Ring of fire II (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  Mazarin smiled serenely. "Fluxus, fifty, and a raise of another thousand." He stole a glance at Leon, who was grinning broadly. It would be interesting to see if Leon stayed in at this point.

  The one disposable who had stayed in saw the bet, raised to fluxus fifty-one and another hundred ecus. He drew a card and was clearly trying to stay in long enough to build the hand; if he stayed in two rounds of betting the odds shifted in his favor. Mazarin wondered if the man felt foolish making raises of a hundred ecus in a game where at least two of the other players had three months' income staked on a single hand. Certainly his fellow hangers-on were giving him pitying looks, they having had the sense to get out of the way once it became obvious that this was a grudge match.

  "I'll have fluxus, fifty-two," Leon said, covering the bet. "Will the table indulge me with a note of hand for the raise?" With the bet covered, he had only a few dozen ecu in front of him.

  "I'll stand for it," came Abel Servien's booming voice.

  Mazarin jumped slightly. Servien was a big man, a loud man, and ought not to be able to move that quietly, he reflected. Still, the man was a dedicated huntsman, or had been in his youth, and so ought to have some skill in the stalk. And if the whispering hangers-on around the room had done their job correctly he'd have heard there was a kill to be in at.

  Servien's intervention left Gaston with no choice. He might legitimately express concern for the comte de Chavigny's finances if his son Leon was writing notes on his allowance, but he could not publicly insult the marquis de Sable who had plenty of hunting estates to back his note. "Certainly, if my lord the marquis is guarantor. How much was monsieur proposing to raise?"

  "Five thousand," Leon said, grinning broadly as a footman set a small writing desk in front of him and he scratched a note for the sum.

  The vicomte de whoever dropped his cards with an expression of disgust on his face. There was no way he could stay in and cover that long enough to make his flux, clearly, and was going to have to fold when the action came back to him.

  Gaston's face was pale. A whispered exchange with a manservant brought him more money to the table, and he saw the bet without comment. Tellingly, he drew another card. Mazarin watched him intently. Was he relieved? Terrified? Even for such as Gaston, this was insane betting.

  "I am afraid to say that the best I can do is go all-in," Mazarin said, beaming cheerfully back at Leon, as he pushed his ecus forward "unless the table will indulge me as it has M. Bouthillier?"

  "Only fair," Servien barked, looking steadily at Gaston the while.

  Gaston waved his assent, wordlessly. Fortunately, the footman had not gone far with the writing set.

  Gaston looked pleadingly at the last of his cronies. If the fellow would stay in, there was a chance of keeping the play going long enough for him to build a flux while the two maniacs from Richelieu's party raised the stakes through the roof. Shaking his head regretfully, the fellow folded.

  "Then," Leon said, relish in his voice, "it is time to see whether I or His Eminence has the better flux, not so? Or whether Monsieur Gaston is able to surprise us both?"

  Mazarin smiled back. "Can you beat a fifty-seven with that flux that made you grin so widely?" he said, laying his cards down.

  "Alas, no," Leon said, "I had fifty-six. The supremo bid was the bluff, and I did not make it."

  Gaston tossed his supremo in with a noise of disgust. "I grow weary," he said, "and shall retire." Without saying more he gave everyone, including the queen, his back and left. His cronies followed him in short order.

  With them out of the room, Servien leaned on the back of Leon's chair, his eyes screwed up and shaking in silent mirth.

  Leon leaned over the table. "My note, Your Eminence," he said, proffering the thing while the footman raked Mazarin's winnings over to him. Leon was grinning awfully broadly for a man who was handing over that much money.

  "Really, Leon, that isn't necessary," Mazarin protested. They had, between them, stung Gaston and his cronies for better than twenty thousand on one hand, "I was morally all-in on that last, and you have the second hand. Keep it as your share."

  "A noble gesture," Servien said, aloud. "Keep it as a souvenir, young Leon."

