The Empress Chronicles

by Suzy Vitello

  Oh, poor Archduke Karl, whom I no longer loved. Pity on him, my dear cousin rife with pustules and hope and sentiment and the leering gaze of a future royal. I reached for my locket now and wished to offer one final kiss to the boy whose likeness lay so long against my breast. Karl, dear Karl, I had forsaken thee as though I were the Lorelei of Heine’s lament. My eyes brimming with tears, I turned back to my journal. I scribed:

  The mystery of love. Of beauty and of passion.

  My fondest wish is that my heart won’t follow fashion.

  Oh, why cannot I simply love a boy who loves me back?

  Why must my yearning heart soul personal body …

  I could not conclude the poem. It was such a mystery, this movement to ladyhood. I moved my pen across the page, but as I did so, under my very hand was the strangest occurrence. A shrouded face appeared, as though I had sketched it myself. An odd peasant in a cape. But his eyes, his jaw. I knew these well. They were the features of Count S. How had my hand sketched this face without my commanding it?

  The locket, nestled in my other hand, grew hot, its metal glowing like the warmed cannonballs we sometimes took to bed in winter. I sprung open the latch, meaning to free the likeness of Dear Karl, for whom I suddenly felt nothing. With remorse and confusion—for this day had been one mad occurrence after another—I set my lips to kiss my erstwhile suitor farewell, but when I opened the locket, where once his picture nestled there was now the image of my father’s huntsman, Count S.

  Bare breasted, my lips still pursed in kiss shape, I stood holding the locket open in front of me.

  Ah, but I had no time to ponder the curious situation, for at that very moment the door to the ladies’ dressing room creaked, revealing the unmistakable clomp of Mummi’s feet on the other side of the screen. More confused than ever, I stuffed the locket, chain and all into the spine of my diary, grabbed at my torn corset and bodice, and quickly covered myself back up as I heard, “Whatever are you up to now, Duchess? Archduke Karl is patiently awaiting your return and, once again, you have seen fit to disappear.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I come down for breakfast, Dad has my pills lined up next to a whopping glass of fresh-squeezed blood orange juice. Its red, pulpy liquid kisses the rim of a quart-sized mason jar. Willow has braided her wispy hair. She wears a gingham apron with little cherries embroidered on the sash. She’s in baking mode.

  “The acid in that will kill my stomach,” I offer. “I do better with coffee.”

  “The sooner we wean you off that nasty stuff, sweetie, the better,” Willow scolds in a Mary Poppins sort of tone.

  Judging from the items on the counter, what’s in the oven contains cornmeal, berries, eggs. A crushed blue shell sits in a puddle of egg white. I squeeze my eyes semi-shut. Did she rinse the E. coli off the egg before cracking it into the batter?

  I place my hands on either side of my pile of pills. The serotonin reuptake inhibitor, the anti-anxiety, the appetite stimulant: the football, the lifesaver, the tiny yellow button. “Then how about water?”

  “Princess,” says Dad, “just give this a try.”

  I slip the first of the pills into my mouth and chase it with some of the pulpy juice. The tractors start up outside; their rumble pierces the quiet air like the introduction of the ground bass in Pachelbel’s Canon. It’s a weird synchronicity: chemicals in my body, chemicals in the field. Willow winces at the sound, but to me, it’s a comforting purr. I close my eyes and drift into my happy place, the harmonic structure of violins and piano. And then, the ache of something else. The smell of cedar. Coyotes yipping in the quiet black. The memory of Cory, and last night, and our new secret.

  Cory and I crept into the milk shed, two spies peering into the weak crank-up battery light for the telltale plastic baggie. It didn’t take long to find, and Cory pulled papers out of his pocket, reached into the bag for a pinch and rolled himself a pinner, tight and small.

  “Put it back exactly the way it was,” I warned him, my arms folded up tight against my chest, the Sisi pages tucked neatly into the palm of my hand.

