1636: The Viennese Waltz

CHAPTER 30

September 1635

Liechtenstein Tower Construction Site, Vienna

The scraper was down six feet below street level now and they were running into real problems.

The basement was a well.

Johann’s foot sank into the mud and the ox he was following wasn’t doing much better. The scraper was sinking into the mud. “Leonhard, we have to do something about the seepage!” Johann shouted.

He was overheard by no less a personage than Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein, who was here observing the construction preparations for the Liechtenstein Tower, in preference to observing the towering rage of his uncles.

Gundaker was much the worst, but Maximilian wasn’t happy either. Sarah was taking the attitude that Leo got what he was asking for and if the emperor didn’t like it, they could all go home while the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire sank into its massive debt. That threat was pretty effective, more so because Gundaker really wanted Karl and Sarah’s marriage to happen. He wanted Karl’s children out of the succession, and wanted it badly. It was reassuring in a way, in spite of Gundaker’s recent association with the Spanish and Borja faction.

The whole city had been tense since Pope Urban had been forced out of Rome. There were clear fault lines over the crisis in the church, and while the royal house was tending toward the Urban faction, they had not declared for him. Judy’s knee might just move them to the Borja faction. Certainly, the Dominicans seemed to be flocking around Leo.

What possessed the girl?

No.

Karl knew exactly what had possessed her. The exact same thing that possessed all the up-timers. That up-timer sense of self-worth. It was what he expected from his fellow aristocrats, “the best bloodlines in Europe,” but it had come as quite a shock when he had first gotten to Grantville and realized that all the up-timers had it. And a whole bunch of the down-timers that associated with them were developing it.

Damn it, what possessed Leo?

No.

Karl knew what had possessed Leo too. He simply hadn’t realized what he was dealing with. What if he had done that to Gretchen Richter? She’d have used a knife, not a knee.

He would have to find a way to talk to Leo, try to explain. Karl had gotten used to up-timer attitudes over the years, and had moved the up-timers into the category of nobles in his mind, without even realizing it. That was Gundaker’s trouble with Sarah. Well, most of it anyway. That he hadn’t moved up-timers into the category of noble.

Another call pulled Karl’s mind from his mulling. Another scraper was sinking into the mud. It seemed all of Austria-Hungary was insisting on following it. “We’ll need to dig some wells and pump the water out!” Karl shouted over to the foreman.

The water would have to be pulled away long enough for them to get concrete walls and a floor in, and even then there was going to be serious seepage. They would have to design for it. Meanwhile, he would have to find a way to convince the nobility of Austria. . not that there were no nobles. That was impossible, whatever Mike Stearns thought. No. The trick was to convince them that everyone was noble. Karl snorted. Even that was the work of Sisyphus. But at least that way he could move a boulder at a time. First, convince them that the Barbies were nobles-that all up-timers had to be considered noble-and then that they’d better learn to treat Gretchen Richter and her like as noble.

He figured he should reach that point about the time his grandchildren were doddering old fools.

The Hofburg Palace, Vienna

“Thank you for seeing me, Leo,” Karl said, holding up a bottle. It was fortified wine from the shop in Race Track City. Karl knew that Leo had not been to Race Track City in the two weeks since the incident. The Barbies hadn’t been invited to the palace either, but they didn’t seem particularly bothered by the fact.

“Welcome, Karl,” Leo said without any particular rancor, but with less real welcome in his tone than Karl was used to from Leo. Still, he did wave Karl to a chair.

Marco Vianetti was standing by the door, like he had been for years. Before the trip to Grantville, Karl would have barely noticed the man. Just one of Leo’s retainers. He would have been perfectly willing to say anything to Leo in front of Marco, because he just assumed that Marco was trustworthy as Leo’s man. And, in truth, Marco probably was trustworthy. But he was also going to talk to the other servants and not all of them would be.

Karl sat down and handed the bottle to Marco. Once the man had poured for them, Karl said, “Marco, with the archduke’s permission, I would like to speak to him privately. Would you mind waiting outside?”

It was hard to tell which of them was more shocked by the suggestion that Marco’s presence might matter. But it was Leo who spoke up. “Marco is completely trustworthy, Karl. How can you doubt it?”