  "As the marquis says," Leon demurred, accepting the face-saving formula to avoid having to redeem his note in cash.

  Mazarin turned to Her Majesty, who was smiling broadly, her eyes glinting. "Your Majesty brought me luck tonight," he said. "Allow me to share it with the royal lady who brought me the boon." He grabbed a double handful of coins, worth a couple of thousand at a guess since most of the coins were livres tournois, and offered them. He was flushed with the win, and it simply seemed-right.

  "Handsomely done, Your Eminence," she said, "But your winning hand-I see a king and a knave. You did not play a queen?" Her smile turned impish.

  "The night is yet young, Your Majesty."

  A Trip to Amsterdam

  Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

  When the news that Haarlem had fallen and Amsterdam would be under siege inside a week reached Henry Dreeson, the first thing he did was insist that the news not be leaked for as long as possible. The second thing he did was call in Horace Bolender of the Department of Economic Resources, Treasury Secretary Tony Adducci and Coleman Walker at the Fed to ask them what they thought the effect would be.

  "The guilder will go through the floor," Tony answered. "The dollar will go through the roof. Remember the bubble in February? Well, this will be worse. We could hit a dollar per guilder. If that happens, we can just kiss the boom goodbye, because no one in Germany will have enough money to buy anything we sell."

  "So we put more dollars out," Horace said. "Besides, the dollar rising isn't all bad. Imports would be a lot cheaper that way."

  "Until something happens to threaten the faith the down-time Germans have in the miraculous American dollar," Coleman answered, coming to his feet. "Damn it, Horace, we have to have at least something approaching enough product to support the dollar or we're just another corrupt principality minting money to pay our debts. The Germans aren't dumb, for God's sake. They give us some trust because of the Ring of Fire, but that trust won't last through even slight inflation of the dollar. You can measure the amount of silver in a German coin, but you can't measure faith. It's either there or it ain't."

  "All right, Coleman," Dreeson said, trying to calm everyone. "We'll get though this. What do we need to keep the worst from happening?"

  "Someone is going to have to buy guilders, a whole lot of guilders. It will have to be enough guilders to keep the price up, and it can't be the bank that does it," Coleman answered, falling back into his chair. "Under these circumstances, if the bank started buying them, people would assume that we're trying to hold the price up and the selling frenzy would just increase. People would be afraid they would still have guilders when I put on the brakes and let the guilder fall. They'd be right, too. We can't buy all the guilders in Grantville and we certainly can't buy all the guilders in Germany. It has to be someone, preferably several people, we can trust. They have to have the money, and they need to be people known for doing well. Other people need to believe that they're buying guilders because they believe that the guilder will come back."

  "Fine," Henry answered. "Who do you think it should be?"

  "I can think of maybe fifty people that either have enough money or have control of enough money. Unfortunately, I don't trust most of them."

  Horace snorted at that. It was a well known fact that Coleman Walker didn't trust anyone.

  "Get David Bartley to do it," Tony suggested. "Sarah Wendell would work too, 'cept her dad works for us. The down-timers think the Sewing Circle have some sort of a magic touch."

  "He won't do it," Coleman said. "The Bartley boy refused to use OPM funds to bail out his grandma and every one knows it. There is no way he would use OPM funds for this. It's too risky. I can't fault his fiduciary responsibility, but in this case it makes him useless."


  "What about having him use our money?" Henry asked.

  "Maybe, but if we do that, the Fed will probably take a loss this year," Coleman answered. "Can the government afford the loss of thirty million or more dollars? For this? Especially considering that it may not work."

  Henry Dreeson was silent for almost a minute. Then he said, "I'll set it up. Expect a call this evening with the details."

  The guilder was falling from the opening bell. That was expected but it was falling a bit faster than it should have. David wondered if the news had leaked to certain people ahead of time. He spent the morning watching the market, doing school assignments at a table near the trading floor, and quietly drinking cocoa. He hadn't developed a taste for coffee. When the guilder hit $45, he would start buying. He had to wait to make it look like he was buying guilders because he wanted them, not because he was trying to save them. He had to sell people on the idea that guilders were still worth something.

