Je T'aime. - Chapter 4: Chapter 4

I tugged on the edge of the jacket of my riding habit as I made my way down to the stables. Surrounding Schönbrunn was a deep, dark forest that was perfect for riding and hunting. I always loved hunting in my teenage years. I especially loved my riding habit, of a masculine style and a shade of crimson red. I felt like a prince, my hair tied in a single queue down my back with a black bow.
In the distance I heard the baying of hounds and the excited whinnying of horses. As I approached the royal stables, I was nearly toppled over by Joseph's hunting dogs, Hercules and Theseus. "Good morning, boys!" I said to them, rubbing behind their ears.
Joseph whistled, and his dogs came trotting back to his side. "You're going to ride today?"
"You got it," I said, posing in my riding habit. "Gladiator could use a good ride."
"Hmm," Joseph hummed. "Isabella and her ladies are going to be taking a phaeton. I thought you would want to join them."
"You know me. I can't just sit there and watch you all ride past without me."
Joseph smiled. "You always have to try to outdo me, don't you?"
I nodded. "Yes. Now if you excuse me, I have a horse to saddle up," I entered the stable.
I saw my beautiful white Arabian, Gladiator, being saddled up by a stable hand. I approached my horse and ran my hand down his paper-white nose. "Sorry for not visiting you, buddy. Unfortunately archduchess duties come first."
"Christina!" yelped voice out of my field of vision, accompanied by a figure leaping out of the dark into my peripherals.
I felt myself jump. As my brain finally processed what had happened, I sighed. "Jesus, Albert, you scared me."
Albert burst out laughing. "I got you, didn't I?" He clapped his hands in delight.
"Yeah, yeah, you're just a barrel of laughs."
"Here, let me give you a boost," Albert got down onto one knee beside my horse and interlocked his hands. I placed my foot on his hands, and he helped lift me into the saddle. "Here, take this. Ludwig was out yesterday, and he said the foxes are pretty quick."
Albert handed me a musket and a cartridge pouch. I attached the firearm to Gladiator's saddle of black and gold, and wore the pouch on my hip. Albert swung himself onto his chestnut mare, Cleopatra.
Together we rode out of the stable and towards the wide brick path that led into the forest. To our left was the garden, where dedicated floral keepers plucked the last of dying summer blossoms from the bushes. To our right was an expansive field of grass that stretched over a large hill. The morning sunlight soaked into my clothes and wrapped me in a tender warmth. A steady, crisp breeze fluttered my skirt and Gladiator's mane. Off in the orchards, dozens of workers were tending to the apple trees before the season was over. Apples were a good cold weather food; they were hearty and could hold up well in cold storage. Every year at Schönbrunn, the picking of apples was a bitter reminder that winter was just around the corner.
We met up with the other participants of the hunt just before the entrance to the forest. It was crowded with the noise of several packs of hunting dogs, howling to their hearts' content. I could easily identify Hercules and Theseus- they wore collars of scarlet leather to show they were the hounds of the Crown Prince. Carts, carriages and phaetons were lined up, ready for their ride through the forest. From my position, I could see that they were filled with ladies and children. As I glanced around I realized that I was the only woman on horseback that day.
I made eye contact with Madame von Brandeis, who was sitting in an open cart with Ferdinand, Maximilian, Antonia and Carolina. The noble-faced governess was wearing a Brunswick coat and was wrapped in a blanket, although I didn't think it was that cold. She nudged the children and whispered something. They all cheered up and waved to me. "Hi, Mimi!"
"Hi!" I said as I waved back.
Antonia stood up in the cart and exclaimed, "Hi, Albert!" before crouching back down in a fit of giggles.
"Hello!" Albert said in response.
The hounds began to bark wildly as my father rode up, followed closely by a woman wrapped in exotic furs and riding a lethargic black and white horse. I recognized the steed as Ares, the calmest horse at the stable, who I had ridden as a child. The woman atop him was none other than Wilhelmina, following my father at a close distance but out of the gaze of my mother's carriage. My nose wrinkled at the very sight of her, perched and cooing like a dove. Wilhelmina met my gaze and smiled slyly.
The carriages began to peel off one by one, a clear line on the rutted path into the royal forest. Once they were all gone a pistol fired, sending the dogs into a frenzy towards the scent of the fox. Hercules lifted his head and howled, and soon Theseus followed him into the underbrush.
