Königsegg opened and closed his mouth, swallowed dryly, and barely managed to speak.
“…So you mean that I am to explain what you just showed us to the musicians and the actor, and put it on stage?”
I smiled and nodded.
“Yes, you understand quickly. There’s a reason Esterházy told me so much about you.”
Königsegg’s eyes wavered, unable to find a place to rest.
“Why? You can’t do it?”
“…I shall obey.”
His complexion seemed to have gone a little pale.
“No, if you can’t, you don’t have to.”
I could just have Ida, my reader-in-waiting, do it.
For someone born a noblewoman, it must have been a little much.
“No, Your Majesty. I shall carry out your command.”
Really? If he says he’ll do it himself.
To think he would be this horrified, even knowing that there was a circus tent in the yard at Possenhofen in Bavaria, my family home.
“Esterházy. I’ll need to write an official document to His Majesty the Emperor.”
I could use my own allowance, but that would be a waste.
The budget for the propaganda department for the Milan tour—would that do?
Hm… propaganda is a bit much as a word.
“Submit it to His Majesty the Emperor as expenses for appeasing public sentiment in Italy.”
Königsegg would be the person in charge.
Now that my hair was dry, shall I sleep with Sophie?
Rudolf and Gisela were still too young to sleep with me, but Sophie liked me.
“…Mama has bad sleeping habits.”
It seemed our Sophie needed lessons in court etiquette.
Were my sleeping habits bad?
I carefully climbed onto the bed and lay down beside Sophie.
“I’ve never heard your papa say that.”
Considering the blankets were neat even when I woke, my sleeping habits weren’t bad.
Even as Sophie said that, she spread out my hair and slipped right inside it.
Honestly, just like her father, she really loved hair.
“Hush, hush, the baby is going to sleep.”
I slowly patted the child in my arms.
As I thought, did we give her the wrong name?
Listening to Sophie’s even breathing, I sank into thought.
Before heading for Venice, Joseph had gone to Warsaw for a conference.
It was a conference convened out of concern that the Italian unification movement might send sparks of revolution flying into Poland.
Next, the Second Opium War came to an end.
Russia gained the Maritime Province, and Britain and France concluded unequal treaties with Qing.
What kind of butterfly effect would these things bring us?
What if Joseph returned empty-handed? Then I could be certain of the struggle I had had with Empress Maria last time.
However, if even Russia turned its back on us now, we were likely to be isolated.
It wasn’t for nothing that I had pushed Joseph to join the war on Russia’s side. If, by any chance, they repaid us with betrayal… tsk.
The French loathed me.
First of all, it was Austria that had obstructed Italian unification, and then there was the mourning I had shown at the Place de la Concorde.
Thanks to that, Eugénie’s reputation had risen, and I, too, had received a not-bad evaluation from the Austrian nobles.
The new place we could try to grasp was Britain… but those Whigs were going to hold on to power for a while and not let go.
It might be different if Victoria helped, but she disliked me.
And if they asked whether we could keep France and Russia in check at the same time, the answer was no.
When Joseph arrived, I would have to subtly ask him about military reform.
I don’t know! In any case, my husband had to come before I could decide how to act.
*
Before I knew it, spring was in full bloom, and across the Atlantic, the flames of civil war had begun to blaze.
As soon as Joseph arrived in Venice, he came to me.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“I understand that you were busy.”
Originally, we had expected it to take only about three months, but I heard the conference had gone on longer than expected.
He immediately took me to the study, and the two of us began to talk alone.
“…It seems it will be difficult for you to participate in politics for a while.”
So Russia had betrayed us.
Of course they would be shifting the blame onto me, since I had said we should side with Russia.
“Don’t look so sorry. I told you at the beginning, didn’t I? Use me sometimes.”
It wasn’t a crime for an empress to be unable to do politics.
And it wasn’t as if Joseph was someone who couldn’t trust my words. I had merely given a slight push to Joseph’s back when he had been considering joining the war on Russia’s side or remaining neutral.
That was why Joseph felt sorry toward me.
“The Tsar said that since we had gained something, the debt had been repaid. Using unrest in Poland as an excuse, he refused military support. The ministers in Vienna are in an uproar, asking what we gained by turning Britain and France into enemies.”
“I suppose they don’t see that I sent Count Buol to Britain?”
I answered playfully.
“Sisi.”
Joseph’s eyes were filled with apology.
I placed my hand over his fist.
“I said I’m fine, didn’t I? It was not your responsibility alone, but ours. I am His Majesty the Emperor’s wife, not someone who evaluates His Majesty the Emperor’s policies.”
“But my judgment…”
“You trusted and followed my judgment. If it was the best move to preserve the Emperor’s authority before the ministers, then I’m fine.”
As I unfolded his fingers one by one, Joseph let out a long sigh, lifted my hand, and kissed the back of it.
