The Empress Chronicles (22 page)

It was hot from the first hint of sun on the 17th of August, the day our emperor turned twenty-three and was to name his bride. An odd, humid ridge had formed above Katrin Mountain, and the entire spa village of Bad Ischl would soon be blanketed in the sort of stifling weather that sent ladies for their powder and fans. Clearly the archduchess would be in a mood, and the odor of the many bodies in the summer ballroom, where we were to feast and dance later this evening, would make it hard to breathe—as would the corsets we were all bound by for the gala occasion.

Up at dawn, I ground slugs for a facial mask and presented Nené’s beauty-cure tincture to her when she arose. Nervous as a cornered vixen, my sister’s eyes were puffy, her shoulders slumped; her nose was crimson around the nostrils. She looked startlingly unattractive.

“We have several hours, Duchess Helene,” I said, pulling her toward the dressing table. “Let us pinch some rose in your cheeks.”

Nené yanked her arm away from my grasp. “It’s so hot already. I shall sweat like a sow.”

“This will cool you, dear sister. And let me brush luster into your hair.”

Nené plopped her bottom on the stool, her pout as large as any sausage link, downturned. Her hair freshly loosed from a braid, tendrils had arranged themselves about her head Medusa-like.

“Perhaps you could practice your French verse?” I offered, pushing my voice into a robust register, as though cajoling a small child to eat its haggis.

“What is the point, Sisi?” my sister sulked. “I am ugly. No emperor in his right mind would choose me as his bride.”

“Your charms, Duchess. Your lilt,” I flattered.

“They do not want me in Vienna. Did you not see the look upon the face of Archduchess Sophie when we arrived yesterday? She thinks us countrified. I am sure she will go dredge up one of the other nieces for her Franzl. Princess Anna of Prussia, or Sidonie of Saxony.”

My stomach knotted. Lola had decreed that the emperor must propose on his birthday if I were to be reunited with Count Sebastian. I tried to keep bright as I slathered the slug cream all over Nené’s face. “No, Anna has already refused, and Sidonie is sickly and pale.”

My sister looked cranky still, but she began to sit up straighter.

“Do you not see, Duchess?” I offered, “Bavaria is Austria’s most loyal partner in the Confederation. Count Sebastian made it quite clear that someone from the Bavarian line must marry the emperor. You are the only possibility!”

“That traitor! Why evoke his name? I am glad he’s banished, if you must know the truth.”

“Nené, do not curse the man,” I said, crossing myself. “The count is a good soldier; he wishes only fairness throughout the land.”

“He is a drunkard,” Nené snapped. “And a Lothario. I will never know what you saw in that heretic.”

Though I kept slathering my sister with her beauty cure, I wished right then and there to slap her face. She who cared nothing for the hearts of others. Had I not been confined to my room, a weeping mess for weeks? I felt my cheeks grow hot with anger, but it could have been the climbing temperature in the room, for now sunbeams stabbed through the window.

“
Jack et Jill sont allés jusqu’à la colline
,” my sister began, apparently anew with hope, her very un-French accent pouring out her lips, like vomit after bad cheese. “
Pour aller chercher un seau d’eau
…” Nené was delivering a child’s nursery rhyme, and even though I was less a scholar of French than was she, I knew enough to suggest she not evoke the taunt in
Jack and Jill
.

I tapped her on her bed-clothed shoulder. “Pardon, Helene, but perhaps a different rhyme?”

“Why? This is the only one I actually have memorized.”

“Dear sister, it is only that Marie Antoinette was a Habsburg.”

“I know that!”

“The song. It’s about Louis XVI and his beheading. ‘Jill’ is meant to be ‘Marie.’”

Helene covered her mouth to stifle a squeal, and her hand became instantly covered in the thick, greenish paste.

“Perhaps all you need do is smile? Remember, of all of us Wittelsbachs, you were the one blessed with good teeth.”

My sister liked that comment, and she relaxed on her stool and allowed me to brush her mousy hair.

