“We’ll let you know if it passes muster,” Tristan said drily.
“Please do,” Frederick returned. “The winery has been a property of the Fuggers since Roman times and has a high standard to uphold.”
“Does it?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Frederick smiled. “You wouldn’t have. It is a private concern. Its proceeds are consumed entirely within the bank and do not appear on the retail market.”
“Well, thank you for the gift,” I said. And I was tempted to add something like, It’s the least you could do after stealing our ATTO, but I held back. It wasn’t really our ATTO, after all.
Frederick cleared his throat. “I’d like to bring to your attention certain perhaps unintended consequences of your recent actions that you might have overlooked, given the rush of events and given, if I may speak frankly, a certain naiveté about matters financial that is entirely understandable given that you have devoted your lives to the study of other topics. Fortunately, the world contains some people who specialize in such matters, and I happen to be one of them.”
“All right,” Tristan said, “let’s have it.”
“Briefly,” Frederick said, “it’s unthinkable for the ATTO to be floating around loose. Dire consequences would ensue.”
“For whom?” I asked. Not disagreeing with him, just wanting details.
“Dire. Consequences.”
“For us? For the Fuggers? On this Strand? Other Strands?”
“It’s all the same,” he said. “Surely, after all you’ve been through, you have arrived at a level of sophistication where this is obvious to you. You simply haven’t admitted it to yourself yet.”
“I’ve been a little preoccupied, as you pointed out,” I said, “and the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.”
He picked up his newspaper—one of those financial rags only read by investment types. He unfolded it, thumbed to the back pages, and then with a big dramatic movement snapped the whole newspaper inside out to display a page completely covered with numbers so tiny that they just looked like a grey fog from this distance. “Look at all of this information,” he said. “Where does it come from? What does it mean? The changes in the prices of these stocks and commodities and bonds all reflect flows of information. Information about the weather, politics, trends in what consumers want, discovery of new oil fields, invention of new technologies. You grew up, like most people, believing that it was all confined to a single Strand. That there was only one copy of the world. Now you know the truth: that information flows not just along a particular Strand but between them, all the time, in subtle ways known only to a few.
“We’re bankers. That is really all we are. If you’ve been imagining some sort of fabulous conspiracy, you are in for a disappointment. Bankers, you see, don’t actually do very much. We take our percentage. That is all. We subsist on movements of money—across space, across time, and between Strands.”
“How does money move between Strands?” Tristan asked.
Frederick looked a little pained. “I’m not going to tell you everything.”
“Ooh, a riddle!” I said. “Let me think. Information moves between Strands. Prices change in response to information. Money moves in response to prices.”
Frederick had a good poker face.
“And right now,” Tristan said, “a big chunk of information has moved into the past, in the form of treasure maps carved into the backs of Magnus and his crew. Longships are going to be heading across the Atlantic to raid Mexico and Peru and bring their gold and silver back to Europe. The changes made to history will be incalculable. And the Fugger policy on all of this is what, exactly?”
“There’s no point in getting emotional about it,” Frederick said. “Money will flow where money will flow.”
“And you’ll collect your percentage,” I said.
“The most we can really do is manage these things as best we can,” Frederick said. “Magnus’s ship has, quite literally, sailed. We cannot undo that. But for a legion of ATTOs to be moving freely about the world, and witches and Normans and SEALs popping in and out of them”—he shuddered—“there would be Shear all over the place, and Shear destroys things.”
“And destroyed things don’t make money,” Tristan said.
“A burning factory cannot ship product.”
“What does this mean for us?” I asked.
Frederick shrugged. “Some Strands will go the way that Gráinne and Magnus want them to go. In other Strands, their plans may be frustrated. Your level of involvement is up to you.”
“Now that we have our own ODEC, you mean,” I said. “In the East House basement.”
He made the slightest of nods. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“SO WHAT DO we do with it, now that it works?” asked Mortimer.
We were all sitting around the dining room table at Frank and Rebecca’s—the original quintet, plus Mortimer, Julie, Esme, and Felix. Coals gleamed in the hearth and the air was fragrant with pine branches, frankincense, and lapsang souchong tea. It was New Year’s Day.
“We figure out what Gráinne’s doing and we undo it,” said Tristan. “Or we prevent her from doing it to start with.”
“And how do we figure out what she’s doing?” asked Julie.
“You might start by asking me,” said Erszebet. “I was her co-conspirator, you know.”
“What is Gráinne planning to do, Erszebet?” I asked immediately.
For one breathless moment every one of us stared at Erszebet—who was now, for the first time in years, uniquely qualified to help us move forward. The hopeful tension around the table was palpable.
“She wants to undo technology,” said Erszebet, in the same tone, examining her manicure. “Tch. Obviously.”
The hopeful tension collapsed. Tristan clenched his jaw a moment and then said, in a controlled voice, “But how, exactly, Erszebet?”
Erszebet waved her hand at him as if he were a bug. “I was not involved in the tactical details, my involvement was entirely spiritual.”
“Thank you,” said Tristan, grinding his teeth to keep his sarcasm in check. “Glad we asked, that was really helpful.”
I pressed my hand over his as a silent suggestion to shut it. Erszebet noticed—and was immediately more interested in that intimate gesture than she was in the future of humanity. “Ah!” she said, her eyes darting between my hand, my face, and Tristan’s face. “I knew it! Did I not say this would happen?” she demanded of Rebecca and Frank, triumphant. And then to me, blithely self-congratulatory: “I always knew you were a good match.”
“Are you sure you have no clue what Gráinne’s next move might be?” I asked, squeezing Tristan’s hand now in a signal to remain quiet.
Erszebet shrugged scornfully. “Do I look like I would dirty my mind thinking the way Gráinne does?”
“Ah,” said Oda-sensei peaceably. “Of course, that’s how we sort it out. We think like Gráinne. We peel away the leaves of history that uncover photography. Where does it start?”