The Viennese Waltz(132)
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Ferdinand III had been ready to explode at the casual lèse majesté that the Barbies had displayed, and then that curtsey had stopped him. He looked at Judy Wendell von Up-time and found himself wondering how much of what he had just seen was theater. He looked around the room. It held more servants than advisers. Ferdinand made a gesture. Quickly, the servants left.
“So how much of that was real,” he asked, “and how much pageant?”
“Is there a difference?” Judy said more than asked. “Perception affects reality, which in turn affects perception. Sarah will tell you that the value of money is the end of some formula, and no doubt she’s right . . . as far as that goes. But you and I know that the value of anything is the same as royal authority. It’s there if people think it’s there. Right now, today, the value of BarbieCo stock is tied up with the rank of the Barbies.” Judy waved at herself and the others. “You can destroy that with raw power, call in the guards, have us dragged out into the public square and executed. That will destroy the value of BarbieCo stock, and I don’t doubt that some of your advisers have been advising you to do just that.” She looked over at Gundaker. “But wiser heads have pointed out that destroying BarbieCo will not restore reich money. Some will see it as firm, but more will see it as desperate. So it will, on the whole, only weaken reich money still more.”
“And,” Vicky Emerson said, “it will offend your northern neighbors, making rapprochement and alliance more difficult. And leaving Austria-Hungary in much the position that Bavaria is in today. A worse position, actually. Bavaria has you between them and the Ottoman Empire whether you want to be or not. All you have is an open road.”
“No one is contemplating execution!” Ferdinand III said truthfully.
“Well, that’s good,” Judy Wendell said. “With execution off the table, all the lesser punishments are even worse options. They will be seen as even more desperate, without the advantage of decisiveness. They will hurt the reich money worse than the BarbieCo. Lock us up, and people will hold onto their BarbieCo all the harder for their uncertainty.”
“What do you suggest?”
“It’s been said that the Habsburgs would rather wage marriage than war. What we need to do is wed the BarbieCo stock to the reich money, to produce one trusted money. And for that you need the Barbies to have the status that we can produce. Sarah will examine your economy and its prospective growth and tell us all how much money Austria-Hungary can have in circulation. Then, you and I together will figure out how to present it so that it will be trusted.
“The first step to that will be to make the production of that money completely independent of the . . .” There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” said Ferdinand.
The door opened and Karl Eusebius came in. He bowed and said, “I got word I was needed.”
“You did?”
“He’s the Ken Doll,” said Millicent.
“What, pray tell, is a Ken Doll?” Peter von Eisenberg asked.
“He stands around looking pretty and giving us money,” said Vicky Emerson.
“I am told that that is the natural function of men, Your Majesty,” Karl said with a slight smile.
“What a lovely notion,” said the empress of Austria-Hungary. “I quite approve.”
Ferdinand saw the expression on his wife’s face and felt a bit uncomfortable.
“My wife had a similar attitude,” Márton von Debrecen agreed. “But why the Ken Doll?”
“Well, you know that the Barbies were dolls made for little girls. There were several sorts of Barbies. Malibu Barbie, Princess Barbie, Doctor Barbie, Astronaut Barbie . . . but there was just the one Ken doll. This occurs because the Barbies do things. The Ken Dolls, however, stand around looking pretty and giving us money,” Millicent explained.
Sarah groaned. “The dolls were designed for preteen girls, with a childish view of relationships. Which my little sister maintains, even though she should long since have outgrown it. In fact, Karl is a major investor in many of the projects of the Barbie Consortium and the largest single stockholder of common, ah, voting stock in BarbieCo. So if we are to make any changes, he will have to agree.”
“So again, the prince of House Liechtenstein holds the purse strings of the Empire,” said Márton von Debrecen. He didn’t sound overly pleased.
They talked, sent for food, talked some more, rested, got up, and talked some more. All the while, Vienna waited, and a steam boat made its way up the Danube.
Grantville Stock Exchange
It came up on the ticker, just like all the trades. BCPP + 10% SLV A. The brokers on the floor could read it. BarbieCo Participating Preferred at ten percent over the face value in silver all comers. Anyone with BarbieCo PP could sell it. Ten haylies would bring you eleven Cologne marks of silver.