The Viennese Waltz(20)

“What do you think, Dad? Will you be able to set up a steam engine on one of the barges?”

“I don’t know, hon. Let’s see what they have. It’s going to be hard enough to carry the cars.”

“Maybe not, Dad. They ship a lot, but I am not sure how big the barges on the river are.”

As it happened, that wasn’t the trouble. The Ulm boxes—flat-bottomed boats capable of carrying large loads—were plying the river. Sonny Fortney had a steam engine. It was a small one that he had mostly built up-time. After the Ring of Fire, he had finished it and then not known what to do with it but couldn’t being himself to sell it. So they had packed it and his boilers along. After a bit of negotiation, they worked out how to hook his engine up to a propeller and use that barge to pull the others. They wouldn’t go fast, but they would go fast enough to have control. Not that the bargemen needed their help.

It took a week and more to get everything loaded on the Ulm boxes. Then they stopped and waited.

* * *

“We will be staying here for a while,” Istvan Janoszi said quietly to Ron Sanderlin, as they sat in the inn yard looking out at the Danube.

“What for?”

“For word of the emperor. He is in failing health and the prince doesn’t want his father taxed in these, his last days.”

Sonny Fortney held his peace.

Liechtenstein House, outside the Ring of Fire

“I’ll need to go to Magdeburg,” Karl said, reading through the latest letter from King Albrecht von Wallenstein. It was still polite, but he was definitely pushing.

Josef winced. He knew that the reason Karl wanted to go to Magdeburg was to talk to Sarah Wendell. And he had received letters from Gundaker, and even one from Maximilian, all insisting that he keep Karl away from the up-time gold-digger. Not that they had used that expression. “A telegram perhaps?” he offered.

“No. This is not the sort of news that a telegram will handle. There will be questions and Sarah will, I do not doubt, have insights.” Then he grinned at Josef. “It won’t be so bad. I won’t be gone long.”

“Yes, Your Serene Highness,” Josef said dutifully. And truthfully he wasn’t concerned about the difficulties of the trip. Travel between here and Magdeburg was getting easier and cheaper all the time. What concerned Josef was the why, not the what.

Josef had nothing against Sarah Wendell. He liked her and her parents, even her younger sister. But up-timer or not, she wasn’t Catholic and she wasn’t of the upper nobility. Josef didn’t think she would accept the role of concubine, no matter how well loved, and she was utterly unsuitable as wife.

He was tempted to say so again, but he had already had that conversation with the prince and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat. Instead he simply nodded and went off to get ready for the trip. There would be briefings and discussions of ongoing projects for both the prince’s business interests here in the USE and the family’s properties in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Austria, and Hungary.

Magdeburg

This time Karl checked into his hotel and sent a note to Sarah asking when she could see him. Then he cooled his heels for a while and occupied himself with paper work.

It was the next day at noon when he met Sarah at the American Cafe. “So what’s so important?” Sarah asked, before they had even ordered.

“Let’s put in our orders first,” Karl said. It wasn’t like they were going to wait long for service. He was Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein and she was the daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury. Their waitress was there before they sat down. And they knew the menu.

“Burger and fries,” Karl said. “What about Sprite?”

The waitress gave him a sad look and shook her head.

“Doctor Pepper then.”

“I’ll have the same, but make mine a wine cooler,” Sarah said.

The waitress went off to inform the chef, a German who had spent two years in Grantville learning to make hamburgers and other “fast” foods.

“Well, we’ve ordered. What’s so important?”

“The latest note from King Albrecht. I’m not going to be able to put it off much longer.”

“This is so unfair,” Sarah said. “Everyone gets to go off and have adventures in the world and I am stuck in an office, calculating the mean income distribution for the USE. And developing a standard market basket when the stuff that goes into it is changing faster than it did up-time.”

Karl looked at her in surprise that turned rapidly into shock. Sarah meant it. She was really angry and he didn’t have a clue why. Not knowing what to say, he opened his mouth and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Come with me, then.”