Weighed in the Balance

by Anne Perry

  If there was anything good in this, it was that there would be no question that there were abundant reasons for Friedrich’s murder, or the mischance which had killed Friedrich rather than Gisela. There were passions and issues involved which anyone could understand, perhaps even identify with.

  But it was far from enough to help Zorah yet. He must make it last as long as he could, and hope that in probing he unearthed something specific, something which pointed unarguably to someone else.

  He glanced to where she sat beside him, pale-faced but at least outwardly composed. He would be the only one who saw her hands clenched in her lap. He had never been aware of knowing so little of the true mind of a client. Of course, he had been duped before. He had been convinced of innocence, only to find the ugliest, most callous guilt.

  Was it so with Zorah Rostova?

  He looked at her now, at her turbulent face, so easily ugly or beautiful as the light or the mood caught it. He found her fascinating. He did not want her to be guilty, or even deluded. Perhaps that was part of her skill? She had made herself matter to him. He had not the faintest idea what was passing through her mind.

  He asked to recall Florent Barberini to the witness stand. The judge made no demur, and his single look in Harvester’s direction silenced any objection. The jury was sitting bolt upright, waiting for every word.

  “Mr. Barberini,” Rathbone began, walking slowly out onto the floor. “I formed the opinion from your previous testimony that you are aware of the political situation both in the German states and in Venice. Since you were on the stand before, many further facts have come to light which make the politics of the situation relevant to the death of Prince Friedrich and to our attempt to discover exactly who brought that about, either intentionally or in a tragic and criminal accident—when, in fact, they had meant to murder Princess Gisela instead …”

  There was a gasp around the room. Someone in the gallery stifled a scream.

  Gisela winced, and Harvester put out his hand as if to steady her, then, at the last moment, changed his mind. She was not an approachable woman. She sat as if an invisible cordon of isolation were wrapped around her. She seemed only peripherally aware of the drama playing itself out in the thronged room. She wore her grief more visibly than simply clothes of black, mourning jewelry or a black-veiled hat. She had retreated to some unreachable place within herself. Rathbone knew the jury was acutely sensitive to it. In a way, it was a louder proclamation of her injury than anyone else’s words could have been. Harvester had an ideal client.

  Zorah was at the opposite pole. She was full of turbulent color and energy, completely alien, challenging far too many of the assumptions upon which society rested its beliefs.

  Rathbone returned to Florent as the murmuring died down.

  “Mr. Barberini, the crux of this case hangs on the question of whether there was indeed a plan to ask Prince Friedrich to return to his country to lead a party to fight to retain its independence from any proposed unification into a greater Germany. Was there such a plan?”

  Florent did not hesitate or demur.

  “Yes.”

  There were a hundred gasps in the gallery. Even the judge tensed and moved forward a little, staring at Florent. Zorah let out a long sigh.

  Rathbone felt the relief flood through him like a blast of warmth after an icy journey. He did not mean to smile, but he could not help it. He found his hands shaking, and for a moment he could not move, his legs were weak.

  “And …” He cleared his throat. “And who was involved in this concern?”

  “Count Lansdorff principally,” Florent replied. “Assisted by the Baroness von Arlsbach and myself.”

  “Whose idea was it?”

  This time Florent did hesitate.

  “If that is politically compromising,” Rathbone interjected, “or if honor forbids you to mention names, may I ask you if you believe the Queen would have approved your cause?”

  Florent smiled. He was extraordinarily handsome. “She would have approved Friedrich’s return to lead the party for independence,” he replied. “Providing it met with her terms, which were absolute.”

  “Are you aware what they were?”

  “Naturally. I would not be party to negotiating any arrangement which did not meet with her approval.” His face relaxed into a kind of black humor. “Apart from any loyalty to her, no such plan could work.”

  Rathbone relaxed a little as well, giving a slight shrug. “I assume the Queen is a woman of great power?”

  “Very great,” Florent agreed. “Both political and personal.”

  “And what were her terms, Mr. Barberini?”

  Florent answered intently, with no pause, no consciousness of the jury, the judge or the gallery listening.

  “That he come alone,” he said. “She would not tolerate the Princess Gisela’s coming with him as his wife. She was to remain in exile and be put from him.”

  There was a gasp around the court and a sigh of exhaled breath.

  Gisela lifted her head a little and closed her eyes, refusing to look at anyone.

  Harvester’s face was grim, but there was nothing for him to say. There was no legal objection.

  Zorah remained expressionless.

  Rathbone was again obliged to break all his own rules. He must ask a crucial question to which he did not know the answer, but there was no alternative open to him.

  “And were these terms made known to him, Mr. Barberini?”

  “They were.”

  Again there was a rustle from the crowd, and someone hissed disapproval.

  “Are you certain of that?” Rathbone pressed. “Were you present?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And what was Prince Friedrich’s answer?”

  The silence prickled the air. A man in the very last seat in the gallery moved, and the squeak of his boots was audible from where Rathbone stood.

  The bleakest of smiles flickered over Florent’s face and disappeared.

  “He did not answer.”

  Rathbone felt the sweat break out on his skin.

  “Not at all?”

