Weighed in the Balance

by Anne Perry

  There was silence in the court, a tension palpable in the air.

  “And the rest of the evening?” Rathbone prompted after a moment.

  “We continued drinking, playing games, laughing and making risqué jokes and cruel remarks about people we knew, or thought we did, and went to bed at about four in the morning,” Zorah answered. “Some of us went to our own beds, some of us didn’t.”

  There was a growing rumble of disapproval from the gallery and looks of discomfort in the jury box. They did not like having their betters spoken of in such terms; even if some accepted it was true, they preferred not to be forced to acknowledge it. Others looked genuinely shocked.

  “And that was a typical day?” Rathbone said wearily.

  “Yes.”

  “There were many like that?”

  “They were almost all like that, give or take a detail or two,” she replied, still standing very upright, her head high in spite of having to look slightly down to the body of the court. “We ate and drank, we rode on horseback or in carriages or gigs. We raced a little. We had picnics and parties. We played croquet. The men shot birds. We rowed on the river once or twice. We walked in the woods or the garden. If it was wet, or cold, we talked or played the piano, or read books, or looked at pictures. The men played cards or billiards, or smoked. And, of course, they gambled on anything and everything—who would win at cards, or which servant would answer a bell. In the evenings, we had musical entertainment, or theatricals, or played games.”

  “And Friedrich and Gisela were always as devoted as you have described?”

  “Always.”

  Harvester rose to his feet. “My lord, this is intrusive, unproven and still totally irrelevant.”

  Rathbone ignored him and hurried on, speaking over the other lawyer’s protest, almost shouting him down.

  “Countess Rostova, after the accident, did you ever visit Prince Friedrich in his rooms?”

  “Once.”

  “Would you describe the room for us, please?”

  “My lord!” Harvester was shouting now as well.

  “It is relevant, my lord,” Rathbone said even more loudly. “I assure the court, it is critical.”

  The judge banged his gavel and was ignored.

  “My lord!” Harvester would not be hushed. He was now on his feet and facing Rathbone in front of the bench. “This witness has already been impugned by circumstances. Her own interest in the matter is the issue before us. Nothing she says she saw—”

  “You cannot impugn it before it is said!” Rathbone cried furiously. “She must be allowed to defend herself—”

  “Not by—” Harvester protested.

  The judge held up his hands. “Be silent!” he roared.

  They both stopped.

  “Mr. Rathbone,” the judge said, resuming a normal tone. “I hope you are not about to add a further slander to your client’s already perilous situation.”

  “No, my lord, I am not,” Rathbone said vehemently. “Countess Rostova will not say anything which cannot be substantiated by other witnesses.”

  “Then her evidence is not the urgent matter you stated,” Harvester said triumphantly. “If other witnesses can say the same thing, why did you not have them do so?”

  “Please sit down, Mr. Harvester,” the judge requested firmly. “Countess Rostova will continue with her evidence. You will have the opportunity to question her when Sir Oliver has finished. If she makes any remarks detrimental to your client’s interests, you have the recourse which you are presently taking. Proceed, Sir Oliver. But do not waste our time, and please do not push us to make moral judgments of issues other than the death of Prince Friedrich and whether your client can substantiate the terrible charge she has made. That is your sole remit here. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, my lord. Countess Rostova, will you please describe Prince Friedrich’s bedroom and the suite of rooms he and Princess Gisela occupied during his illness at Wellborough Hall?”

  There was a whispering of consternation and disappointment from the crowd. They had expected something far more titillating.

  Even Zorah looked a little puzzled, but she began obediently.

  “They had a bedroom, dressing room and sitting room. And, of course, they had the private use of a bathroom and water closet, which I did not see. Nor did I see the dressing room.” She looked at Rathbone to know if this was what he wished.

  “Would you describe the sitting room and bedroom, please.” He nodded to her.

  Harvester was growing impatient, and even the judge was beginning to lose his tolerance. The jury were clearly lost. Suddenly the proceedings had degenerated from high tension to total banality.

  Zorah blinked. “The sitting room was quite large. It had two bay windows, facing west, I think, over the knot garden.”

  “My lord!” Harvester had risen to his feet again. “This cannot possibly be of any relevance whatsoever. Is my learned friend going to suggest that Princess Gisela somehow climbed out of the sitting room window and down the wall to the yew walk? This is becoming absurd, and it is an abuse of the court’s time and intelligence.”