If diplomacy always went as expected, there would be no wars in the world.
It was thanks to Queen Victoria, Empress Eugénie, and Archduchess Sophie that I was able to step into politics. Originally, an empress did not involve herself to an extent even the ministers could know.
When I kept saying I was fine, Joseph eventually changed the subject.
“By the way, are you short on privy purse funds?”
I had plenty of privy purse funds.
Normally, the budget called Nadelgeld, or pin money, was one hundred thousand gulden a year. But thanks to a certain gentleman who gave me one hundred thousand gulden as a gift every time I bore a son…
Thanks to that, the secret funds I had entrusted to a banker in Geneva were steadily growing.
I gave a small shrug.
“This is strictly official business. Expenses to appease public sentiment.”
Surely he wasn’t going to say something else now after already approving it?
“I thought you might be building another villa.”
“Is it acceptable for His Majesty the Emperor to squander the national treasury like that?”
“Didn’t you just say you weren’t someone who evaluated policies?”
Joseph smiled playfully.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t squander it. Once we arrive in Milan, you’ll be able to see how that budget was used.”
“Really?”
I needed to show him again that I was good at internal affairs.
Though Greater Germanism would probably gain strength because I had lost a few points.
Was this why Prince Metternich had said, “Asia begins at the Landstrasse”?
Those faithless Russians…!
“Did the Archduchess say nothing in particular?”
“She said nothing in particular.”
Strange. Even if she had said she had handed me a knife, she was not the sort of person who would simply overlook my mistake.
The musical, Wiki, too… Was there a difference from the knowledge I knew?
No. Let’s not think weak thoughts. If I couldn’t trust records, what could I trust?
It must be because she was not someone who would place Maximilian’s life on the scales.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
I shook my head and complained for no real reason.
“It’s nothing. Shall we take a walk together for a bit?”
“If you’re all right with it.”
I threw off the cumbersome crinoline and changed into a light muslin dress for walking.
We crossed the small drawbridge connected to the imperial palace and headed for the royal garden.
With none of the clamor of the square, it was a place I sometimes enjoyed alone.
“I can see why you come here often.”
“There isn’t a place like this in Vienna.”
We leaned against the railing, looking down at the lagoon.
“A gondolier is waving at you.”
I waved back at the gondolier and poked Joseph.
“You wave too.”
“Would he like that?”
“Of course. They know that you made it possible for the festival to be held again.”
Unable to withstand my urging, Joseph stiffly raised his hand.
“See? I told you he was waiting for you to reach out first.”
The gondolier took off his hat and answered by waving it broadly.
“That must be because you’re beside me. If I were alone, he would have rowed away.”
Joseph laughed self-deprecatingly, but his expression did not seem entirely displeased.
“I believe in you. You’re the one who created the motto of our House of Habsburg.”
“…I did. To bind the empire as one and never see bloodshed again.”
Joseph murmured and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“Sometimes, I feel that thanks to those words, I was able to guard this place alone.”
“You’ve interpreted it wrong.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t mean bearing it alone, but bearing it together. I fill what you lack, and you fill what I do not have. With united strength.”
I perched on the railing and looked at him playfully.
“What do you think? With the sunset behind me, don’t I look even more beautiful? A beauty like this is saying she will go with you.”
***
Her figure with the sunset at her back was truly beautiful.
The crimson-stained sky and sea of Venice seemed to have become a backdrop entirely for her sake.
Sisi’s silhouette standing in the backlight was mysterious, as if she were not of this world, yet at the same time, she was smiling at me with such warmth.
‘Bearing it together, she says…’
In the days when I had to endure the weight of the imperial crown at a young age, I had always whipped myself, telling myself that only if I was strong would the empire survive.
Even my mother had leaned on me; she had never once offered me a shoulder to lean on.
And yet this woman casually spoke words that no one in the empire had ever dared to say.
That she would fill what I lacked. That I should not suffer alone, but share it with her.
Was this what a Siren’s song was like?
It was said that sailors in myth, bewitched by the song sung by beautiful women, turned their prows of their own accord and headed toward death.
At the time, I had laughed at it as foolishness, as an excuse made by the weak.
Beneath the crimson sunset, her hair caught the light and scattered in gold.
Even if this were ruin, I would gladly row toward it.
“You are as beautiful as you were on the day we first met.”
When I said that, her flushed cheeks shyly revealed themselves.
She was always the first to tempt me, and always the first to grow embarrassed.
And, as if she did not dislike it, she brushed her hair behind her ear.
“…Shall we go?”
There was only ever one answer I could give to her question.
I lifted her into my arms. The night in Venice was long, and we had far too many words, and far too much love, to share.
Though she, held like a princess, tapped my chest and told me to put her down.
‘It was worth carrying a gun myself and climbing those mountains.’