The Accidental Empress, page 10
“She has what I would call a ‘regal bearing,’ does she not?” Sophie turned to Bach now, her lips tripping over the edges of her words. Though she lowered her voice to a whisper, her next words were still easily heard by those seated near her, including Sisi. “It’s a shame she’s the younger. Between you and me. But Franz is a good boy; he knows there’s more to picking an empress than just a pretty face.” And with that, Sophie switched from her champagne to her wine, taking a slow sip and staring wistfully toward the musicians in the corner.
At the opposite end of the table, Helene did not appear to be enjoying her dinner companion any more than Sisi did. Mercifully Helene was far enough away not to have heard this latest exchange. And now, even though she strained her ears, Sisi could not determine what it was that Helene and Franz discussed. Her mother, beside them, was laughing gaily at everything her nephew said, and though Ludovika appeared to be enjoying the dinner immensely, Sisi noticed that her mother had hardly eaten a bite from her plate.
“Elisabeth, you will travel with us to Vienna when we leave Bad Ischl, isn’t that so?” Sophie sat back from the table, handing her little dog to a servant so that she might fold her hands across her full belly.
“Indeed, Aunt Sophie.”
“That will be within the month. The workers need to get started on the renovations of this home. It’s dreadfully small; we’ve been so cramped this summer. But next summer it shall be a proper palace fit for an emperor.”
“I am certain that it will be the finest summer retreat in all of Europe.”
“Do you know why I bought it?” Sophie asked.
“Why is that, Aunt Sophie?”
“As an early wedding present for Franzi. Now we just need to have the wedding.” With that, Sophie threw a probing glance at the opposite end of the table. “Now now, what are the two lovebirds talking about at the end of the table?” Sophie spoke so loudly that all conversations around the table ceased.
“Hmm?” Sophie rapped her knuckles on the table, impatient for an answer. “Don’t keep her all to yourself, Franzi. What are you and your bride talking about?”
“I had asked my cousin—” Franz paused. Sisi saw his language as a troubling sign; if Franz felt affectionately for Helene, wouldn’t he also have referred to her as his bride?
“I had asked my cousin Helene what she likes to do in her leisure time,” Franz answered.
“Ah, and what is the answer? How do you amuse yourself, Helene?” Sophie arched her eyebrows, burping through closed lips as she awaited Helene’s reply.
Helene kept her eyes on her plate, where a pile of noodles had been pushed around but barely eaten. “I like to read, Your Majesty.”
Here Aunt Sophie did not offer the same correction she had just made to Sisi, granting Helene permission to forgo the royal title. “And what do you like to read, Helene?”
Helene paused, thinking, before she offered a quiet answer: “All sorts of things. Philosophy. History. The Bible.”
Sophie laughed to herself. “A pious bride you have, Franzi. And what else do you like to read, Helene?”
“Saint Thomas Aquinas,” Helene answered.
“Ah, a pious girl and an intellectual.” Sophie shot her sister a disdainful smirk and Ludovika winced. The appropriate answer for Helene could have included dancing, or singing, or playing the piano. Reading dry philosophical and religious texts could hardly be seen as a suitable way for a young noblewoman to spend her time. Almost as bad as Sisi’s preferred pastimes of riding, fishing, hiking, and composing poetry.
Sophie wasn’t done, though. “But I said for amusement, Helene.” Sophie turned back toward her niece, her eyes glassy from too much champagne. “What do you do for amusement?”
Helene thought about this. Sisi knew intuitively that her timid sister wished to slide under the table, to slip away from the attention being heaped upon her. But, she noticed with relief that Helene responded. “I talk with my sister.” Helene looked up at Sisi, her eyes pleading to be rescued.
“Ah!” The archduchess, her face brighter now, turned her gaze back on Sisi. “Yes, talking to Elisabeth here certainly is amusing.” Now it was Sisi’s turn to feel the burning discomfort of Sophie’s stare—and the looks of all the other diners around the table.
“Tell me, you funny girl, what do you do to entertain yourself?”
