The Accidental Empress (8 page)

“That’s right.” Sisi nodded, picking up the line started by her mother. “Néné, it is my sister’s good and gentle spirit that I want Franz to see—not a head and neck full of jewels.”

“Precisely,” the duchess concurred.

But Helene was unconvinced. Her eyes fixed on the ground, she moaned: “Oh, why did I have to be born first?”

“Helene.” The duchess, exasperated, gripped her daughter’s narrow shoulders. “You cannot change the order in which you were born any more than you can change the configuration of the stars. You must not lament such a thing.”

“But it’s rotten luck, Mamma. I don’t
want
to be the empress.”

“Helene, do you think I spent my life complaining that my elder sister got to marry a Habsburg and I had to . . .” Ludovika paused, looking to Sisi. “Well, never mind that. All I mean to say is that we must live the lives that are intended for us. And we must live them well.”

“I’m ill suited for the life that was chosen for me,” Helene answered, chin jerking to the side. “I wish you could have just lied and said that Sisi was the elder.”

Sisi exchanged a look with her mother over the top of Helene’s head. It was worse than just Helene’s pinched frowns and unflatteringly drab wardrobe; if her sister continued in this despondent mood, Sisi was certain that Franz’s eyes would look elsewhere.

The church bell tower chimed three times as their carriage lurched and lumbered down the cobbled village streets, sounding the hour as if to welcome the duchess and her daughters to Bad Ischl.

The town itself was a hive of activity, swollen with the influx of Austrians who had descended on it in the hopes of glimpsing the visiting emperor. It was certainly more crowded than the small, sleepy square in Possenhofen. Through the carriage window Sisi spotted rows of clean village shops painted in crisp shades of white and yellow. Hausfraus yelled to small children as they crossed the streets, arms burdened by cargo of crispy bread loaves, links of meat, and fresh fruit still warm from the summer sun. Small boys bearing red cheeks and short-cropped lederhosen britches weaved between passing carriages and horses, more preoccupied with the candy shop windows than the calls of their mothers or the foot and horse traffic that swerved around them.

“We’re close now.” The duchess observed the scene through the window, stitching her hands into a tight knot in her lap. “Helene, when we arrive, you must smile. Especially when you meet Franz, understood?”

Helene nodded, once. An indecisive, noncommittal gesture.

As the carriage turned off the main esplanade, the traffic thinned and the structures changed from commercial to residential. Modest homes lined the cobbled lane, their windows ajar and their light-colored walls trellised with climbing ropes of ivy. The afternoon sun still hung high in the sky, pouring down over the residents who sat perched on their stoops in front of overstuffed flower boxes and drawn curtains. They watched the modest carriage roll by with only moderate interest.

A heavy wrought-iron gate waited at the end of the esplanade. If the townspeople hadn’t taken much note as Sisi’s coach had passed, the dozen armed imperial guards stationed at the gate appeared as if they surely would.

The Kaiservilla, or Imperial Palace, was a sprawling complex set off from the main esplanade, just at the seam of where the village seeped into Alpine wilderness. The complex hugged the base of the stark, craggy mountains that framed the valley fields on one side before gently sloping down to the banks of the Traun River on the other side. The main structure of the Kaiservilla, a building of creamy-yellow limestone, had been a nobleman’s home, constructed in the popular neoclassical style.

Sisi had been told by her mother that when the young emperor had first visited the thermal waters of this town, he had declared the spot to be “heaven on earth.” Hearing her son’s pronouncement, Sophie had swiftly bought the largest home in the area and had relocated the court there for the warmest months of the year, swapping thermal waters and clean mountain air for city stink and the threat of fever.

“Here we are, girls.” The duchess barely breathed the words as the coach rolled to a halt outside the gate.

Sisi studied the waiting guards in their white uniforms, starched to impossible stiffness and trimmed in red and gold silk. Imagine, she thought to herself, having a group of soldiers like this always stationed outside your gate. Must one answer to them every time one wished to leave or return home?

Barking out a quick order to Hans the driver, a mustached guard now approached the coach, eyes darting between the three road-weary women who sat on the other side of its window. “May I?” He signaled with a gloved hand that he wished to open the carriage door. Ludovika nodded.

“Good day.” Sisi’s mother sat up as the guard opened the door, her chin angling upward. Sisi marveled at the air of authority her mother had so suddenly summoned, as if the anxiety of the preceding days and hours had been merely a bothersome cloak that the duchess now shrugged off.

“I am Her Majesty Duchess Ludovika of Bavaria, from the House of Wittelsbach and sister of the Archduchess of Austria, Sophie of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. My two daughters, Their Majesties the Duchesses of Bavaria, accompany me on the special invitation from His Imperial Highness, Emperor Franz Joseph, and his mother, the Archduchess Sophie.”

“Your Grace.” The young soldier saluted, clicking his heels together. “We have been expecting you.”

“If you please.” Her mother raised a hand, as if struck by an idea. “Has our other coach arrived before us?”

The guard nodded. “Yes. Less than an hour ago, Madame.”

“Please direct us to it,” Ludovika said, her tone brightening a bit as she looked to Sisi and Helene. “It carries our trunks, and we must change before we enter the palace.”

The guard raised a gloved hand, his tone courteous but unmoving. “My apologies, Duchess Ludovika. We have been instructed to direct you immediately into the front hall, where Her Majesty the Archduchess Sophie awaits your arrival.” With that, he looked at the driver, a tight nod of his chin, as he stepped back. “Drive on!”