“I don’t, Your Grace. It’s more a matter of good practice. It’s what the up-timers call the ‘need to know principle.’ The question isn’t whether someone is trustworthy, because anyone can slip. The question is: do they need to know? If they don’t need to know private information, it’s better if they don’t know. If, after our talk, you decide Marco needs to know, then by all means tell him. This way you have the choice, that’s all.”

“Well, you’ve certainly made it all seem most mysterious,” Leo said, sounding intrigued.

“I didn’t intend to, Your Grace,” Karl said, thinking of a talk he had had with Melissa Mailey and Prince Vladimir of Russia on the subject of serfs, slaves and espionage. Mary Bowser had been Miss Mailey’s prime example, Ivan Susanin had been Vladimir’s. Karl had found himself in the middle and seeing both sides, yet less able to persuade anyone of his point of view, because he was convinced that they were both right and wrong. Servants were, in Karl’s experience, in the main loyal to their employer and that was the larger part of the trust that members of the nobility had in their servants. On the other hand, there was an unthinking assumption that the lower classes lacked the wit to engage in the sort of subtle subterfuge necessary for betrayal. The attitude was all mixed together with a belief that the nobles were treating their servants quite well and so there was no reason for the servants to be disloyal.

Karl had no idea how he was going to make clear in an afternoon’s chat what had taken him three years in Grantville to learn. But he didn’t say anything and waited. After a few moments, Leo shrugged a little and gave a little wave. Marco left the room with no objection.

“So, what is this so private of private talks, Karl? If it’s about the Wendell girl, Marco might as well have stayed. He was there when she attacked me.”

This wasn’t shaping up to be an enjoyable interview, Karl thought. “Do you think that Sarah agreed to a morganatic marriage because she accepts our notions of rank?”

“Why else?”

“She accepted it because she doesn’t care. No, not even just that. It’s because she is condescendingly willing to allow us our barbaric beliefs as long as we don’t spit in the soup or piss on the sofa. You have no idea how arrogant up-timers are. To Sarah, marrying a court prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire isn’t marrying up. It’s marrying down. Different in no important way from David Bartley’s mother marrying a minor burgher from Badenburg or any of the up-timer women who have married peasants.”

Leo blinked in shock, then actually seemed to consider what Karl was saying. “So when the Emerson girl asked the Fortney girl how she liked life among the peasants, it wasn’t a translation problem at all. That’s what they really think of us.”

Karl winced. “Not exactly. Else there would have been no consideration of marrying me at all. It isn’t that they consider us inherently less than them, just. . poorly brought up.

“Let me ask you, Leo. What would you have done if Marco had handled Cecilia Renata as you handled Judy Wendell? What would you have done if the man handling her had been a peasant you didn’t know well?”

Leo went pale.

Karl shrugged. “She didn’t react that way, did she? Instead she reacted the way you would have expected Cecilia Renata-or more likely, Maria Anna-to act if a person of our own class had handled her that way.”

Leo winced, but then said, “However, Judy Wendell is not Cecilia Renata or Maria Anna, whatever she may think.”

“Isn’t she, Leo? Is it me or Sarah that Moses Abrabanel wanted here?”

They talked some more, but Archduke Leopold wasn’t convinced.

Race Track City

Two weeks later at the brewery in Race Track City, Hans Fischer finished unloading a barge of barley for the brewery. He loaded up on casks of the lager beer which had become a specialty of the brewery with the introduction of refrigeration by the up-timers.

Once the barley was unloaded and the beer loaded, Hans was due one and a half cologne marks of silver, or the equivalent in paper money. In the office Hans had a stein of cold beer while Schwarz counted out his money. The beer came down and Hans spoke. “Wait, Wolfgang. I want barbies.”

“Why?”

Hans was caught without a good reason but he was a quick thinking fellow. “They give interest,” he said, trying to sound virtuous and frugal. Hans wasn’t an overly frugal fellow, so it wasn’t an easy sell.

Wolfgang looked at him doubtfully but started digging through his cash box. “That’s odd,” Wolfgang said.

“What?”

