1636: The Viennese Waltz

CHAPTER 16

March, April and May 1635

The Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria

Emperor Ferdinand III wasn’t thrilled with the letter from Wallenstein. He looked at the two Liechtenstein brothers sitting across the table in the private audience room, and gestured with the letter from Karl Eusebius. “What is your nephew up to, gentlemen?”

“Walking the tightrope?” Maximillian von Liechtenstein said. “When we set up the family charter, it gave Karl and his heirs much of the control over the family estates. Karl Eusebius is trying to follow enough of the rules to keep that agreement from ending up in the courts while at the same time protecting the family’s assets. Just in case.”

“We can, Your Majesty, convince Karl Eusebius to provide more funds. I’m sure of that,” Gundaker said. “But that sort of thing is best done face-to-face.”

Moses Abrabanel snorted. “The princes Liechtenstein are well known for their wealth. However, I doubt that every groschen of it is enough to handle the problems we have today.”

Ferdinand III said, “Every little bit helps, Moses.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. But to solve the problem, we have to start creating money.”

The uproar this caused filled the private audience room, but Moses overrode the noise. “I am less concerned with getting Prince Karl here than I am with getting Sarah Wendell to Vienna. Up-timers still have great cachet, after all. And Sarah is an acknowledged expert in the field of economics. She does work for the USE Federal Reserve Bank and her father is their Secretary of the Treasury.”

“You’re saying that if we got her to endorse it, we could print more money without a larger silver reserve?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Ferdinand III looked at the advisers, Moses Abrabanel, Gundaker and Maximillian von Liechtenstein, and Reichsgraf Maximillian von Trautmannsdorf. “So you all think I should accept Prince Karl’s credentials as ambassador from Bohemia?”

The men around the table nodded.

Higgins Hotel, Grantville

“Maid of honor,” Judy the Younger squealed. “Me? I thought sure you’d ask someone else.”

“You’re my only sister,” Sarah pointed out, trying to sound regretful. “Now, if I’d had another sister. .”

Judy tossed a pillow at her. “You know you love me.” She hesitated a moment. “What about your other bridesmaids?”

“I really don’t know,” Sarah admitted. “Who’s going to be able to travel all the way to Vienna? Most people I know are up to their eyeballs in work.”

“What about us?” Judy stopped a moment. “The Barbies, I mean. We’d love an excuse to travel, you know.”

“Eek!”

“Oh, don’t be pretending to scream,” Judy said. “You know we can be. . well, act. . really presentable when we want to.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s getting you guys to want to that’s the problem.”

“Seriously, Sarah. I’d really like something for us to do that’s out of Grantville. Vicky took Bill’s death really hard. And if we don’t get Susan away from the old. . cats. . in Grantville, she’s going to explode. Even with all the uproar after Mayor Dreeson was killed, those old bats keep after her about her mom.”

Sarah fully understood that, considering Velma Hardesty’s reputation as a man-eating slut. “Actually,” Sarah said, “having Susan in Vienna might be a very good idea.”

“Take one, take us all.” Judy laughed, but there was a catch in her voice. Even Judy was shaken by the deaths of Mayor Dreeson and Bill Magen and she knew that.

“Hush. I said that because I know that Karl’s family is going to be looking for money. Susan is the best of your crew when it comes to holding on to money.”

“I think she’s got the first dollar she ever made,” Judy said. “She’s afraid to let go of any of it. Well, except for what she invests. She doesn’t think that’s spending it.”

“And she’s right. But Karl’s family isn’t looking to invest it. They’re looking to loan it to the emperor.”

Liechtenstein House, outside the Ring of Fire

“So how are we going to get there?” Susan Logsden asked. “I have no desire to repeat Hayley’s trip to the frontier in a covered wagon.”

“Vienna is hardly the frontier, Susan,” Karl complained.

“You’re right. It’s past the frontier, well into Injun country,” Vicky said harshly. “But my point is, I have no desire at all to spend weeks in a covered wagon, squatting in a field to do my business. I am a child of civilization.”

“Well, you can stay home if you want,” Sarah said repressively.

“Nope. Got a letter from Hayley. She needs us, so we’re going, even if we leave the Ken Doll here in Grantville.”

“Not a chance,” Sarah said.

“I’ll arrange transport,” Karl said.

“How?” Sarah asked.

“I have no idea, but I’ll think of something.”