  Cory saluted me, which ordinarily would have made me feel like a self-conscious loser girl, but he smiled that deep-dimple smile and placed Dad’s weed back in its rafter cubby, taking care to poke one corner down, just as we’d found it. Clearly, Cory was no slouch in the sneaky department. “Onward,” he said, the micro-glow of his joint leading the way to our next adventure at the edge of the crimson field.

  Cory slim-jimmed our way into the deluxe cab of a tractor, which turned out to be more plush and comfortable than any seat in the farmhouse. Coyotes howled in the background; Cory sucked on his joint, the pages in front of him like he was reading a contract. His big brown eyes narrowed, that dimple back to the size of a comma. I held the little flashlight to the words, cranking it brighter every half minute or so. The cab of the tractor was like an office suite: big and fancy. Cory scanned the page, and his eyebrows did a seesaw thing.

  He said, “This empress chick was hot.”

  “Read it,” I said, my stomach knotted up. At any moment Dad could come running up. The skunky smell of marijuana filled the cab.

  “Here goes. ‘Why must my yearning breasts call for his touch?’” he read. “‘How is it now when I think of riding, I think of him? And how can a man inspire both anger and excitement? I dream of fleeing into the wood with him, leaving all that is familiar behind. At the same time, I wish him gone. He invades my mind so deeply. I cannot think the way I wish. I cannot do the things I must. My strength on horseback, always my pride, shrinks in his presence. I feel humbled, daft, a young child.’” Cory paused, put the pages down, sucked smoke in.

  I cranked the flashlight, its whrrrrr piercing the big, fancy tractor room. I was impatient. “And?”

  “She’s into him, sounds like,” Cory said when he got done holding smoke in his chest. “Whoever he is.”

  “It doesn’t say a name anywhere?” I scanned the pages in Cory’s lap with the flashlight, looking for a telltale capital letter, but so many of the words had a capital letter. Stupid German.

  Cory picked up one of the pages, the smearier of the two. “Here, I think he was an older dude. Says something about him being counsel to her father. ‘Privy’ is what they called it. A fancy way of saying a dude who knows your business.”

  “Read it. Read what she says about him.”

  Cory cleared his throat. “‘He and Papa have secrets. This I know. Baroness does not like that he has been appointed my …’”

  “Go on.”

  “I have no clue what this word is or means. It’s all smeared up. I’m guessing he was supposed to be her bodyguard or something. When was this, anyway? You said your shrink’s great-great-grandma was a servant then? Could have been during one of the rebellions. Lots of kings got their asses kicked then. Mid-eighteen hundreds.”

  “She was empress of Austria, Cory. You know, the Habsburgs. The empire. But I think this was before that. Can you crack the window? I’m getting a contact high.”

  “Be good for you Miss Brainiac. Loosen you up,” Cory said. “Besides, these are power windows. No can do.” Cory was staring at my hands, like people do. The red rawness of them. The nails, barely nails.

  I tucked my hands inside of an arm fold, the flashlight buried in the crook of my elbow. It was so dark out, despite the glowing half-moon. Cory sucked in more weed and the end of his joint glowed a little circle near his mouth. He had the tiniest trace of stubble under his nose. His lips were full and smooshed together. Besides the pot, I could smell the faintest cedar scent still. The smell of boy and earth. And it didn’t make me cringe.

  But now, in the light of morning, I have a headache, and Cory is still upstairs, asleep. Willow’s cherries are too red on her apron. Her braids too tight and her ever present bobby pins too metallic. Her smile too hopeful, her voice too sweet, and when she opens the door to the ancient oven and pulls out a pan
of perfect, golden-brown muffins, the sweetness of it all sends me into a sort of sugar shock. They smell wonderful, but the image of that crushed shell, the bacteria, no way will I put one in my mouth. I begin to strategize.

  “Do you have any Melba toast?” I ask. “My stomach is a little queasy.”

  Willow’s mouth turns down, and I can see the faintest resemblance to Cory.

  Dad says, “One bite, Liz. All we ask is that you have a taste.”

  What am I, five? Are we going to go back to the no-thank-you bite of my preschool years? “Fine,” I say and wait for Willow to dig a steaming muffin out of the tin and onto the plate in front of me.

