Time flowed relentlessly, and before I knew it, two months had passed since I came here.
“Your Majesty, you must not ask direct questions.”
Right before Sunday Mass, Esterhazy recited a list of my mistakes to me.
Ah… so she hadn’t just let it go.
“And there are times when you use honorifics with me. You must not do that either.”
Being an Empress is truly difficult.
“Today’s schedule consists only of attending Mass, so we shall begin etiquette lessons for the remaining time.”
“My apologies.”
“Your Majesty.”
Ah, right. An Emperor or Empress must not make mistakes.
Ugh, why is this so hard?
By the time the Mass—devoid of any sincerity—ended and I returned, the reception room had been transformed into an etiquette classroom.
“This is the knife used for removing fish bones, Your Majesty. You must never use it to cut meat. This spoon is for consommé; this one is for soup. The depth differs slightly.”
It’s not like I’d ever get to use them properly anyway, always having to match Joseph’s pace.
Next was how to walk.
I was a little confident about this one.
The act of placing a thick book on my head and circling the room without dropping it.
I could do this with my eyes closed now—
*Thud.*
“Huh?”
“Whenever you wear your outdoor attire, your gait always becomes unsteady.”
When the book had fallen about five times, I offered a small excuse.
“The corset is uncomfortable.”
To be honest, this wasn’t even an excuse.
My body weighs less than 50 kilograms.
Considering how long my hair is, I’m nothing but skin and bones. Do I really have to wear a corset?
“Until you master etiquette, I suppose you shall have to wear comfortable stays while learning.”
“I’m not wearing it.”
I don’t know about other things, but I absolutely cannot stand this.
My testo… anyway, it feels like it’s dropping.
My waist is less than 50 centimeters. What are they trying to make thinner?
Despite my resolve never to back down on this, Esterhazy unexpectedly let it pass without comment.
“Her Majesty the Empress is not here to follow society’s trends.”
She merely said those words.
“I suppose I should meet a designer too.”
“I shall summon a designer who leads the latest trends.”
Obviously, stays are a relic of the past.
It means they were made for the form best suited to muslin dresses. If I wear an Empire-style muslin dress with them, people will gossip that the teenage Empress is wearing clothes meant for grandmothers.
Fashion is not merely a matter of taste. According to Esterhazy, it is the most important visual language demonstrating power, wealth, and the ability to read the flow of the times.
If I fail to follow the latest trends, I will be seen as someone behind the times—a country bumpkin from Bavaria who doesn’t understand Viennese culture.
Naturally, Archduchess Sophie wouldn’t miss that opportunity and would attack… Wait a moment. The ability to read the flow of the times?
I suddenly felt as if lightning had struck my mind.
It wasn’t that they were clothes for old ladies. They were created to reject the dresses that had been in vogue during the revolutionary era.
I looked at Esterhazy and spoke.
“As the revolutionary storm passed and monarchy and conservatism regained strength, fashion too reverted to conservative values.”
As Esterhazy said, it is visual information.
I couldn’t see her expression as she bowed, but her silence was an affirmation.
Insisting on clothing too uncomfortable to work in also means that I possess enough wealth and power that I have no need to labor.
“Your Majesty, they say dinner preparations are complete.”
“…I don’t have much of an appetite.”
Lately, I’ve had no appetite, and I’m so bored that I feel my will to live disappearing.
“How about retiring to your rest early today?”
“I suppose I should.”
Lately, Esterhazy seems to have grown kinder too. I’ll slowly expand my own space like this.
I changed into comfortable clothes, lay down on the bed, and fell deep into thought.
…It’s like I’m in boot camp.
Maybe it’s because I’m living with every word, action, and even expression controlled, performing 24 hours a day.
Should I try getting psychiatric treatment? Do psychiatrists even exist now?
At least I’m comfortable when I’m alone with Joseph, but…
Ah, whatever.
I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.
***
Leading her exhausted body, the Empress lay down on the bed and slowly closed her eyes.
Only after confirming that Sisi’s breathing had settled into an even rhythm did Esterhazy slip out of the bedroom silently and head to her office.
It was a small room attached to the Empress’s splendid apartments, but it was a place every woman wished to enter.
The Empress’s rest was the busiest operational time granted between battles.
The first task was the seating arrangement for the dinner banquet.
Her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she received the draft submitted by the Foreign Ministry.
*Tsk,* to place these two ladies side by side like this. She picked up her quill, ruthlessly cut the two names apart, and inserted an unrelated lady between them.
The second thing she had to do was discipline.
She called for a young countess who had just become a lady-in-waiting.
The very child who had assisted the Empress with her breakfast that morning and unwittingly smiled at the Empress’s jest.
“Ida.”
“Yes, Countess.”
“What is your duty?”
“To assist Her Majesty the Empress.”
“Wrong.”
Esterhazy answered resolutely.
“Our duty is to serve as the background for Her Majesty the Empress. We are not Her Majesty’s friends. We are the frame that holds the perfect painting that is Her Majesty. Have you ever seen a work where the frame outshines the painting?”
“My apologies, my lady.”
“Do not repeat this mistake again.”
After lightly educating the young lady-in-waiting, Esterhazy turned her attention to the pile of letters that had arrived for the Empress.
Most were trivial requests or flattery, so she ruthlessly set them aside.
