsburg, older and with a grasp of trading on a grand scale, a good command of Italian and with four well-reputed Venetian and Genoese merchants vouching for him.

Once back in Augsburg, the Welsers gladly took him back into their employ, and for the next five years he worked as a cargo master for wagon trains going to Italy and the Emperor's Austrian lands. He received a share of the earnings for each crossing of the Alps, and each time he would use his earnings to buy extra cargo of his own. After five years, Joseph Ermeler owned the proud sum of over four-hundred Ducats, and he would have been set to start his own trading business, had not the Genoese made their offer to join them in a trading mission to the Spice Islands.

The wrinkly face of the old merchant showed benevolence and pleasure.

"Here you are, Joseph. I could not be prouder of you if were you my own flesh and blood."

"I have to thank you, Master, for all that you taught me and for your trust. I just remembered how I arrived here with my father all those years ago. How scared I was and how lonely! You were ever a good and just master, and I always felt at home here."

"You were ever a good lad, and now you are a reliable and stout cargo master for us. What tidings do you bring from Genoa?"

"The prices were a bit up since last we bought merchandise there, but not too much, and not for all wares I bought. They claimed that the prices in Lisboa forced them to raise their own."

"Likely true, but irksome," Welser commented.

"Yes, Master; it irks the Genoese, too. They plan to send a small fleet of ships of their own to the Spice Islands, but also to Goa, in India, to trade for spices, teas, and other goods, cutting out the Portuguese captains and traders. Master, they are offering us shares in the enterprise."

Welser stroked his beard. "Shares you say?"

"Yes, Master. They must finance ships and crews. The republic will loan them three carracks and two large caravels, all armed with falcon guns, and they won a Portuguese navigator for the endeavour. They expect five-to-one earnings."

"Think you that it might be worth the risk?"

"I am not a maritime man, Master, but their reasoning sounded well-founded to me. I also spoke to the navigator, wining him a little, and he does seem to know the routes. It'll take two years at the least to complete the voyage, and one in five sailors will likely die during it, but we would only send along a cargo master, a scrivener, and a journeyman merchant; perhaps, an apprentice, too."

"What does the younger Fugger say?"

"He'd like to support the endeavour, but he is set to marry and will not come along."

"I am interested, Joseph. Set up a meeting with Fugger and his son. Whom would they send?"

"Your pardon, Master, but the younger Jacob and I became friends, and he thinks that I should act for them, too."

"Against a share, to be sure?"

"One in twenty, Master. If you agree, I would also contribute my life savings to cover our share."

"A three-way partnering for one large-sized share?"

"Yes, Master, if you can agree to it."

"Set up the meeting, Joseph. I am of a mind to enter into the scheme with Jacobus Fugger and you, but let us hear him first. Think well of the risks you want to take, Joseph. We can ill afford to lose you and your service."

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Two days later, Martin Welser and Jacobus Fugger met to hear young Fugger and Joseph give their account of the proposed venture. They listened and then decided to confer with other Guild merchants. Another three days later, Joseph once again presented the plan to seven heads of merchant houses, and a week later, a consortium had been founded of ten merchants and one cargo master, Joseph. He was to collect the monies from the the shareholders in the form of exchange bills drawn on the Fugger and Welser banks, to be handed to their Genoese partners. He would also oversee the collection of trade goods to be taken to those foreign lands for trading. Those had to be of value to the Portuguese traders at Ambon Island, their farthest destination, and at Goa, but also for the local rulers in those foreign lands, without being readily available in Genoa. Joseph's suggestion of wrought iron ingots was accepted easily, because he could argue that they could be used as ballast for the ships on the outward journey and replaced with local stones on the homeward part. Other suggestions were made and weighed, and in the end, agreement was reached for Joseph to take a twenty-wagon train to Genoa four weeks hence, carrying the goods. He and his companions would the stay the winter in Genoa and set sail in early March.

As for his companions, a journeyman merchant from the Fugger house, Arno Kemper, would be his right-hand man, a young man, the third son of a City councilman, as scrivener, and an apprentice from a smaller trading house as helper.

Over the following weeks, Joseph converted all of his earthly belongings into Welser exchange bills, for his share of the enterprise, and he organised fifteen cargo wagons, drawn by oxen, for the trading goods. The younger Fugger would accompany the wagon train, vouch for the deal with the Genoese, and then return to Augsburg after the winter, with another cargo of trading goods for Augsburg's merchants.

When the morning of their departure came, Joseph had one last look at what he considered his hometown, suppressing the fear that he might very well be lost on the long journey. Many people in the city thought their plan to be a folly and that they would fall off from the edge of the world at one point. At least that was not Joseph's concern, for the Portuguese navigator, Luis Nuñes, had credibly assured him that no such edge existed. Still, he might be the one of five who would not return.

II. The Outward Journey

The large wagon train had crossed the Alps to the South and reached Genoa with the beginning winter rains. Jacob Fugger, the younger, and Joseph had presented the exchange bills and had received documents proving their share of the enterprise. Four of the five ships had already assembled and were being careened — one of the many new words Joseph had to learn — to scrape barnacles and seaweeds from their bottoms. Their trading goods had been unloaded into a large goods shed close to the harbour, and the younger Fugger was busy buying up trading goods for the homeward wagon train. Meanwhile, Joseph had quartered himself and his three companions in the goods shed, to keep their eyes on the cargo.

Joseph was also befriending Luis Nuñes, the navigator, trying to learn as much as possible about their destinations and the people living there. He also met the other partners frequently, and his Romance and Portuguese language skills improved over the winter months.

In addition to the navigator, other Portuguese sailors had been hired, too, because of their experience with sailing around Africa and across the Indian Ocean. The captains were of course Genoese masters, stout and experienced men, who were still apprehensive about the longest voyage of their lives.

Given the large share he represented, Joseph would sail in the lead ship, the carrack Dom Pedro, a huge ship of over 800 tons, on loan from Portuguese merchants, and under the command of Capitano del Nave Bartolomeo Ricci, the overall commander of the fleet. In the deep hold of that ship, the trading goods of the Augsburg merchants were stowed, except for the 30 tons of wrought iron ingots, which had replaced the regular ballast of the ship.

Come the March, Fugger and his wagons departed