* * *

It took Karl two days to think of that something, and the expense of several radio calls back and forth to the Netherlands. But he got the loan of one of the Jupiters from Fernando, King in the Low Countries. Happily, the royal Netherlands airline had two Jupiters currently in service so they could spare one for a week or so. King Fernando might not have agreed on his own. He tended to hoard his beloved new aircraft the way dragons of legend hoarded gold. But Karl suspected he’d come under considerable pressure from his wife. Part of the arrangement was that Karl would bring letters to deliver to her family from Queen Maria Anna.

Fortney House, Race Track City

“Hey, Mom!” Hayley shouted, tracking mud in. “I just got a letter from Judy. Sarah is going to marry Prince Karl von Liechtenstein. Here! In Vienna!”

“What? What happened to David Bartley?” Dana asked.

“Got me. I always thought he was kind of cute, in an Ichabod Crane sort of way. Nothing to write home about. Maybe he just couldn’t compete with the Ken Doll? You know, prince and all that.”

“You think Sarah is the sort to go title hunting?”

“Not really, but I don’t know her all that well. I mean, she’s Judy’s sister, yeah. But you know how older sisters are when it comes to their baby sister’s ‘little’ friends.”

“Big sisters are indeed cruel and heartless creatures. At least till you’re all grown up, and they are never quite convinced that you really are an adult.”

“Right. Just like Natasha is.” Hayley grinned. “So, anyway, Sarah was always a bit distant and we all had the impression that she didn’t approve of the adventurous nature of the Barbie Consortium, but apparently she’s gotten over that.” Hayley looked back at the letter. “Because Judy and the rest of the Barbies are to be her bridesmaids. Judy’s going to be the maid of honor.”

“That’s great. If we don’t go broke before they get here,” Dana said. Over the last several months they had been building up a truly massive cache of I.O.Us and slowly spending themselves into bankruptcy to keep goods on the shelves.

“Yes, I know, Mom. I talked to Moses Abrabanel yesterday, and he is getting leery about loaning us money based on the notes we are carrying. He doesn’t see how people are going to be able to pay us back, so he doesn’t see how we are going to pay his family back. But we can’t stop giving people credit.”

It had become a matter of increasing worry over the last few months only partly ameliorated by getting into the exports trade. They were now shipping goods manufactured in Vienna up- and downriver, but that was not enough to cover their raw material costs. And even with their labor-saving machines making the goods, production still took labor. And labor had to be paid. “Look, Mom, Sarah is pretty good at the financial stuff. That’s why Coleman Walker hired her, in spite of the fact that she is a woman and, in his eyes, still a kid. Maybe she can help. And the Barbies are doing real good in the USE. I can raise some money from them if I have to. We’ll work something out.” Hayley wasn’t real sure whether she was trying to convince her mom or herself. And in either case, she didn’t feel like she had done a great job.

Jack Pfeifer’s Office, Race Track City

Jack Pfeifer was worried, too. As the lawyer for SFIC, he was aware of the amount of debt that SFIC was owed and he was increasingly concerned that it was going to be unpaid. If the Sanderlins and Fortneys wanted to, they could probably put two or three percent of the population of Vienna in debtor’s prison. It was mostly small amounts of debt per individual, but no amount was small if it was more than someone could pay.

He pulled another form from the pile and checked the name, number and the amount against his records. Three pairs of socks and a kerchief. He shook his head. The man who had bought them worked on the canal project and was probably going to lose his job in another month when the canal was done. Then where was he going to get the money to pay this off? Jack sighed. He really needed to get a clerk to handle this, especially since it was checking what Mrs. Fortney or Mrs. Sanderlin had already done.

Krause Rooms, Vienna

“I got dinner, Maria,” Adam Krause told his wife.

She looked worried. “They took your note again?”

“Yes, no trouble.” His boots were muddy from a day behind a Fresno scraper, building the canal that would connect the Danube with Race Track City, and his wife helped out by working as a maid in the apartment block they lived in. They were getting by better, in fact, than they had for the last several years. But they were terrified about what would happen when the canal was finished and they lost his income. “It’s all right. I’ll find something. I am a good worker and I learn quick. Herr Fortney said so himself.” Adam put all the confidence he could in that statement, and his Maria seemed to accept it.

It was a grand canal, too. Wide and deep, lined with stone and mortar. Adam suspected that they were making it grander than they had to, just as a way of keeping people working.

240Z Shop, Race Track City

“How’s the canal going, Sonny?” Ron Sanderlin asked.

