The Accidental Empress, page 26
“Miss Sisi . . . I mean . . . Your Majesty, are you feeling all right this morning?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re ill? Shall I fetch Doctor Seeburger?”
“No, it’s all right, Agata. I’m not well right now. But I shall be. Just please, I beg you, don’t tell any of the other girls in the quarters that I’m sad. Promise?”
“Of course not, Majesty.” Agata took Sisi’s hand and sat beside her on the bed. Quietly, the maid began to sing Sisi’s favorite Bavarian Christmas carol: a simple melody about a father who could not afford the treats with which to fill his children’s shoes, but who managed to cut down the grandest pine in the Black Forest, which he decorated with cranberries and pinecones. Sisi allowed herself to be sung to, leaning back against the pillow.
“Thank you, Agata.” The maid’s simple kindness caused her heart to ache. “And thank you for your discretion in not mentioning it.”
“Mentioning what, Empress?”
“Oh, come now, Aggie. You’ve noticed just as well as I have that the emperor has not been in my room for two nights.”
With that, Sisi pushed her breakfast tray to the side and caught her head in her hands. With Agata beside her, Sisi wept.
Outside the sun was no more than a feeble disk of gray behind a wall of thick clouds. At midday, when still Franz had not come, Sisi could bear it no longer. She decided to dress and find him.
As Sisi had suspected, the hallways were still abandoned. That was a good thing, as she was not supposed to walk them without her retinue. “That is not how things are done,” Sophie had warned her on countless occasions, when Sisi had tried to slip out to the stables or the gardens. “An empress does not scurry about, alone. People will talk.”
As if people didn’t already talk, Sisi thought, swallowing a bitter groan as she walked the quiet corridor away from her apartments. On this morning, the hallways echoed her loneliness back to her with their own stone whispers. Oh, how she missed Possi at Christmastime! The smell of pine boughs and roasted apple skins. The cozy house teeming with family and servants and red-cheeked peasants, neighbors who had come to share in Duke Max’s ale and music. The merry crowd laughing as they bounced babies from hip to hip, singing and dancing with no attention paid to station or protocol.
Sisi had reached the conservatory, a high-ceilinged room with ferns and potted plants, where the courtiers had gathered the day earlier to hear Christmas carols. As she crossed the large room—now empty—and continued toward the drawing room, Sisi detected the sound of a pianoforte. Sighing, she recalled the nights that she and Franz had passed in their bedroom, singing along to his playing. She continued toward the sound of the notes.
It was Franz who played the piano, sitting on the far side of the drawing room. She paused, for the sight of him hunched over the piano momentarily startled her. He wore the same attire as he had to last night’s banquet but his hair was tousled and his collar was unbuttoned. He appeared absolutely absorbed in the action of playing this slow, melancholy song, oblivious of his audience.
Sisi hovered in the doorway, silent, following the strands of the haunting melody. The longer she listened to her husband play the song, the more overpowering the desperation that welled up inside of her became: a feeling like she might never be happy again.
Franz stopped playing. The hum of the last notes lingered a moment before fading out, and without turning toward her, he spoke. “Did you like it?”
So he had noticed her.
Caught off guard by the question, Sisi stammered: “It was exquisite, Franz.”
He nodded, still not turning to look at her.
“Yet painful,” she added.
He snorted out a laugh, short and bitter.
“What’s the name of it?”
“Piano Sonata Number 14, by Ludwig van Beethoven,” he answered, his eyes still fixed on the piano keys, which his fingers barely grazed. “The Moonlight Sonata.”
Sisi walked toward the piano, somewhat lifted by the fact that he was talking to her. “Speaking of moonlight . . . you didn’t come to me last night.”
“Something came up.”
It was a hurtful answer. Vague and riddled with troubling possibility. Had he spent the night with another woman? Paula? Karoline? Grünne’s brunette?
“What I like about sad songs”—Franz still looked down at the piano—“they are honest.”