I sent Gladiator forward into the forest and followed the hounds on the track of the scent. The forest was quite a striking contrast from the manicured lawns of the palace and the great cobblestone streets of Vienna. It was an ancient woods, delicately preserved by the kings and emperors of old. As a child I would often go for walks with my governess or rides with my father through this wood. It was a place of tranquility, golden light shining through patches of the green canopy, which was turning orange in patches. Broad oaks and bristle bushes lined the time-worn paths, to which the deer never came close. It reminded me of the stories that Mama's French ambassadors would tell about the war against the British in their colonies in the Far West. They would tell of horrid natives, their skin copper brown and their faces painted, their waists wrapped with deerskin. They would hide in the trees and shoot an arrow right into the eye of an unsuspecting soldier on the march. When I first heard of them at such a tender age, I would keep a lookout for them in the forest, even though they were all of the way across the ocean.
The trees reached across the path, their foliage clashing with those of other trees. Some trunks were broad and scarred, their surface filled with knots and holes. Others were thin and smooth, but they were taken advantage of by choking vines. Some grew crooked, some grew straight, and some fell before they could reach their full potential. Trees, I noticed, were a bit like people. As I rode along I wondered what tree I was.
As I was lost in my own thoughts, Albert and Cleopatra trotted up to me. "Beautiful day," Albert said simply. "The dogs seem to be on the trail of something."
I squinted at the crowd of wagging tails a few hundred yards before me, noses to the ground. "Maybe," I replied.
Albert smiled mischievously. "This is where I beat you in a race in February, wasn't it?"
I sighed, "Yes, it was. One time."
Albert gave me a sideways glance. "I met you again after five years and beat you in a race. Now that's an accomplishment."
"Yes," I replied, "And you haven't changed much in five years. You still look like a stick with eyes. Your voice is deeper and your shoulders are broader now, but that's about it," I joked.
"You've certainly changed. We're not children anymore. There's so many things before us and behind us now."
Joseph came riding up behind us. "Those dogs get anything yet?"
"Nope, but I think they're close," I replied. They're still on the trail."
Joseph glanced up into the woods ahead. "Damn thing wouldn't run out into the open. It's running out of places to go," The dogs began to howl again, and Joseph rode up ahead. "Get 'em, boys, get 'em!"
My father rode to follow the dogs, Wilhelmina trailing behind him. As my father rode up to Joseph, Wilhelmina lingered behind with Albert and I. "Good morning, Christina," she said calmly. I could recognize her cooing voice anywhere.
"Good morning. Enjoying the ride?" I asked, keeping a friendly demeanor. It was not wise to make open enemies at court. Though, I didn't turn around to face her.
"Very much so," replied Wilhelmina. "No day could be better for a ride," she took a pause and said, without hesitation. "What do you think of the bride? She's quite the pretty girl, but I am unsure of character."
I said, "I've enjoyed her company. She is very witty and kind hearted. My mother likes her quite a deal."
Wilhelmina replied, "Ah. Well that is the most important thing, isn't it? I'd say her opinion is more important than Joseph's. It was quite the show your mother put on for her."
"A royal wedding is an event worth celebrating," I commented.
"Oh, indeed. I wouldn't expect anything less." I watched her horse pull in front of mine as Wilhelmina rode off to join my father again.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Albert turned to me. "What does she want? Did your father tell her to try and befriend you?"
"I don't know," I replied. "A sudden change of mind, maybe? But I'm easy. She'll have a hard time getting through Liesl."
Albert let out a laugh. "She's a tough girl, that's for sure."
The hounds up ahead began barking and howling. Joseph yelled something at them, and veered his horse off of the path and into the woods. Albert and I rode up to him. I pulled out my musket and held it across my lap. As Gladiator trotted towards the dogs, I loaded my weapon just in case. The dogs were all crowded around a hollow between two boulders where the fox must have had its den. One by one, the dogs began to give up and wander back towards their human masters, tails wagging. Mounted riders rounded up all of the dogs to take them back to their kennels.
Joseph dismounted and began to pet his own dogs. "Well, that was anticlimactic," he said with a sigh.
I put my musket away and gazed down at the hole, knowing the fox was cowering in fear somewhere inside. "Maybe it's for the best," I said to no one in particular as Hercules lazily circled my horse with his nose to the ground.
"Well, the carriages are all of the way up ahead. Does a nature trail spark your interest?" Joseph asked. "I'll send the boys back to the kennel."
Albert smiled with a cheesy grin. "I have something else in mind."
"What's that?" inquired Joseph as he handed off his dogs to be taken away.
"A race. We haven't done one in what, five years?" I answered.
Joseph grinned as he swung himself back into the saddle. "Challenge accepted. To the stable from here?"