  “It is precisely because I respect the court’s intelligence that I do not wish to lead the witness, my lord,” Rathbone said desperately. “She does not know which piece of her observation pertains to and explains the whole crime. And as far as time is concerned, we would waste a lot less of it if Mr. Harvester did not keep interrupting me!”

  “I will allow you another fifteen minutes, Sir Oliver,” the judge warned. “If you have not reached some point of relevance by then, I shall entertain Mr. Harvester’s objections.” He turned to Zorah. “Please make your description as brief as possible, Countess Rostova. Pray continue.”

  Zorah was quite obviously as confused as everyone else.

  “The carpet was French, at least in design, of a variety of shades of wine and pink, as were the curtains. There were several seats, I do not recall how many, all upholstered in matching fabric. There was a small walnut table in the center of the floor, and a sort of bureau over by the farther wall. I don’t remember anything else.”

  “Flowers?” Rathbone asked.

  Harvester let out a very clearly audible snort of disgust.

  “Yes,” Zorah replied with a frown. “Lily of the valley. They were Gisela’s favorite. She always had them when they were in season. In Venice she had them forced, so she could have them even in late winter.”

  “Lily of the valley,” Rathbone repeated. “A bunch of lily of the valley? In a vase? A vase full of water?”

  “Of course. If they were not in water they would very quickly have died. They were not in a pot, if that is what you mean. They were cut from the conservatory, and the gardener had them sent up for her.”

  “Thank you, Countess Rostova, that is sufficient description.”

  There was a gasp of amazement around the room, like the backwash of a tide after a great wave has broken. People looked at each other in disbelief.

  The jurors looked at Zorah, then at the judge, then at Harvester.

  “That is supposed to be relevant?” Harvester said, his voice rising sharply.

  Rathbone smiled and turned back to Zorah.

  “Countess, it has been suggested that you were jealous of the Princess because she replaced you twelve years ago in Prince Friedrich’s affections, and you have chosen this bizarre way of seeking your revenge. Are you jealous of her because it was she who married him and not you?”

  A succession of emotions crossed Zorah’s face—denial, contempt, a bleak and bitter amusement; then suddenly and startlingly, pity.

  “No,” she said very softly. “There is nothing in heaven or earth that would persuade me to change places with her. She was suffocated by him, trapped forever in the legend she had created. To the world they were great lovers, magical people who had achieved what so many of us dream of and long for. She was the reality. It was Antony and Cleopatra without the asp. That was what gave h
er her fame, her status. It defined who she was, without it she was no one, a sham. No matter how he depended upon her, or clung to her, or drained the life from her, she could never leave him, never even seem to lose her temper with him. She had built an image for herself and she was imprisoned within it forever, being sucked dry, having to smile, to act all the time. I didn’t understand that look on her face at the top of the stairs at the time. I knew she hated him, but I did not understand why.

  “Then yesterday evening I was speaking with someone, and quite suddenly I saw Gisela trapped forever playing the role she had created so brilliantly, and I knew why she broke out of it the way only she could. She was a cold, ambitious woman, prepared to use a man’s love in any way she could, but I could not have wished that living incarceration on anyone. At least … I don’t think I could…. After all, the accident crippled him. He would never again be active, a companion to her. It was the last window of her cell in a final and utter imprisonment with him.”

  There was silence in the room. No one spoke. Nothing moved.

  “Thank you, Countess,” Rathbone said softly. “I have no more to ask you.”

  Then the spell broke, and there was a low rumble of dismay turning to rage, almost a violence of confusion, the pain of breaking dreams.

  Harvester spoke to Gisela, who did not answer. Then he rose. “Countess Rostova, has anyone at all—other than yourself, so you say—noticed this profound terror and despair in one of the world’s most beloved and fortunate women? Or are you utterly alone in your extraordinary perception?”

  “I have no idea,” Zorah replied, keeping her voice level and her eyes steady on his face.

  “But no one has ever, at any time, given you the slightest indication that he or she saw through the constant, twelve-yearlong, day-and-night, fair-weather-and-foul, public and private happiness and love to this tragedy you say was beneath it?” His tone was heavily sarcastic. He did not sink to melodrama, but his voice would have cut flesh.

  “No …” she admitted.

  “So we have only your word for it, your brilliant, incisive sight, which, now you are in the witness stand, morally in the dock, accused and desperate yourself, has shown you, and you alone, this incredible fact?”

  She met his gaze without flinching, a very faint smile curling her lips.