Caught by surprise, Sisi knew not how else to answer this question but honestly. “A great many things, Aunt Sophie.” Sensing that her aunt somehow preyed off of the perceived weaknesses of others, Sisi straightened up and continued with a strong voice. It helped, too, that the champagne had lessened some of her previous shyness. “I love to ride my horse. I love to walk the fields in search of wildflowers. I love to read poetry, and compose my own lines.”
“You love to ride?” Franz interjected.
Sisi turned to face her cousin at the far end of the table, grateful that he had wrested the conversation from his mother’s grip.
“I do, Your Majesty.”
“As do I.” His light eyes shone with genuine interest. “Especially in these mountains.”
“Don’t we all know?” Sophie rocked her head back and forth, her features loose from the wine. “Franzi thinks there’s nothing more attractive than a young woman with a fine seat atop a horse.”
Franz ignored his mother’s remarks, his eyes still affixed to Sisi. “We have a whole stable full of very fine horses here, Cousin Elisabeth.”
“Yes, I believe I saw the stables from afar, earlier today.”
Franz continued. “They are not as fully stocked as the imperial stables in Vienna, but they have been sufficient for the summer. I can show you them tomorrow, if you’d like.” Though he was an emperor, and could have easily stated it as an order to which anyone would have acquiesced, there was nothing forceful about Franz’s tone. No, in fact, it was almost timid. As if he were beseeching her. As if he worried she might not accept.
“Oh?” It was barely a reply—more of a measure to stall, since Sisi felt as uncomfortable with the development of this dinner as her mother now looked. And yet, the invitation also filled her with a thrill she could not completely deny.
But then Sisi noted Helene’s downcast eyes, the desperate look of her mother, and she understood how she must redirect this invitation.
“Helene, wouldn’t that be fun, to accompany our cousin?” Sisi looked to her sister, trying to pull her into this exchange. Helene shrugged her shoulders.
Turning back to Franz, Sisi pasted an innocent smile on her face and answered: “Cousin, if you don’t mind my joining, I would love to accompany you and my sister to the stables tomorrow.”
Franz turned from Sisi to Helene, stammering for a moment before regaining his well-rehearsed composure.
“It’s so nice of you to include me to join you and Helene,” Sisi pushed further. “Isn’t that nice, Helene?” Sisi widened her eyes at her sister.
“I’m not sure that I was invited,” Helene answered frankly.
“Oh, yes, of course you may join.” Franz nodded at Helene, forcing out an awkward smile that did not include his eyes. “Nothing would make me happier than for you to accompany us, Helene.”
Sisi hoped that the others around the table did not have the same thought that weighed on her own mind throughout the remainder of dinner: If the thought of Helene’s company made Franz so happy, then why did he look so disappointed?
IV.
“How could anyone not love that man?”
—Sisi discussing Franz Joseph, Bad Ischl
August 1853
Chapter Four
IMPERIAL RESORT AT BAD ISCHL, UPPER AUSTRIA
AUGUST 1853
“Perhaps I better not go.” Sisi paused on the broad stairway. The idea of this morning’s outing made her uncomfortable; it had been an invitation to her, first, leaving Helene as an afterthought.
And yet, the thought of Franz last night at dinner, his earnest hope made plain across those handsome features as he had looked at her . . . Sisi reached for the banister, waiting a moment for that wobbly feeling to subside.
“Of course you must come, Sisi. You know perfectly well how little I care for horses,” Helene replied, tugging on the sleeve of her sister’s gown.
Sisi inhaled, speaking slowly. “But I think this might be a good chance for you and Franz—the emperor—to spend time together.”
“Sisi.” Helene reached for her sister’s hand and gave her a smile. What was that quizzical look? “It was you he invited in the first place.”
That was precisely what made Sisi so uncomfortable.
She glanced sideways at her sister. “That’s simply because I’m the only one who will talk to him. Can’t you please try to be pleasant to your fiancé?”
“I am trying,” Helene answered, a rare edge to her voice.
Sisi lowered her voice, peering into the large, dark rooms they passed to ensure they were free of eavesdroppers. “Well, perhaps you might try a bit harder?”
