A reader meets Archduchess Marianne after three days of unconsciousness. The worst is over. She is weak, but no longer in danger. No one could possibly expect her to embark on an investigation — in fact, there is no case yet. Barely recovered from her ordeal, she is resting in her bedroom and simply trying to reorient herself in the world.
This chapter contributes little to the plot, yet it is essential for understanding the network of ancestors and cognates, both living and deceased, to whom Marianne belonged. Hopefully, it gives the reader a clearer sense of the structure of the Habsburg family at the time. While the name of Empress Maria Theresa is quite familiar to English-speaking audiences, far less is generally known about the other living members of the dynasty — or about their recently deceased predecessors, whose memory still lingered.
Fortunately, April offered enough examples to illustrate Marianne’s place in the chain of generations. Another similarly ‘crowded’ month in the family calendar seems to have been December, with three Imperial deaths (both of Marianne’s grandmothers and her young maternal aunt) as well as three births (the Emperor and his brother — Marianne’s uncle — and baby Max, her youngest brother).
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