The Viennese Waltz(42)

The expression on Janos Drugeth’s face was a study. Clearly, he had no idea what the emperor was talking about. But Ron knew. It was Ron who had suggested the idea.

The Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria

“Well, Your Majesty,” Ron Sanderlin said, “if there were a canal to the race track there would be a lot more people coming out to watch you going round the track.”

The emperor of Austria Hungary, who had renounced the title of Holy Roman Emperor, raised an eyebrow at Ron Sanderlin. “It’s only three miles. Hardly too far to walk. A canal, even a short canal, is very expensive. Why don’t you have your friends the Pfeifers simply build a dock on the Danube at that point? It would only be a mile walk.”

It was a good question and Ron didn’t have a particularly good answer. He fell back on honesty. “Because people need work, Your Majesty. When we got here and the race track project got started, we were deluged with people who were desperate for work. And we’ve done what we can but it’s not nearly enough. A project like the canal would employ hundreds of people, and at the same time it would make for an easy, quick transport from Vienna proper to Race Track City . . .”

People had started calling the area around the race track Race Track City a month or so ago, but just after he said it Ron realized that he didn’t know if the emperor had heard the term. It also occurred to him that he didn’t know what legalities were involved in being a city. He knew only vaguely that there were imperial cities that had imperial charters, and that Race Track City didn’t have much of anything along those lines.

Fortunately, the emperor didn’t seem to notice his gaffe. He just nodded and excused himself for a moment. When he came back, he had Reichsgraf Maximilian von Trauttmansdorff with him. After that, the emperor of Austria-Hungary sat back and watched as his chief negotiator skinned Ron Sanderlin and tanned his pelt for hanging on the wall.

“I sympathize with your intentions, Herr Sanderlin, but the royal purse isn’t bottomless,” Reichsgraf Maximilian von Trauttmansdorff said.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Ron Sanderlin wished he had gotten a bit more advice from the Fortney girl about how to set up a partnership with the emperor. Except she had never done that either. “Well, we were thinking maybe a partnership of some sort, if we can come up with the money or rather part of the money to build the canal . . . ?” He let the question trail off, not wanting to ask, “What do we get out of it?”

“How much of the funding would you be putting up?” Trauttmansdorff asked.

“That depends, sir.” Well, there was no getting around it. Ron plunged in. “What are we going to get out of it? I mean if we put up, say, half the money to dig the canal, what do we get?”

“What do you want?”

“Clear title to some of the land around the race track and a farm for the seeds and stuff we brought.”

“How much land?”

Ron pulled out a map. The area had been surveyed by Sonny Fortney and he had clearly delineated the area between the race track and the Danube. Up to now that area had belonged to the emperor. The Sanderlins and Fortneys had simply had the use of it as part of their employment agreement. They had stretched that pretty far in setting up businesses, but they had gotten permission for each business. Now Ron showed Ferdinand III and Reichsgraf Trauttmansdorff a map of a good-sized town, almost half a mile across in either direction, but that included the race track and canal, centered just northeast of the race track. It was small compared to Vienna and tiny compared to an up-time city, but it was clearly a town. It included the race track and room for up to fifty separate businesses. There was already an agreement between Brandon and the chief gardener at the emperor’s hunting lodge to have Brandon and some of the gardeners plant the up-time plants come spring. But the plan expanded that into a village between the hunting lodge and Race Track City.

Again, it was stuff that they had sort of started on already, but on a semi-official basis.

Ron pointed at the map. “The parts that are crosshatched would be ours and the rest would be the crown’s to do with as you like, but you might want to put some businesses in from here to here. That will be prime real estate as the town grows up.” At least that was what Hayley had said, and it made sense.

Trauttmansdorff was not one to take the first offer though. “For that you ought to pay for the whole canal.” But he was smiling when he said it.

They spent half an hour bargaining back and forth, and by the end of it Ron Sanderlin knew he had been skinned good and proper. A fact Hayley Fortney confirmed with loud lamentation as soon as she heard the results.