“I don’t think Gretchen sees it that way,” Vicky Emerson said. “And frankly Judy, I’m not sure I do either.”
Judy looked back at Vicky and shrugged again. “I’m not sure I do either, Vicky. But the only other option is to start the revolution right here and right now, and we don’t have the muscle for that. We can’t even be really sure that we have the muscle to pull off what I did. It was just the minimum that I could live with.”
“We really are barbarians to you, aren’t we?” Amadeus said about half to Judy and half to Hayley. He sounded chagrinned and at least a bit resentful.
“No!” Hayley said quickly.
Judy considered him for a moment. “Yes. A little bit, at least. But don’t feel too bad. You’re the noble barbarian sort. The sort that can be civilized.”
“Judy!” Hayley objected.
“Don’t be rude,” Millicent chimed in.
“Judy is rude whenever she wants to be,” said Vicky. “And I wish I knew how she gets away with it.”
“It’s because I’m not rude when I want to be, only when I need to be. There’s a difference. So, since you gentlemen were unwise enough to rank yourselves with the evil up-timers, why don’t we go up to the Fortney house and try to figure out how you’re going to survive the contamination?”
Fortney House, Race Track City
Amadeus had known he was in over his head before he had left the boat. But what else could he have done? Over the next few hours he mostly kept his mouth shut as Marton and Judy and, increasingly, Vicky Emerson talked about reasons and consequences. He learned that Vicky had been engaged to a town guard in Grantville and that the town guard had died doing his duty when Mayor Dreeson was killed. He learned that, in Vicky Emerson’s mind at least, Bill Magen was as noble as any man born. He saw that the mutual loss shared by Vicky Emerson and Marton had somehow produced a bond between them.
He wasn’t sure what it all meant, but somehow as he listened he came to believe, to know, that getting off the boat had been the smartest thing he had ever done. Because he was on the right side.
Royal Steam Yacht
Archduke Leopold was having a very different experience. No one was even talking to him. The truth was they were frightened to do so, lest it be taken as lese majeste, but it seemed like they were condemning him and he resented it. He even more resented the knowledge that dozens of people had seen him bending over in agony after that puffed-up peasant had kneed him in the groin. Normally Leo would have been more understanding, but normally his balls weren’t distracting him. It took the boat around twenty minutes to get back to Vienna from Race Track City, and by the time it docked he was coldly furious at the up-timers and their arrogance. He went directly to his rooms and didn’t speak to anyone he didn’t have to for the rest of the day.
The Hofburg Palace, Vienna
“What on earth were you thinking?” Ferdinand III asked his little brother the next morning.
“It was nothing. Or it should have been, if that up-timer slut didn’t have delusions of grandeur.”
“I hardly think slut is the appropriate term,” said the empress of Austria-Hungary, “considering the events as they were relayed to me.”
Leo didn’t say anything. Not only was there little he could say, it wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to talk about with his sister-in-law.
“My question is ‘what do we do now?’” Ferdinand III said.
Leo stayed silent. If the emperor insisted he apologize, he would. He was a loyal member of the family. But he very much didn’t want to.
“We can’t apologize,” said his stepmother, Eleonore. “It would be seen as a sign of weakness.”
“Well, we can’t throw them in the dungeon either,” Empress Mariana said. “We need Karl Eusebius’ support and we aren’t going to get it by imprisoning his prospective sister-in-law. For that matter, Judy Wendell is the daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury for the USE.”
“And Marton von Debrecen got off the boat,” Cecilia Renata pointed out. “So did Moses Abrabanel.”
“The problem goes deeper than that,” said Ferdinand. “I just received a new report from Janos Drugeth. He says it’s now definite: Murad IV is marching on Baghdad. If he takes it and makes peace with the Persians-which is what he did in the American universe, only three years from now-then his forces will be free to attack Austria. If all that comes to pass, that means we have little time any longer-a year; maybe two-to generate the funds we need to bolster the army.” He gave his younger brother a hard glance, which Leopold shied away from. “And the best source we have for funds at the moment and for the immediate future are the Barbies. Indirectly, because of the effect they’re having on all Austrian finance and commerce, even more than directly from the taxes and fees they pay us. The very last thing we can afford to do right now is cause a major breach with them.”
It was rare that Ferdinand III put on his emperor’s voice in these family meetings, but he did so now. “We will take no official notice of the incident. In the future, Leo, if you meet the Wendell girl or any of the up-timers, you will be polite and keep your hands to yourself.”
Leo nodded unhappily, but was obedient to his brother and his emperor.
Tavern in Vienna
“I was standing right there,” Julian said. “I mean, it wasn’t any big thing. The archduke just grabbed her a little. But it was him that did it. It wasn’t like she just walked up to him and kneed him in the balls.” He couldn’t help it. He giggled a little at that. It was funny, at least in retrospect. At the time, it hadn’t seemed funny in any way.
“Why are you taking their side?” asked his friend, Frederick.
Julian had been getting that reaction all morning, and by now he was wishing he had followed Amadeus off the royal steamboat. Carla probably wasn’t even speaking to him. And, well, you could tell just by watching them that the up-timer girls weren’t peasants. The archduke should have seen it and been more discreet about his advances. “She said that she was not a case where it was better to ask forgiveness than permission,” he told Frederick and the other young men in the tavern. “And I’ll tell you, you’d better have permission before you try anything with an up-timer girl. And that’s a fact.”
“They don’t scare me,” Frederick insisted.
“You haven’t seen Vicky Emerson shoot,” Julian said. “I have. You remember that western, High Noon? Well, she’s like that sheriff. I mean. . the gun was in her purse then it was in her hand, faster than you could see.”
Now interest took the place of outrage, as it will when something as strange as a pretty girl who can shoot is brought to the attention of teenage boys. All their interests rolled into one.
For the next half-hour, Julian was called on to describe Vicky Emerson’s shooting and quick draw. He was forced to admit that he hadn’t seen most of it because Vicky and Marton von Debrecen had taken the steam boat upriver.
“Well, why didn’t you go?” Frederick asked.
“Carla didn’t want to,” Julian admitted.
“So it’s just luck that you’re not the one who got kneed in the balls,” Frederick said, laughing.