“Being right here next to Race Track City, we usually have a lot of barbies. But I only have two judies and no haylies at all. I have three vickies, and a dozen gabbies, but not one trudi and not all that many millies.”

“Don’t take all his money, Hans. I’ve got to get paid yet,” shouted another man.

Wolfgang made a rude gesture. “I have plenty of reich money. It’s just the barbies I’m short on.”

“That’s not what you said when we were bargaining,” said another merchant.

Wolfgang made another rude gesture. No one paid that much attention to which bills were in short supply. They just noted that barbies were hard to come by. Harder than reich money, and reich money was none too easy to get.

The truth was that Hans’ hadn’t wanted the barbies for any reason of frugality or long-term planning. No, Hans wanted barbies so that a few miles upriver he could show his friends a judi and say “That’s her. That’s the girl who kneed Archduke Leopold in the balls and got away with it.” He wanted to be able to show them a hayli and say, “She’s the one who has been living out at Race Track City for over a year.” He wanted to show them a trudi and explain that “she’s the down-time Barbie.” He didn’t have that many specifics about the other barbies, but he wanted those, too-just to fill out the set. And he wanted extras, because he figured that his friends would want their own Barbie money.

Liechtenstein Tower Construction Site, Vienna

Back at the Liechtenstein Tower, a steam-powered water pump was pumping out the wells by now, and digging had resumed. Millicent Anne Barnes, escorted by a squad of mercenary soldiers, parked her armored wagon by the work site and directed the soldiers in setting up her pay table. Then she waited for the whistle to blow. She had boxes of money in the wagon and a book with the names of all the workers. Each worker would come up, show her his ID, collect his pay, and sign the book. Millicent was good with names, but there were over two hundred workmen at the site.

The first payday they had ended up paying most of the men in reich money. The workers weren’t entirely sure they trusted barbies, and the Barbies didn’t insist, though they always offered barbies first. That first week it had been only the most desperate and least assertive men who had taken barbies. Even at that, some of those men had shown up over the week asking for reich money because their landlord or food seller wouldn’t take the barbies. Policy was to always take the barbies at face value and exchange with no trouble.

The second week had actually been worse. They had paid the men almost entirely in reich money, but things had evened out. A lot of the workers spent quite a bit of their money out at Race Track City, which had become the Coney Island of Vienna. And it was common knowledge that the businesses at Race Track City took barbies, even before the first shovel had touched dirt at Liechtenstein Tower. And the fact that the Abrabanel clan-and therefore most Jewish money lenders-would take barbies at face value hadn’t hurt at all. So for the first month of work at Liechtenstein Tower, they had ended up going about half barbies and half reich money.

Then Judy kneed Archduke Leopold in the balls and by the next Friday, it was pretty clear that no one was going to be dragged away in chains. At that point, the requests for reich money had decreased markedly.

The tables were set up, the whistle blew, and the money started changing hands. Millicent noted a name. It was one of the men who had always been most insistent that he get “real” money. She reached for the reich money box without even asking and he said, “I’ll take barbies.”

“Are you sure?” Millicent asked. “It’s no trouble to pay you in. .”

“I’ll take barbies,” he insisted rather belligerently.

Millicent shrugged and paid the man in barbies. Half an hour later, they ran out of barbies. Just in case, they had had enough reich money to pay off all the workers every payday, always hoping that they wouldn’t use too much of it. But they hadn’t expected this many of their employees to want barbies and they hadn’t brought enough. The last twenty-five people were told that they were out of barbies and would have to take reich money for their pay.

Millicent knew the policy, “Always be willing to give reich money and whenever possible make it seem you would rather take barbies.” So when a worker asked, she refused to promise that he could exchange his reich money for barbies. Instead she said, “I’m sorry, but we only print the barbies when we have enough product to back them.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, it’s all very technical, but what it comes down to is we’ll always give you reich money for barbies, but we won’t always be able to give you barbies for reich money.” Millicent tried to sound regretful, but it was hard because inside she was dancing around and capering like a monkey. This was the precise phrase that Sarah had explained meant they were in. And before she finished the pay parade, she had repeated it at least fifteen times.

* * *

All the way back to Race Track City, Millicent Ann Barnes hummed-but carefully did not sing.

