“No,” Sarah said. “Most people won’t take the buyout. It could be as high as fifty percent, but what we are really doing is setting the base.” She looked over at Moses. “Well?”
“One million reichsthaler. Will that be enough?”
Susan nodded, wrote out a note, which she handed to Judy. Judy read it, smiled, and handed it to Sarah, who handed it to Karl. Karl read.
Yes, we will buy. Take the barbies to the Abrabanel bank and get reich money, or wait a few days for silver. Make sure they understand that we won’t be accepting silver for BarbieCo at that rate. That they will have to pay us more to get BarbieCo. In fact, for now, we are not going to be accepting any amount of silver for BarbieCo stock.
Susan Logsden von Up-time
Karl snorted a laugh.
“May I see it?” Emperor Ferdinand asked.
Karl didn’t care, so he passed it over with a shrug.
Emperor read the note. He looked at Karl “This will work?”
“I’m betting my fortune that it will, yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” Karl said formally.
The emperor looked at Karl, then he looked at Sarah. Then he looked at each of the young women. Then he bent to the desk and wrote three notes of his own. When he had finished with the notes he called for his seal.
He looked around the room again. “I have spent too much time on this as it is. Gustav Adolf is incapacitated and may die or be rendered unfit to rule. But Poland is still at war with the USE, and as long as that is the case we can get aid from neither of them. Murad is marching on Baghdad, which is well and good so far as it goes, but Janos Drugeth thinks he will then make peace with the Safavids and come at us. Maximilian of Bavaria will sit in his mountains and watch the world burn. My cousin in Spain is supporting Borja. My cousin in the Netherlands is supporting Urban. And Austria-Hungary is an edifice whose mortar is made of silver, and there is not enough of it to hold the edifice. The only nations in Christendom that are in any position to send us aid are ruled by usurpers.”
The seal arrived and the emperor took it and stamped the three notes.
“May I see?” Karl asked. The emperor passed them over. The first was to the Imperial bank instructing them to accept BarbieCo at ten percent over face value in silver or paper reich money. The second was a note to Gayleen Sanderlin. Nothing special, it simply informed her that people who wanted to cash in their BarbieCo stock they could do so either at the Abrabanels or at the Imperial bank. The only interesting thing about it was that it had Ferdinand’s signature and the imperial seal on it. The third . . .
The Barbie Consortium is hereby granted control over the issuing of money in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and responsibility for the valuation of all paper currency.
Ferdinand III, Emperor of Austria-Hungary
Karl felt his the blood draining from his face, and passed the note to Sarah, who passed it to Judy and the rest of the Barbies.
Ferdinand III turned to Count Peter von Eisenbach. “Make the deal.” Then he stood up and left the room.
The last note, which was an Imperial proclamation and had the force of law, was passed around the room. After reading it, Uncle Gundaker got up and left.
After everyone in the room had seen the notes, messengers were called, and were sent off to the appropriate locations. Along with another note Susan Logsden sent to Race Track City, to go to all the merchants: The Barbies are now in charge of the reich money, so it’s good now.
CHAPTER 33
Building Plots
November 1635
Lichtenstein Tower Construction Site, Vienna
The work site at the Liechtenstein Tower was a happy place over the next few days. The royal proclamation that the Barbies were in charge of money in the empire meant that their pay was pretty much assured to be on time in the future. The same was true for the suppliers, so anything they needed that could be had was now available. The rotating kiln that would make massive amounts of concrete was still not operational, but hundreds of little ones, all up and down the Danube, were making up the lack, and the ball mill was busily turning clinker into powder. The basements were dug by the end of October and the workers were learning how to mix concrete under the guidance of Bob Sanderlin, a cheat sheet, and three doctors of natural philosophy from the University of Vienna.
Within a couple of weeks, the workers understood the process just fine and started pouring the basement walls. They also put up tents over the work sites to keep out the increasingly cold and wet weather.
The Hofburg Palace, Vienna
“I never asked to be made an imperial princess,” Sarah Wendell said, putting down her coffee cup.
“I know, my love, but it’s necessary,” Karl said. “First, you must have a rank that the great of the empire will recognize, and most of them don’t recognize von Up-time, not in any real sense.”