The Empress Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page A

cage of canaries on my lap imprinted deep grooves into my legs. We bumped along the roads, and dust settled between our teeth, but I did not complain once, unlike my sister and little brother, Gackl. Bored, my tiny brother slumped forward, napping the last few hours. Nené and Mummi were animated, discussing the possibilities of bringing a French tutor to Munich come fall; Mummi wanted to begin preparing Nené for her possible role as Empress Helene as soon as possible, even though, as far as I could discern, Emperor Franz Joseph had barely looked her way during the entire holiday. They’d arrived the second day we were there, all those archdukes, but we hardly saw them. “Military duties,” my aunt explained, but I caught glimpses of them eating pheasant and drinking ale with their tutors. One of them winked at me as I attempted to sneak out the kitchen door with turnips for the horses.
    On the whole ride home my governess, Baroness Wilhelmine, remained tight-lipped. She hated summers, and our home in Possi—where she had far less control. It upset her digestion. Despite the blanket that Wilhelmine made me keep over my birds, the canaries sang unceasingly. Once we neared our summer castle’s four towers, my clever birds knew we were close, and the shrillness in their little voices increased to the point that the long-suffering governess put both hands to her ears as though a cannon had gone off on the seat beside her.
    Mummi, sensing the itch in me to immediately head into my enchanted forest, turned my way. “Sisi,” she said, “if your father happens to be home, do not even think about disappearing into the woods. We will have a respectable supper and catch him up on all the news.”
    I nodded, even though my heart dropped at the thought of sitting through a stuffy meal while Nené and Mummi went on and on and on with speculation and detail and, to my mind, complete fantasy that our Nené—or Helene, as we were now instructed to refer to her—would soon become the bride of our cousin, Franz Joseph. However, a bargain was a bargain, and I swore that I would not sneak off.
    As soon as the carriage lurched to its stop in front of our castle, I scrambled out, trying my best to do so like a lady. With my lips pursed and my back straight, I handed my birds to the footman. I walked slowly away for a full minute before breaking into a run toward the stable. Several of the hounds ambled along beside me, running up to sniff the bird smell and bark at the odor the spaniels had left on my skirts. The hounds and the spaniels were not good friends, and Mummi usually had to carry her little beasts through the courtyard, lest the big male pounce upon one of them, driving itself into the poor little dog’s backside in its display of dominance.
    “Return before the quarter hour,” yelled Mummi behind me as I ran.
    It had been a gray day and, in fact, it had rained all week, so when I reached my ponies’ stall, I found their legs caked with mud. Immediately I grabbed the currying tools and inched up next to them. My hands still ached a little from the scratches, but as always, the brushes and combs shaped perfectly to my palms as I circled first Psyche’s coat and then Cupid’s. They nuzzled me, smearing half-eaten hay and mouth slime all over my pinafore. I was relieved to be home. I was ever so tired of fretting over every rip and wrinkle and stain. Should Papa be home, indeed, I would steal him for a ride later, an invitation he would not refuse me. He had little patience for woman-talk, as he called it, and everyone knew what he thought of his sister-in-law, the archduchess.
    It felt so good to be touching my animals, scraping them clean, smelling their familiar smells. Papa shared in my enthusiasm. Alas, had I been born a male child, perhaps I should enjoy my time with the horses without scrutiny.
    “You do nothing to instruct these children of yours. They are as wild as the gypsies you sire in town,” Mummi would cry