“No more of this sad song, please.” She lowered herself onto the piano bench beside him. He stopped playing, but still he did not turn toward her. “Play ‘The Skater’s Waltz,’ ” she said. “Or better yet, play our new song. The one Master Strauss composed just for us.”
Franz didn’t begin to play, so she began to hum. All she remembered about her waltz was that it had been a blending of the Bavarian anthem and Austria’s anthem.
“All right, all right, I’ll play it.” Franz touched his fingers to the ivory keys, but paused. “I’ll play it, if you promise never to scold me like that again, Elisabeth.”
She leaned forward, resting a palm on his arm. “And I’ll promise never to scold you again, Franz, if you promise never to abandon me like that.”
“What, is my own wife giving me negotiating terms now?” Franz looked at her, sighing. She was struck by how handsome he was, by how powerful her love for him was. It scared her, because she guessed that her love might not be enough to pull him back to her.
But then his eyes softened, ever so slightly. Not enough to qualify as a smile, but the cool, distant aloofness of the past few days had gone, giving her a small slice of hope.
“You know, Elisa, sometimes I think that you forget that I’m the emperor.”
And you forget I’m a girl of seventeen. Here, alone, far from home, all because I love you. Though she felt hurt by him, she reminded herself of the need to win him back, not alienate him further with arguing. “Oh, Franz, do you have any idea how much I love you?” She said it as a sigh, and she meant it. “But really”—she flashed a smile, her head leaning to the side—“even if I do often wish it otherwise, how could I ever forget you are emperor?” Pausing, she lifted a hand, waving at their surroundings. “With all of this?”
“You would wish for me to be something other than emperor?”
She bit her lower lip, reining in the eagerness in her reply. “Perhaps. At times.”
He angled his body toward her now, and she saw the fatigue pulling on his eyes, his unshaven cheeks.
“The emperor looks tired,” she whispered. She put a finger to his cheek, grazing his whiskered skin.
His hand rose to meet hers, and he brought her palm inside his. “How is it possible?”
“How is what possible?”
“I’ve won battles in Italy and Hungary. I’m the emperor, for God’s sake. And yet you would conquer me with a smile.”
She leaned close and whispered in his ear: “I love you, Franz, not because you are emperor. I love you because you are the man who snores beside me in bed, and plays the piano for me, and rides up into the mountains with me, and whispers my nickname with so much love in his voice that I never want to let him go.” She planted a kiss on the side of his neck, a square of skin usually concealed by his uniform collar, a place that belonged only to her. “Please, my darling, I cannot bear it when you are cross with me.”
He waited a moment before he breathed out a long, slow exhale. “And thus, I am won over.”
The cord around her heart slackened, allowing her to breathe easily once more, as he wrapped his arms around her, barely making it around her thick midsection.
“Do you still love me, Franz?”
“You know I do, Elisa.”
“And I adore you, Franz. But I don’t want your mother’s hairstylist.”
“If I kiss you, will you be silent?”
“Only one way to find out.”
He leaned toward her, and from the way he kissed her, Sisi allowed herself to hope that her husband had come back to her.
“Play me our song, Franz,” she asked after several moments.
He rested his fingers on the keys and played the waltz, both of them humming along to the familiar melodies, the two disparate tunes merging into one unique thread. After that, he played her favorite song, the tune from Bad Ischl called “The Skater’s Waltz.”
Sisi shut her eyes as she listened to the melody. “Franz, how about next Christmas we listen to this song while we ourselves go skating? How about it? We can allow the fountains outside the Hofburg to freeze over and have our own private rink.”
He laughed at the idea. “As long as you are not carrying another one of my babies.”
“Well, I’m not going to say that’s an impossibility. After all, we shall have a lot of missed time to make up for once this baby is born,” she answered, and they both laughed.
“Dance with me, Elisa.” Franz rose from the bench, continuing the song now through his humming, as he pulled her up.
“I’m too big to dance,” she protested.