  “He argued,” Florent elaborated. “He asked a great many questions. But the accident happened before the discussions were concluded irrevocably.”

  “So he did not refuse outright?” Rathbone demanded, his voice rising in spite of his efforts to control it.

  “No, he put forward his own counterproposals.”

  “Which were?”

  “That he should come and bring Gisela with him.” Unconsciously, Florent omitted the courtesy title of Princess, betraying his thoughts of her. To him she would always be a commoner.

  “And did Count Lansdorff accept that?” Rathbone asked.

  “No.” It was said without hesitation.

  Rathbone raised his eyebrows. “It was not open to negotiation?”

  “No, it was not.”

  “Do you know why? If the Queen, and the Count Lansdorff, feel as passionately about the freedoms of which you spoke, and if those who would form any political fighting force do also, surely the acceptance of Princess Gisela as Friedrich’s wife is a small price to pay for his return as leader? He could rally the forces as no one else could. He is the King’s eldest son, the natural heir to the throne, the natural leader.”

  Harvester did rise this time.

  “My lord, Mr. Barberini is not competent to answer such a question—unless he makes some claim to speak for the Queen, and can demonstrate such authority.”

  “Sir Oliver”—the judge leaned forward—“do you propose to call Count Lansdorff to the stand? You cannot have Mr. Barberini answer for him. Such an answer will be hearsay, as you know.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Rathbone replied gravely. “With your lordship’s permission, I shall call Count Lansdorff to the stand. His aide informed me he is reluctant to appear, which is understandable, but I think Mr. Barberini’s evidence has given us no choice in the matter. Reputations, and perhaps lives, depe
nd upon our knowing the truth.”

  Harvester looked unhappy, but to object would make it appear that he believed Gisela could not afford the truth, and that was tantamount to defeat, in public opinion if not in law. And by now the law was only a small part of the issue. It hardly mattered what could be proved to a jury; it was what people believed.

  The court adjourned for the night in a bedlam of noise. Newspapermen scrambled over each other, even knocking aside ordinary pedestrians, to make their way outside and clamber into hansoms, shouting the names of their newspapers and demanding to be taken there immediately. No one any longer knew what to think. Who was innocent? Who was guilty?

  Rathbone took Zorah by the arm and hurried her, half pushing her bodily, past the front row of public seats, towards the door and out into the corridor. Then he paced as rapidly as he could towards a private room and a discreet exit. Only afterwards was he surprised that she could keep up with him.

  He expected her to be exultant, but when he turned to face her he saw only a calm, guarded courage. He was confused.

  “Is this not what you thought?” he said, then instantly wished he had not, but it was too late not to go on. “That Friedrich was invited home on condition he left her behind, and she was so afraid he would take the offer, she killed him rather than be put aside? It does begin to look conceivable that someone in her sympathy may have done it for her. Or that she may have connived with someone, each for his own purpose.”

  Her eyes filled with black humor, part self-mockery, part anger, part derision.

  “Gisela and Klaus?” she said contemptuously. “She to keep her status as one of the world’s great lovers, he to avoid a war and his own financial loss? Never! If I saw it with my own eyes I still wouldn’t believe it.”

  He was dumbfounded. She was impossible.

  “Then you have nothing!” He was almost shouting. “Klaus alone? Because she didn’t do it … that has been proved! Is that what you want … or are you trying to bring down the Queen for murder?”

  She burst into laughter, rich, deep-throated and totally sincere.

  He could happily have hit her, were such a thing even thinkable.

  “No,” she said, controlling herself with difficulty. “No, I do not want to bring down the Queen. Nor could I. She didn’t have anything to do with it. If she wanted Gisela dead she would have done it years ago, and done it more efficiently than this! Not that I think she mourns Friedrich’s death as she might have thirteen or fourteen years ago. I think in her mind he has been dead since he chose Gisela before his duty and his people.”

  “Count Lansdorff?” he asked.

  “No. I like you, Sir Oliver.” She seemed to say it simply because it occurred to her. “She killed him,” she went on. “Gisela killed him.”

  “No, she didn’t!” He was totally exasperated with her. “She is the only person who could not have. Haven’t you listened to the evidence at all?”

  “Yes,” she assured him. “I just don’t believe it.”

  And he could achieve nothing more with her. He gave up, and went home in a furious temper.

  * * *

  In the morning, Count Rolf Lansdorff took the stand. He did so grimly, but without protest. To show his displeasure would have been beneath the dignity of a man who was not only a soldier and a statesman, but brother to the most formidable queen in the German states, if not in Europe. Looking at him as he stood upright, head high, shoulders back, eyes level and direct, one was not likely to mistake him.

  “Count Lansdorff,” Rathbone began with the utmost politeness. The man was already an enemy, simply by the act of Rathbone’s having called him to stand witness and be questioned like a common man. He did not know whether it was a mitigating circumstance, or one which added to the offense, that it had not happened in the Count’s own country. It was not the law which had compelled him to be here, but the necessity of answering public opinion, of defending himself, and then his dynasty, before the bar of Europe’s history.

  Rolf was listening.

