A matter of time

1866-1914

The Austrian treasure lay exactly where Fial had predicted it to be. He took a small silver coin from the hoard.

"Fian, I'll flip you for who goes back to that last town."

"What for?" Fiala asked.

"We need pens, ink, and paper. To list the coins. Dates, values, mint marks, wear, like that. It'll be years before we can replace any of them. Memory won't do. And it'll have to be right, else it might change something."

"What about economic changes? Won't putting that money in circulation make changes? You didn't think about that, did you?"

Neither man had. Fian responded, "We have to take the chance. We need the capital. I can't see how a few thousand florins would effect history much anyway."

Fiala pursed her lips. They were compromising their resolve already. They would be able to rationalize their deviations any time convenience demanded it.

It was pretty much what she had expected. Anyone who attained any standing in the State machinery learned the trick early.

Fian lost the toss.

"Well, take a fistful," Fiala said. "I'm starved. And I could use some decent clothes. This thing must've been made out of a potato sack."

"She has a point, Fial. We'll end up in prison if we go flashing a fortune looking like this." He took a handful of small silver, studied the coins.

"Don't spend it all in one place. The more you scatter it, the less attention it'll draw."

"I know. Can you remember these till I get back? To check me?"

"I'll have to, won't I?"

"What's your size, Fiala?"

"Think about that, Fian," said Fial. "This is eighteen sixty-six. You don't buy things off the rack here. You make your own. Unless you can afford a tailor. Just say yea by so. That'll be good enough till we get out of the country and find a tailor."

"I suppose you're right again. I'm beginning to think you burying your nose in books all the time wasn't such a waste of time after all."

Thus, by degrees, they upgraded their apparel and story as they stole westward across Europe.

Neither Fian nor Fiala could get over how little real control governments maintained over their citizens. Contemporary social organization, from their viewpoint, was only slightly more structured than anarchy.

And the amazing thing was that the political movements of the time, even those antecedent to their own, all seemed to espouse more democracy and anarchy.

"That Bakunin is a madman," Fian said of one of the State's minor saints. "He wants to destroy everything. Something must have been lost in the translation."

Fial just chuckled. "Maybe it is a good thing we decided not to look any of them up. But hang on, brother. It'll get worse."