Then, remembering my bargain with Lola, I ventured, “I have an idea.”

Her eyebrows rose up under the slug paste. “Yes?”

I unclasped the chain of my necklace and then offered a falsehood. “Karl gave me this locket to give to you. It has an image of his brother inside. He thought it might help if you wear it tonight. Franz Joseph will recognize this family heirloom, and he will find it fetching about your neck.”

Her eyes grew wide amidst the slurry of green. “Why, Sisi, this is that little trifle you’ve worn for a year. This is no special heirloom.”

She was quick to discount me, but I was quicker still. “Karl gave me a similar locket last year, but that one had
his
one picture inside. This one is different. It’s Emperor Franz Joseph’s locket,” I lied.

Nené snatched the sacred keepsake from my hand. She looked it over with downturned mouth and yawned the locket open to reveal the uniformed likeness of her intended. She held it up close to her line of vision for scrutiny and then snapped the locket closed again and examined the wing and the timepiece as though she were a monocled jewel smith. “It’s hideous,” she declared.

“Well, I believe Archduchess Sophie thinks differently,” I countered boldly.

My sister considered that this might indeed be true, and she gathered the locket and chain in her fist and nodded her assent.

“Good,” I snapped with a tone of finality. “Then it’s decided, sister. You will wear this tonight at the ball.”

Mummi fussed unceasingly as the time for the ball grew nearer. Never skilled at tucking, lacing and fluffing, she was beside herself, for all of the imperial ladies-in-waiting were attending to Archduchess Sophie’s immediate family. We Wittelsbachs were left to our own devices, and Mummi could not stop checking the clock in the hall. “Baroness Wilhelmine should have been here an hour ago,” she lamented.

“Her bowels,” I reminded my mother, for our governess’s life revolved around the timing of her morning movement.

Nené wound a strand of her hair around her finger for the hundredth time. “Wilhelmine is the only one who can spry up my lifeless strands,” she whined. “And were we not going to present my portrait this evening?”

Our governess had left Possi a day late because the oil painting of my sister was still drying. She was charged with delivering the likeness—hoping to time the presentation with an announcement of formal engagement. The Stieler portrait of Duchess Helene would be a birthday gift to the emperor and, steeped in ritual as these engagements were, it would ever mark the alignment of our families. Nené had fantasized the location of her portrait as a centerpiece in the Hofburg grand ballroom.

All that really mattered to me was that my sister would clasp that magic locket around her neck. The coiled chain and timepiece locket lay like a snail on the dressing table beside Nené’s jar of powder. I could not be overly obvious about my concern, lest Nené change her mind about wearing the necklace simply to spite me. My stomach folded inward. I had to do what Lola commanded if I would ever have Count Sebastian returned to me. I could not leave my sister’s side until the keepsake was hanging from her neck. “Duchess,” I offered, “can I heat some wax for your curls?”

Nené shook her head, and then in a sisterly gesture she said, “You have been a very attentive girl to me today, dear Sisi. I apologize for my moodiness. Perhaps you might spend some time on your own hair?”

I glanced in the mirror above Nené’s head. My hair was as gnarled and tangled as the nest of a sparrow.

“Good Lord, yes,” crowed Mummi, suddenly aghast. “You look a sight. Karl will never dance with you looking like that.”

Mummi was hoping for a two-in-one-blow sort of arrangement this visit, that much was clear. Months earlier she had thought to commence some interest in me with Prince Georg of Saxony, but after sending my portrait to his father, the king, it was determined that I was not pretty enough. From here on in, any trip with me would be tinged with husband hunting. Unless, of course, Lola’s plan worked and I would somehow be reunited with my true love.

In the hour that followed, I brushed and plaited my hair into two braids, plucked some of my ever-furry brows, and slipped on the pale pink frock I was to wear for the gala. Mummi had gained some weight since her last fitting, and her gown stretched at the side seams; remembering my needlepoint lessons, I daisy-stitched closed the material, while Mummi tried not to seem uncomfortable, all corseted and laced in the stifling heat.