  “Mr. Barberini has told us that while you were at Wellborough Hall this spring you met a number of times with the late Prince Friedrich,” Rathbone began again, “in order to discuss the possibility of his returning to his country to lead a fight to retain independence, rather than be swallowed up in a unified Germany. Is this substantially correct?”

  Rolf’s muscles tightened even more until he was standing rigid, like a soldier on parade in front of a general.

  “It is …” he conceded. “Substantially.”

  “Are there details in which it is … inadequate or misleading?” Rathbone kept his tone almost casual.

  There was not a sound in the room.

  He turned and took a step or two, as though thinking.

  Gisela sat with an expressionless face. Rathbone was startled how strong it was in repose, how pronounced the bones. There was no softness in her mouth, no vulnerability. He wondered what inner despair filled her that she could look so impervious to what was going on around her. It seemed as if truly, now that Friedrich was dead, nothing could touch her. Perhaps it was only for his sake, for his memory, that she had brought this action at all.

  Rolf’s lips closed in a thin, delicate line. He took a deep breath. His expression was one as of a man biting into something that had turned sour.

  “The offer was conditional, not absolute,” he replied.

  “Upon what, Count Lansdorff?”

  “That is a political matter, and a family matter, both of delicacy and confidentiality,” Rolf replied coolly. “It would be crass to discuss it in public, and extremely insensitive.”

  “I am aware of that, sir,” Rathbone said gravely. “And we all regret that it should be necessary … absolutely necessary, in order that justice should prevail. If it is any service in sparing your feelings, may I ask you if the condition was that Prince Friedrich should divorce his wife and return alone?”

  Rolf’s face tightened till the light shone on the smooth planes of his cheeks and brow and his nose seemed like a blade.

  The judge looked deeply unhappy. It occurred to Rathbone with a jolt that doubtless the Lord Chancellor had sent a word of warning to him, too.

  “That was the condition,” Rolf said icily.

  “And did you have hopes that he would meet it?” Rathbone pressed relentlessly.

  Rolf was startled. It was obviously not the question he had expected. It took him an instant to collect his thoughts and reply.

  “I had hoped that I would be able to prevail upon whatever sense of honor he had left, sir.” He did not look at Rathbone but at some point on the wooden paneling in the wall far above the lawyer’s head.

  “Had he given you indication of that before you came to England, Count Lansdorff? Or was there some other circumstance or event which led you to believe that he had changed his mind since his original abdication?” Rathbone pursued.

  Rolf still stood like a soldier on parade, but now one who heard the steps of the firing squad come to a halt.

  “Sometimes one’s obsession with love subsides into something of better proportion with time,” he replied with intense dislike. “I had hoped that when Friedrich learned of his country’s need, he would set aside his personal feelings and follow the duty for which he was born and groomed, and whose privileges he was happy to accept for the first thirty years of his life.”

  “It would be a great sacrifice …” Rathbone said tentatively.

  Rolf glared at him. “All men make sacrifices for their country, sir! Does any Englishman whom you respect answer the call to arms by saying he would rather remain at home with his wife?” His voice almost choked it was so thick with disgust. “Damn the invader or the foreign army which would trample his land! Let someone else fight him. He would rather dance in Venice and float around in a gondola making love to some woman! Would you admire such a man, sir?”

  “No, I would not,” Rathbone replied with a sudden sense of the shame which burned in th
e man in front of him. Friedrich was not only his prince but his sister’s son, his own blood. And Rathbone had forced him to this conclusion in front of a courtroom of ordinary people of the street—a foreign street at that. “Did you put this to him at Wellborough Hall, Count Lansdorff?”

  “I did.”

  “And his reply?”

  “That if we needed him so profoundly in order to fight to retain our independence, then we should make the allowance and accept that woman as his wife.”

  There was a wave of emotion around the room like the backwash of a tide.

  For once Gisela too reacted. She winced as if she had been threatened with a blow to the face.

  “And considering how much might ride on his return, were you willing to accept those terms?” Rathbone asked in the silence.

  Rolf’s chin rose a fraction. “No sir, we were not.”

  There was a sigh across the gallery.

  “You say ’we,’ ” Rathbone said. “Who else do you mean, Count Lansdorff?”

  “Those of us who believe the best future for our country lies in our continued independence and the laws and privileges which we presently enjoy,” Rolf answered. “Those who believe that the alliance with other German states, in particular Prussia or Austria, will be a step back into a darker and more repressive age.”

  “And have they declined you as their leader?” Rathbone inquired.

  Rolf looked at him as if he had spoken in an unintelligible language.

  Rathbone moved a little across the floor, to command his attention again.

  “Is your sister, Queen Ulrike, of that conviction, Count Lansdorff?”

  “She is.”

  “And your nephew, Crown Prince Waldo?”

  Rolf’s face remained almost expressionless, only an increased rigidity in his shoulders betraying his feelings.

  “He is not.”

  “Naturally, or he would lead the party and Friedrich’s return would not be necessary. I understand the health of His Majesty the King gives cause for great concern?”

  “The King is extremely ill. He is failing,” Rolf agreed.

  Rathbone turned again, facing slightly the other way.