Reading Online Novel

The Viennese Waltz(19)



By the middle of the afternoon, as Herr Bauer was—for the fourth time—discussing the great, very great, risk that letting the wagon train cut down the trees would be, Sonny could see that Istvan was just about ready to pull his sword and demonstrate the risk they ran by more delays.

“What about Captain Jack?” Brandon Fortney, Hayley’s little brother, piped up.

“What about him?” Sonny asked.

“They have chickens!” Brandon insisted. “But they’re down-time chickens. Captain Jack can improve their stock. That ought to be worth cutting down a couple trees.”

Herr Bauer looked doubtful when approached about the possible solution, then Brandon showed him Captain Jack in the wire mesh cage.

Hayley could see the light of avarice enter the farmer’s eyes. And he immediately started trying to negotiate for the permanent sale of the rooster in exchange for the permission to cut down the trees.

“Forget it, Brandon. They aren’t going to be reasonable,” Hayley said in German. “We’ll have to send a rider to Amsberg and file an official complaint against the village for failure to maintain the road. That’s breach of their rental agreement, and I would imagine that the leaseholder is looking for an excuse to get rid of some of his farmers to replace them with fewer farmers and better plows.”

“Now, now,” Herr Bauer said. “There is no reason to take that attitude. I’m sure we can work something out.”

* * *

They got to cut down the trees and Captain Jack got to party hearty with the local hens for the two days it took. Then the wagon train made fairly good time . . . till the next impediment.





CHAPTER 6

Your Presence Is Required

August 1634

Liechtenstein House, outside the Ring of Fire

“You have another letter, Prince Karl,” Josef Gandelmo told him when Karl got back from his latest trip to Magdeburg.

“Is it from Gundaker again?” There had been several letters from Gundaker, each ordering Karl to stop seeing Sarah Wendell and reminding him of his obligations under the 1606 treaty between his father and uncles.

“No, it’s from King Albrecht.”

Karl paused at Josef’s tone. “Seriously?”

“He wishes to see you and will not approve the railroad until he does.”

“Oh.” Karl had known this was coming, but had hoped it would wait a while. “I knew him, you know, when I was a boy. He and my father were friends then.”

“Kipper and Wipper?” Joseph asked.

“Yes. The emperor needed money for the war. My father and the others tried to create it by mixing more copper into the silver coins. It didn’t work, and a lot of people got stuck. After that, Wallenstein and my father had a falling out. I honestly don’t think they disagreed about Kipper and Wipper, but about Wallenstein’s ambition. The breach was more between Uncle Gundaker and Wallenstein, because an adherent of Wallenstein’s pushed Uncle Gundaker out of an important post in the Empire. But it brought in the whole family, and Father was one of the ones pushing for the execution of Wallenstein for treason a few years back.”

“Well, you have to admit, Your Serene Highness, your father called that one pretty accurately.”

“Maybe. Even probably. But there was more than a little self-fulfilling prophecy in it. Would Wallenstein have gone for the crown if Ferdinand II hadn’t tried to have him killed?”

“We’ll never know, Your Serene Highness. And it’s rather beside the point. The question is, what are you going to do?”

“There isn’t any choice. I am going to go see King Albrecht of Bohemia and bend my knee to him. Then try to convince him that a railroad will benefit him and not be a knifepoint at his kidneys, held by the Holy Roman Emperor. But can we put it off?” Karl asked.

“Yes, Your Serene Highness, but not forever. And it’s a safe bet that approval for the railroad will not be forthcoming until you visit Prague.”

“That’s not all that urgent, Josef. I don’t think Sanderlin-Fortney party has even reached the Danube yet.”

Regensburg

Hayley Fortney looked at the Danube much as the Israelites must have looked at the River Jordan. Well, she guessed. She really wasn’t all that up on what the River Jordan represented in Judaism. Or Christianity, for that matter. She didn’t really pay that much attention, except for a couple of weeks right after the Ring of Fire. But the trip from Grantville to the town of Regensburg on the Danube had been long, hard, irritating and maddening. Floating on a river had to be better than that.

But there it was. At last. The Danube, and just across it, Regensburg. They could pick up some barges here.