Trudi had expected to wait, but had been rushed to the head of the line. Seated now, in the shampoo chair, with her neck on the neckrest and one of the hairdressers using what amounted to a watering pot to wet her hair with warm water, Trudi proceeded to tell them how up-timers acted in the wild. So to speak. As she was describing Grantville High and TwinLo Park, she in turn learned about the founding of Race Track City and the up-time style beauty salon that Gayleen Sanderlin had insisted upon, and who came here and how often.
Princess Maximilliana von Liechtenstein was a regular with a weekly appointment, as were perhaps half a dozen others. The salon was a place where ladies of high standing could, literally, let their hair down and chat. It wasn’t good to get too familiar, whatever Frau Sanderlin said, but it was acceptable for the staff, with all proper deference, to share the latest gossip and express their opinions.
Trudi realized as they talked that this place was another center of revolution-not overt like the Committees of Correspondence-but a whisper here, a wink and a nod there, repeating opinions along with reporting on the latest scandal. A place where the female They of Vienna could exchange information and affect opinion without ever meeting.
“I was at the beauty salon and I heard that von Dorkfish was having it on with his wife’s maid,” followed by “Did you hear the emperor is going to shift troops to the south? Sadi von Linden said her husband is being sent to Hungary, rather than the border with Bohemia,” followed by “The Sonny Steamer can be used as a model for a bigger engine that will pull several wagons behind it, if they get permission for the railroad,” followed by, followed by. . for a year now. Juicy gossip, politics, technology, and attitudes, especially attitudes shared by the woman washing your hair repeating and reinterpreting what she has heard.
By the time Trudi left the salon, she had a much clearer view of what had been going on in Vienna since even before the Ring of Fire. And the women in the shop had a much clearer view of how up-time investment worked and the value of BarbieCo stock. If that view lacked some of the mathematics and scholarly accuracy that Sarah Wendell would have insisted on, it was still much more reassuring for these women, shop girls and great ladies alike.
“Gresham’s law says that bad money drives out good,” Trudi explained, “because people hold onto the good money and spend the bad money. Well, in the USE people hold onto American dollars and spend silver.”
Von Hatch Apartment, Vienna
“You turned them down?” Elena von Hatch shouted at her husband, “They offered you BarbieCo for that damned useless mine and you turned them down! My mother told me you were an idiot and she was right!”
“It’s not like it was American dollars. It’s just paper.”
“It’s ownership in BarbieCo, so it’s ownership in everything that BarbieCo owns! All the factories, all the businesses. Just like reichsthaler notes are ownership of silver in the royal vaults.”
“But how much ownership? With a reichsthaler, it’s a ninth of a Cologne mark of silver, but how much is a BarbieCo thaler? Tell me that.”
“A ninth of a Cologne mark of silver’s worth,” Elena insisted, going a bit farther than Trudi had, “but it’s backed by buildings and machines, so as they build more buildings and machines it can be worth even more.”
Another Apartment, Vienna
“How was your day, dear one?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Jager said. “Ludolf came it for some licensing and gave me these instead of reichsthaler.” He showed his wife the green and orange sheets. “I didn’t want to argue. Ludolf is mostly fair, if a bit stiff. Do you think he was cheating me?”
“No, those are fine. I was out at Race Track City getting my hair done and there are signs all over the place. These are as good as cash, and they pay interest as well. Not a lot. Well, maybe not a lot. It depends on how well the company does, because they are participating preferred. But a minimum of two percent annual interest. That is written on the back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Viveka was explaining it to me.” She took the money from his hands. “No, you didn’t get a hayli. A judi and two vickies.” She pointed at the writing that curved around the bottom half of the portraits in the center of the sheets. One of them said, “Judith Elaine Wendell.” The other said, “Victoria Maureen Emerson.” Then she continued. “Apparently, Gertrude von Bachmerin-that’s the six pfennig BarbieCo note-was in the shop to get her hair done yesterday morning and explained it all. Anyway, Gertrude is sort of a von Up-time by adoption, even though she was born in this century. And the BarbieCo stock is just like American dollars, except in the normal denominations instead of that weird system that the up-timers use.”
Jager let it wash over him, at least for the most part. The important point was the bribe he had gotten from Ludolf was good money. That, and the fact that he was going to be very very polite to up-timers in the future, even this Gertrude von Up-time by adoption. A smart man didn’t offend people who could wave their hands and make money appear out of nowhere. He also wondered why the up-timers out at Race Track City hadn’t done it months ago.
CHAPTER 28
August 1635
Concrete Plant
Baron Johannes Hass looked at the young women who had come to look at his concrete plant with a mixture of hope and resentment. Baron Hass couldn’t say which was the larger component of the mix. Not that he had any choice, however it came out. He had been told to provide the tour by no less a personage than Maximilian von Liechtenstein. The emperor was not pleased with the time it was taking to get concrete into production, in spite of the fact that he had shown them the designs and reports that Peter Barclay had provided. Baron Hass was building the rotating kiln just as fast as humanly possible. It was simply a very large project. So he took the young ladies around and showed them the sights, explaining as he went.
After the tour, while they were setting down to dinner, the auburn-haired girl, the one whose sister was going to marry Prince Karl, asked him. “Where are the little kilns?”
“What little kilns?”
“Oh. You know.” She waved rather vaguely. “The little ones like they have all up and down the Elbe and Saale rivers. The ones that just make a batch at a time.”
“Little ones are very inefficient. They waste fuel and time.”
“Told you so!” said the short, curly headed one. “It’s long past time to shoot the engineer.”
Istvan Janoszi looked at Millicent, the short one. And for a moment Baron Hass was very glad that he wasn’t Herr Barclay. “Do you think. .”
* * *
“No,” Judy said. “Tempting in this case, but no. Millicent was just talking about an up-time business quote. ‘In every project there comes a time to shoot the engineer and put it into production.’ She’s not literally talking about shooting the engineer. It’s just a comment on the fact that if given their heads, an engineer will end up costing you millions to save a few pennies.” Judy tilted her head and gave a half smile. “They aren’t doing it on purpose. It’s just the nature of the beast. Considering what’s already been invested in that monster-” She waved at the half finished rotary kiln. “-it ought to be finished. But eighty percent or more of any savings it generates in production costs is going to be eaten by transport costs, even if it is located right on the Danube. If you’d gone with beehive kilns, you’d have been in production a year and a half ago, before Pete Barclay and his crowd ever got here, just by modifying kilns you were already using for making quicklime and pottery. Which would have meant that Baron Hass here would have already been making money off his patent and this thing wouldn’t be pushing him into receivership.”