“With all due respect, ma’am,” he said to Judy the Younger, “I don’t think that’s what Prince Gundaker had in mind.”
Sarah jumped in. “I really don’t care what Gundaker had in mind,” she said coldly.
“On the other hand,” Millicent said, “we may want to move out to Race Track City just for the room.”
CHAPTER 20
June 1635
The Hofburg Palace, Vienna
“So, Leo, were the new arrivals as strange as expected?” Empress Mariana set the china creamer on the table and picked up her hot chocolate.
Leo buttered a roll as he considered his answer. “I only got a few minutes to talk to them before Gundaker hustled them off to the Liechtenstein townhouse.”
“Unwilling to share?” Mariana asked.
“Afraid they would embarrass House Liechtenstein,” Leo clarified. “And not totally without justification. I am afraid that the up-timer girls who arrived with Prince Karl aren’t any more impressed with the seventeenth century than our other up-time guests.” Leo turned to his brother. “Victoria Emerson asked your mechanic’s daughter how she liked life among the peasantry. ‘In the sticks,’ she said.”
“My mechanic’s daughter?”
“Hayley Fortney von Up-time will likely be a bridesmaid at Prince Liechtenstein’s wedding. Gundaker is caught between wanting the match for the advantage to his branch of the family and being deeply offended by the whole notion of any Liechtenstein marrying a jumped-up peasant. Judy Wendell told me that Hayley is a Barbie, or something.”
“Is that a title?” asked Mariana, “I thought it was a doll.”
“You’re saying her family has some status among the up-timers?” asked Ferdinand.
“I’m not entirely sure. Judy Wendell said that it was Hayley who was rich, not her family. You know the up-timers count such things differently.” Leo shook his head. “And they may be right to do so. Look at what we have. Out of three thousand people, all of whom arrived with no significant rank, we now have two baronesses, a general. . no, two generals, one of them a former prime minister, an admiral, a colonel of the air force, several other officers, more burghers and merchants of distinction than you can shake a stick at. Craftsmen and healers without peer in Europe. And the village priest makes a short visit to Rome and comes home a cardinal. Three thousand, many still children or toothless with age. And all in less than five years.”
“So we are all peasants to them? Or just all barbarians?” Mariana asked. She was clearly more amused than insulted by the idea. But there was some offended dignity in her tone as well.
“Judith Wendell von Up-time, claimed that it wasn’t an insult but a translation problem.” Leo tilted his head to the side in a gesture of uncertainty. “It may have been, but there is no way they consider us their natural superiors.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting to overawe the up-timers with my exalted birth,” Ferdinand said. “Sonny Fortney once offered to shake my hand, just as though we were equals. I happened upon him and Bob Sanderlin with no one else about. It must have been a month or so after they got here.”
“What did you do?”
“I shook his hand and reminded him not to offer that sort of lese majeste in public. But by that time, I was pretty sure that he was Nasi’s agent in Vienna. . well, at least one of them.” Ferdinand shook his head. “We are in a horrible bargaining position. I need to know what I am facing. Do you think that von Trautmannsdorf could persuade the USE to see reason? After all, he persuaded John George of Saxony to support the Catholic powers.”
He looked over at Moses Abrabanel as he had looked to him increasingly over the last year. Moses’ father had been his father’s chief financial adviser. More importantly, Moses had been to Grantville and met Michael Stearns.
“It depends on what you mean by seeing reason, Your Majesty,” Moses said carefully. “Establish a firm peace with Austria? By itself, yes. Do any of that at the expense of Bohemia or in support of Poland? No. Beyond that. .”
“Yes?”
“Gustav Adolf will want concessions in exchange for his help with anything. About Michael Stearns, I can’t tell you any more today than I did last week,” Moses said. “When I met Stearns, he was the leader of a newly formed independent nation that was little more than six miles across. He was both more desperate and freer to act as he saw fit. Now he has been a prime minister to a king, become a general, and is commanding an army in Saxony. At the same time, he controls-or at least influences-a great deal more. There is also the question of how much he has been influenced by this century. All I can tell you about how he will act as a general is that the man has a phenomenal talent for finding talent. And listening to it. Besides, Michael Stearns is no longer the prime minister. William Wettin is and he, like Gustav, will want concessions.”
Ferdinand III nodded. “And the money?”
“Possibly in exchange for concessions that we may well not be able to give.”
“So we are back to Liechtenstein’s bride and her sister who may or may not think of us as peasant barbarians.”
Then Moses smiled. “I have, by the way, met both Wendell girls. Sarah was studious even then, and Judy the Younger a charming child. That was before Judy and her little friends decided to ride through the financial markets like a Mongol horde.”
“What?”
“I hadn’t realized it till Archduke Leopold mentioned the girl being a Barbie, but Judy Wendell, Vicky Emerson and Susan Logsden along with some others that apparently include the Fortney girl are known in Grantville and Magdeburg as the Barbie Consortium. Investors or profiteers, depending on who you talk to, who. .” Moses slapped his head. “. . have some sort of financial arrangement with Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein. I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I should have made the connection.” He snorted. “It might be safer to deal with Vasa, or even Wallenstein, than with the Barbie Consortium.”
“Well, you’re the one who said we need Sarah Wendell more than we need Karl’s money.”
“I know, and I still think that. I’m less sure about the bridesmaids she brought with her,” Moses said. Then, getting back to the point he continued. “I need to sit down and talk with Sarah Wendell. I know she is young, but from what Uriel tells me, she, in large part, designed the National Bank of Bohemia, and she does have a reputation as an economist.”
“There will be a party in a few days to welcome Karl Eusebius home. You will be invited.” Ferdinand III turned to the room as a whole. “Father said he would prefer to rule a Catholic desert than a nation of heretics. Before the Ring of Fire, I was of like mind. But it won’t be a Catholic desert. It will be a Muslim desert. I am unwilling to destroy what is left of the Holy Roman Empire and leave an open road into Europe for the Muslims to punish heretics that I can’t reach anyway. So find me an answer. Some way to fund the government. Get me the money to buy the guns and pay the army that we will need to fight the Turks if they come. Which Janos has been warning me for some time will happen. I’m a bit skeptical, myself, but. . Janos is shrewd about such things.”
CHAPTER 21
June 1635
Race Track City
There was a half-finished air to the streets as the girls left the dock at Race Track City. It was clear that an attempt had been made to create a wide, tree-lined avenue, but the trees were knee-high and the grass was packed down. The street itself was just plain dirt.
“Ew,” Millicent said. “Hayley, why the heck haven’t you all paved this street?”