The Accidental Empress (55 page)

“How is he?” Sisi asked, taking the bundled little boy in her arms.

“He is just perfect. He’s strong; he slept almost as long as you did, Sisi.” Ludovika stared at him, as if she’d never have her fill of watching her little grandson.

Sisi slid out of the top of her shift so that her son might feed at her aching breasts. “Tiring stuff, the business of being born. Isn’t that so, my little Rudolf?”

Franz had picked the name, a family name, and Sisi had happily agreed. She thought Emperor Rudolf Habsburg-Lorraine sounded just fine.

There was a knock, and then Franz’s head appeared around the door.

“Franz!” Sisi waved her husband toward the bed. “Come in!”

He entered her bedchamber bashfully, looking somewhat haggard after what had likely been a sleepless night of celebrating. But when he saw his wife in the bed, holding his son, he smiled proudly. “You are awake.”

“We are, and we awoke with quite an appetite this morning,” Sisi chirped.

Ludovika busied herself in the corner, tidying and folding Rudolf’s little blankets.

“It’s such a wonderful moment.” Franz held his hands forward, forming a square shape, as if to make a frame around the image of the new mother and her feeding baby. “I don’t wish to disturb it in any way.”

“It is a beautiful family portrait,” Ludovika agreed.

“Yes, but not without the papa. Come, Franz,” Sisi said, wincing at Rudolf’s nibbling.

“Elisa, can you believe he is ours?” Franz nuzzled up beside his wife in the bed and joined her in studying the little face.

“All ours,” Sisi said. “We did it.”

“You know, if you’re tired, we can bring in a wet nurse to feed him.”

“No,” Sisi said, her tone resolute. “I want to nurse my own son.”

“Well, if it’s what you want, I’d say you’ve earned it.”

Sisi smiled. “Are you happy, Franz?” She turned to him, genuinely interested in her husband’s response once more, she realized.

“I am, Elisa. And are you?”

“Happier than I thought possible.” Sisi smiled, finding her mother’s gaze in the corner of the room before turning back to her son.

“Who does he look like?” Franz cocked his head.

“While his hair is so dark, it’s hard to tell,” Sisi quipped. “I suspect that it will lighten, to an auburn like his papa’s.”

Franz beamed at this. “I have something for you, Elisa. A gift.”

“Oh?”

Franz removed a small leather box from his pocket, presenting it to his wife.

“You open it for me,” she said, still holding their baby.

Franz lifted the lid of the box to reveal a necklace, three strands of magnificent pearls.

“Franz!” Sisi gasped, looking from the necklace to her husband.

“Do you like it?”

“Like it? Well, it’s splendid.”

“It’s nothing, compared to what you have given me,” he said, looking toward their son.

“Put it on me.” Sisi leaned forward as her husband fastened the pearls around her neck.

The three of them sat silently together, huddled in a collective embrace, as Rudolf ate his fill. Eventually, with one last gasp of energy, the little prince let out a petulant burp, and then he slipped into sleep.

“I could watch him all day. I wish I did not have to go.” Franz sighed.

“Then don’t.” Sisi spoke quietly so as not to wake her baby.

“I must. The emperor does not get the same three days of holiday that the rest of the people do. Not when the Italians are trying to leave the empire.”

“Poor Franz. Always carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“See what you have to look forward to, little Rudolf?”

Sisi frowned at the thought: at the thought of this little baby, her son, one day being as besieged and constantly harangued as his father now was.

Franz kissed his son on the forehead and then he did the same to his wife. “Farewell, my loves.” Without any indication of when he might return, he quit her room.

As soon as Franz was gone, Sisi regretted not asking him if he’d like to visit her this evening. She missed him already.

In the days that followed, Sisi slowly regained her strength. Eventually, she felt up for walking and dressing and answering her correspondence, beginning with the notes that came in from her Bavarian family members. A week after the birth, while sitting in bed answering letters, Sisi saw her mother enter. Rudolf rested beside Sisi.

“Good morning, Mamma!” Sisi whispered, not wanting to wake him. “I’ve had word from Bavaria. In fact, I’m just now reading Ludwig’s note. He’s sent a toy train for Rudolf.”

“And how is he?” Ludovika approached the big bed, hovering beside her daughter.

“Who—Ludwig, or Rudolf?”

“Both, I suppose. But I meant my grandson.” Ludovika paused, staring down at the baby’s face as he slumbered. He was suckling in his dreams, his lips moving in a rhythmic motion. “He really is perfect, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” Sisi agreed.

Ludovika lowered herself down onto the bed beside her daughter. “How are you feeling?”

“Very fine, Mamma. Stronger each day.” Sisi stole one more glance at her son, his presence like a magnet drawing her continually to him. “Though I can’t get through more than a letter an hour. I’m so distracted with him in here. In the best way possible.” Smiling, feeling glutted with love for her son, Sisi turned back to the pile of letters.

“And you, Mamma? How are you?”

“Fine. Just fine.” Ludovika ran her fingers over the wide skirt of her gown, pressing down nonexistent wrinkles. “Sisi, my darling, there is something I must speak to you about.”

“Yes?” Sisi lowered her pen, noting the edge to her mother’s tone.

“You and Rudolf are both healthy, and you and Franz seem to be happy once more.” Ludovika paused, and Sisi looked up in time to note the expression of sadness that her mother quickly concealed with a smile. “I think my stay is complete. It’s time for me to go.”

Sisi’s entire body tensed, like a clenched fist. Ludovika continued. “I’ve been here for months. Much longer than I had intended. And I’ve been receiving updates from Possenhofen. They need me back home. The little ones, especially. But the older ones as well. Helene has yet to accept a proposal, and she is now half a year older than when I came here. And your papa. You know he is not always . . . well.”