“Too damned well,” Sonny Fortney said. “They work like beavers and we will be opening it in another week. Then what do we do with two hundred workers who are going to be out of a job?”

Sonny sighed. “I dunno, Ron. Maybe ask Hayley which project we ought to take on next?”

“Oh, quit bragging, dammit.”

Fortney House, Race Track City

“I don’t know, Dad. There are lots of things we could do, but no one has any money to buy anything. We could build a frigging skyscraper next door to St. Stephen’s and fill it all, except no one could pay their rent. We could build factories and make everything from sewing machines to steam cars and no one could buy them ’cause no one has any money.”

“Well, how are they doing it in Grantville?”

“The American dollar, Dad. They have the American dollar.”

“What’s wrong with the Austro-Hungarian thaler?”

Hayley looked at him. “Which would you rather have, Dad?”

“All right. But you know they are backed by silver.”

“And, unlike most people, I actually believe it,” Hayley agreed. “If they were issuing more than they had the silver to back, there would be enough of the thalers. Austria is suffering from deflation.”

“I hate when you talk like Fletcher Wendell.”

Hayley stuck out her tongue. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t make this mess.”

“I know, but I remember the little girl who dressed her Barbies in overalls and hard hats and had them planning bridges over at Wave Pool.”

“That’s a possibility Dad. What about a water park? You know, people swim in the Danube during the summer. I bet a water park with swimming pools and stuff would be a big draw.”

Through March and April, and into May, workers from the canal project managed to get moved either to the railroad or to the construction of the water park. While SFIC got further and further in debt.

Barclay Engineering, Vienna

Barclay Engineering was the bottom floor of a three-floor townhouse rented by the Barclays. They lived on the second floor, and the servants on the third. Peter Barclay looked at the blueprint of the support ring for the concrete mill and tried to concentrate on his work. It wasn’t easy. He could hear the servants moving around upstairs and the traffic on the street. Still, they were doing better than a lot of the royal hangers-on. They were Hofbefreiten, so they weren’t paying city taxes. And he had been able to get quite a bit of paying work consulting on up-time innovations that the down-timers didn’t understand or know how to use. All in all, they were getting by.

“What do you know about Karl von Liechtenstein?” his wife Marina asked.

“Only what his uncles say. Gundaker thinks he is a traitor to the Holy Roman Empire.”

“There is no Holy Roman Empire and there hasn’t been since before we left Grantville. And Prince Gundaker von Liechtenstein has a flagpole up his ass.”

Peter snorted a laugh. “True enough on both counts, but he is who Ferdinand III stuck us with.”

“Well, at least it wasn’t that murderer Drugeth,” Marina said, looking over at him. There was a smudge of charcoal on her nose and that had gotten to be a constant since they got to Vienna. No CAD systems here, not that there had been that many available in Grantville after the Ring of Fire. But at least there had been better pencils. It amazed Peter how much work it took to get ready to work here in Vienna. And that was even when they had a down-time staff. Most of whom, Peter was convinced, were spies.

“Well, Prince Karl was involved with David Bartley in that business with the Netherlands guilder a couple of years ago and they say he made millions.”

“Financial shenanigans,” Pete said. “Not building anything. Just arbitrage, and probably crooked as a dog’s hind leg to boot.”

Marina was looking at him and he snorted. “All right. I’m not talking about the Partow twins. They’re clever enough, especially for untrained kids, but David Bartley and his grandmother are little more than con-artists who got tied into the down-time local power structure. You know that the down-timers do everything through marriage. And I don’t believe for a second that Bartley was opposed to Delia Higgins’ hotel venture. She got a sweetheart deal, count on it.”

“Never mind Bartley. He’s not coming here. What about Prince Karl?”

“A rich playboy is all. His family’s money plus some good luck. Besides, from what Gundaker said they sent a really bright advisor with him.”

“The Wendells seem all right,” Marina said.

“The Wendells are tied into the Grantville power structure and that’s why they got their positions, and that’s why the daughters. . well, the older girl. . got her job in Magdeburg. From what they were saying back in Grantville, that whole Barbie Consortium was a bunch of underage femme fatales, using their looks to scam everyone.”

“Some of the rumors said they used more than their looks,” Marina said. “I heard that that Susan Logsden didn’t fall far from her mother’s tree and that Velma Hardesty was a slut from way back.”

