User:JohnB/Fanfiction/Siegfried does Vienna

The only resemblance this story has with that of Wheeler Burden's time travel to Vienna in 1897 in Selden Edwards's The Little Book are the city Vienna, the year 1897, and the notion that time must not be messed with, as per the following excerpt:

"A young man came bursting through the door, as if late for an appointment. 'Aha,' said [Ernst] Kleist, 'Our last member. Here is the one who brings it all together, our glue, our Renaissance man... Herr Truman [aka Wheeler Burden],' he said with a flourish, 'may I present our philosopher, Herr Egon Wickstein*.'

(*Note: a stand-in for Ludwig Wittgenstein, who actually died peacefully in 1951.)

"...'That's Egon Wickstein,' he said without thinking.

"'You know Wickstein?' Kleist said surprised.

"Wheeler caught himself from bursting out with an are you kidding? and paused to collect himself. 'I know his family,' Wheeler said hastily..., 'very indirectly.'

"...The young man looked at him distractedly, awaiting an explanation, and offered his hand. Wheeler took it and found himself staring into the eyes of the most famous philosopher of the twentieth century.

"...He shook his outstretched hand. 'Actually,' he said with confidence, 'I had just been told that you were someone to look up if one were serious about philosophy.'

"The young man seemed a little surprised, but satisfied with the explanation.

"Wheeler began to piece together all he remembered of the famous Egon Wickstein, whose life would end tragically.

"What effect would it have...if he walked up to this rather pretentious but charming young Egon Wickstein and told him he was destined to be famous, as both a thinker and a martyr?"

From What the World is Reading Penguin Group (USA) Paperbacks, complimentary sampler.

However, the reader will find that my version of Vienna is not as rosy and lighthearted. After all, the Anschluss is still a scant 41 years in the future (scant when you're 64 years old and can look back to when you were 23), so here we're already seeing the groundwork being laid.

Siegfried was a middle-aged Nord who did nothing extraordinary. As Nords went, he was not so much the beastie-boy type as one who simply minded his own business and got along in the world--no swinging battle axes or warhammers. Just your average "Joe Blowheimer".

And then it happened. No, he didn't wake up one morning as a cockroach. There was nothing at all extraordinary about that morning except that Brunhilde, his wife, was nowhere to be found. He trudged around their cottage looking in this room and that, but she was still nowhere.

"Hmmm," he hmmmed disconcertedly, "where could she possibly be?"

Well, off to the smithy to create all manner of plows, knives, scissors, something he'd been doing for so long that he could do it in his sleep.

He opened the front door...and, "Verdammt noch mal! Wo bin ich?!"

He was standing on the Ringstrasse close by the Opera House. Horse-drawn carriages were going this way and that, and pedestrians in top hats and tight bodices were promenading in front of him. The year was 1897.

The pedestrians suddenly stopped and stared. Some of them approached timorously. He was dressed like an extra for a Richard Wagner opera that was showing that evening.

"Excuse me, are you one of the actors?" one asked him.

Fortunately, their language was not so far from his own in understanding.

"An actor?" he responded nonplussed. "No, I'm Siegfried!"

There was an outburst of hilarity.

Actually, spontaneous street assemblies were frowned upon by Viennese police. There had been a fundamental reform in the electoral system that year giving Austrians more of a say in how the empire was administered, but the outcome was a wobbly political system due to infighting among the pan-Germanic nationalists and the ethnic groups. It was only thirty years earlier that the Austrian Empire was (semi-) split up into the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and there were some who would like to see the Austro-Hungarian-Czech Empire. A red line had to be drawn somewhere.

Furthermore, the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was lost to Italy in its second war of independence in 1866, and Empress Elizabeth was to be stabbed to death in Geneva the following year (1898) by an Italian anarchist. She was a lost soul following the murder-suicide of her only son Rudolf and his lover in 1889. For which reason from the previous year (1896), Franz Josef's younger brother Franz Ferdinand was heir presumptive to the throne. (In another 18 years, he would be shot dead by a Serbian radical in Sarajevo.) Therefore, despite the peaceful stability that Vienna seemed to stand on, not all was well with Austria-Hungary.

The police were swift to break up the assembly, and a horse-drawn paddy wagon arrived to take Siegfried to the local police station. There, he was ordered to empty his pockets, and great was their alarm when he produced a pouch of 50 high-grade gold coins and a steel dagger. That kind of stiletto was favored by anarchist cut-throats. The police demanded to know why he was thus armed and carrying such a large sum of money. He responded that the highways and byways of Vvardenfell were infested with highwaymen, and he being a very well-to-do iron smith needed the dagger for his own protection.

The police chief and an officer went to the map of the empire that hung on the wall and searched for Vvardenfell while a second officer examined the gold coins.

"What province?" they asked him.

"Morrowind."

"Morro...WHAT?!"

"Morrowind, in the empire of Tamriel."

"I must warn mein Herr that this is no time to be funny!" the chief replied sternly.

"Sir," the officer examining the coins cut in, "I can't tell where these coins are from."

The chief approached and picked up a coin. They were all the same size, and all displayed a crowned head surrounded by unreadable script.

"Who is this?" he asked showing Siegfried the bust on the coin.

"You don't know him? That's our emperor, Uriel Septim. The gods save him!"

"Our? The gods?" the chief repeated turning to the officers. "What is this fellow nattering about?!"

"If you want my opinion," one officer responded, "I propose we confiscate the stiletto and fine him for carrying a concealed weapon. But beyond that let's pretend nothing happened because there's no telling what messy business this can turn into."

"Thank you, Schultz. That does sound the most reasonable. However, we can't let him try using these coins."

He rang for a police courier to convey the pouch to the Reichsbank for valuation and, if possible, exchange it for Austrian currency.

The courier returned with the following report: the gold coins were very high grade and almost the same size and weight as the Austrian 8-florin gold coin (worth about 20 French francs). Since it was highly unusual to pay in gold for pipe tobacco, for example, the bank recommended that they not exchange gold for gold. The same amount was to be paid out in paper and low-denomination coins. The courier handed over a large bundle of paper money and the pouch full of coins along with the paperwork to prove that the transaction was carried out completely and properly. The total was the equivalent of 1,000 francs, which in those days was worth US $5,535 in today's money (historicalstatistics{dot}org{slash}Currencyconverter{dot}html).

The fine was received and recorded under the name Siegfried Wardenfeller. Then he received a temporary identity card and was released on the condition that he stay quiet about his country of origin.

"Make up a believable background story, and whatever you do don't ever change it," the police chief suggested as he sent him on his way.

The police courier was kind enough to show him to a good haberdasher for a Viennese-style suit and a barber to remove his braids and beard. After taking in the sights and sounds of the capitol of Austria-Hungary, Siegfried happened onto a employment agency where he learned that the Berndorf cutlery factory in Berndorf, Lower Austria had just been ennobled to Purveyor to the Imperial Court (berndorf-besteck{dot}com{slash}index{dot}php{slash}en{slash}berndorf). Anticipating a jump in demand, the company was searching for qualified metal workers. Siegfried presented his ID and signed the candidate list.

"Lightning doesn't strike twice," Siegfried smiled to himself as he gazed out a first-class carriage window on the train to Berndorf.