Helene sighed, her eyes looking straight ahead.
“Come now, Néné.” Sisi took her sister’s arm. “You’ll try harder than you did last night?”
“Goodness, are you my sister or my mother?” Helene shook her head. “I’m surprised she didn’t find a way to join us on our outing to the stables. You know, to supervise the courtship. I wish she would just stop fretting so. She makes me even more nervous.”
“She only wishes for you to succeed.”
“Well, it’s not as easy as you and Mamma would have it seem, Sisi. I’m sorry I don’t share Mamma’s slavish devotion to duty. That I don’t have the same gift of frivolity, the same fanciful notions of romance as you.”
Sisi turned to her sister now, stung by the sharpness of the remark. Helene kept her own eyes fixed stubbornly forward, and in a tense silence, the sisters proceeded out the back door of the villa.
The girls blinked in the bright summer morning, and Helene lifted her plain straw hat to her head. Eventually, Helene spoke. “I don’t like being scolded by you now, as well.”
Sisi considered her words for a moment before responding. “I just don’t understand why you must be so opposed to this marriage. Can’t you see that many would consider it a great fortune to have such a—” But Sisi cut herself off, swallowing her next words, aware that they would give her away if she allowed herself to utter them. Instead, Sisi busied herself with her own hat. Her bonnet was decidedly less plain than Helene’s—she had found a patch of wildflowers in the gardens that morning and had strung a ring of them around its brim.
“Let’s not argue, Sisi, please. I can’t bear it.” Helene sounded as though she might cry, which would make this morning’s outing even more awkward than it already promised to be.
“Fine,” Sisi agreed. “You know I can’t stay cross with you, Néné.”
“That’s a forbidden name, isn’t it?”
Sisi laughed. “Then, Helene, allow me to pay you a compliment: you look very nice this morning.”
“Thank you, Elisabeth, as do you.”
“Your groom ought to be very taken with his bride.”
“Sisi!”
“Sorry, sorry.”
The two of them clipped across the courtyard toward the stables, passing a file of uniformed guards who marched past, their boots landing heavily on the cobblestones. In their wake walked several maids, their eyes lilting toward Sisi and her sister with inquisitive, probing gazes.
“So many people, always bustling about,” Helene grumbled, lowering the brim of her hat as if to shield her face from the questioning stares.
Sisi turned, stealing a furtive look at her sister as they walked on. It was Helene they all wished to see—the woman whom they knew to be the emperor’s intended. She had meant her compliment: Helene’s plum-colored riding coat and matching skirt suited her. For herself, Sisi had selected a riding outfit of emerald-colored silk.
“There he is,” Helene spoke quietly. Sisi shielded her eyes from the strong morning light and peered toward the stables. There he stood—a slender silhouette against the shadows cast by the buildings.
“Hello!” Franz spotted them, too, and called out, waving. “Over here!” Franz looked comfortable this morning, even relaxed. Rather than the stiffly starched uniform, he wore hunting breeches and a dark-green jacket. His auburn hair caught flecks of the morning sunlight, shining warm and golden around a cheerful face. In spite of herself, Sisi smiled at him.
“Good morning, cousins.” Franz bowed his head as they approached.
“Your Majesty,” they responded with coordinated curtsies. Another figure emerged just then from the stables.
“You remember Count Grünne from last night’s dinner?” Franz introduced his companion. Sisi and Helene both greeted the count.
“I trust you were comfortable in your chamber last night?” Franz asked them both, but his eyes fell upon Sisi.
“Indeed, thank you, Your Majesty,” Sisi answered. “Isn’t that so, Helene?” She looped her arm through her sister’s.
“Yes.” Helene nodded.
“Cousin Elisabeth, I saw that Mother kept refilling your plate. I confess I worried—did our rich Viennese food overwhelm you?”
“Oh, you are kind to ask, but it was quite the contrary. I enjoyed myself immensely.” Sisi smiled. “We had a merry discussion at our end of the table, did we not, Count Grünne?”
“We certainly did. I think your cousin Elisabeth has a rare ability.”
