Amadeus grinned. “Oh come now, are we Puritan prudes, to be shocked at a bit of leg? Granted, the dress was a little risque, but you know as well as I do that Lugocie was only using that as an excuse. I think the juxtaposition of the unadorned black dress with the shortness of the skirt and the fact it had no sleeves probably emphasized the differences between it and what we’re used to.” Then he paused considering. “I’ll bet you a reichsthaler that she knew perfectly well how risque that dress would seem to us and wore it on purpose. Though I don’t think she was expecting Lugocie.”
“Why?”
“To make clear that they were not going to suit-No. . not going to lessen themselves to fit our standards.”
“That’s pretty arrogant.”
“Maybe,” Amadeus conceded. “Yes, arrogant. Or at least confident. But then, so are you. So am I.”
“But surely they must realize the threat they represent,” Julian said. “Shoving it in our face that way. . that’s crazy.”
“You know, I’m not sure they do realize.”
“Amadeus, don’t be daft, man.”
“No, really. Hayley may realize it, but the others. . the girl in the black dress. . her name’s Vicky Emerson, by the way. Hayley told me. From the rumors, things are very different in the USE. And they are up-timers. Maybe they don’t realize.”
Liechtenstein House, Vienna
“You know what she did last night?” Father Lamormaini said to Gundaker von Liechtenstein at lunch the day after the party. “She contradicted and publicly embarrassed a member of the Society of Jesus and a consecrated priest. ‘Women are not to speak in church, nor dispute with men over the word of God.’”
“I quite agree, Father, but there is little I can afford to do right now. Vicky Emerson, in her own person, is inconsequential and I would not care at all if she were to fall down a well. But she is a bridesmaid of my nephew’s intended, and Sarah Wendell-much as I would love to see her beaten like the peasant whore she is-is simply too valuable to my family for now.”
“How?” Lamormaini’s tone was both accusatory and confused.
“First, she will be acting as witness for the family in several of the cases brought against my family in regard to the whole Kipper and Wipper business. Something the up-timers call an expert witness. She is an acknowledged expert in matters of finance. Second, Moses Abrabanel has convinced the emperor that she can provide credibility to paper reichsthaler, which is a source of income that the empire needs desperately to counter the wealth of the USE, and Bohemia. She was involved in forming the Bohemian National Bank a few months back. So her expertise is internationally recognized.”
“Do not let the material utility of these vipers of Satan blind you to their spiritual corruption.”
“I’m not, Father. But you know as well as I that material tools are needed in the material world. You have gotten those tools from me often enough.” Lamormaini had, in fact, sold his advice to Ferdinand II to Gundaker von Liechtenstein several times during the old emperor’s reign. “Besides,” Gundaker continued, “with Karl Eusebius married to the Wendell girl in a morganatic union, and with Maximillian not having any children, nor likely to, the wealth of House Liechtenstein will, soon or late, pass to my line. Karl Eusebius has already been corrupted by the up-timer’s heretical beliefs. Would you have House Liechtenstein’s wealth and influence arrayed against the true church permanently?”
Lamormaini’s expression was not pleased, but neither was it truly hostile. The priest knew how the world worked, after all. As long as marriage to Sarah Wendell removed any children that Karl might have from the succession, she was too valuable to Gundaker for him to consider any action against her.
CHAPTER 23
July 1635
Liechtenstein House, Vienna
“Her Majesty is on board for the feminine hygiene.” Judy grinned. “She wants a copy of that paper you wrote up, Gabrielle.”
They were in the Liechtenstein townhouse. Sarah watched her sister and the rest of the Barbies plot the overthrow of Austria-Hungary with a sort of bemused enjoyment. Gundaker hadn’t gone out of his way to make her welcome, and even Maximillian was pretty distant. She looked over at her new maid and saw that Anna was trying to follow the girls’ Amideutch.
“Good,” tiny, curly haired Millicent said, making a note. Then she turned back to the conversation that had been going on.
“There are coal and iron deposits, some of them along the Danube, especially in Hungary. Austria-Hungary has resources,” Hayley said.
“So what do they need here aside from a good dose of morals?” Vicky asked. “What will they buy?”
“Living space,” Hayley said. “Susan’s right. Vienna’s crowded, even by down-time standards. There are laws preventing anyone from living in the free-fire zone just outside the walls. That’s part of why the race track is so far out.”
“But there are people living in shacks up against the walls,” Judy said. “I saw them.”
“Sure. Mostly they are soldiers, but a lot are just poor people. They aren’t supposed to be there, but the people in the shacks don’t have anyplace else to live and unless Ferdinand III wants to order his troops to burn out their own wives and children, there isn’t much they can do. Not that some people, including your soon-to-be Uncle Gundaker, aren’t pushing for that,” Hayley explained.
“Anyway, about the only people with the money to buy anything are the very wealthy. Austria is in the midst of a depression. People are hungry and no one can pay them. The cost of bread has gone down in the last two years but there isn’t any money to speak of and what there is, isn’t worth crap. People are still going hungry and we are buying flour on credit and selling bread on credit and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up.”
“Yeah. We talked about that already,” Gabrielle said.
“But what do we do about it?” Hayley asked.
“What about meat and wine?” Sarah asked. “The price of bread has been trending down even in the USE. More people can afford to eat, but many of them can afford to eat better, too. More vegetables, even more meat and eggs in their diet, less bread and porridge. That means the net market for bread has decreased, even as the new farming methods are pushing down grain prices. The price of bread goes down as it’s marketed toward people who would have been living on the edge of starvation a couple of years ago. So beef and pork are almost twice as much as they were in 1631, but bread has dropped by an average of fifty cents a one pound loaf. That’s an average over the whole USE and it’s a wild-ass guess, because we just don’t have data for a lot of the USE.”
“It’s not like that here.” Hayley bit her lower lip. “At least I don’t think it’s the same. Since we moved here the prices of bread, wine, peas, and a lot of the other daily needs have gone down a lot. Beef is about the same, pork is a little less, lamb is a bit more. But what’s really gone down are wages. We have people who have lost their place in the farms and villages in the area, and other towns all over Austria-Hungary are facing the same problem.”
“No, the wages are trending up over most of the USE.”
“Meanwhile, it seems all the money in Austria-Hungary is going to buy products from the USE,” Hayley said.
“It’s not just the money Grantville is sucking out of the economy,” Sarah said. “It’s the plows. Didn’t Judy ever tell you my dad’s story of the Fed Fairies?”
“Sarah!” Judy whined, sounding like a twelve-year-old. “Can you imagine Coleman Walker in a tutu with a magic wand? Yuk!”
Which produced general laughter and a lightening of the mood.
“What about the plows?” Hayley asked.
“Not just the plows, but they make a good example,” Sarah continued. “A farmer can plow more fields in the same amount of time. It’s easier to arrange his furrows to minimize run off. The crops come in fuller and the next year he plows fifteen acres rather than ten and adds a bit of fertilizer. Now that farmer is producing twice as much grain as he was two years ago, but the amount of money available to pay for the grain is just the same, or even less, than it was two years ago.