  I blow on it, like it’s candles on a birthday cake, close my eyes and pinch the tiniest crumb from the top. The sweet buttery flavor bursts in my mouth, the cornmeal delicious sand between my teeth. My stomach rumbles for more, and I pinch another piece, and another, and another. My tongue goes numb from the slight burn, and my lips sting, but I can’t gobble the muffin up fast enough, and then, before I open my eyes I hear clapping: Dad and Willow, giving me an ovation for eating a stupid muffin. I feel the heat of embarrassment crawl into my cheeks.

  And worse, there’s Cory, suddenly in the kitchen, witnessing me being treated like a baby. I jump up and push by him, and scramble out the screen door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Day and night I fretted over the images that had appeared unbidden. Archduke Karl replaced by the rogue huntsman in my locket. And what to make of the sketch in my journal? At night I lay abed, holding my secrets so tight I felt I might be strangled by them. My thumb rubbing over the keepsake, clicking open the latch again and again to make sure my eyes did not deceive. If only I had someone with whom to share this bizarre discovery. Perhaps Nené, I ventured. But then dismissed it, as my dear sister was preoccupied as late with some joyous news. Joyous for her, anyway.

  Mummi had received a missive from her sister, and her mirth could be heard from one hall to the next. “Princess Anna isn’t Catholic, and she won’t convert!”

  And then Papa’s response: “And this is news to be shouting over?”

  But it was Nené who knew exactly what this meant, and her squeal of excitement could be heard all the way to Vienna, it seemed. “I will resume my Italian lessons immediately,” she cried.

  With Anna of Prussia out of the running, the Archduchess Sophie was, once again, entertaining Duchess Helene as a suitable match for her Franzl. Mummi read the note aloud, and we children were all assembled for the official reading, as though it were a last will and testament:

  My darling Ludovica,

  I hope this finds you and your family in good health. It has been a most unsettling few years, has it not? The Revolution, the Hungarians, the Italians, the Crimean problem. It is, as you know, of utmost importance that the Habsburg dynasty remains strong, and this is where I turn to you for help.

  As this interval, Mummi raised her head and momentarily stopped reading. “Here is the part we have been waiting for.”

  Nené clapped her hands. If her smile were any broader, her face might sever into two halves.

  Mummi continued:

  Our sister’s daughter, the Prussian princess, is already engaged and, because she is Protestant, a match with her is unacceptable regardless. My Franz is a strapping young man, as you are well aware, and his eye does rove. Lately, he has been courting a fanciful young baroness from Hungary. This is also, naturally, unacceptable.

  So I beseech you, dear Ludovica, to make ready your Helene in time for an official meeting at the spa in Ischl. It is near enough to your castle, and perhaps Duke Max would accompany you and your daughter this summer, on the occasion of the emperor’s birthday. An engagement on his twenty-third birthday is appropriate, do you not agree?

  Please give the matter some thought, dear sister, and do let me know if you are amenable.

  Your devoted Sophie

  Mummi gazed up at the ceiling where one might have thought a clock was painted, for she began ticking off the months, the hours, the tasks, the steps in order to ready her eldest daughter for the most prominent betrothal of the century.

  We all rose, us children, and kissed Nené’s ring, as was custom for a promising. For her part, my sister was all too self-satisfied with this turn of events, but I could not blame her. To be seated next to the kaiser, the ruler of such a kingdom, was, perhaps, the highest accomplishment.

  As for me, I was happy that the attention would be directed elsewhere. Satisfied to be left to my poems, my sketches. There was now, however, a growing excitement inside of me when I heard the count’s voice beyond my door, in the library down the hall, in the aviary beyond the classroom, for there had been a development on that front as well.

  With Nené now as good as empress, it was felt we Wittelsbach duchesses needed more protection from the revolutionaries and evildoers throughout the Bavarian hills. Papa had quickly installed Count S. in our quarters, and each morning, as I took my constitutional about the castle, I was now accompanied by this tall, muscled fellow who’d found his way into the most personal of my places.