“Is that so?” Franz looked from Grünne to Sisi, his interest piqued. “And what might that be?”
“Elisabeth has the skill of pleasing your mother, Your Majesty.” Count Grünne nodded.
“Ah! Yes, that much I deduced.” Franz shifted his weight from one foot to the other, allowing a brief silence to settle between the four of them. “Well, shall we?” Franz offered his arm, and Sisi noticed with relief—and a twinge of something far less pleasant, something involuntary—that it was to Helene to whom he made the gesture. She, Sisi, accepted Grünne’s arm and the foursome proceeded into the stables.
It was the smell that struck her first. That familiar, heady smell—that pungent medley of hay, leather, and polished wood. Even in a stable like this, easily twice the size of the Possenhofen stables and still gleaming under a recent coat of lacquer, the horses and their trappings had conspired together to fill the space with their uniquely familiar odor.
It was the aroma of her favorite pastime, the smell of Possenhofen: the summer nights before dinner when she’d brush Bummerl’s shimmering coat until Mamma called her into dinner. Immediately, her body felt at ease.
Given that this was not Vienna’s imperial palace, the stables were perhaps not as fancy as she had expected. But what they lacked in splendor, they made up for in buffed and scrubbed orderliness.
Sisi studied the tack wall, taking in the presence of so many bits, bridles, steel snapples, wool blankets, grooming boxes, leathers, and saddle pads. Why, everyone in the palace, servants included, could have ridden at the same time given how much equipment and how many horses were housed in this stable. The saddle collection alone was probably worth more than Sisi’s entire stable at Possenhofen: saddles fashioned in sleek brown leather with soft supple curves to fit the shapes of the strong backs upon which they rested.
But the best feature of these stables was its collection of horses; rows of stalls stretched before Sisi, each filled with a specimen that alone might have cost an ordinary family its entire year’s wages.
“Look at these horses.” Sisi walked the corridor of the stable, absentmindedly breaking free from Grünne’s arm to gain a closer look. How she longed to reach through the ornate wrought-iron gates and touch the horses. Each stall presented a new occupant that appeared even stronger than the one before—clearly the imperial stables only housed horses in peak health and condition. There were mares: their frames long and light, bred over centuries to run without growing weary. There were stately Thoroughbreds, haughty and skittish. Several stalls were filled with Hanoverians, the German horses bred for their indomitability at war, with their broad muscular chests and thick, barrel-shaped necks. There were the lithe hunters and the golden chestnuts, these daintier breeds probably preferred by the women of the court.
Toward the back stood half a dozen Lippizaners, the Austrian prancing horses cloaked in beautiful dapple-gray—a white mane with small black and gray freckles. This group occupied Sisi’s interest the most, as this was the same breed as Bummerl.
Sisi approached a medium-sized female Lippizaner, reading the name scrawled on the wooden gate. “Diamant,” she noted aloud. “Hello, Diamant.” She removed her riding glove and extended her hand, allowing the horse to acclimate to her foreign human smell before running her fingers over the soft, spackled fur of its nose. “Oh, you are a beautiful one, aren’t you?” Sisi cooed as the horse welcomed her attention, cocking its head into her caresses.
“Ah, yes, this one looks like she has a coat full of diamonds.” Franz had approached undetected, and Sisi started slightly at the sound of his voice, jerking her hand away from the horse.
“I named her myself when she was born. She’s the daughter of this one.” He pointed to the adjacent stall that housed a Lippizaner similar in build and color to Diamant. “This here is Blume. But her proper name is Dame von Blume.”
“Lady of Flowers.” Sisi couldn’t help but chuckle at the name, looking at the mother horse. “Hello, Blume.”
“Because of this, do you see?” Franz took Sisi’s ungloved hand in his own and pointed her fingers toward Blume’s chest, where a small cluster of white fur seemed whittled out amid a constellation of gray freckles. Sisi’s heart leapt, keenly aware of the soft touch of Franz’s skin on her own.
