CHAPTER 8
Family Reunion
September 1634
Prague
“Ferdinand II is dead,” King Albrecht said. “In this universe, at least, the fanatic didn’t manage to outlive me.” There was considerable satisfaction in his tone.
And, in spite of himself, Karl realized that it was more than a little justified. Wallenstein was opposed to the Edict of Restitution, and a large part of the motive for the revolution that he may or may not have planned would have been to repeal it. Five years ago, Karl would have agreed with Ferdinand II, but then the Ring of Fire happened and they had all been able to see how the world had unfolded in that other timeline. Now he found himself agreeing with Wallenstein.
“Will Ferdinand III try for the crown of the Holy Roman empire?” Karl asked.
“It doesn’t seem like it. He is styling himself ‘Emperor of Austria-Hungary.’ And he managed to do what I never could, and get his father to repeal the Edict of Restitution on his death bed. If Ferdinand II had done that two years ago, I would never have taken Bohemia,” King Albrecht said, sounding sincere. Then he added, “Well, assuming that he didn’t try to have me assassinated.”
Karl wasn’t sure he believed Albrecht von Wallenstein about that. The man was ambitious and ambition can always find an excuse. On the other hand, Karl wasn’t entirely sure that he didn’t believe it, either.
“Might there be peace between your realm and Ferdinand III’s?”
“I’m willing if he is,” King Albrecht said. “But I don’t think he is. He’s still making noises like I’m a traitor and he’s the king of Bohemia.”
“Might you come to some sort of accommodation?” Karl asked cautiously. “Might Bohemia rejoin the HRE?”
“No. Two assassination attempts in two universes are all they get. I’ll not bend a knee to the Habsburg family again.”
After that, the discussion turned to the rest of the news. A bit later, King Albrecht said, “You’re still going to have to publicly swear fealty to me in regard to all your family’s lands in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. But, in exchange, I am willing to endorse the railroad and even add a line to Cieszyn out of the crown purse. And I’ll support your LIC as well. There are several projects that Morris wants to do that can be done in cooperation between us.”
Karl nodded. He hadn’t been expecting any other result, after all.
* * *
“I’ll see you when you get back,” Sarah said. Her strawberry blond hair was in a bun and escaping the confines of her scrunchy. She had a charcoal smudge on her nose and was utterly focused on a book of ledgers that had been gathered from a market here in Prague. She looked adorable. Unfortunately, she had no attention at all to pay to Karl. She hadn’t even looked up.
Cieszyn
“Hello, Aunt Beth.” Karl looked around the palace hall. It had a more worn look than he remembered. Aunt Beth was maintaining her palace, but apparently not spending any more on it than absolutely necessary.
Elisabeth Lukretia von Teschen looked Karl up and down and he felt himself straightening under her gaze. “Good afternoon, Karl Eusebius! How was the trip from Prague?”
“Uneventful, always a blessing when it comes to travel. I have more letters from King Albrecht and Morris Roth. Also, Judith Roth is going to be the head of the National Bank of Bohemia.”
“Do you think I should print my own money? It would certainly solve my financial problems.”
“Please don’t, Aunt. You will be much better off getting improvement loans from the National Bank—or from me, for that matter. Through the Liechtenstein Improvement Corporation.”
So it went. They spent two days talking about what he had set up in Grantville and what King Albrecht had thought about it. About the Fortneys, who were at this very moment somewhere on the road to Vienna. About the Barbie Consortium and—very much in spite of himself—talking about Sarah Wendell, how smart she was, how beautiful, how clever and kind.
* * *
“So tell me about this Sarah of yours,” Aunt Beth said. “Are the Wendells of a noble house?”
“She’s not mine,” Karl said. “At least not yet. And the up-timers are different. If anything, my title probably hurts my suit.”
Aunt Beth gave Karl a look that conveyed her displeasure at his obfuscations.
Karl continued. “By the up-timer standards, yes. The Wendell family are near the upper echelons of those who came back in the Ring of Fire. Her father, Fletcher Wendell, is the USE Treasury Secretary, who knows and is known by Gustav Adolf and Fernando, as well as Mike Stearns and Ed Piazza. And her mother, Judy Wendell the elder is, if less well known, even more astute in financial matters. Sarah takes after her mother in that. Right now she is working out the design of the Bohemian National Bank with Judith Roth and Uriel Abrabanel.”
“Aside from smart, what’s she like?”
“Well . . .” Karl paused. “She’s taller than I am by a couple of inches and she’s still growing. She has light blond hair with just a touch of red, what the up-timers call a strawberry blond. She is thin and I must admit she’s no horsewoman, but she loves flying and books and plays and solving problems.”
“Is she pretty?”
Karl laughed. “I think so, but she doesn’t. That’s probably because her younger sister is perhaps the greatest beauty in Grantville. Up-timers tend to be comely people by our standards, so even what we would consider pretty or handsome doesn’t stand out among them.” He smiled and Elizabeth noticed that his teeth were both straighter and whiter than she remembered. Not that they had been particularly bad before, but the evenness of his teeth now was remarkable. “Sarah considers herself gawky . . .”