“You’re perfect for dancing,” he insisted.
They held one another and swayed for several minutes, but Sisi could not entirely quash the question that persisted in her mind, its presence like a tight knot she couldn’t undo. “Franz, where were you last night?”
He looked at her, as if unwilling to answer. “Don’t concern yourself with that, Elisa. The past is the past.”
She stopped dancing, her hands dropping from his. He tried to take them up once more, but she yanked them free. “Franz, tell me.”
“Elisa, I’m not going to—”
“Where were you? I must know.” And just like that, an image from her past crept forth and pierced her mind: her father leaving their home. Leaving with no further explanation than to say he was going into town. And then, a memory far less distant. The circle of ladies the night before: Karoline, Paula, and the other one. Whispers exchanged, glances stolen here and there. Any one of them would willingly—gladly—welcome the emperor into her bed. Wasn’t that the highest aspiration for any ambitious young woman at court?—to bed the emperor? Was she, Sisi, destined for the same litany of lonely nights that her mother had known? She began to tremble, her frame closing in on itself as she sat back down on the piano bench. “Franz, were you with another woman?”
Franz put his arms on her shoulders, pressing his hands into her. She shrugged him off.
“No, I was not with another woman, Elisa. For God’s sake, must you always pick fights with me?” He lowered himself heavily onto the piano bench, sitting beside her.
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
“It was the Hungarians,” Franz snapped.
“The Hungarians?” That was one thing she had not been expecting to hear. “What about the Hungarians?”
Franz cupped his tired head in his hands now, his fingers sliding through his unkempt hair. “The Hungarians are clamoring for independence. This troublemaker, Count Andrássy, has vowed to return from exile. He swears he will return to Budapest, and he is getting them all agitated.”
Andrássy. Sisi had heard Franz and Sophie speak the name before.
“It’s getting increasingly precarious, and now Mother is advising military action against them before they are in open rebellion.”
Sisi absorbed this information, dizzy with relief that Franz had not taken a mistress. It was ludicrous, but war seemed like nothing as long as her marriage was still intact. “Why couldn’t you tell me that, Franz?”
Franz shook his head.
“But why not? I wish to stand beside you through these troubles. Your mother certainly does—”
“Stop!” Franz turned, holding a hand up, his patience expired. “Enough. I cannot bear it. I cannot be at war with you, too, Elisabeth.”
She was stunned to silence. She sat motionless beside him, looking down at her feet.
He pointed at her large belly. “I will not upset you with talk of war. Not when you are in this condition. Mother told me not to trouble you with this.”
Even though the statement made her blood roil, Sisi suppressed the urge to offer a snappy retort. Not after they had just reconciled. Not when he was her only ally, and she needed him. “All right, Franz.” She put her palm on his. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I do.”
Franz sighed, leaning his head back. His tired eyelids shut.
“Let’s go, Franz, you’re exhausted.”
“No,” he said, fidgeting. “I can’t sleep. I’ve got a meeting with the council in an hour.” With that he hopped up from the piano bench, extending a hand toward her. “Now, can we continue dancing and talk of happy things? If I wanted to talk of war, I’d ask Grünne or Bach to dance, not my wife.”
She took his hand and allowed him to lift her. They resumed swaying. “But Franz, when would the war happen?”
He sighed, but after a moment, he answered her: “As soon as the snow clears, in the spring.”
“Would you have to go?”
“Of course I would go. I am Emperor.”
IX.
The imperial guards, sensing that the mood of the crowd is shifting, push back against the rising onslaught of people, threatening to brandish their swords. She reads the discomfort apparent on his face.
But her eyes do not rest for long. Desperately, she combs the crowd once more, looking for another face. Has he come? she wonders. Has he come for her, as he had promised?
Finally, her darting eyes land on him. He stands near the front, his face almost entirely obscured by the ornate headpiece of a bishop in front of him. He appears more dashing than she has ever seen him—his dark eyes aglow, his tall frame outfitted in a fur-trimmed coat. He has been watching her all this time. When they lock eyes she smiles. She does not care who sees.