Where have all the barbies gone? Pink notes passing.

Where have all the barbies gone? Green notes they go.

Where have all the barbies gone? Gone to lock boxes every one.

When will they ever learn?

When will they evverr learn?

It was almost a shame, because Millicent had a decent voice. But then, those last lines might not have gone over all that well. Besides, she knew that not all, or probably even most, of the barbie money was going into lock boxes or other hiding places. But barbies were now being taken in favor of reich money. Gresham’s law was coming into play. The barbies would start being saved, while the reich money was spent. The next thing they would see would be people charging a surcharge to take reich money in exchange for barbies. She could feel it.

Fortney House, Race Track City

“No,” Sarah said flatly.

“But, Sarah. .” Judy whined.

“You agreed,” Sarah said, looking around the room. “When I agreed to this you all agreed that I would set the amount of BarbieCo issued. We all agreed that the amount would be limited by two factors. First, not so many barbies that it would disrupt the economy. And second, no more barbies than the goods and services that BarbieCo could supply to support them. I grant that with the barbies going into lock boxes, the threat of inflation is shifted to the reich money. But that doesn’t mean that Liechtenstein Tower or the other projects have suddenly become twice as valuable.”

In truth, Judy wasn’t arguing for herself. Judy had been able to afford just about anything you could buy with money since she was fourteen. But unemployment in and around Vienna was still hovering around twenty percent.

“What about the Liechtenstein railroad?” Karl asked. “The Vienna-Cieszyn line is a decent road most of the way, even if it only has the rail over about ten percent of it.”

The railroad Sonny Fortney was building was a thoroughly hybridized mishmash of technologies. The rail, where it had a rail at all, was a single wooden rail that went right down the center of the roadway. The train that ran on it had outrigger wheels that ran on hard track next to the rail-packed dirt would do, although macadam was better-which maintained the vehicle’s balance while most of the weight was carried on the rail. That rail was low enough that with a bit of effort the normal wagon wheels could roll over it in order to move over to the side and let others pass. The tricky bit was the rail wagons, which had a set of rail wheels that could be cranked down onto that center rail and take up most of the weight of the wagon. While they were down, the wagon acted like a rail car. While the rail wheel was cranked up, the wagon acted like a wagon on a good road.

This arrangement had an added advantage. It meant that where there was no rail yet, the railroad became a normal macadam road and the “train car” became a wagon. But if your wagon had the rail wheel, anytime you ran into rail you could crank it down and for as long as the rail ran, you had a much happier team, be they oxen, mule or horse. All of which, taken together, meant that even though the road was still mostly without rail, those stretches that did have rail were making transport easier and cheaper along it. That, in turn, was pulling traffic from other routes.

“It’s already figured in,” Sarah said. “It’s true that Sonny’s innovations have allowed it to start paying dividends sooner and the rail wagons are selling well. However, I think the LIC should consider keeping the rail line, rather than granting it to the railroad company. The way Mr. Fortney has set it up, the rail line is going to be a lot easier to get onto or off of than they were up-time. That’s going to make it easier to use and it will be harder to restrict that use. I think you should consider keeping it as a state-owned road that is available for use by anyone, and make your money back on taxes, which will increased with the increase in trade and industry. At the very least, you ought to consider keeping it a public line and just charging tolls for its use.”

“I’m not sure that would be fair to Herr Fortney or all the other people who have invested in the railroad company in the expectation that they would have a proprietary interest in the rail line.”

Considering that the railroad company was a big part of what he had in mind as a dower for Sarah and inheritance for their morganatic children, that didn’t strike Karl as a great idea. But he couldn’t say that to Sarah. It would look too much like “the not exactly illegal but certainly questionable” transfer of funds from the Liechtenstein coffers to hers. And Sarah was rather unreasonable about potential conflicts of interest.

Abrabanel Offices, outside Vienna

Moses Abrabanel poured his father a beer. “I’m considering releasing some of the barbies that we received in exchange for our endorsement.”

“Why?” Abraham Abrabanel asked. He’d been less than thrilled by Moses’ accepting a bribe in barbies in the first place, and Moses had been expecting him to be happy to be rid of them.

“We have a chance to buy into a freight line that is using steam on barges to go up the Danube.”

