In the various offices of the city and national government, clerks who owed SFIC money provided warning and back-dated forms documenting that everything had been done by the book. Well, most of it had, but it was impossible to follow all the regulations. Having clerks who owed you money helped when it came to paperwork.
* * *
“Yes, I know they have an agreement with the emperor,” Albertus Kappel snapped. “But that doesn’t make Race Track Village an imperial city. And it is within the traditional purview of Vienna. Legally, it is no more than a village owned by the emperor and his partners. Not even crown lands, but part of the emperor’s personal holdings. Besides, we have more of the up-timers now.”
“Fine. But the emperor is a part-owner of Race Tra-the village,” Peter Grochen said.
“We will not be asking the emperor for anything. But this Sanderlin-Fortney Investment Company is abusing the emperor’s trust and getting above itself.” Visibly, Albertus got himself under control. “The new emperor is young and perhaps overly enthusiastic about up-time innovations. But he has advisers. . older, wiser heads. . that he will listen to. This flaunting of the traditional privileges of ‘Them of Vienna’ has to stop.”
Peter Grochen, who was no more pleased with Race Track City than Albertus-but was rather more leery of imperial whim-left Albertus to it.
* * *
“The tradition and law has always been that the Hofbefrieten, court merchants, do not pay municipal taxes,” Albertus Kappel granted portentously. “But these are not Hofbefrieten. They haven’t paid the fees the royal court charges for that privilege. Yet they don’t pay the onera that guild artisans and merchants pay, either. Nor have their techniques been approved under the rules of the guilds of Vienna.”
“Perhaps,” Ferdinand III said calmly, “that is because they are not in Vienna.” Ferdinand III was pretty good at saying things calmly when he would prefer to rip someone’s head off. It was part of the job and he had been raised to the work. “Race Track City is located on imperial lands, almost four miles from the city wall.”
It was clear to Ferdinand III that Kappel wasn’t thrilled with how the interview was going, but the jackass went gamely on. “They are within the cities environs, Your Majesty.”
“No, they are not!” Ferdinand III said.
“Your Majesty, while the land is owned by Your Majesty, it is not, in fact, crown lands.”
Ferdinand held out a hand, and into it was placed a document that bore several seals. One of them, in fact, was Albertus Kappel’s own seal. The document acknowledged that the land in question was not legally part of Vienna or its environs. Ferdinand was a little curious about where it had come from, but not very. As it happened, Albertus’ clerk, Benedictus, had handed that document to Albertus Kappel a week before, in a stack of similar documents that Kappel had signed and sealed as a matter of course, without ever looking at the contents of any of them. Ferdinand showed Kappel the document and the seal.
For Albertus Kappel, the interview went downhill from there. Albertus was one of those who held both imperial and city rank, which wasn’t supposed to happen, but did constantly. By the end of the interview, he held neither.
* * *
Albertus’ secretary, Benedictus, was the dapper young man with a taste for clothes that really shouldn’t have been beyond his means-if he had been being paid what he was supposed to be paid. Benedictus and several other young men found that their debts to several shops in Race Track City had been forgiven. After that, the SFIC-backed businesses had very little trouble from the burghers of Vienna, as long as they didn’t try to do business in Vienna proper.
The race track, with the support of Ferdinand III, developed its own small town with barbershops, beauty shops, restaurants, a tailor shop. A toy store that sold little casein plastic models of the 240Z, and other cars and trucks. Casein dolls, which if not up to the standards of a Barbie, weren’t all that bad. Also soccer balls, baseballs, softballs, and bats, toy soldiers, lego-style blocks, and a variety of other items. There was a grocery and dry goods store which sold packaged foods, makeup, toiletries, casein containers for holding things like dried beans and flour.
Through it all, almost no one knew that Hayley was financing most of it.
* * *
SFIC wasn’t the only investor in new tech. Even before Emperor Ferdinand II had died, up-time tech had been creeping in. The cheat sheets that were produced for the USE worked just as well in what was left of the HRE. The burghers and Hofbefrieten of Vienna adopted them and many of them had to do with how to get more product out of less labor. As the new tech was put in place, the amount of product increased as the need for labor decreased. When the old emperor died, the new emperor tried to get as much of the new tech as he could.
What none of them realized, not Hayley, not the emperor, not the emperor’s advisers, and not the burghers and Hofbefrieten of Vienna, was that they were all making the economy worse. It’s what Hayley hadn’t known, save that something was wrong with the economy, and she needed Sarah Wendell to tell them what.
CHAPTER 15
Karl’s Ring
February 1635
Grantville, United States of Europe
“I have a letter from Hayley,” Judy the Younger Wendell told the girls of the Barbie Consortium. “She wants stuff and she wants money, but mostly she wants me to get Sarah to tell her what’s wrong with the Austro-Hungarian economy.”
“So, what is wrong with the Austro-Hungarian economy?”
“Hey, I’m the pretty sister. Remember?”
“Not according to the Ken Doll,” said Millicent Anne Barnes. “He starts drooling every time he gets near Sarah.”
They were just back from a weekend trip to Magdeburg. A long weekend. It took a day each way. So they had taken the sleeper Thursday night and spent Friday and Saturday in Magdeburg with the Wendells, and come back Sunday night. Karl had taken the excuse to go with them and escorted Sarah to the opera. Sort of opera. It was called A Knight of Somerville, a new play written in the style of a 1930s Busby Berkeley musical. They couldn’t do the full Berkley experience, but it had lots of dancing and was probably loosely based on the events of the ennoblement of the count of Narnia. In this case, the juvenile princess actually knighted the knight of Somerville herself, rather than have her father do it later.
“So,” Vicky Emerson said, “when do you think he’s going to ask her?”
“Just because you’re engaged doesn’t mean everyone has to be,” Susan Logsden said.
“I think he’s scared,” said Heather Mason.
“Of what?” asked Gabrielle Ugolini. “He’s rich, he’s a prince, and he’s not bad looking.”
“Of my sister,” Judy proclaimed. “As any sane person would be.”
“Of the crap that’s going to get dumped on them when they actually get engaged,” Millicent said. “You know how Catholics can be.” She looked pointedly at Vicky.
“I resemble that remark,” Vicky said. “Or I would if Bill were Catholic. But he’s Lutheran and Cardinal Mazzare says it’s okay. I’ll just have to endow a church or something.”
“Yeah, but will the pope be so understanding? Or the cardinal of. .” Judy stopped. “Which cardinal is it who would cover the Holy Roman Empire?”
“It didn’t have one,” Vicky said. “It was Scipione Borghese till he died in 1633, but the post wasn’t filled after that. The Holy Roman Empire didn’t have a cardinal, and now there isn’t a Holy Roman Empire. There are the Habsburg lands, Austria and Hungary, and they have a cardinal, Franz Seraph von Dietrichstein.”