  “Duchess, why do you scurry so?” the count asked as he kept a shadow’s distance behind me.

  My cheeks grew warm as he beckoned. A most peculiar feeling took hold of me in his presence. All my senses were heightened. He smelled of cedar trees and linden. His deep sotto voice rang in my ears like a noonday church bell. I could not look him in the eye, nor could I respond with clarity and purpose. This man, my guard, my secret, was slowly turning me into an imbecile.

  “Uh,” I stammered. Then curtseyed. “Beg your pardon, Your Courtship.”

  “Courtship?” he asked.

  Why was I such a fool?

  Sun from the palace garden leaked in the side windows of the anteroom, and I was oddly desperate to hide from its spotlight. I longed to scurry into the cabinet and busy myself with women’s work. Needlepoint. Sketches. Anything to excuse myself from further embarrassment. Meanwhile, the count teased me unmercifully.

  “Why do they call you Sisi?” he wanted to know.

  “Surely, you of all people should not cast a stone in the name department,” I retorted, my tone changing from mortified to annoyed in one fell swoop.

  “Fair enough.”

  “What is your name, pray tell?”

  “My name? Well, dear Duchess, I have many. Scoundrel? Sly fox?”

  The count was a hoop skirt’s length from me. I could almost feel his warm breath upon my neck. “Count Ssssssssssss. Very mysterious.” I spun round. “Tell me. Do you live up to this mystery? How do I know that you are indeed my protector and not a Wittelsbach adversary?”

  The count narrowed his eyes and lowered his gaze. In a cool, drawn-out baritone he offered, “You cannot know, Duchess Sisi. The same way you cannot know when your horse will shy at a particular stone or that lightning will strike a certain tree.”

  He had eyes like a hound. Big, dark pools, but lit with a certain sparkle. I clutched my diary close. Those were the same eyes as the ones sketched in my book.

  “In any event,” the count continued, “it seems that at least one of the Wittelsbachs is about to jump into the larger lake in the realm of potential adversaries.”

  “Nené. Yes.” I circled a finger in the air, conjuring a parade, her gaiety of late. “Whoop, whoop. I will soon be sister to an empress. She will get all she desires.”

  As soon as the word “desires” left my lips, I felt my cheeks once again warm with embarrassment.

  “And what might they be? The desires?”

  Of course I should have kept my all-too-eager lips closed and my tongue still, but alas, I did not. “She wishes to marry the most important imperial ruler of all time.”

  “And I suppose she has a fair enough shot at it. His mother and your mother are sisters, are they not?”

  “They are.”

  The count chuckled. “It is the wome
n who really rule, after all. Particularly your Aunt Sophie, the archduchess.”

  I found his assumptions annoying, and yet the tenor of his voice was strangely engaging. My finger twirled a strand of my hair as I contemplated the count’s words.

  “Do you think the emperor appealing yourself, Duchess?” he asked.

  This caught me completely off guard. I did not know what to say, really, and the line of questioning was oddly out of place. I bit my lip to keep any other foolish thought from bouncing from brain to utterance, but no use, because out it came, all at once, like water rushing over rocks. “The emperor? Oh my, no. I prefer a more common fellow. Someone at home on a horse and willing to laugh. A man who would sooner use his weapon for sport than as a festoon in his belt. The emperor, what I know of him, is a serious man.”

  The sketch in my journal that I did not remember drawing. The man of mystery in my locket. This flesh and blood rogue employed to guard us Wittelsbach girls. Far more interesting to my heart. This confession, the way it rolled off my tongue so unexpectedly, felt like a suddenly loosened corset. I looked up at the imprudent man and caught him in a self-satisfied chuckle. “Ah, sport. That vixen killing. A rather bloody event in which to subject a fair maiden of your breeding. Tell me, Duchess Elisabeth, did you enjoy it?”

  I told the truth. “Ah, ’tis my downfall, I fear. Mischief, a good frolic. Adventure. But I did feel badly for the little fox. What if she had kits?”