A letter from the Empress’s mother, Duchess Ludovika, caught her eye.
Sentimental contents worrying about her daughter’s health.
Esterhazy made a small note—‘Risk of excessive emotional agitation’—and set it aside separately.
When and how to deliver it to the Empress was a matter for her to decide.
‘After dinner, during supper, just before Her Majesty is alone with His Majesty the Emperor.’
She judged it a suitable letter to show the Empress, who had appeared depressed lately.
And finally, an anonymous letter sent without even a single sentence.
Inside was a crudely drawn picture of a guillotine.
She nonchalantly tucked it deep into another file.
Such threats were routine. What mattered was not letting the Empress be shaken by such things.
Having finished all the paperwork, she looked at the clock and took a sip of cold tea.
Sisi’s defiance today—her anachronistic stubbornness about wearing stays and her contemplation of how it would appear—gave her a faint sense of satisfaction.
‘So my teachings have borne fruit. She no longer simply throws tantrums like before; she is truly becoming an Empress.’
Just as she thought that, another possibility suddenly flashed through Esterhazy’s mind.
‘…Could it be true?’
She began to recall Sisi’s recent behavior one by one.
Nausea at a different diet than usual, refusing clothing that had previously been taken for granted.
Ordinarily, Sisi might reduce her rest and exercise more, but she had never skipped a meal.
‘Her Majesty the Empress, who is usually like that, suddenly skipping meals?’
And her expression, which seemed more depressed than usual.
‘If it is not from homesickness, or from fatigue due to escalating conflicts with the Archduchess?’
Esterhazy quietly rose from her seat and approached a small chest containing the Empress’s personal medical records.
Her duty was to manage everything about the Empress, which included records regarding her health.
She examined every corner of the papers to find the most crucial information, but what she wanted was nowhere to be seen.
‘Since coming to Hofburg, Her Majesty the Empress has not menstruated even once.’
Sixteen years old. She could have just begun menstruating, or if she was late, perhaps she hadn’t yet.
Asking the Empress directly, ‘When was your last menstruation, Your Majesty?’ was an unimaginable impropriety for a Mistress of the Robes.
Esterhazy quietly returned the records to their place.
It was still a premature assumption.
‘Perhaps it could be menstrual irregularity, but…’
She judged that requesting information from Bavaria would raise suspicions, but soon Esterhazy lifted her pen.
***
Bavaria, Possenhofen Castle.
The morning was awakened by the sound of wind blowing from Lake Starnberg, the distant sound of hooves, and the melody of the zither played by Duke Maximilian somewhere in the castle.
But that atmosphere vanished rapidly at the sight of a letter stamped with the Habsburg double-headed eagle.
‘Sophie, what is it this time with this letter?’
Duchess Ludovika held her throbbing head, thinking of her elder sister—now her daughter’s mother-in-law—Archduchess Sophie.
Duke Maximilian entered the room and spoke to his wife.
“Seeing that rigid double-headed eagle from the morning is bad for my digestion.”
Duke Max was a free spirit who loved circuses and poetry, and drinking with commoners, more than empty formalities.
And Sisi took after such a father greatly.
“It’s a letter from Vienna. From Countess Esterhazy.”
Ludovika ignored her husband’s playful tone and began reading the letter.
Just as the furrow between her brows deepened.
“What does it say? Is she scolding our daughter for riding horses too roughly?”
“No. She’s asking for Sisi’s medical records. She wants to know the date of her last menstruation while she was in Bavaria.”
Duke Max couldn’t contain himself and raised his voice.
“Madness! Doesn’t the Emperor even know his own wife’s body? Why are they asking us about that!”
Helene had already received the same letter before.
“I didn’t like Archduchess Sophie from the start. Using you to fulfill her ambitions wasn’t enough, and now she takes Sisi too.”
Maximilian had accumulated resentment toward Archduchess Sophie, who had caused Helene to miss her marriageable age and continuously sent complaints about Sisi.
“It wasn’t as if we could refuse the Emperor.”
Ludovika had felt more anxiety than joy at the fact that free-spirited Sisi was going to Hofburg—the most suffocating place in Europe.
“Still, fortunately she seems to be doing well.”
As Maximilian said, Countess Esterhazy’s letters had brought news that their daughter was well.
Unlike the letters filled with Archduchess Sophie’s complaints and grievances.
“Ludovika.”
Ludovika raised her gaze at Maximilian’s voice.
“What if we went to see her? Seeing as we haven’t received a single letter from Sisi, I can’t even imagine how much Archduchess Sophie is hounding her.”
“We haven’t seen her since the wedding… but now that she’s the Empress, wouldn’t it be a bit improper for us to visit often?”
Ludovika indirectly refused his suggestion and wrote down the approximate timing as she remembered.
Along with an anxious feeling in one corner of her heart.
“I am anxious to receive a request for our daughter Sisi’s medical records. Is she perhaps experiencing difficulties adapting to life in Vienna? In any case, I believe we must visit Her Majesty the Empress in person in the near future to set our minds at ease.”
In the end, a different result than intended came about.
‘Since it seems she is pregnant after all, Countess Esterhazy will not be able to refuse.’
***
Receiving the letter from Bavaria, Esterhazy and Skoda were almost certain.
“Her Majesty… seems to be with child.”
“She is with child.”
For now, it was a story known only to the two of them.