“Engineering takes time, skill, and training. The gambles they take in Grantville, the lack of proper analysis, is going to come back to haunt them,” Peter said, just like he had said hundreds of times before. And it was true. He was constantly being pressured to do the same sort of sloppy engineering here, but he wouldn’t do it. There were reasons for the regulations they had had up-time and no building or engine designed by Peter Barclay was going to fall down or blow up because he cut corners.

Meanwhile, Emperor Ferdinand was getting impatient and Peter couldn’t blame him. It was just incredibly hard to build engines down-time. He had to do everything himself. It seemed that every part to make every machine to make a part of the next machine took more time and cost more than it could have. People always talked about how skilled these primitive craftsmen were supposed to be, but they took forever, and they wasted so much time on curlicues and fancy work that nothing ever got done. And he was sure in his gut that the new up-timers were going to come in with some trick and steal all the credit for all the work he had done.

* * *

In a way, Peter was right. But in a lot of ways he was wrong. The big difference between up-time production techniques and down-time production was not quality, but time. It takes a hellacious long time to do almost anything by hand. And if you’re going to spend that much time on it in the first place, why not add in a little more to make it beautiful as well as functional? Meanwhile, over the past most of a year in Vienna, he had built up the infrastructure to build internal combustion engines. One piece at a time, because he wasn’t good at delegating or trusting, and so required everything to go through him, but it was at least halfway to a finished product.

Peter’s unwillingness to listen to the expertise of the down-time craftsmen who did know how to get the most out of their equipment was slowing things down even more.

Water Park, Race Track City

On the other hand, Dana Fortney was getting along quite well with down-timer ladies, teaching them yoga and therapeutic massage at the water park. The water park had evolved into a combination down-time bathhouse and up-time water park, with an up-time beauty shop next door to a down-time barber/surgeon. Well, sort of down-time barber/surgeons. The up-time knowledge of antiseptics had gone a long way to improve their outcomes. They weren’t in Sharon Nichols’ class-not even close-but they were much better than they had been. In fact, they were getting better results than the professional doctors from the university. The advance of the surgeon from hack to king of the medical profession was starting much sooner in this timeline.

Vienna

The message was terse and less than informative. It had been sent before it was even known whether Pope Urban was still alive, but other messages in the same pouch had confirmed that the pope was alive but had fled from Rome. Cardinal Borja was claiming that Urban had fallen into heresy, and half the priests in Vienna seemed to believe Borja’s version. The other half was convinced that Borja was a Spanish pawn who was trying to place the whole church under the Spanish crown.

Over the next several days, the situation clarified some. In fact, there were two versions of events, each very clear and insistent. Even strident. Unfortunately, they were mutually exclusive.

In one version of events, Urban had fallen into heresy, abandoning the true church in favor of the Protestantism that the up-time church had fallen into, and-with great restraint and forbearance-the College of Cardinals had remonstrated with the erring pontiff for as long as possible. But the cardinals had finally been forced to take action to defend the faith against corruption. In this version, the true church had been forced to those measures only by Urban’s insanity and the corruption of a faction of cardinals who had abandoned Christ’s message.

In the other version of events, Urban had been in the process of weighing the issues brought into the world with the care and deliberation required by his position as head of the church, when a clique of ambitious and venal clerics under unknown influences had attempted to assassinate Christ’s vicar on Earth and had succeeded in assassinating a majority of the cardinals. But, through God’s grace, the pope had escaped the vile assassins and was continuing to do his duty. He had not decided the issue of the Ring of Fire and, even with the actions of Borja and his mad men, was not going to rush to judgment.

No one knew where Pope Urban was, but wherever he might be, messages from the father general of the Jesuits confirmed that he was alive. On the other hand, the rump college of cardinals-mostly the Spanish faction-had, in effect, charged Father General Mutius Vitelleschi of the Jesuits with heresy and insisted that he was not to be trusted. They were, at the least, no longer claiming that Pope Urban had been killed in Rome.

Meanwhile, there had been fist fights and even knife fights between priests of the holy mother church. Fights mostly between orders that were not overly friendly with each other to begin with. The conflict between the Dominicans and the Jesuits had approached riots. Neither faction was all in favor of Urban or Borja, but the Dominicans tended to support Borja and the Jesuits tended to support Urban. According to Ferdinand III’s confessor, Lamormaini was tending toward the Borja faction because of the raising of Larry Mazarre to cardinal, and was feeling somewhat ill-used by Father General Vitelleschi and Pope Urban.

And in the middle of this came the news that Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein would be arriving within the week, with his fiancee. . and in an airplane.