Meanwhile, with the help of wax, Nené curled her tendrils about her face. Her gown had arrived on the earlier coach, and when she donned it, she looked quite splendid. White silk draped my sister’s slender body; her small but shapely bosom gave her a grown-up appearance—she seemed older than her eighteen years.

“You are breathtaking,” I whispered reverently. “Any emperor would feel fortunate to lend an arm to you.”

In reality, if I were to be completely honest, my sister looked like a Greek goddess, but not a major one. With her continued downcast expression, her eyebrows pointing to her nose, she had the appearance of a chorus member—someone among many. But perhaps that was appropriate? After all, I reassured myself silently, the wife of the most powerful ruler in the world should not overshadow her husband.

Nené had yet to fasten the locket around her, however. She had hoped that when our governess arrived the woman might have thought to bring a simple strand of pearls. Though I agreed pearls would set this ensemble off rightly, I secretly wished that our governess would be delayed until after we departed for the ball.

And my wish was granted, for in no time our escorts were waiting to usher us down the stairs and out the side door so we could make a proper entrance into the main hall, where the ball was taking place. Baroness Wilhelmine had yet to arrive. With reluctance, Nené conceded that I fasten the locket about her neck.

“It’s better than nothing,” I offered.

Papa hosted many dances. From when I could merely toddle, he’d taught me how to polka. I was accustomed to merriment in a large hall, with zithers and fiddles all about. And I had attended my share of balls at the Residenz. The twinkling lights of a thousand candles, the satin gloves, ladies in their finest gowns. But nothing prepared me for the gala that awaited in the grand ballroom of the Imperial Summer Resort at Bad Ischl. Greeters three rows deep bowed on either side of a brocade carpet as we three Wittelsbachs entered the building on the arms of our avuncular escorts—three elderly gentlemen who, we were told, had earned the privilege of their stations at court through years of bowing and scraping for several generations of Habsburgs.

As we crossed the threshold, we were announced:
Duchess Ludovica, and daughters
. Mummi opened her fan and curtseyed. I hoped that the throngs of guests in the room did not see the trickles of sweat running down her face. And as for Nené, her tendrils were frizzing up about her forehead, and I longed to reach over and realign them, but I knew that would be a mortal embarrassment.

The three gentlemen walked us around the perimeter of the ballroom to the lavishly set tables that awaited. Fruits and flowers piled upon platters took on the shapes of exotic beasts. There was a leg of veal fashioned into an elephant trunk. An ogre’s head made of apples, pears, grapes and marzipan. Tea trays of sweets adorned some tables, and cut goblets littered the place settings, catching the light of the thousands and thousands of candles. The room was as hot as a steaming spring.

My eyes scanned about. Would Emperor Franz Joseph be watching for our entrance? But my gaze soon fell upon the archduchess. Sitting at the head table, empty seats on either side of her, sat the sovereign’s mother, her hair towering above her face in an arrangement of coils, teased bouffant, and the same ivy tendrils that were now unraveling on my sister.

Our elderly escorts led us to that very table and held out chairs for us. Nené was to sit on the right of the archduchess, my mother on the left, and I beside my mother. I was relieved to note that in the next chair over sat my cousin Karl. The seat beside my sister was reserved for the guest of honor who was now being announced and, as customary, we all rose as Emperor Franz Joseph made his official entrance.

A hush fell over the crowd as he strode to the table, for aside from his position and stature, he was far more handsome a man than my memory served. Dressed from head to toe in a powder-blue uniform, a single deep red rosebud pinned to his lapel, and a sword at his side, he looked every part the most important man in the Confederation. Despite the heat, not one drop of perspiration gathered at his brow. His elegance of carriage, his grace, nearly took away my breath. He smiled and waved to the swooning women as he managed his way to where we were standing. When he arrived to his place, he kissed his mother’s hand, and the archduchess gave the signal that the ball had officially begun.