The Viennese Waltz(71)

“What do you mean?” Hayley asked.

“You’ll have to ask Sarah.” Judy shrugged. “I don’t really understand it.”

“Hayley, other than that little problem, how’s the situation?” Millicent asked.

“Dire, but if Sarah can fix the broke problem and if the Catholic church doesn’t implode and take Austria-Hungary with it, there could be some major opportunities. Another problem is that corruption isn’t just common, it’s institutionalized. The local bureaucrats aren’t paid at all. They work for tips.”

“That’s true in Germany, too,” Millicent said. “At least sometimes.”

“Yes, but Germany was enjoying the benefits of fifteen years of war.” Hayley gave the group a sardonic look.

“Benefits?” Trudi asked. There hadn’t been much in the way of benefits in her experience of war.

“Sorry, Trudi. But aside from—or perhaps because of—the rape and pillage, war tends to loosen things up.”

“I’m willing to forgo my traditional bribe for allowing you to do business in exchange for your not shooting me.” Trudi nodded. “Or not taking your troops out of the way so someone else can burn down your town. Which was the subtle stick you up-timers used.”

“I don’t mind tipping for good service,” Judy said.

“Neither do I,” said Hayley. “But no one is offering to burn down Vienna, so we can’t tip them by stopping it. Besides, a lot of the power structure here in Vienna seems intent on receiving bribes for screwing us over. And that I do mind. But unless the Ottomans decide to attack, I don’t see what’s going to get the burghers and the Hofbefreiten to forgo their traditional kickbacks. And there is enough resentment of up-timers and enough just plain old fear of competition that they are being completely unreasonable anywhere they can.”

“The Hofbefreiten?” Vicky asked.

“The upper crust, the Nob Hill crowd, ‘They of Vienna’ . . . you get the idea. The Liechtenstein family are members of the nobility, sort of the Hofbefreiten, because they are part of the court. The city council and the guild masters are a competing but intermixed power structure and they both want bribes to get anything done. Partly it’s who gets invited to which parties. At the same time, if you’re not on the right party list, it’s really hard to do business above a pretty meager level.

“Rob Sanderlin and Dad’s position as a master craftsmen in unique crafts puts us in the Hofbefreiten branch and since Race Track City is outside Vienna, effectively the whole town is Hofbefreiten in a way. Which doesn’t make the burghers love us. There are some things I could have done on my own in town but with the burghers locking everyone not a member of the club out, it would have caused a fuss. Mostly SFIC has worked out of town.”

“So how do we break it open?” Vicky asked.

“I’m not sure we can. There’s another problem.”

“What’s that?” Judy asked.

“There is a real possibility of government seizures of anything we do. We have some political clout because the emperor really likes the cars . . . but it only goes so far. The Hofbefreiten and the burghers are holding a lot of royal debt, most of it overdue. And even the Hofbefreiten proper, the ones in Vienna, aren’t all that thrilled with Race Track City. Unless Sarah’s Karl can come through with some counter pressure, His Imperial Majesty might keep the lenders happy by shutting us down.”

“So where’d they get the money to loan the emperor?” Millicent asked.

“Vienna has the only bridge over the Danube for a good distance in either direction. It has been able to siphon off a fair chunk of the Danube trade and the cross-river traffic as well. Locally, it’s wine country.”

“Is the wine any good?” Vicky asked.

“It’s white.” Hayley shrugged. “Other than that, I couldn’t say.”

“Barbarians!” Vicky complained. “I’m surrounded by barbarians.”

“Do you still have ‘The Bottle’?” Hayley asked.

“She does,” Trudi said. “I saw to its unpacking this afternoon.”

“That may just be a criminal offense,” Hayley told them, apparently trying to sound worried but not making a very good job of it. “There is a law against importing wine. It’s mainly aimed at the Hungarian wine trade but . . .” Then she continued with the lecture. “Look, Vienna grew up taxing a cut of all the traffic on or crossing the Danube. They have lots of practice at figuring just how much they can skim. That provided them excellent training for becoming a city of government functionaries who know just how much they can charge in kickbacks without making the project obviously unprofitable. They’ll charge just enough so that the merchant doesn’t go the eighty miles out of his way to get to the next crossing. Or so that the petitioner to the emperor doesn’t complain about the bribes he had to pay to get in. Except they are afraid of the up-timer innovations and they don’t have any good measuring stick to figure how much the bribe should be. Put the two together and you get an entrenched bureaucracy that consistently overcharges.