The Viennese Waltz(136)

“Besides,” Judy added, “if you’re not going to be an imperial princess, how do the rest of us get away with it?”

“Judy, you don’t give a flying fig about being an imperial princess and you know it.”

“Yes, I do,” Judy said, then laughed. “Why, I’ve dreamed of being a princess since I got my princess Barbie when I was eight.”

“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. Adorján 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?” Adorján 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.”

Adorján 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.”