“Do not let the material utility of these vipers of Satan blind you to their spiritual corruption.”
“I’m not, Father. But you know as well as I that material tools are needed in the material world. You have gotten those tools from me often enough.” Lamormaini had, in fact, sold his advice to Ferdinand II to Gundaker von Liechtenstein several times during the old emperor’s reign. “Besides,” Gundaker continued, “with Karl Eusebius married to the Wendell girl in a morganatic union , and with Maximilian not having any children, nor likely to, the wealth of House Liechtenstein will, soon or late, pass to my line. Karl Eusebius has already been corrupted by the up-timer’s heretical beliefs. Would you have House Liechtenstein’s wealth and influence arrayed against the true church permanently?”
Lamormaini’s expression was not pleased, but neither was it truly hostile. The priest knew how the world worked, after all. As long as marriage to Sarah Wendell removed any children that Karl might have from the succession, she was too valuable to Gundaker for him to consider any action against her.
CHAPTER 23
After the party
July 1635
Liechtenstein House, Vienna
“Her Majesty is on board for the feminine hygiene.” Judy grinned. “She wants a copy of that paper you wrote up, Gabrielle.”
They were in the Liechtenstein townhouse. Sarah watched her sister and the rest of the Barbies plot the overthrow of Austria-Hungary with a sort of bemused enjoyment. Gundaker hadn’t gone out of his way to make her welcome, and even Maximilian was pretty distant. She looked over at her new maid and saw that Anna was trying to follow the girls’ Amideutch.
“Good,” tiny, curly haired Millicent said, making a note. Then she turned back to the conversation that had been going on.
“There are coal and iron deposits, some of them along the Danube, especially in Hungary. Austria-Hungary has resources,” Hayley said.
“So what do they need here aside from a good dose of morals?” Vicky asked. “What will they buy?”
“Living space,” Hayley said. “Susan’s right. Vienna’s crowded, even by down-time standards. There are laws preventing anyone from living in the free-fire zone just outside the walls. That’s part of why the race track is so far out.”
“But there are people living in shacks up against the walls,” Judy said. “I saw them.”
“Sure. Mostly they are soldiers, but a lot are just poor people. They aren’t supposed to be there, but the people in the shacks don’t have anyplace else to live and unless Ferdinand III wants to order his troops to burn out their own wives and children, there isn’t much they can do. Not that some people, including your soon-to-be Uncle Gundaker, aren’t pushing for that,” Hayley explained.
“Anyway, about the only people with the money to buy anything are the very wealthy. Austria is in the midst of a depression. People are hungry and no one can pay them. The cost of bread has gone down in the last two years but there isn’t any money to speak of and what there is, isn’t worth crap. People are still going hungry and we are buying flour on credit and selling bread on credit and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up.”
“Yeah. We talked about that already,” Gabrielle said.
“But what do we do about it?” Hayley asked.
“What about meat and wine?” Sarah asked. “The price of bread has been trending down even in the USE. More people can afford to eat, but many of them can afford to eat better, too. More vegetables, even more meat and eggs in their diet, less bread and porridge. That means the net market for bread has decreased, even as the new farming methods are pushing down grain prices. The price of bread goes down as it’s marketed toward people who would have been living on the edge of starvation a couple of years ago. So beef and pork are almost twice as much as they were in 1631, but bread has dropped by an average of fifty cents a one pound loaf. That’s an average over the whole USE and it’s a wild-ass guess, because we just don’t have data for a lot of the USE.”
“It’s not like that here.” Hayley bit her lower lip. “At least I don’t think it’s the same. Since we moved here the prices of bread, wine, peas, and a lot of the other daily needs have gone down a lot. Beef is about the same, pork is a little less, lamb is a bit more. But what’s really gone down are wages. We have people who have lost their place in the farms and villages in the area, and other towns all over Austria-Hungary are facing the same problem.”
“No, the wages are trending up over most of the USE.”