“Gawky?”
“Sorry, I slipped in an up-timer English word. It means tall and awkward. And it’s true she is more at home with books than sports or dances. But there’s a vibrancy to her that is hard to see till you get to know her.”
“Is she Catholic?”
“No. Her family belongs to a Protestant sect that is vaguely similar to the Anabaptist. They are called Baptist. However, she is not devout. It’s not that she lacks faith. She once told me that you couldn’t go through the Ring of Fire and not believe in something. But she is doubtful of the certainty—” Karl paused a moment. “—professed by so many of what it means. She tends toward Pastor Steffan Schultheiss’ sect.”
“Who?”
“A Lutheran pastor from Badenburg. He didn’t see the Ring of Fire itself, but you can see the Ring from the walls of Badenburg. He has come to some disturbing conclusions about what God was saying when he delivered the town of Grantville to our time.”
Clearly, Aunt Beth wasn’t going to be distracted, even though her conversion to Catholicism was almost as unwilling as her marriage to Gundaker. “What about you, Karl? When last we spoke in person, you were almost as Catholic as your uncle, if less vicious about it. Can you live with a Protestant and not try to force her to become Catholic?”
“For myself, yes certainly. The Ring of Fire provides faith, but for me at least, it also instilled doubts. Politically, it would be better if she were Catholic and we will discuss the possibility of a conversion if we get that far. I won’t attempt to force her, but you should know, Aunt Beth, that the Catholic church of Grantville is not the Catholic church of Ferdinand II’s court. Oh, have you gotten the news yet that the emperor is dead?”
“It was in the letters. I didn’t know either the father or the son well, so I hesitate to guess what it might mean to us here.”
* * *
Elisabeth Lukretia von Teschen watched her nephew ride away, smiling. The news, from her point of view, was almost universally good. She had several letters from King Albrecht, and from what Karl had said there were good opportunities to get loans to repair the damage done by the Danes a few years before the Ring of Fire.
And Karl was falling for a girl who was not even Catholic. Gundaker would have a fit. With a bit of luck, he might even expire from it.
The railroad going from her capital of Teschen to Vienna would happen. At least on the Teschen side of the border. Better, there would also be a rail line, wooden rails, from Prague to her capital. Between the two, they would make her capital a transhipment location for goods going to half of Europe. Aside from the trade advantages, it would turn long, uncomfortable trips into relatively short, comfortable ones. At least, that’s what Karl said.
In a way, her little Cieszyn had weathered the war so far fairly well. Most of her tax base was intact. She had told little Karl, not so little anymore, that he would have support for the part of the railroads that went through her lands. Beth wanted to visit Grantville.
Meanwhile, she heard from friends, Grantville was having an influence on Vienna. Someone in Grantville had had a tourist guide book on Vienna. An enterprising merchant had brought it to Vienna, and somehow it had become fashionable to copy from the book. Perhaps because it was both modern and, in a way, traditional. Grantville’s windup record players had made their way to Vienna and along with them quite a bit of the up-timer music. It was all the rage among the younger set. Fashions were another issue. People were picking from four hundred years of fashion, and different years, decades, or even centuries, appealed to different people. Some people—she shuddered—mixed and matched with little regard to what went with what.
Liechtenstein House, Vienna
Karl was still visiting his aunt when his letters reached Vienna. Gundaker von Liechtenstein threw the letter across the room. “How dare he! The arrogant little pup. We need that money to be able to make the loan to the crown.”
“And we’ll get it, most of it anyway,” Maximilian told his brother. “From what we have heard, he did quite well in Amsterdam. Those investments in our lands will pay handsomely.”
“He should be removed as head of the family.”
“On what grounds?” Maximilian asked.
“Treason against the empire,” Gundaker said. “He swore fealty to Wallenstein.”
Maximilian said, “Drop the whole matter. We have very little leverage over our nephew, Gundaker. If you force a breach, there will be no funds at all forthcoming and you would give Wallenstein a casus belli against the emperor of Austria-Hungary. Not all the family lands are in Bohemia, you know. Karl Eusebius owns this house, according to the family charter. Which would allow Wallenstein to invade Austria in defense of his new vassal’s property rights. More likely, Wallenstein would simply seize the property in Bohemia if we challenged Karl Eusebius, and probably give it to one of his henchmen. We were lucky, or Karl Eusebius talked really fast, to avoid having Wallenstein do that in the first place.”
“Bah. Now that he is claiming to be a king, Wallenstein is trying to reform his image.”
“Certainly in part. It might also have helped that Karl Eusebius was on good terms with the up-timers. But if we repudiate Karl, or the new emperor repudiates Karl, most of our lands and most of our wealth disappears at a stroke . . . as does all of our influence at court and any hope we have of helping the empire.”
“I am not thrilled with Ferdinand III, Maximilian. Did you know that Father Lamormaini was denied access to the old emperor while the boy forced him to revoke the Edict of Restitution? What happened to faith and the will of God?”