Josef paced endlessly around the room, beside himself with anxiety as Sisi’s screams rang out from beyond the door.
“Is it truly all right for her to go on like that for ten hours already?”
The ministers, who all had grown children of their own, were sweating as they tried to restrain Josef.
“Your Majesty, you must calm yourself. In my wife’s case, during her first birth, it took thirty hours—”
“Did you just say it could take thirty hours?”
The other ministers’ glares all fell upon Count Buol.
‘As if it weren’t bad enough that we must reassure His Majesty and get him back to administering the empire!’
“The chairman surely only said that to put Your Majesty at ease.”
To be sure, for the first hour or two, the emperor had not been this anxious.
But as the screams gradually grew louder, and as only a metallic rasp could now be heard from within the empress’s bedchamber, the emperor standing guard before it grew steadily more haggard.
“Your Majesty, you should now retire to bed…”
“Chief Aide-de-Camp, refrain from needless words.”
Count Rechberg blocked his way.
And so more time passed.
In the end, the ministers gave up one by one.
“Prince Albert of England—”
Count Buol knew what the emperor was about to say.
‘I must head him off first.’
“I hear he was present during the queen’s delivery. What do the ministers think?”
“Your Majesty, that is not in accordance with propriety—”
But the others wanted to put an end to this exhausting situation.
“That is so, Your Majesty. How lonely Her young Majesty the Empress must be—”
“When I went in to my wife, the child came out at once—”
Count Buol was horrified.
‘They are trying to send His Majesty the Emperor into a forbidden place for men!’
The birthing chamber was a space strictly limited to women, midwives, and physicians. There was no way they did not know that a husband entering it was not only contrary to etiquette, but considered highly improper and embarrassing.
‘Wait.’
“Count Lamberg.”
‘Count Lamberg’s faction.’
Those urging the emperor to enter the birthing chamber were Count Lamberg and the husbands of the court ladies rumored to be favored by the empress.
Count Buol spoke quietly, so the emperor could not hear.
“Have you all gone mad…! This is betrayal! If Archduchess Sophie learns of this…!”
“Count Buol. If you have a mouth, then speak plainly. Was it not Archduchess Sophie who betrayed us first?”
If one’s wife became a lady-in-waiting favored by the empress, then when other nobles or ministers wished to request something of the empress or propose a policy, they came not through official channels, but to her husband.
“Do you also wish for Königseck to control everything?”
That could not be allowed.
The young emperor still had little skill in the political arena.
If left as things were, they believed Count Grüne and Count Königseck would join hands with Archduchess Sophie and manipulate the empire as they pleased.
Count Lamberg and the others who had been suppressed by Sophie resolved to make immediate use of the news their wives had passed to them.
“Count Buol. Open the door for His Majesty the Emperor. It seems His Majesty has made up his mind.”
Count Buol squeezed his eyes shut.
He recalled a book he had read recently.
‘The discipline of an empire built by blood and iron is being brought down by the emperor’s Manon Lescaut.’
In the end, the door to the empress’s bedchamber opened.
But only one person entered: Emperor Josef.
“Your Majesty the Emperor! Do you know where this is?”
Through the closing gap of the door, they sensed Sophie’s fury.
‘She must have thought this was her world.’
Count Lamberg threw a joke toward his faction.
“Did any of you ever imagine there would be two men in the Hofburg?”
The only man in the Hofburg. It was a nickname for Archduchess Sophie.
And now Lamberg had, in effect, declared the empress to be the only other such existence alongside Archduchess Sophie.
“Count Buol, we shall see you at tomorrow’s baptism.”
After they left, Count Buol and Count Grüne gritted their teeth in defeat.
“…In any case, the empress will not be able to leave her bedchamber for forty days while she recovers after childbirth.”
“You mean we must restore the order of the empire in that time?”
Elisabeth’s faction would have to withstand the furious all-out offensive of Sophie’s faction for forty days without their leader.
Meanwhile, Josef, who had entered the birthing chamber, was thrown into shock.
‘Blood and screams, and they are waking the unconscious empress—’
“Sisi!”
The noblewomen, flustered by Josef’s sudden appearance, could not even think to stop the emperor from approaching the empress.
Only the midwife and the court physician barely managed to hold him back.
“Your Majesty, you must calm yourself. Her Majesty the Empress merely fainted for a moment. There is nothing wrong with her health.”
“How can you say there is nothing wrong when the empress has fainted?”
“Your Majesty the Emperor!”
At Sophie’s sharp cry, Josef finally gathered his wits.
“Your Majesty, this is no place for a man to enter. Return at once, as propriety demands.”
“But the empress—”
‘…The wedding was the same, and now this—why on earth!’
Sophie grew uneasy at how Josef kept trying to slip from her grasp.
The only thing Sisi and Sophie had in common was that their power came from the emperor.
“Franzi!”
At the pet name from his childhood, Josef looked at his mother.
The only name by which he had been loved.