  The news hit the floor around noon. Amsterdam was either under siege now, or would be within days. The evidence was fairly good that, at least for the present, Amsterdam was unlikely to be taken. On the other hand, who would have believed a month ago that the Dutch fleet would be routed and mostly destroyed? The money on deposit in the Wisselbank was safe, for the moment, but how long would it remain safe?

  The guilder started to drop faster. Just a little at first, as the news filtered onto the floor. Then, it really started to fall. $53 to the guilder was not followed by $52.90 but by $52.00. Next, the price was $50 to the guilder.

  Then a surprising thing happened. Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein started buying guilders. True, he was buying them with Ferdinand's new silver-backed bank notes, but considering that Amsterdam was under siege, those notes were starting to look like a good deal to a lot of people.

  The price of the guilders started to drop a little slower and, oddly enough, the Holy Roman notes started to rise a bit. There was something the notes could buy outside of the Holy Roman Empire, after all. This would have been fine with David, except that the guilder was still dropping against the dollar.

  When the guilder hit $45, David stood up. Over the last couple of years David Bartley had gone from short and skinny to tall and skinny. His new height made him noticeable, but he still felt like he looked like a geek. Here in this room, though, people were judged by their bank balances more than by anything else. Here, David Bartley was imposing.

  Trading continued. The guilder continued to drop, but people were watching him. He could see and feel it. As he stepped to the floor he made a "come here" gesture. The gesture meant "I'm buying at the last offer." The last offer had been $39 to the guilder. David was mobbed, but he kept making the gesture.

  For almost an hour people sold guilders and he and Karl bought them. The price hit $37.50 to the guilder. Finally, slowly, people began to hesitate.

  Why were they buying? What did they know? David could hear the murmurs. The price was holding.

  David made a bid on some of the Wisselbank notes that Karl had bought, but he shook his head. David was buying, but Karl wasn't selling. Some of the players noticed. The price of guilders started to rise. David kept buying, so did Karl.

  David Bartley spent twenty-seven million dollars in the space of about two hours. It was twenty-seven million dollars that wasn't his, but very few people knew that. Still, the guilder closed at $47.50 to the dollar. Smiling like he knew something no one else knew, David went back to his table and finished his cocoa.

  Karl walked over to David and asked, "I know why I was buying, but why were you?"

  "Maybe we ought to have a talk," said David, and led Karl to the room Sarah was using to watch the show. They had not wanted people to think that the government was exerting influence through Sarah's parents. From the prince's expression, keeping Sarah out of sight had been the right move.

  Sarah grinned like a Cheshire cat when she noticed his expression. "No, you've read it at least partially wrong," she said. "Neither I nor my parents attempted to exert any influence on David. It wouldn't have worked anyway. You've forgotten that I am the CFO of OPM. While we do want to avoid the collapse of the guilder, David wouldn't have put OPM resources into it unless it was a good risk."

  "So what do you know? What makes it a good risk?"

  "We're gambling," David answered. "Did you know that Brent Partow is a student of military history, and his brother Caleb even more of one?" This was a total bluff. Brent Partow had been interested in all things military for about a month after the Ring of Fire. David had no real idea how deep Brent's older brother's interest went.

  "You don't think Don Fernando can take Amsterdam, do you?"

  "No, we don't. If he takes Amsterdam at all, it certainly won't happen very quickly. Unfortunately, that may not matter that much. The issue with the bank money is going to be availability, not silver, which will hurt you as much as us." David had dealt with Prince Karl before and knew that the prince was bright, capable and conscientious, but he had a weakness, one that David was prepared to use. Karl believed in taking care of number one, and he preferred to assume everyone else felt the same way. David was pretty sure that Karl wasn't truly incapable of non-self-centered acts, but his bias did color his vision a bit.