Ludovika scowled, whispering to her daughters as the door shut and the carriage rolled forward onto the property, “I tried.”

The horses’ hooves clopped heavily across the cobblestoned forecourt as the walls of the castle complex absorbed the coach, pulling them into a cold hug of limestone and brick. Though the property was spacious enough, Sisi did note with mild surprise that the home was not any larger than Possenhofen Castle.

Regardless, it was not the size of the structure that mattered. Sisi sensed, when rolling through the front gate, the imperial presence. The numerous and intangible indices of Franz Joseph’s power hung over the property like a mist or shadow that loomed all around—difficult to touch or point to, yet impossible to deny. The flags of Franz Joseph’s many kingdoms colored the front wall: Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Venetia, Lombardy, Galicia. Clusters of guardsmen, rigid in their white and red uniforms, marched determinedly on various errands across the grounds. It felt more like a miniature city than one man’s home. Servants hustled, dogs barked, secretaries and valets hurried around the yard as they administered their tasks. A general air of busyness filled the forecourt and its surrounding buildings, reminding the visitor that this remote mountain town was now suddenly the heart of the empire—and all because one person was in residence.

And they, too, were here on the emperor’s business. The ruler of all of this had requested that a young girl and her family come to him, traversing grueling roads from Bavaria to Bad Ischl, prepared to wed a stranger. And they had obeyed. Surely not because that shy, rust-haired boy from years earlier was powerful enough to impose a fate on any of them, but because the position he now occupied imbued him with an almost otherworldly authority. And Helene, his bride, would now possess that same, deified status. The magnitude of her sister’s new role suddenly overwhelmed Sisi, and she fell silent, cowed before this daunting specter of imperial authority.

The horses heeled and the carriage stopped, signaling the end of their journey and the beginning of their work. “All right girls, here we are.” The duchess seemed to have shaken her burdensome migraine, for now she sat tall and spoke in short, clipped commands. “You heard the guard—Sophie . . . the Archduchess . . . is waiting for us.” Ludovika stepped out of the carriage. Seeing that her daughters did not follow, she paused. “Come now. Helene?”

Helene remained seated. “Mother, I can’t . . .”

“But you must. Come now.”

Helene shook her head, the rest of her body unmoving.

“You are here to see your cousin, Franz, and your Aunt Sophie,” the duchess replied with an impatient sigh. “Think of it that way.”

“Yes, my cousin and aunt who happen to be the emperor and the archduchess of Austria.”

The duchess glanced around, ensuring that no one listened, before she leaned close and whispered into the coach. “Helene,
they
chose
you
. You are
their
guest, responding to
their
invitation. You have more right to be here than any other person inside this complex.”

Helene closed her eyes, shaking her head once from side to side. The most timid, most modest of protests.

“Helene, we’ve made it this far. You
will
go through with this.” The duchess looked once more over her shoulder, offering a curt smile to a secretary who passed, his suit jacket emblazoned with a golden crest of a double-headed eagle. Sisi guessed this to be the Habsburg family crest.

“Néné.” Sisi took her sister’s hand in her own. “We’ll be together.”

Helene latched on with cold fingers, her grip stronger than usual. “Don’t leave me, Sisi.”

“I won’t.” Sisi squeezed her hand back, an unspoken communication. “Now, let’s go meet your fiancé, Néné.”

“That’s another thing, girls.” Ludovika leaned close, whispering so that a passing guard wouldn’t overhear. “No more of this
Néné
and
Sisi
. From now on, you are Helene and Elisabeth—daughters of the Bavarian Duke Maximilian, House of Wittelsbach.”

“Really, Mamma?” Sisi asked, stepping out of the carriage and pulling her sister with her. “Even when we are alone? It seems a bit—”

“Yes, even when you are alone, Elisabeth,” Ludovika hissed. But even more stinging than her tone was the look she fixed on her younger daughter. “And you will
not
shame our house by arguing with your superiors, do you understand?” Ludovika patted her skirt with a jerky, impatient hand, making a futile attempt to undo days-old wrinkles. For her part, Sisi was cowed to silence, and offered nothing more than a feeble nod.

“You are now two young duchesses at the imperial court, and you shall act accordingly. That means no more childish names.” The duchess said this with a stern, clipped tone, but Sisi thought her mother’s eyes betrayed a hint of sadness. “And it means no more whining, Helene. And no more answering back, Elisabeth,
especially
not to your Aunt Sophie. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Mamma,” they answered in unison.

“Good,” Ludovika nodded. “Now, let’s not keep the emperor waiting. I’m sure he is quite anxious to meet his bride.”

The guard at the front shut the door behind them, closing them into a cool, high-ceilinged hall. Sisi squinted, her eyes slow to adjust to the darkness of the room after the stark sunlight of the outer courtyard. The din of the yards was now blocked by the thick walls of the palace, and they stood in silence for several moments, a hesitant trio wondering how to proceed.

A wigged secretary clipped forward and startled Sisi as his voice rang out. “Duchess Ludovika,” he said, bowing. “Please, if you and your daughters would be so gracious as to follow me?”

Without a word, the trio fell in line behind the secretary as he led them across the hall. They moved next into what appeared to be a receiving area, its cream-colored walls bare except for the same array of flags that Sisi had seen outside—the many kingdoms of Franz Joseph’s realm.