"You bet," I replied. We all lined up and got ourselves into position. "3..2..1!" I cracked the reins, and Gladiator charged forwards. I braced myself to survive the rocking motion of his body, his hooves pounding on the dirt path. The world seemed to fly past me, green blurs on either side of me. Gladiator let out heavy breaths as he ran, his nostrils flaring with each exhale. Adrenaline was running through his blood, pounding into his mind. His mouth worked on the bit, concentration set into his eyes. "Come on, Glad!" I encouraged him. "You can do it!"
Albert was coming up quickly on my left, smirking at me as he evened out with my horse. I nudged Gladiator, trying to make him go faster, but he was already galloping at top speed. The wind was whipping past me now, striking my cheeks and whistling in my ears. For a split second I turned back. Joseph was lingering far behind. He wasn't a concern. It was just Albert and I now. "You're running hard, Archduchess. But is it hard enough?" his voice called out, his horse pulling beside me with foam streaking down the sides of her face. He had that slick grin on his face like he thought that he was going to win. That was a funny thought, Albert winning this thing.
I felt myself tense, my hands clenching around the sweaty leather reins. "You bastard," came out of my mouth roughly, panting with the rush of the race.
Albert's eyes went wide. "A mouth like a sailor today! Well, Captain, shall your ship stay afloat?"
I kept charging my steed ahead. In the distance I could see the carriages and carts, steadily rolling along the path. Gladiator whinnied and gnawed on his bit. With his own determination, Gladiator began to slowly pass Cleopatra until she was just a figure in the distance. I watched Albert's face as we passed- an open mouth of surprise that faded into a proud smile. "Atta boy!" I called out to my horse, patting his neck as he raced ahead.
Joseph and Albert were now long in my dust. I approached the line of carriages and leaped over a fallen tree branch. Gladiator slowed his pace until we came to a stop, our chests rising and falling with heavy, oxygen-searching breaths.
The carriage we landed next to exploded with applause. I glanced over and saw the beaming face of Isabella, seated in a dark blue phaeton with her ladies.
"Congratulations!" Isabella declared.
One of the ladies, a sculpted-faced woman with a crop of raven hair, exclaimed, "What a chase, mi querida!"
Albert came up eventually, his exhausted horse just barely walking along. Albert wiped the sweat off of his brow and offered me his hand. "Fair game. You won that round."
I shook his hand dutifully. "Thanks."
Isabella chirped, "We were watching you from all of the way back there. You're a very talented rider, Christina."
"Thank you," I replied, "but I couldn't have done this without him," I patted Gladiator's neck and brushed a loose section of mane back into the right place.
"Oh, of course," Isabella said, reaching out of the side of the phaeton to rub Gladiator's nose. "He's beautiful. Isn't he, Eleanore?"
Isabella's friend with the raven hair reached over to pet my horse as well. "Pretty as a horse can be," commented Eleanore.
"How rude of me!" exclaimed Isabella. "Christina, this is my cousin and lady-in-waiting, Countess Eleanore of Castile. Eleanore, this is my sister-in-law Archduchess Christina."
Eleanore smiled warmly. "Joseph's sister, ah? He has too many of them."
I let out a chuckle at a joke I had heard many times before. "Eight daughters, five sons."
"Dios mío," murmured Eleanore. "Be fruitful and multiply, the Lord said," Eleanore took a pause and gazed off into the distance. "Christina, darling, who's your friend?" she asked curiously, flicking open her hand-fan and fluttering it.
I turned to see Albert, lost in his own world staring up into the trees. "That's just Albert."
"Huh?" said Albert, snapping out of his daydream.
"Albert, might I say you look mighty-fine on that horse this morning," stated Eleanore.
Albert's face flushed red, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks."
"Are you going to be at the play tomorrow evening? I've heard it's going to be grand. The Apple of Discord, I believe it is," said Eleanore, leaning over the side of the phaeton.
"I am," Albert replied. "I'm going to be the narrator."
"The narrator, hmm?" Eleanore inquired. "How interesting. I'll make sure I'm watching for you."
"You won't miss me, I'll be front and center."
"Oh, I'm sure."
"Eleanore," Isabella said through her teeth, elbowing her friend. "Leave him alone."
Eleanore winked at Albert before sitting down properly in her seat. Isabella spoke up. "I've been reading my lines for the play my entire ride up. I think I can say them with my eyes closed."
"What role are you playing?" I asked.
Isabella replied with a smile, "Queen Helen."
With my realization, I beamed. "I'm Paris."