  "So, I ask again, why?" Karl wasn't thrown off that easily.

  Sarah came to the rescue. "Why did you? If Don Fernando doesn't win quickly, you're looking at having that money tied up in Amsterdam behind siege lines. That's going to make it rather harder to get to than the HRE gilders you traded for them. Unless something is done, they are going to lose more and more value. The trade through Amsterdam will die. It will take years to grow back elsewhere. Why did you buy guilders?"

  Karl discovered suddenly that he was sitting in one of the chairs in the conference room. He must have sat down, he was clearly seated. He just didn't remember moving. He had had several reasons for buying guilders. First, he figured that with his connections, they were worth more to him than to a German merchant. He had also wanted to bring up the price of the Holy Roman Empire guilder in the Grantville market, largely because that's what much of his money was. He had some financial obligations that were best handled in bank money, or would have been, before the siege.

  The real reason, though, was that he had seen a bargain and gotten carried away. He had been buying, David started buying and, well, face it… he had been caught up in the moment. He didn't really need that much bank money. At this point, that didn't matter much. If he, or David, started selling, the guilder would collapse in the Grantville market. Karl was so stunned that he didn't notice that David never answered his question.

  "Well, it's stopped for now, Tony," Coleman Walker said on the phone that night to Tony Adducci.

  "You think it will hold?"

  "I'm not sure. The way I heard it, David Bartley and that prince from the HRE were cooperating to corner the market in Dutch guilders. I'm starting to wonder if we got took."

  "The way I got it from Fletcher Wendell is that Prince Karl was trying to get Wisselbank notes because he figured that Don Fernando would honor them for him even if he wouldn't for a bunch of Dutch merchants. He is an allied prince, after all, or at least his uncles are. David saw an opportunity to make it look like they were trying to sew up the market and took it," Tony defended David. "So how much is the bank out?"

  "Nothing yet," Tony could hear the dissatisfaction in Coleman's voice. "The Bartley boy pointed out that if he just acted as an agent for the bank there would be another run as soon as the word got out. To make it work, the guilders would have to appear on the OPM books. So he proposed that we give OPM a low interest loan and a guarantee to buy the guilders at cost. He got Franz Kunze to go along with it. We probably should have gone to Herr Kunze in the first place. Anyway, for now, OPM is sitting on the guilders and the bank is just showing a loan. We won't have a loss on the books till the loan comes due and we have to take Amsterdam's waste paper at cost."

  "Tha
t's great, isn't it? From what I hear, Frederik Hendrik figures that he can hold. We may come out of this all right."

  "Maybe, but the longer the siege goes on the worse it's going to get."

  Tony was convinced that Coleman Walker made pessimism into an art form. "The dollar has been going up against the guilder right along. By the time the siege is over, confidence in the guilder could be so low that they won't be worth what the Bartley boy paid for them during today's panic. The only way that we could prevent that from happening would be to increase the number of American dollars. We could probably manage that, but while the dollar has deflated over the last two years there has been inflation in German currencies to compensate."

  "You've mentioned that before, Coleman," Tony Adducci agreed, while thinking Over and over again, you've mentioned it.

  "Why would the up-timers want to save the guilder? It makes no sense. If the guilder collapses their American dollars will be worth more and they will be richer," Josef Gandelmo, Prince Karl's tutor, wondered aloud later that evening. A little more than a year earlier, Karl had called Richelieu a dotard in this room. Josef looked at financial matters in terms of what they accomplished. What David had done was stop the Dutch guilder from collapsing. To Josef, that probably meant that David had meant to prevent the Dutch guilder from collapsing. The question became: why a strong guilder? It seemed to him to be to the up-timers' disadvantage.

  "It does make sense in a way, Josef. Remember the lecture series we attended. One was about exchange rates. Having an overpriced currency can price you out of the export market. High value money makes import cheaper but export more difficult. If most of your spending is local, you want a low value currency because the people you buying from are using the same money, so the lower the value of your money, the less you're paying.