The price of the guilders started to drop a little slower and, oddly enough, the Holy Roman notes started to rise a bit. There was something the notes could buy outside of the Holy Roman Empire, after all. This would have been fine with David, except that the guilder was still dropping against the dollar.
When the guilder hit $45, David stood up. Over the last couple of years David Bartley had gone from short and skinny to tall and skinny. His new height made him noticeable, but he still felt like he looked like a geek. Here in this room, though, people were judged by their bank balances more than by anything else. Here, David Bartley was imposing.
Trading continued. The guilder continued to drop, but people were watching him. He could see and feel it. As he stepped to the floor he made a "come here" gesture. The gesture meant "I'm buying at the last offer." The last offer had been $39 to the guilder. David was mobbed, but he kept making the gesture.
For almost an hour people sold guilders and he and Karl bought them. The price hit $37.50 to the guilder. Finally, slowly, people began to hesitate.
Why were they buying? What did they know? David could hear the murmurs. The price was holding.
David made a bid on some of the Wisselbank notes that Karl had bought, but he shook his head. David was buying, but Karl wasn't selling. Some of the players noticed. The price of guilders started to rise. David kept buying, so did Karl.
David Bartley spent twenty-seven million dollars in the space of about two hours. It was twenty-seven million dollars that wasn't his, but very few people knew that. Still, the guilder closed at $47.50 to the dollar. Smiling like he knew something no one else knew, David went back to his table and finished his cocoa.
Karl walked over to David and asked, "I know why I was buying, but why were you?"
"Maybe we ought to have a talk," said David, and led Karl to the room Sarah was using to watch the show. They had not wanted people to think that the government was exerting influence through Sarah's parents. From the prince's expression, keeping Sarah out of sight had been the right move.
Sarah grinned like a Cheshire cat when she noticed his expression. "No, you've read it at least partially wrong," she said. "Neither I nor my parents attempted to exert any influence on David. It wouldn't have worked anyway. You've forgotten that I am the CFO of OPM. While we do want to avoid the collapse of the guilder, David wouldn't have put OPM resources into it unless it was a good risk."
"So what do you know? What makes it a good risk?"
"We're gambling," David answered. "Did you know that Brent Partow is a student of military history, and his brother Caleb even more of one?" This was a total bluff. Brent Partow had been interested in all things military for about a month after the Ring of Fire. David had no real idea how deep Brent's older brother's interest went.
"You don't think Don Fernando can take Amsterdam, do you?"
"No, we don't. If he takes Amsterdam at all, it certainly won't happen very quickly. Unfortunately, that may not matter that much. The issue with the bank money is going to be availability, not silver, which will hurt you as much as us." David had dealt with Prince Karl before and knew that the prince was bright, capable and conscientious, but he had a weakness, one that David was prepared to use. Karl believed in taking care of number one, and he preferred to assume everyone else felt the same way. David was pretty sure that Karl wasn't truly incapable of non-self-centered acts, but his bias did color his vision a bit.
"So, I ask again, why?" Karl wasn't thrown off that easily.
Sarah came to the rescue. "Why did you? If Don Fernando doesn't win quickly, you're looking at having that money tied up in Amsterdam behind siege lines. That's going to make it rather harder to get to than the HRE gilders you traded for them. Unless something is done, they are going to lose more and more value. The trade through Amsterdam will die. It will take years to grow back elsewhere. Why did you buy guilders?"
Karl discovered suddenly that he was sitting in one of the chairs in the conference room. He must have sat down, he was clearly seated. He just didn't remember moving. He had had several reasons for buying guilders. First, he figured that with his connections, they were worth more to him than to a German merchant. He had also wanted to bring up the price of the Holy Roman Empire guilder in the Grantville market, largely because that's what much of his money was. He had some financial obligations that were best handled in bank money, or would have been, before the siege.
The real reason, though, was that he had seen a bargain and gotten carried away. He had been buying, David started buying and, well, face it . . . he had been caught up in the moment. He didn't really need that much bank money. At this point, that didn't matter much. If he, or David, started selling, the guilder would collapse in the Grantville market. Karl was so stunned that he didn't notice that David never answered his question.