The Viennese Waltz(129)
“Gentlemen, I need money. I need it to pay my armies and to run my government. I wish to speak with Sarah Wendell. Arrange it.”
“It might be better if you let me talk with her, Your Majesty,” Moses said.
“Why?”
“Well, there is the matter of Duke Leopold and her sister, and the rumors about her comments on the banks. If it looks like we are arresting her or attempting to coerce her or her sister there could be a reaction. It might be better to have someone else talk with her at first.”
Ferdinand considered. “I think I will have Mariana talk with her.” He shot Prince Gundaker a look. “Someone she will be more comfortable with.”
The Hofburg Palace, Vienna, the next day
Sarah wasn’t happy with the summons. It had been phrased as a request to visit the empress but Sarah had heard the rumors too, and was a little afraid that the emperor was going to have her arrested.
She had had no involvement in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Bank. And every time she had commented on it in the presence of Gundaker, he had, in essence, told her to sit down and shut up as much because she was female as because she wasn’t of the nobility. She had given up trying over a month before.
So she approached the Hofburg with no joy in her heart. She was surprised to be met by the empress. Even if it was an ordinary visit she would have expected to be met by a functionary and put somewhere to wait on the empress’s pleasure.
Empress Mariana was very friendly and reassuring. “We just need you to explain to us how you make the barbies work.”
Sarah looked at the empress. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“Well, nothing right here. Follow me and we’ll find some place comfortable and not quite so public.”
A few minutes later, seated in a richly brocaded chair in a room full of candles and golden ornamentation, Sarah was asked the question again.
“How do you make people accept the barbies?” Mariana asked. “I could understand if it was just your employees. After all, it’s a job, even if it’s only paying in paper. It’s still better than no job at all. But a day after you pay your workers, you can’t find a barbie anywhere.”
“Your Majesty, imagine you have two coins. They are both of gold, they are the same weight and purity. But one of them has a note on it that says if you keep it for a while, it will grow by a silver pfennig. There is something you want to buy that costs a gold coin. Which coin will you spend and which will you save?”
“I’ll spend the one that won’t grow a pfennig. But they aren’t both gold. One of them is paper.”
“No, Your Majesty. Both of them are paper,” Sarah said. “One is backed by silver, and the other by the goods and services owned by BarbieCo, but both are paper, backed by perceived value and both have the same value marked on the front of the bill. So people save the barbies and spend the reich money.”
“But they aren’t spending the reich money. They are trading it in at the bank for silver.”
“Yes. What happened with that?”
“A sneak thief we think.” Mariana’s expression was sour. “At least he’s gone missing and quite a bit of silver is missing from one of the vaults. We discovered the situation because there was a crowd at the bank and Herr Lang panicked. What we don’t understand is how the rumor got started that you said there wasn’t enough silver in the bank to cover all the money.”
“I have no idea. I’ve made no comments at all about the Royal Bank of Austria-Hungary. I’ve commented on the Bank of Grantville, the Federal Reserve Bank of the USE, the Royal Bank of Bohemia and the banks in Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, and Moscow. It’s my field of expertise, but Gundaker von Liechtenstein won’t talk to me about your bank. It’s come up in a couple of depositions, but all I’ve ever said is that I don’t know anything.”
“Perhaps that’s the problem . . . ?” Mariana tapped a finger on the table and Sarah noticed that she was wearing red nail polish. “Could someone have taken your silence to be hiding something?”
“I guess . . . but I don’t know how they get from that to ‘there isn’t enough silver in the bank.’”
“I don’t either. But however it happened, the run on the bank and the closure have left very little confidence in the reich money. We desperately need you to wave your magic wand and make our money good again.”
Sarah blinked. There was no answer to that. Well, there was . . . but the answer was I can’t . . . and Sarah couldn’t say that. Not because she was scared of imperial retribution. No, what froze the words in Sarah’s throat was the sudden realization that she had probably destroyed Austria-Hungary. That the presence of the BarbieCo money had exposed the weakness of the the reich money, and in exposing, magnified those weaknesses to the extent that it was likely that the reich money would not recover. Without any trusted money supply, the sputtering Austro-Hungarian economy would collapse entirely and depression would be the least of their problems. There would be blood in the streets of Vienna in months.