“It looks like edelweiss, does it not?” Franz’s voice was quiet, his lips close to her ear. Just then, the horse offered its snout, nestling against Sisi’s and Franz’s hands for a caress.
“It does. She is beautiful,” Sisi replied, smiling at the sudden familiarity of the horse. She noticed, dizzily, that Franz still touched her ungloved skin.
At the opposite end of the table, Helene did not appear to be enjoying her dinner companion any more than Sisi did. Mercifully Helene was far enough away not to have heard this latest exchange. And now, even though she strained her ears, Sisi could not determine what it was that Helene and Franz discussed. Her mother, beside them, was laughing gaily at everything her nephew said, and though Ludovika appeared to be enjoying the dinner immensely, Sisi noticed that her mother had hardly eaten a bite from her plate.
“Elisabeth, you will travel with us to Vienna when we leave Bad Ischl, isn’t that so?” Sophie sat back from the table, handing her little dog to a servant so that she might fold her hands across her full belly.
“Indeed, Aunt Sophie.”
“That will be within the month. The workers need to get started on the renovations of this home. It’s dreadfully small; we’ve been so cramped this summer. But next summer it shall be a proper palace fit for an emperor.”
“I am certain that it will be the finest summer retreat in all of Europe.”
“Do you know why I bought it?” Sophie asked.
“Why is that, Aunt Sophie?”
“As an early wedding present for Franzi. Now we just need to have the wedding.” With that, Sophie threw a probing glance at the opposite end of the table. “Now now, what are the two lovebirds talking about at the end of the table?” Sophie spoke so loudly that all conversations around the table ceased.
“Hmm?” Sophie rapped her knuckles on the table, impatient for an answer. “Don’t keep her all to yourself, Franzi. What are you and your bride talking about?”
“I had asked my cousin—” Franz paused. Sisi saw his language as a troubling sign; if Franz felt affectionately for Helene, wouldn’t he also have referred to her as his bride?
“I had asked my cousin Helene what she likes to do in her leisure time,” Franz answered.
“Ah, and what is the answer? How do you amuse yourself, Helene?” Sophie arched her eyebrows, burping through closed lips as she awaited Helene’s reply.
Helene kept her eyes on her plate, where a pile of noodles had been pushed around but barely eaten. “I like to read, Your Majesty.”
Here Aunt Sophie did not offer the same correction she had just made to Sisi, granting Helene permission to forgo the royal title. “And what do you like to read, Helene?”
Helene paused, thinking, before she offered a quiet answer: “All sorts of things. Philosophy. History. The Bible.”
Sophie laughed to herself. “A pious bride you have, Franzi. And what else do you like to read, Helene?”
“Saint Thomas Aquinas,” Helene answered.
“Ah, a pious girl and an intellectual.” Sophie shot her sister a disdainful smirk and Ludovika winced. The appropriate answer for Helene could have included dancing, or singing, or playing the piano. Reading dry philosophical and religious texts could hardly be seen as a suitable way for a young noblewoman to spend her time. Almost as bad as Sisi’s preferred pastimes of riding, fishing, hiking, and composing poetry.
Sophie wasn’t done, though. “But I said for amusement, Helene.” Sophie turned back toward her niece, her eyes glassy from too much champagne. “What do you do for amusement?”
Helene thought about this. Sisi knew intuitively that her timid sister wished to slide under the table, to slip away from the attention being heaped upon her. But, she noticed with relief that Helene responded. “I talk with my sister.” Helene looked up at Sisi, her eyes pleading to be rescued.
“Ah!” The archduchess, her face brighter now, turned her gaze back on Sisi. “Yes, talking to Elisabeth here certainly is amusing.” Now it was Sisi’s turn to feel the burning discomfort of Sophie’s stare—and the looks of all the other diners around the table.
“Tell me, you funny girl, what do you do to entertain yourself?”
Caught by surprise, Sisi knew not how else to answer this question but honestly. “A great many things, Aunt Sophie.” Sensing that her aunt somehow preyed off of the perceived weaknesses of others, Sisi straightened up and continued with a strong voice. It helped, too, that the champagne had lessened some of her previous shyness. “I love to ride my horse. I love to walk the fields in search of wildflowers. I love to read poetry, and compose my own lines.”