To him, that pet name was not merely a pet name. It was the sole sign that Archduchess Sophie regarded him as her son, and the symbol of the maternal affection Josef had longed for all his life.
It was Sophie’s most powerful and primitive means of control, and the maternal fetter from which Josef could never escape for as long as he lived.
If Lamberg’s faction had opened the door of the birthing chamber to him as a husband, Sophie was trying to turn him back into a son, and into an emperor.
“What, exactly, are you doing?”
Sophie spoke in a voice gone cold with anger.
“An emperor is not someone who breaks procedure because he is swept up in emotion.”
She glanced at the bedsheets soaked in blood and sweat and at the unconscious Sisi, then looked back at Josef.
“This is a sacred place where the succession of the empire continues, not a place to be sullied by a man’s sentimentality. Look, Your Majesty. With Your Majesty’s rash behavior, you have thrown all these ladies and the court physician into confusion.”
In order to turn him back into the emperor, she used the words “succession of the empire” instead of “empress.”
“The empress merely fainted for a moment. For a woman, childbirth is a duty and a natural pain. Yet if the emperor loses his reason like this, who, then, is to uphold this empire!”
Sophie pointed to the door of the birthing chamber.
“At once. Return to Your Majesty’s place, and recover not the readiness to become a father, but the dignity of an emperor. I shall settle this commotion.”
Even amid the chaos, the court physician and the midwife continued working to wake the unconscious Sisi.
“……”
Josef merely moved his lips.
And the words that finally escaped him were:
“You did not have to go that far, Mother.”
They brought Sophie down.
Josef judged the situation strategically.
His mother, Archduchess Sophie, had never once called him Franzi in front of everyone.
He realized that Sophie, of all people, had called him Franzi before everyone in order to regain the power that had been stolen by the empress, even if she had to resort to that.
The work Sophie had spent a lifetime creating—an emperor who would not be swept away by emotion—returned to her like a boomerang.
Even in a moment of emotional upheaval, he analyzed Sophie’s actions.
“Josef……”
Drawn by the faint voice that was almost inaudible, Josef turned his head.
“Empress.”
“…Give me your hand.”
Leaving the frozen Sophie behind, he went to his wife.
The noble ladies who had come to bless the empress’s safe delivery became living witnesses, there and then, to who the new mistress of the empress’s palace was.
‘In that case, where should I begin?’
‘What does Her Majesty the Empress like?’
‘Didn’t the maid who was driven from the palace last time say she liked strawberries?’
‘Poor Countess Königseck.’
‘Then will His Majesty govern directly now?’
Covering their mouths with their fans and exchanging glances, they each began to calculate just how far the emperor would restrict Sophie’s power.
“Your Majesty… breaking propriety…?”
“I came because I was worried about the empress.”
“…I look ugly right now, don’t I?”
“You are beautiful. More than anyone.”
“Have you been reading French novels…?”
“I feel as though we have had this conversation before.”
The two smiled at each other.
The midwife watched them, gauging when she should speak up again.
‘Is it now?’
“Your Majesty, it is nearly done. You must push just a little more…”
Josef did not so much as flinch at the pain of Sisi’s fingernails clawing into him.
Princess Ludovika was relieved at the sight and watched her daughter give birth.
At last, the long, long hours passed.
“I can see the head now! One final push with all your strength!”
The powerful cry of a child filled the birthing chamber.
“Sisi, you worked hard.”
Holding Sisi’s hand as she panted for breath, Josef swept back her sweat-soaked forehead and told her how well she had done.
The midwife, who had stayed by Sisi’s side and encouraged her, skillfully received the baby, and the court physician cut and tied the umbilical cord without hesitation.
“I’m tired, so I need to sleep a little.”
Before falling asleep, Sisi carefully whispered into Josef’s ear.
“…Still, she is your mother. Make peace with her.”
“You heard?”
Sisi nodded with difficulty.
“And the child’s name—”
Josef stared at Sisi, from whom only the sound of soft breathing remained, then rose from his seat.
The maids, who had wiped the child’s body clean with warm wet towels, flinched when they saw the emperor approach.
“The child?”
“It is Her Highness the Archduchess.”
A small sigh escaped from among the nobles, but there was no sign of great disappointment.
In their eyes, it was now only a matter of time before the empress gave birth to the crown prince.
Holding the newborn child in his arms, the emperor took a step through the heavy silence to hand the child to his mother, Sophie.
“Archduchess.”
Sophie took the child in her arms and, without saying a word, turned to go outside.
“Mother!”
“Your Majesty. Do you intend to leave the empress like that?”
The maids had been waiting to see when the emperor would leave so they could wash the empress’s body.
“……”
Sophie handed the archduchess over to the nurse standing by the door. Then she stepped outside and asked Josef,
“What is that child’s name?”
“The empress said to follow custom.”
By Habsburg custom, the first archduchess of the Habsburgs was named in honor of the emperor’s mother.
Or else, one of the two Marias.
“…Sophie.”