"If my knowledge of mythology is correct," Isabella began, "You get to woo me away from my husband because the gods promised me as your wife."
"Aphrodite did, because you are the most beautiful woman in the world," I stated.
A glowing smile crossed Isabella's face. "Thank you, Christina, that's quite the compliment."
As Isabella spoke, her dark brown eyes captured the spotted light of the forest. Her irises began to transform in color, turning into rich honey in the golden beams of Apollo. Her lips, curled into a sweet smile, were a soft cupid's-bow in a tender pink. The apples of her pale cheeks were delicately rosy. Her chocolate colored hair was carefully pulled away from her face and tucked under a feathered hat. "I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true." As soon as the words left my lips, my soul filled with the weight of regret.
Isabella's head cocked slightly to the side and her mouth opened in a playful expression. "Christina, you're too sweet. And very beautiful yourself."
After the Princess's words, I was left speechless and in a state of shock. Isabella's phaeton began to follow the other carriages back towards the exit of the forest towards the carriage house. With my mouth still gaped partially open, I rode Gladiator back through the speckled golden light of the forest, trotting over half-decayed leaves and wagon ruts from the days of the Tudors.
Subconsciously I led Gladiator out of the forest and towards the stables, but my mind still swarmed with thoughts. I could hear the hooves of Albert's steed on the cobblestones behind me, but I had no room to spare in my brain for thoughts of him. In my head the conversation I held with Isabella played over and over, like a book chapter that was pressed into my field of vision. I was forced to read it, over and over again. Her face was glued to me, every sweet smile that crossed her lips and every twinkle that met her eye. To say I was mesmerized by her was an understatement. Even as I put Gladiator away I still thought of her.
A voice pulled me out of my daydream as I was walking back to the palace. "Are you alright?" Without even turning I knew that the voice belonged to Albert.
"Yeah," I replied with a sigh. "I'm fine. But hey," I began shifting the attention away from myself. "Eleanore seemed into you."
"I'm not sure I like that," commented Albert. "She's not really my type."
"What, you're not into loud, flirtatious Spanish women?"
"Not really. She reminds me of Wilhelmina a bit."
"Oh, Jesus," I replied. "Don't let my father know about her then."
I went back inside and up to my apartments, where Pia was putting away my folded laundry. "There you are, I could smell you a mile away," she said with a smile as I began to take off my riding habit. "Now, imagine, this is what everyone on a farm smells like all of the time, every day. Well, except for Sunday. We all scrub up for the Lord. Papa goes first with the clean water, then Mama, then my older brother, then me, then my little brother, then my little sister, then my baby brother. By the time the baby got in the bath, that water was as dark as the bark of a pine."
"You'll have to take me to your farm, Pia," I said as she began to brush the tangles out of my hair.
"Maybe one day. My brother Hans is looking after Mama now. He gets the priest to write and transcribe his letters. It's rare to find country folks who can read. It's been much too long since I've ran along with the sheepdogs, tucking alpine roses in my hair, the blue snow capped mountains just beyond the horizon," Pia sighed. "I haven't seen those mountains in so long."
I glanced over at the mirror before me and saw Pia, a fatherless farmgirl tending to the needs of an Archduchess. Her hair was a pale strawberry blonde, and her face freckled from days in the sun. Her cornflower blue eyes were welled with tears. "Pia," I said, taking her hands in mine. "No matter how long it takes, I'm going to get you back to that farm. Even if it's under my personal funds when I'm married, I don't care. We're going to run with the sheepdogs and tuck flowers in our hair together."
Pia smiled and wiped the tears from her face. She collapsed into my arms in an embrace, sniffling into my shoulder. "Thank you, Christina! I  hope I'm your service forever."
I hugged Pia tightly. "I was hoping you would be. You'll be the Lady of the House in my own household, even if we cross oceans. Like Isabella and Eleanore."
"I'm no Countess," Pia said, her voice muffled against my shoulder.
"You very well should be. If you find a courtly love, I'll convince my Mama to let you marry whoever you wish. She'll bypass whatever your superiors downstairs say."
Pia hugged me so tightly that it nearly drew the breath from my lungs. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"Anything for you," I replied. "My eighth sister."
Pia continued thanking me into my shoulder as I held her in an embrace. But my mind still filled with the thoughts of the Spanish princess that came so suddenly into my life and greeted me so warmly. My brother's wife I so adored- a pawn of politics and a slave to her own reproductive organs. She was Schönbrunn's newest guest, and the center of attention. This was a rough court to go into, I knew. I only wished the best for the Parmigiano princess that now walked these halls.