“You love to ride?” Franz interjected.
Sisi turned to face her cousin at the far end of the table, grateful that he had wrested the conversation from his mother’s grip.
“I do, Your Majesty.”
“As do I.” His light eyes shone with genuine interest. “Especially in these mountains.”
“Don’t we all know?” Sophie rocked her head back and forth, her features loose from the wine. “Franzi thinks there’s nothing more attractive than a young woman with a fine seat atop a horse.”
Franz ignored his mother’s remarks, his eyes still affixed to Sisi. “We have a whole stable full of very fine horses here, Cousin Elisabeth.”
“Yes, I believe I saw the stables from afar, earlier today.”
Franz continued. “They are not as fully stocked as the imperial stables in Vienna, but they have been sufficient for the summer. I can show you them tomorrow, if you’d like.” Though he was an emperor, and could have easily stated it as an order to which anyone would have acquiesced, there was nothing forceful about Franz’s tone. No, in fact, it was almost timid. As if he were beseeching her. As if he worried she might not accept.
“Oh?” It was barely a reply—more of a measure to stall, since Sisi felt as uncomfortable with the development of this dinner as her mother now looked. And yet, the invitation also filled her with a thrill she could not completely deny.
But then Sisi noted Helene’s downcast eyes, the desperate look of her mother, and she understood how she must redirect this invitation.
“Helene, wouldn’t that be fun, to accompany our cousin?” Sisi looked to her sister, trying to pull her into this exchange. Helene shrugged her shoulders.
Turning back to Franz, Sisi pasted an innocent smile on her face and answered: “Cousin, if you don’t mind my joining, I would love to accompany you and my sister to the stables tomorrow.”
Franz turned from Sisi to Helene, stammering for a moment before regaining his well-rehearsed composure.
“It’s so nice of you to include me to join you and Helene,” Sisi pushed further. “Isn’t that nice, Helene?” Sisi widened her eyes at her sister.
“I’m not sure that I was invited,” Helene answered frankly.
“Oh, yes, of course you may join.” Franz nodded at Helene, forcing out an awkward smile that did not include his eyes. “Nothing would make me happier than for you to accompany us, Helene.”
Sisi hoped that the others around the table did not have the same thought that weighed on her own mind throughout the remainder of dinner: If the thought of Helene’s company made Franz so happy, then why did he look so disappointed?
IV.
“How could anyone not love that man?”
—Sisi discussing Franz Joseph, Bad Ischl
August 1853
Chapter Four
IMPERIAL RESORT AT BAD ISCHL, UPPER AUSTRIA
AUGUST 1853
“Perhaps I better not go.” Sisi paused on the broad stairway. The idea of this morning’s outing made her uncomfortable; it had been an invitation to her, first, leaving Helene as an afterthought.
And yet, the thought of Franz last night at dinner, his earnest hope made plain across those handsome features as he had looked at her . . . Sisi reached for the banister, waiting a moment for that wobbly feeling to subside.
“Of course you must come, Sisi. You know perfectly well how little I care for horses,” Helene replied, tugging on the sleeve of her sister’s gown.
Sisi inhaled, speaking slowly. “But I think this might be a good chance for you and Franz—the emperor—to spend time together.”
“Sisi.” Helene reached for her sister’s hand and gave her a smile. What was that quizzical look? “It was you he invited in the first place.”
That was precisely what made Sisi so uncomfortable.
She glanced sideways at her sister. “That’s simply because I’m the only one who will talk to him. Can’t you please try to be pleasant to your fiancé?”
“I am trying,” Helene answered, a rare edge to her voice.
Sisi lowered her voice, peering into the large, dark rooms they passed to ensure they were free of eavesdroppers. “Well, perhaps you might try a bit harder?”
Helene sighed, her eyes looking straight ahead.
“Come now, Néné.” Sisi took her sister’s arm. “You’ll try harder than you did last night?”
