The Emperor's Defiance
Deep into the night, only two maids remained in the room. Esterházy and Hunyadi.
It had been a nonstop string of days digging into Hungary's history, using this trip home as an excuse for a little rebellion. To forge the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, I needed precise information—and Vienna had too many listening ears.
Esterházy explained the events in Hungary back in 1848.
"Vienna's strategy at the time was simple, Your Majesty."
Esterházy continued in her dry tone, pointing to Croatia, Vojvodina, and Transylvania, which encircled Hungary like a noose.
"When Hungary's blade was at our throats, we targeted their rear. The minorities within Hungary itself."
Hunyadi, standing beside her, clenched her skirt tightly.
"Jelačić... Croatia..."
"Hunyadi, show no emotion before Her Majesty."
Esterházy rebuked her without so much as a blink.
"We promised Jelačić autonomy and set him loose on Hungary. While the Hungarians forced their Magyar fairy tales on everyone, we exploited their hatred."
The empire's survival tactic: sow hatred among each other, making them dependent on the emperor.
"So, chief lady-in-waiting, what was the outcome?"
"Everyone lost. Hungary lost its unity, and Croatia got discarded like dirt once used."
Hunyadi added to Esterházy's words.
"What Hungary received as punishment, Croatia got as reward."
"Punishment and reward?"
"Traitors and loyalists alike ended up equally oppressed. Thanks to that, Your Majesty lost the trust of all the minorities."
Ha, all that's left is mutual distrust.
Traitors turned away out of punishment, loyalists out of betrayal.
How the hell do I compromise this?
"That's why His Majesty plans to tour the provinces with Your Majesty."
"Won't that backfire?"
"His Majesty embodies law and order. To the rebels, he's an object of terror."
"Your Majesty shows mercy and love. You've spoken to them in their language, soothed their wounds."
Esterházy and Hunyadi laid out the roles of emperor and empress for me.
"They'll set down the stones they meant to hurl at His Majesty and toss flowers at Your Majesty instead. That's... the only viable compromise."
Dress up pretty, go in, and play the cute card: Forgive my poor Joseph, even if he's a lousy emperor.
If that's the role, I can handle it. I've got a knack for that stuff. As long as Mother-in-law's influence doesn't reach me here, like it does with Rudolf left alone in Vienna, nothing's impossible.
"But Joseph wouldn't have acted alone, right?"
He was just eighteen, freshly crowned. No way he had that kind of pull.
"Your Majesty's guess is correct. He was only eighteen then. What did a boy just come of age know?"
One reason Joseph kept pushing me outward was to shield me from his mother.
I'd been a sixteen-year-old girl when we married.
"Cardinal Rauscher preached God's will to oppress, the prime minister stripped away emotion, and Colonel Coronini was the same."
"And one more person."
"Hunyadi."
Esterházy warned her, but Hunyadi didn't back down this time either.
"The one who put His Majesty on that throne and made themselves his teachers."
I knew who without her naming names.
The puppet master behind Joseph, staining an eighteen-year-old boy's hands with blood.
"In the end... the Archduchess's handiwork."
Joseph had been a well-trained villain actor; the director and screenwriter were someone else.
"Do the Hungarians know?"
Hunyadi shook her head with a bitter expression.
"The nobles know. But to the common folk, appearances are everything. The orders came from His Majesty's name, and he signed the execution warrants."
The throne is supposed to bear that burden...
Still, this is...
"My task is clear."
He's my son.
Just thinking of Rudolf standing there as a scapegoat makes my blood boil.
"I need to show they had no choice with Joseph."
But how?
Joseph's politics lean toward Archduchess Sophie.
His personality, I'm not sure.
"Pack our things. If we stay a few more days, my butt'll get too heavy to leave."
"Straight back to Vienna, Your Majesty?"
"Sophie and Gisela will head right there."
"Understood, Your Majesty."
I'll swing through Salzburg, sweep the western Austrian Empire on the way home.
East later, with Joseph as a trip.
Franz Joseph gazed down at the military reform proposal on his desk.
'Radetzky, Field Marshal.'
He rolled the name around in his mouth. It had felt so reassuring.
There was a time when that name alone guaranteed the empire's safety. In 1848, the old lion who alone took up the sword when everyone fled, defending the empire. The general who showed his final blaze at Solferino.
But he was gone now.
'Your Majesty is still young. You must heed the counsel of the elders...'
Count Grüne's cautious voice from earlier buzzed in his ears.
