More young women joined them. “And the rest of our visitors, Your Grace. This is Sarah’s sister.”
Leo took his eyes off Sarah. He turned his head and suddenly felt like he’d been struck by lightning.
Karl was still talking. “Judith Wendell von Up-time.”
“Your Grace,” the vision said. “So pleased to meet you. Call me Judy, please. Everyone does.”
Beauty incarnate, Leo thought. It was strange, really. She wasn’t that attractive by the artistic standards of the seventeenth century. Too thin by half, he would have said if he were looking at a painting. But this wasn’t a painting. She flowed, she floated, she waved to the crowd. She smiled and you were welcomed into heaven.
Leo went through the rest of the greeting in a haze. He performed his function in a daze, which proved the value of years of training in protocol. Judy had a soft, furry voice. Leo felt like everything she said was a secret shared with him, and him alone.
The rest of the young ladies came forward. Karl pointed at each. “Victoria Maureen Emerson von Up-time, Susan Elizabeth Logsden von Up-time, Gabrielle Carlina Ugolini von Up-time, Millicent Anne Barnes von Up-time.” Leo worked at remembering all the strange names. Then Gundaker von Liechtenstein arrived, and brought Leo back to the present. It was Prince Karl who was important here. More important than the plane, even.
Gundaker had made it all quite clear. The empire was broke. Worse than broke. Without the taxes provided by Bohemia and Moravia, Austria-Hungary didn’t have the assets to cover the loans already outstanding. Almost as bad, many of their potential loan sources had instead invested money in the new businesses in the USE. Including the Liechtensteins, in the person of Karl. In spite of which the Liechtenstein family in Austria had, under considerable pressure, made further loans to the royal purse. And that money was now mostly spent to keep the Austrian government from appearing as broke as it was. When asked for more, they had pointed out that there wasn’t any more, at least not in Austria-Hungary. They had lost a lot of their income to Wallenstein at the same time the Austro-Hungarian empire had. Karl, however, safe in Grantville in the USE had investments of considerable worth.
“My Lord of the Exchequer.” Leo bowed precisely the right amount for a younger brother of the emperor to a member of the highest nobility who was many years his senior. Gundaker was a stickler for protocol. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
“Your Grace,” Gundaker answered, even more precisely than usual. Leo wondered what had him upset. Then he realized it was the up-timer girls. Sarah Wendell von Up-Time to be precise. Gundaker was not one of those who subscribed to the notions of up-timer nobility. Gundaker was a bit of a prick even if he was a highly efficient organizer and quite bright. He had long since appointed himself the job of seeing that no one show the Liechtenstein family lèse majesté. Gundaker was happy enough that Karl was making a morganatic marriage. It opened up the inheritance of the Liechtenstein lands to his branch of the family, after all. On the other hand, Gundaker didn’t approve of jumped-up peasants. He didn’t approve of Sarah Wendell and was only willing to put up with the marriage at all because it removed any potential children from the succession. That, and the fact that most of Prince Karl’s money was sitting comfortably in the USE, where the rest of the family couldn’t get hold of it, at least not without Karl’s acquiescence. The Liechtenstein family and the Austro-Hungarian Empire needed that money. It was a weak bargaining position for Gundaker, a position he found less than comforting.
This was something that Leo had already talked to his older brother Ferdinand III about. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had no particular objection to recognizing the title “von Up-time.” Marriages, after all, were significantly cheaper than wars. Ah. Here it came. Karl was introducing his harem, ah, the young ladies, to his uncle. “Sarah Wendell von Up-time, Judith Elaine Wendell von Up-time, Victoria Maureen Emerson von Up-time . . .” With each introduction Gundaker’s face got a little bit stiffer.
“Hi, guys!” came from out of the crowd.
“Hayley!” Judy shouted back. “Let her through!”
Leo nodded, though it wasn’t really necessary. Whether it was Judy’s voice, which carried a natural assumption of obedience or the obvious fact that several of the nobles gathered around the plane knew Hayley Alma Fortney or some other reason, Hayley was already through the guards. Hayley Fortney, the daughter of one of his brother’s mechanics, joined them next to the plane.
“So!” Victoria Maureen Emerson von Up-time asked in English, “how is life in the sticks?”