“Goodness, are you my sister or my mother?” Helene shook her head. “I’m surprised she didn’t find a way to join us on our outing to the stables. You know, to supervise the courtship. I wish she would just stop fretting so. She makes me even more nervous.”
“She only wishes for you to succeed.”
“Well, it’s not as easy as you and Mamma would have it seem, Sisi. I’m sorry I don’t share Mamma’s slavish devotion to duty. That I don’t have the same gift of frivolity, the same fanciful notions of romance as you.”
Sisi turned to her sister now, stung by the sharpness of the remark. Helene kept her own eyes fixed stubbornly forward, and in a tense silence, the sisters proceeded out the back door of the villa.
The girls blinked in the bright summer morning, and Helene lifted her plain straw hat to her head. Eventually, Helene spoke. “I don’t like being scolded by you now, as well.”
Sisi considered her words for a moment before responding. “I just don’t understand why you must be so opposed to this marriage. Can’t you see that many would consider it a great fortune to have such a—” But Sisi cut herself off, swallowing her next words, aware that they would give her away if she allowed herself to utter them. Instead, Sisi busied herself with her own hat. Her bonnet was decidedly less plain than Helene’s—she had found a patch of wildflowers in the gardens that morning and had strung a ring of them around its brim.
“Let’s not argue, Sisi, please. I can’t bear it.” Helene sounded as though she might cry, which would make this morning’s outing even more awkward than it already promised to be.
“Fine,” Sisi agreed. “You know I can’t stay cross with you, Néné.”
“That’s a forbidden name, isn’t it?”
Sisi laughed. “Then, Helene, allow me to pay you a compliment: you look very nice this morning.”
“Thank you, Elisabeth, as do you.”
“Your groom ought to be very taken with his bride.”
“Sisi!”
“Sorry, sorry.”
The two of them clipped across the courtyard toward the stables, passing a file of uniformed guards who marched past, their boots landing heavily on the cobblestones. In their wake walked several maids, their eyes lilting toward Sisi and her sister with inquisitive, probing gazes.
“So many people, always bustling about,” Helene grumbled, lowering the brim of her hat as if to shield her face from the questioning stares.
Sisi turned, stealing a furtive look at her sister as they walked on. It was Helene they all wished to see—the woman whom they knew to be the emperor’s intended. She had meant her compliment: Helene’s plum-colored riding coat and matching skirt suited her. For herself, Sisi had selected a riding outfit of emerald-colored silk.
“There he is,” Helene spoke quietly. Sisi shielded her eyes from the strong morning light and peered toward the stables. There he stood—a slender silhouette against the shadows cast by the buildings.
“Hello!” Franz spotted them, too, and called out, waving. “Over here!” Franz looked comfortable this morning, even relaxed. Rather than the stiffly starched uniform, he wore hunting breeches and a dark-green jacket. His auburn hair caught flecks of the morning sunlight, shining warm and golden around a cheerful face. In spite of herself, Sisi smiled at him.
“Good morning, cousins.” Franz bowed his head as they approached.
“Your Majesty,” they responded with coordinated curtsies. Another figure emerged just then from the stables.
“You remember Count Grünne from last night’s dinner?” Franz introduced his companion. Sisi and Helene both greeted the count.
“I trust you were comfortable in your chamber last night?” Franz asked them both, but his eyes fell upon Sisi.
“Indeed, thank you, Your Majesty,” Sisi answered. “Isn’t that so, Helene?” She looped her arm through her sister’s.
“Yes.” Helene nodded.
“Cousin Elisabeth, I saw that Mother kept refilling your plate. I confess I worried—did our rich Viennese food overwhelm you?”
“Oh, you are kind to ask, but it was quite the contrary. I enjoyed myself immensely.” Sisi smiled. “We had a merry discussion at our end of the table, did we not, Count Grünne?”
“We certainly did. I think your cousin Elisabeth has a rare ability.”
“Is that so?” Franz looked from Grünne to Sisi, his interest piqued. “And what might that be?”
“Elisabeth has the skill of pleasing your mother, Your Majesty.” Count Grünne nodded.