Counsel? No, interference. The moment Radetzky was gone, they pounced to bind his hands and feet.
He was no longer the eighteen-year-old boy.
Not the Joseph who trembled in his mother's skirts, clutching the crown.
Franz Joseph had to show them.
The emperor must personally command the army and make all decisions.
'No one can rule the empire over the emperor's head. Not even my mother.'
'Your Majesty, if you want to discuss politics more with me... forget Vienna's opinions for a while.'
Franz Joseph snatched up his pen and scrawled his signature roughly across the document.
'Austria is my empire.'
The study door swung open without even a valet's announcement.
There stood Archduchess Sophie in her black dress.
In her hand was a copy of the personnel order Franz Joseph had just approved.
"What in the world is this, Your Majesty?"
Sophie didn't so much as greet him before slamming the papers onto the desk.
"Dismissing Austria's longtime loyalists with a single stroke. They protected Your Majesty amid the chaos of 1848."
"They're old, Mother."
Franz Joseph kept sorting documents without looking up, his reply curt and dry.
"The times have changed. With Field Marshal Radetzky gone, the army needs fresh, agile commanders. Those blinded by past glories are nothing but dead weight."
"Dead weight! Without them, there'd be no Your Majesty today!"
Sophie's voice rose.
Only then did Franz Joseph set down his pen and meet her gaze squarely.
His cold hazel eyes gleamed just like hers.
"How long must I pay that debt from ten years ago? I am the emperor. Deciding the empire's future is my right and duty."
"Right? Duty? Don't delude yourself."
Sophie leaned over the desk, her shadow looming oppressively.
"The only reason Your Majesty sits there shouting 'emperor' is because I and those old loyalists crushed the rebels, staining our hands with blood. You think you did it alone?"
"So! You still want me to be your puppet?"
Franz Joseph shot to his feet, shoving back his chair with a crash. Neither flinched.
"Consult you on every matter, use only the men you pick, follow only the path you lay? Do you know how many subjects died pointlessly in Italy!"
Pent-up emotion erupted from Franz Joseph. But Sophie didn't yield.
She stared back even more coldly.
"Mind your words, Your Majesty."
"No, it's the truth. You don't trust me, Mother. You're fretting I'll ruin the army, scar your empire!"
Sophie's brow twitched.
She sighed as if scolding a child.
"Your Majesty, I raised you to lead the army as emperor, not as a doll in uniform."
The words stabbed his sorest spot.
"Look at yourself now. That's not leadership. It's just bravado to hide your anxiety. A true monarch doesn't discard loyalists—he wields them."
"Even if they blind me and plug my ears?"
"They're protecting you!"
"I don't need protection! I...!"
Franz Joseph clenched his fist until his nails dug in.
"I'm not a child anymore. My army is commanded by me. You tend to the inner court now, Mother. State affairs are my domain."
A blatant eviction.
Sophie stared at her son in disbelief.
The always obedient boy, the good son who only said "yes," was turning his back on her.
"That girl... she's turned Your Majesty into this."
"Mother! Why drag the empress into this?"
"She's whispered sweet poison in your ear. Mercy, love, compromise—all that weak nonsense."
"The empress only comforted me! She treated me like a person, not a statue like you do!"
"The emperor is no person!"
Sophie's roar echoed through the study.
She glared into his eyes, her voice low and fierce.
"The emperor must be the empire itself. The moment you waver with emotion or pity, it crumbles. That girl grew up in freewheeling Bavaria—she knows nothing of Vienna's weight."
"So you tormented her to make her bear that weight?"
"I taught her! To be fit for her position!"
Sophie gripped her fan, suppressing rising fury.
"Listen well, Your Majesty. Hungary and Italy can't be ruled with love. They don't want your mercy—they want your head. The empress's ways will fail."
Franz Joseph spat out the words he'd buried his whole life, laced with inferiority.
"...Maximilian is truly enviable."
"Franz Joseph!"
"Isn't he? Even stole your favorite daughter-in-law."
Sophie cooled her boiling rage, staring at her son like a stranger.
Her eyes held something worse than contempt.
Disappointment.
"...Not worth hearing more."
Sophie turned and left. A slap might have hurt less.
"Ha..."
Franz Joseph rubbed his dry face.
"Sissi..."
He murmured his wife's name from habit.
Where is she now? What would she say? Hug me like in Milan, or...?
"I miss you."
Or look at me failing, disappointed, as Mother said.
In the empty study, his whisper echoed like a ghost.