The Accidental Empress (38 page)

“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.

Sisi felt the urge to berate her mother-in-law, to tell Sophie to be quiet and bring Franz back in, and she decided to do so. Only, when she opened her mouth, the censure came out as a garbled and incomprehensible groan.

“Bravo, Elisabeth, that’s my strong, brave girl.” Sophie, none the wiser, urged Sisi on, squeezing her hand so tightly that the pain in Sisi’s mashed fingers presented a welcome distraction from the pain she felt below. But only for a moment.

“Now is the time, Empress Elisabeth.” Doctor Seeburger’s head appeared above the blanketed bulk that was Sisi’s lower body. He nodded at the nurse beside Sisi.

The nursemaid leaned close to her now. “Empress Elisabeth, if it would please Your Majesty to push . . . the baby is ready to come.”

Sisi scrunched up her face and clamped down on the two hands she held, pushing from the root of her insides until she was certain that she was forcing the very innards out of her body.

“Almost, almost, almost there!” Sophie yelled.

“Push, Your Majesty!” Doctor Seeburger’s voice was urgent over the sound of Sisi’s wails. “Push, Empress!” Somewhere in the pain ripping apart her insides, Sisi became disoriented and hazy. She heard the sounds issuing from her own throat, as well as the urgings of those around her, but her mind wandered.

“Empress, push!” The doctor’s voice was hoarse, and Sisi turned back to him, as if seeing him for the first time. “Empress, you have done wonderfully. Your baby is coming; would it please Your Imperial Highness to push, one more time?”

Sisi clenched her teeth and moaned, squeezing the nurse’s hand as she pushed with all of her strength. She was certain that if the baby did not come this time, she would die. She heard her mother-in-law, and the nurse beside her, urging her on. She heard the low, tortured sound of her own voice. And then, a new sound. The soft, plaintive wails of a new pair of lungs, expressing themselves for the first time in the cold, darkening bedroom.

“He’s out!” Sophie gasped, dropping Sisi’s hand and running to the edge of the bed. “A boy? Is it a boy?”

Doctor Seeburger stood up, holding a tiny, purple little body covered in blood and fluid, its little legs kicking petulantly. He turned toward the new mother. “Empress Elisabeth, congratulations. Your Imperial Highness has delivered a healthy baby girl.”

Sisi absorbed the news, but her body was so spent, and so overcome with the relief of having pushed the baby through, that she dropped her head back onto the pillow without responding.

“A girl,” she stammered to herself. “Helene.” She began to cry—tears of exhaustion, tears of joy, tears of relief that the entire ordeal was over. Her mind flew to Possi.
“Helene.”

Sophie and Doctor Seeburger took the baby to the corner of the room, where they bathed its tiny pink frame, cocooning it in a blanket.

“I want my baby.” Sisi, too tired to lift her head, barely forced the words off of her lips. “I want my Helene. And I want Franz.”

“There, there now, Empress Elisabeth.” It was the same, soft-featured nurse beside her. She took Sisi’s hand in her own once more. “The doctor has got to clean Your Majesty’s daughter. Then you shall have the little princess.”

“I want my baby,” Sisi repeated, delirious. “Please, my daughter. And Franz.”

Sisi lifted her head just in time to see Sophie, cradling the clean and newly blanketed bundle in her arms. “My little
chou
-
chou
. My sweet little
chou
-
chou
,” Sophie cooed to the baby, whose cries were mounting in strength and urgency. “Hush, don’t cry. Grandmamma will take care of you, shhh, don’t cry.”

“Please, Sophie, my baby,” Sisi called out across the room, but either Sophie didn’t hear her frail entreaty, or she chose not to answer.

“There now, my sweet little girl.” Sophie kept her eyes fixed on the pink little face. “What shall we call you, then?”

“Helene,” Sisi answered, but Sophie didn’t hear.

The archduchess continued, cooing to the baby in her arms: “Wouldn’t you like to be named after your Grandmamma? Perhaps we shall call you Sophie?”

And with that, the archduchess glided out of the room, her eyes fixed on her little granddaughter’s face, never looking back at the mother who had yet to hold her.