The Viennese Waltz(24)
“What about Dame Judith?” Uriel Abrabanel was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“Fine. But you tell her!” Morris Roth snorted in return.
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” Karl looked Morris Roth in the eye. “She is both an up-timer and Jewish. And prejudice works for us here. Everyone knows that the up-timer money is better than silver and everyone knows that Jews are tight with money. If none of the money goes to her, and if the Abrabanels support her, the rest of the Jewish community will, too. It could work quite well. Especially if Don Morris were to publicly complain about the appointment, because he doesn’t want to be caught in the middle when Your Majesty and his stubborn wife butt heads.”
“You’re crazy. I don’t know a thing about monetary policy and Judith knows even less. Well, not much more, anyway.”
“What she doesn’t know, she can learn,” Uriel said. He wasn’t laughing now. “And she will have excellent advisors. What we have learned about monetary theory from the up-timers’ books is valuable, but the truth is that no true economists came back in the Ring of Fire, with all due respect to Sarah here. By now members of my extended family know as much or more about how money works as any up-timer does. What we need is the belief in money, and that your wife can provide simply because she is an up-timer. Prince Karl is quite correct, and it has other advantages as well. A Jewish woman with a position of great authority will be another assurance that Your Majesty means it when you say that Jews will be treated equally in your kingdom. Both for the Jews and for the Gentiles, and it will set a valuable precedent for women in the Jewish community.”
Morris Roth was clearly looking for a good reason to squash the idea, but it was equally clear that he wasn’t finding one that would hold water. “Fine. You tell her,” he said again.
“I’ll tell her,” King Albrecht said. “In the meantime, Prince, tell us about this Liechtenstein Industrialization Corporation of yours.”
* * *
Over the next few days they talked about what railroads, even wooden railroads, and other bits of advanced tech would do for the Liechtenstein lands in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. As Karl had expected, Wallenstein didn’t really have a problem with what Karl wanted to do. What he wanted was a public swearing of fealty that included Gundaker von Liechtenstein’s domains of Kromau and Ostra. Which is sure to thrill Uncle Gundaker, Karl thought sardonically. “Why Ostra, Your Majesty?”
“If Ferdinand insists that he can grant Kromau in Moravia, I can grant Ostra in Hungary.” King Albrecht gave Karl a cold little smile. “I imagine that when it’s finally settled, your uncle will end up with Ostra and you’ll keep Kromau.” As it worked out, the part about Ostra was mumbled a bit in the swearing and buried in the fine print in the documents, but that was at King Albrecht’s insistence. “I don’t want to make a big thing of it. It’s just a negotiating ploy to let Ferdinand save a bit of face when he finally acknowledges that I rule Bohemia and Moravia.”
Roth House, Prague
“He wants me to do what?” Judith Roth looked stunned, and Sarah tried not to smile. They were in the Roth’s huge salon. There were etchings on the walls and conversation nooks scattered around the walls.
“It wasn’t my idea.” Morris walked over to a down-time-made recliner. “On the other hand, their reasoning was fairly sound.”
“I don’t know anything about running a federal reserve.”
“You probably don’t want a federal reserve system.” Sarah looked around, trying to figure out where to sit. “We have a modified one in the USE, because we got it from the SoTF, which got it from the New U.S., which got it from the USA up-time. And the up-time Fed was a disorganized mess that was developed out of a compromise between a whole bunch of people with very strong opinions about monetary policy and not a lot of understanding of it. It’s a mare’s nest of conflicting regulations. You probably want something closer to a Bank of England system, with the government owning a lot of nonvoting interest in the bank. Interest that can’t be sold or borrowed against, but just pays dividends when the bank makes a profit.”
“So why aren’t you . . . ?” Mrs. Roth waved Sarah to a couch.
“I don’t live here, Mrs. Roth,” Sarah said. “I can help you set it up while I’m here, but not do it for you.”
“I don’t even know what we should call our money.”
“Dollars or thalers is probably simplest. I wouldn’t call them Albrechts or Wallensteins,” Sarah said, then she grinned. “You could go all science fictiony and call them credits.”