“You mean those Pfeifer people?”

“Yes. Jack Pfeifer was talking to me about it on the picnic.”

That earned his father’s scowl. Abraham Abrabanel was not comfortable with socializing with gentiles. You did business with them, you had to. But you didn’t go on picnics with them, even if the stuff in the baskets was supposed to be kosher. Moses was aware of his father’s attitudes, and the reason for them. In the Empire, Jews could often rise high-but they weren’t allowed to be close. Not without converting, at least. Moses, on the other hand, had been a little corrupted by his trip to Grantville, then more corrupted by his dealing with the Fortneys and Sanderlins. And, recently, thoroughly corrupted by Susan Logsden-and had decided he rather liked it. So he ignored his father’s disapproval and started discussing the economic advantages of the relationship. The Pfeifers knew the trade, and the steam engines had made their river boats much more efficient in terms of cost per ton mile. They were gentiles, Catholics, but they, like Moses, had been corrupted by the Fortneys and the Sanderlins, to the extent that Jack was getting serious with a Lutheran girl. And Jack was the most corrupted of the family. He was busily trying to turn the family shipping business into a stock company that could expand. What he was offering Moses was a significant share in the new company, in exchange for financing and they could provide the financing without having to spend any reich money, just using the barbies. He went over the proposal with his father, and his father was ambivalent.

“The barbies are cash on hand, Moses, fully negotiable and we can loan them out without any difficulty. I don’t know about this boat business. We aren’t shippers or shopkeepers. We’re bankers. And you know we can get a good interest rate from the crown.”

“We’re more money lenders, Father. At least, that’s what we have been. And, frankly, I’m getting nervous about how much the crown owes us already. I don’t want Ferdinand III getting any idea of eliminating the loan by getting rid of the lender.”

“Ferdinand III is an honorable young man.”

“I agree, Father. But he’s also under a lot of pressure and too deeply in debt for my peace of mind.”

Two more beers and his father was still not convinced, but did agree to look over the proposal.

The Hofburg Palace, Vienna

The beer at the Hofburg was cold, with beads of sweat on the stein as Ferdinand read the latest reports. “I would not have believed that Gustav could move so quickly.”

“I wouldn’t have believed that he would have divided his forces like that,” said Maximilian von Liechtenstein. “It worked out this time, in spite of his General Stearns being an idiot, but talk about arrogant!”

Maximilian was referring to the recent battle of Zwenkau, where the USE army under Torstensson’s command had defeated Von Arnim’s Saxon forces. The turning point in the battle had come when the inexperienced American general Michael Stearns foolishly advanced his division too far ahead of the rest of the USE forces. In the event, it had all turned out well for him, but it was the general assumption among Austrian analysts of the battle that Stearns had triumphed despite his blunder.

“Some people are saying that was a trap set by Torstennson,” Leopold said. “That it was all planned that way.”

“That’s what I’d say too, if I had a political general who bungled that badly,” Maximilian said. “I guess it’s possible. But I certainly wouldn’t trust a virgin general with an assignment of that nature.”

“You think we should support King Wladislaw, if-when, I should say-the Swede attacks Poland?” Ferdinand asked.

“No, Your Majesty,” said Maximilian immediately. “Gustav Adolf may be arrogant, but he’s also good and he has a very good army, in spite of Stearns. Besides, I don’t recall any favors we owe Wladislaw at this point.”

“We’re probably going to need the Poles if Murad comes,” offered Archduke Leopold. “Which he might well do, considering that he is apparently going after Baghdad this year, instead of waiting for the appointed time from the encyclopedia. If he rushes Baghdad, why not have the 1683 attack on Vienna early as well? And we needed the Poles in that history to fight him off.”

Ferdinand had considered the same factor himself-many times, now. But the advice he’d gotten from Janos Drugeth still seemed sound. Sending Austrian troops to aid King Wladislaw simply couldn’t be done without risking a renewal of the war with Wallenstein-whose Bohemian forces stood between Austria and Poland. Poland would probably still be defeated by the USE and all Ferdinand would have accomplished was to bloody his own forces to no purpose.

“No,” he said. “We have no choice but to wait for developments.”