“Sisi?”
Reluctantly, she rends her gaze from him and turns back to her husband. When she meets his stare now, his expression is quizzical, questioning her. An arch of the eyebrow, a glimmer of understanding in his light eyes. And, in that moment, there is no doubt in her mind: the emperor knows her secret.
Chapter Nine
HOFBURG PALACE, VIENNA
MARCH 1855
The labor pains began shortly after dawn. Sisi awoke with a start, believing the constricting ache to have been part of a bad dream. But it continued, gripping her and prompting her to cry out in agony. Franz’s face, visible in a sliver of early morning light, reflected her worry back to her.
“Elisa, what is the matter?”
“Franz, I think the baby is coming.” At that, Franz sprung from bed to fetch the doctor.
Sophie arrived first, bursting into the bedroom without a knock, her head full of curling papers and nothing covering her frame but a flimsy dressing robe.
“Doctor Seeburger is on his way. How long have you felt the labor pains?” Sophie approached the bed, dispatching her maids on a flurry of errands as she settled down beside her daughter-in-law.
“Only just now. But the bedding is all wet,” Sisi answered.
“You have released your waters,” Sophie explained.
“I have?”
“It’s normal,” Sophie insisted.
“Mother, where is Doctor Seeburger?” Franz approached the bed, taking Sisi’s other hand.
“Coming. Franz, you really mustn’t be in here. It’s bad enough that you stayed with her through the confinement. Labor is too much for you, on this point I must insist.”
“Mother, I told Elisa I would stay throughout the . . .”
“Franz, you listen to me. You must leave now!” Sophie rose, and though her frame stood less tall than her son’s, it was Franz who cowered. “This is a woman’s place, hardly a place fitting for the emperor. Out, out, out!”
“Franz, please,” Sisi looked at her husband, clutching his hand, willing him to stay. Hadn’t he promised to stay beside her? But just then another contraction began to grip her entire body and all she could do was groan in pain.
Franz turned from Sisi to his mother, his face crumpled with concern.
“Franz! Look how you’ve upset her!” Sophie railed, her cheeks and neck splotching red as Sisi squirmed in bed, clutching both of their outstretched hands.
“You must go, now! If you want to be useful to your wife and son, go to the chapel and pray. Out!”
Before Sisi could protest, Sophie practically pushed her son toward the door, just as Doctor Seeburger entered with four nursemaids.
“We are here.” The doctor appeared alert and fresh, somehow dressed and shaven in spite of the early hour. “How far apart are her pains?”
“She has only just begun,” Sophie explained, retaking Sisi’s hand and sitting beside the bed.
Franz was gone. Sisi began to whimper, looking away from her aunt. But before she could cry out for him, her body was seized by a fresh spasm of pain.
“It is happening quickly,” the doctor said, looking from Sisi to Sophie.
From that point on, the activity happening around Sisi was a blur that faded in and out, murky and unimportant compared to the searing pain that seemed to be rending her apart from the inside. The shrill cries originating from her own throat sounded entirely foreign to her, and Sisi wondered how these women and this doctor could tolerate listening to her.
“Well done, my girl, well done.” Sophie remained beside her, swabbing her brow with a cool cloth. “It will be over soon. Just keep breathing.”
Nurses bustled about Sisi, filling basins with fresh water, threading needles, and swapping out soiled rags with fresh ones. When she spotted the pile of soiled cloths, Sisi gasped in horror; was all of that blood coming from her?
“Almost there now, Empress.” A nurse stood beside Sisi, opposite Sophie. “The baby is coming quickly. We will tell Your Imperial Highness when to push.”
“Think of your son. You are doing this for your son, Elisabeth.” Sophie’s eyes were fixed on the end of the bed, where the physician was moving his hands with skilled and steady intention.