“Ah! Yes, that much I deduced.” Franz shifted his weight from one foot to the other, allowing a brief silence to settle between the four of them. “Well, shall we?” Franz offered his arm, and Sisi noticed with relief—and a twinge of something far less pleasant, something involuntary—that it was to Helene to whom he made the gesture. She, Sisi, accepted Grünne’s arm and the foursome proceeded into the stables.
It was the smell that struck her first. That familiar, heady smell—that pungent medley of hay, leather, and polished wood. Even in a stable like this, easily twice the size of the Possenhofen stables and still gleaming under a recent coat of lacquer, the horses and their trappings had conspired together to fill the space with their uniquely familiar odor.
It was the aroma of her favorite pastime, the smell of Possenhofen: the summer nights before dinner when she’d brush Bummerl’s shimmering coat until Mamma called her into dinner. Immediately, her body felt at ease.
Given that this was not Vienna’s imperial palace, the stables were perhaps not as fancy as she had expected. But what they lacked in splendor, they made up for in buffed and scrubbed orderliness.
Sisi studied the tack wall, taking in the presence of so many bits, bridles, steel snapples, wool blankets, grooming boxes, leathers, and saddle pads. Why, everyone in the palace, servants included, could have ridden at the same time given how much equipment and how many horses were housed in this stable. The saddle collection alone was probably worth more than Sisi’s entire stable at Possenhofen: saddles fashioned in sleek brown leather with soft supple curves to fit the shapes of the strong backs upon which they rested.
But the best feature of these stables was its collection of horses; rows of stalls stretched before Sisi, each filled with a specimen that alone might have cost an ordinary family its entire year’s wages.
“Look at these horses.” Sisi walked the corridor of the stable, absentmindedly breaking free from Grünne’s arm to gain a closer look. How she longed to reach through the ornate wrought-iron gates and touch the horses. Each stall presented a new occupant that appeared even stronger than the one before—clearly the imperial stables only housed horses in peak health and condition. There were mares: their frames long and light, bred over centuries to run without growing weary. There were stately Thoroughbreds, haughty and skittish. Several stalls were filled with Hanoverians, the German horses bred for their indomitability at war, with their broad muscular chests and thick, barrel-shaped necks. There were the lithe hunters and the golden chestnuts, these daintier breeds probably preferred by the women of the court.
Toward the back stood half a dozen Lippizaners, the Austrian prancing horses cloaked in beautiful dapple-gray—a white mane with small black and gray freckles. This group occupied Sisi’s interest the most, as this was the same breed as Bummerl.
Sisi approached a medium-sized female Lippizaner, reading the name scrawled on the wooden gate. “Diamant,” she noted aloud. “Hello, Diamant.” She removed her riding glove and extended her hand, allowing the horse to acclimate to her foreign human smell before running her fingers over the soft, spackled fur of its nose. “Oh, you are a beautiful one, aren’t you?” Sisi cooed as the horse welcomed her attention, cocking its head into her caresses.
“Ah, yes, this one looks like she has a coat full of diamonds.” Franz had approached undetected, and Sisi started slightly at the sound of his voice, jerking her hand away from the horse.
“I named her myself when she was born. She’s the daughter of this one.” He pointed to the adjacent stall that housed a Lippizaner similar in build and color to Diamant. “This here is Blume. But her proper name is Dame von Blume.”
“Lady of Flowers.” Sisi couldn’t help but chuckle at the name, looking at the mother horse. “Hello, Blume.”
“Because of this, do you see?” Franz took Sisi’s ungloved hand in his own and pointed her fingers toward Blume’s chest, where a small cluster of white fur seemed whittled out amid a constellation of gray freckles. Sisi’s heart leapt, keenly aware of the soft touch of Franz’s skin on her own.
“It looks like edelweiss, does it not?” Franz’s voice was quiet, his lips close to her ear. Just then, the horse offered its snout, nestling against Sisi’s and Franz’s hands for a caress.
“It does. She is beautiful,” Sisi replied, smiling at the sudden familiarity of the horse. She noticed, dizzily, that Franz still touched her ungloved skin.