The happiness Sisi had awoken to evaporated, vanishing like a warm puddle under the scorching summer sun. She understood, of course, that the family back in Bavaria would need Ludovika. Her mother managed the home, and the duchy, for that matter. But how could Sisi go on without her? How could Sisi return to the way things had been before Ludovika had appeared, somehow righting the wrongs and restoring sense to her daughter’s life?

Sisi knew her answer: she could not. There was only one solution. “Take me with you, Mamma.”

Ludovika looked at her daughter, eyes widening. “Hush, child, don’t be silly.”

“I’ll go to Possenhofen with you.”

Her mother spoke in a quiet, scolding tone, as if afraid of what Sisi was suggesting. She threw a glance over her shoulder to ensure that they were alone in the room, fearful that someone else might hear. “Elisabeth, your place is with your children. You know that.”

“We’ll take Gisela and Rudolf with us,” Sisi said, persisting.

Ludovika laughed, incredulous. “Darling, be serious.”

“I am serious, Mother,” Sisi answered, her voice flat.

“Elisabeth, I can no more take the empress and her children—one of them being heir to the empire—away with me than I can take the stones of the Hofburg Palace. A war would be started before we even reached the outer gates. It’s madness.”

“I cannot stay here, Mamma.” Sisi shook her head. “Not alone.”

Ludovika’s face wilted. “Sisi.”

“Mamma, please.”

“Child.”

Yes,
child
, Sisi thought. Little more than a petrified child. “I can’t be without you, Mamma. You can’t go.”

“Sisi.” Ludovika lifted a hand and stared her daughter squarely in the eyes, her tone steady, resolute. “We all face our own difficulties. But you are a part of this family, and you have a right to be here. And now that you have your son, things will not be as dire as they were before I arrived.”

“They will be.” Sisi began to shiver, even though the morning was a warm one. “They will be worse, in fact, Mother. Sophie will get her way, and she will punish me for having challenged her all of these months. Don’t you see?”

“Then there’s only one thing to do, Elisabeth.” Ludovika arched her eyebrows, her eyes looking sternly into her daughter’s face. “Don’t let her.”

If they had been in an open, acknowledged battle, then Sisi could have strategized, faced her aunt with every weapon she had, and her determination to win. But their conflicts never happened like that. They weren’t battles fought in the broad light of day; they were silent struggles, wrestling matches that occurred without any formal declaration of war, silent coups as silky as the dresses they wore, so that Sophie always carried out her designs before Sisi even sensed that the traps had been set.

This time it took place in the quiet of the night—while Sisi slept. She awoke one morning just days after her mother’s departure, much later than her usual waking time. The sun blazed high in the sky, brightening her bedroom, in which a breakfast tray sat, untouched. The birds, lethargic in the midday heat, had retreated into their nests with no further song.

The room was spinning. Sisi felt groggy and disoriented. The previous few nights—the nights immediately following Ludovika’s departure—Sisi had not slept at all. She’d been too upset at the loss of her mother. The previous night, however, her body had made up for those sleepless nights, and she had slipped into a deep and dreamless slumber.

She had slept longer than she could ever remember sleeping, so worn down had her body been by the nursing and the insomnia. But how had Rudolf’s cries not awoken her? Sisi rose from bed, feeling shaky on her bare feet as she walked toward his bassinet. She felt as if she was ill, her body fighting something off.

She steadied herself on the frame of the bassinet before looking down at her baby. But the bassinet was empty. Rudolf was not in his bed. She ran to the sitting room next door. No sign of Rudolf. He wasn’t in her office either, or their dining room. Sisi shrieked, a bloodcurdling cry that brought Marie panting into the suite from the antechamber.

“Marie, he’s gone! Where is my baby? Rudolf is gone!”

“Majesty.” Marie stared at her.

“Marie, where is Rudy? He’s gone! Someone took him!”

Marie, her features knit tight, asked, “Empress, don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Prince Rudolf was wailing away this morning but you were too fatigued to rise. Sophie came to fetch him so that you might sleep.”

Surely this had not happened; Sisi always awoke to the first sounds of her baby’s cries. And she would never have handed him over to Sophie’s care. Sisi narrowed her eyes, furious at her lying maid. “Marie, what are you saying?”

“It was about six o’clock this morning, Madame. I came to your room because I heard the crown prince crying. I tried to wake you but you seemed so tired. Then the archduchess came and offered to take Prince Rudolf so that you might sleep. I told her that she could not, not without asking you first. I was surprised that you agreed, but you did.”

“I did?” Sisi steadied herself on the frame of the bassinet, feeling even more dizzy. “I agreed to let Sophie take my baby? Did you see this with your own eyes, Marie?”

“I did, Majesty. And like I said, I was surprised, but it was what you wanted.”

“What did I say?” Sisi brought her palm to her temple, where a headache had just begun to throb. She felt dizzy.

“Are you all right, Majesty? You look ill.”

“I’m fine, Marie, just remind me what I said to Sophie.”

“You didn’t say anything, Madame. The archduchess simply came over to your bed and whispered that Rudolf was awake and that she would take him. And you nodded and rolled right back over to sleep. I’ve never seen you in such a deep slumber, Empress.”

Sisi tore through her wardrobe and threw on the simplest dress she could find. Without touching her breakfast or waiting for Agata to brush her hair, she ran to her mother-in-law’s apartments, avoiding the stares of the startled and inquisitive courtiers she passed along the way.