“Along with being an astronaut and a ballerina and. .”
“Sure. But I don’t see a lot of space shuttles looking for pilots, so why not a princess? I’ll get myself a little tiara and wear it to fancy dress balls.”
“And swearing an oath of loyalty to Ferdinand III?”
“It’s a nonexclusive oath.”
Which is true enough, Sarah thought. It turned out that there were all sorts of oaths of allegiance, and several of them were nonexclusive. You could be a noble in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in Bohemia, and a citizen of the USE, all at once, and the oath they would have to swear recognized that. Karl was a noble, sworn to King Albrecht of Bohemia and Emperor Ferdinand III of Austria-Hungary, and he wouldn’t have to decide which side to fight on until one side or the other asked him to raise an army. Meanwhile, the deal that was shaping up would make Sarah and the Barbies-including Trudi-serene highnesses.
“Look, Sarah. We are in the seventeenth century and it’s not just the nobility that has problems with nonnobles in positions of authority. President Stearns isn’t the Prince of Germany because the nobles call him that, and Wettin won for a reason. Peasants as well as princes are uncomfortable with a lot of the CoC’s rhetoric, and they are a lot more uncomfortable with it here than in the USE.” Judy got up and walked around the table to squat next to Sarah’s chair. “I know that a lot of people in Grantville are going to figure we’ve gone native, and for all I know they may be right. Some of them are going to be convinced that we have betrayed the principles of America. But I don’t believe that. I think we can do more for those principles with Her Serene Highness in front of our names than we can without it. And I know if you’re going to reform the money of this nation, you need the title.”
“And what about our children? What if they don’t want to be serene highnesses? What if they want to be rodeo riders, or painters, or auto mechanics?”
“Then they can abdicate the title,” Karl said, “and it will go to the next branch. In the meantime, we need to finalize the designs for the new reich money. I still think that it should look as much like BarbieCo as we can make it.”
“I want members of the imperial house on the bills,” Sarah said. “The empress and Cecilia Renata, if not Ferdinand III. However it happened, money with women’s faces on it is more trusted here in the empire. But it doesn’t have to stay just the Barbies.”
And the negotiations continued.
An Inn in Vienna
It wasn’t Gundaker’s sort of place and even less Father Lamormaini’s, but the third man at the table was quite at home here. Adorjan Farkas was a squat man, with a scar on the right side of his face that went from his eyebrow to his beard. “I don’t care. As long as I am paid in silver, not this paper that people use here.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Gundaker said. And it wouldn’t. Gundaker still had a key to the vaults, and in the last weeks there was more and more silver in the vaults as trust in the bank was restored. He would have to be careful because the security precautions at the bank had been strengthened. . but he was in charge of those procedures.
“We will need many men, and they will have to be dependable,” Lamormaini said.
“What will they do?” Adorjan Farkas scratched his graying beard,
“Each group will have a target,” Gundaker explained. “And I don’t want any group to know the other’s targets. You will coordinate for us.”
“I will need to know what they are to do.”
Gundaker passed over a note. “Start with these names, but don’t act. I’ll have another list in a few days.” The list Gundaker gave the man had the names of the Barbies and Sarah, but not Karl or the imperial family. “The timing will have to be precise. They will all have to be. .” Gundaker would not obfuscate. “Killed, and at the same time, else the death of one increase the security on the others. For now, have them watched and learn their habits.”
Adorjan Farkas finished his beer then, while going over the list. “It will be expensive, but you can afford it, right? And you’ll want to wait till after the wedding, no doubt, so that your family inherits.”
Gundaker felt dirty as he left the squalid tavern, but in a strange way also invigorated. He was committed now. There was no turning back. . but then, there never really had been.
* * *
Leopold sat in his townhouse in Vienna and brooded. His brother had effectively endorsed Judy Wendell’s position. She and all her Barbies were to be ennobled. Even Trudi von Bachmerin, the daughter of a minor imperial knight from the back of nowhere, would become Her Serene Highness Trudi von Bachmerin. Granted, a Furstenstand was a considerably lower rank than Erzherzog, the rank Leo held. Leo felt his lips twitch. Gundaker must be having a fit. Damn it, even their expressions are creeping in. But it was true. The Barbies and, importantly, Sarah Wendel now held exactly the same rank that Gundaker, Maximilian and Karl Eusebius held. So all Gundaker’s plans had crashed on the reef of Sarah’s sudden elevation. He could at least take comfort in the fact that the Wendell girls were publicly humiliating more than just him.
He looked over at one wall where hung centerfolds and images from the up-time magazines Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler. They were carefully framed and had cost a pretty pfennig. He found himself wondering how Her Serene Highness Judy Wendel von Up-time would look posed as the April 1994 playboy centerfold was. Judy didn’t look anything like the model, but something about the pose brought Judy to mind.
He called for more wine and Marco brought it.
Fortney House, Race Track City
“Why,” Bob Sanderlin asked Brandon, “is a serene highness ‘serene’?”
Hayley rolled her eyes and waited for the punch line.
Grinning, Brandon said, “I don’t know, Uncle Bob. Why is a serene highness serene?”
“’Cause they ain’t got nothing to do.”
Brandon snickered. Ron shook his head in amusement and Gayleen Sanderlin gave her uncle by marriage a look. And Mom, the traitor, hid her smile behind a napkin.
Hayley groaned and, though it didn’t sound it, the groan was complicated by the fact that it was starting to look like she wasn’t going to be a serene highness after all. Just a highness. What Bob said was true. A serene highness didn’t rule a principality. It was a court title, and most of the Barbies were going to be serene highness. But the way it was shaking out, Race Track City was going to become a postage-stamp-size principality, and one with Imperial Immediacy, meaning that the ruling prince-or in this case-princess, would have a vote in the imperial diet.
Since she was going to be the ruling princess, and she wasn’t at all sure how her mom and dad and the Sanderlins were going to take the news-much less the citizens of Race Track City-serene was probably not the right word to describe her mood. “About that. . you remember how the Barbies bought up our debt and traded it for a twenty percent share in SFIC?”
“Yes?” Gayleen said.
“What’s wrong, Hayley?” Dana Fortney asked.
“Well, they didn’t really want part ownership in Race Track City, and the emperor wants our status regularized. I tried for burgrave, but Judy’s gone all political on us and wouldn’t hear of it. So, for a whole bunch of barbies switched from my account in the reich bank to the accounts of other girls and the emperor. . well. . you see. .” Then in a rush she blurted out, “Race Track City is going to be a principality and I am going to be the ruling princess. Or at least the reigning princess. We can work up a constitution so that the rights of the people here are protected, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to bear arms, the whole works.”