  “I am the first, Mr. Harvester. I shall be the only one for a very short time. If I can see what you cannot, that is because I have two advantages over you; I have known Gisela far longer than you have, and I am a woman, which means I can read other women as you never will. Does that answer your question?”

  “Whether others follow eventually, Countess, remains to be seen,” he said coldly. “Here, today, you stand alone. Thank you … if not for truth, at least for a most original invention.”

  The judge looked at Rathbone inquiringly.

  “No more questions, thank you, my lord,” he answered.

  Zorah was excused and returned to her seat.

  “I should like to recall Lady Wellborough, if your lordship pleases,” Rathbone continued.

  Emma Wellborough came from the body of the court, looking pale, startled, and now considerably frightened.

  “Lady Wellborough,” Rathbone began, “you have been present during Countess Rostova’s testimony …”

  She nodded, then realized that was inadequate and replied in a shaking voice.

  “Her description of events in your home, prior to Prince Friedrich’s accident, is it substantially true? Is that how you conducted your lives, how you spent your days?”

  “Yes,” she said very softly. “It … it didn’t seem as … as trivial as she made it sound … as … pointless. We were not really … so … drunken …” Her voice trailed off.

  “We are not making judgments,” Rathbone said, and then he knew it was a lie. Everyone in the room was making judgments, not only of her but of all her class and of Felzburg’s royal family. “All we need to know,” he went on a little hoarsely, “is if those were the pursuits of your time, and if the Prince and Princess had the relationship of closeness Countess Rostova described, forever together, largely at his insistence. She tried to break away, find herself a little time alone or with other company, but he was always there, clinging, demanding?”

  She looked bewildered and profoundly unhappy. Had he taken her too far?

  She hesitated so long he felt his heart beating, his pulse racing. It was like playing a fish on a line. Even at the last moment he could still lose.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “I used to envy her. I saw it as the greatest love story in the world, what every girl dreams of …” She gave a jerking little laugh that ended almost in a choke. “A handsome prince, and Friedrich was so very handsome … such marvelous eyes, and a beautiful voice … a handsome prince who would fall passionately in love with you, be prepared to lose the world for your sake, just so long as you loved him.” Her eyes were full of tears. “Then sail away and live happily ever after in somewhere as marvelous as Venice. I never thought of it as a prison, as never being free, or even alone again …” She stopped, some dark inner thought overwhelming her. “How … terrible!”

  Harvester had risen to his feet, but he did not interrupt. He sat down again in silence.

  “Lady Wellborough,” Rathbone said after a moment, “the description Countess Rostova gave of the room where Friedrich and Gisela stayed in your home, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see the flowers there yourself?”

  “You mean the lily of the valley? Yes, she requested them. Why?”

  “That is all, thank you. Unless Mr. Harvester has any questions for you, you may go.”

  “No …” Harvester shook his head. “No, not at this time.”

  “My lord, I call Dr. John Rainsford. He is my final witness.”

  Dr. Rainsford was a young man with fair hair and the strong intelligent face of an enthusiast. At Rathbone’s request, he gave his considerable qualifications as a physician and toxicologist.

  “Dr. Rainsford,” Rathbone began, “if a patient presented symptoms of headache, hallucinations, cold clammy skin, pain in the stomach, nausea, a slowing heartbeat, drifting into coma, and then death, what would you diagnose?”

  “Any of a number of things,” Rainsford replied. “I should require a history of the patient, any accidents, what he or she had eaten lately.”

  “If the pupils of the eyes were dilated?” Rathbone added.

  “I would suspect poison.”

  “By the leaves or the bark of the yew tree, possibly?”

  “Very possibly.”

  “And if the patient had blotches on his skin?”

  “Oh … that is not yew. That sounds more like lily of the valley—”

  There was a hiss of breath around the entire court. The judge leaned forward, his face tense, eyes wide. The jurors sat bolt upright. Harvester broke his pencil with the unconscious tension of his hands.

  “Lily of the valley?” Rathbone said carefully. “Is that poisonous?”

  “Oh, yes, as poisonous as anything in the world,” Rainsford said seriously. “As poisonous as yew, hemlock or deadly nightshade. All of it—the flowers, the leaves, the bulbs. Even the water in which the cut flowers stand is lethal. It causes exactly the symptoms you describe.”

  “I see. Thank you, Dr. Rainsford. Would you remain there in case Mr. Harvester has anything to ask you.”

  Harvester stood up, drew in a deep breath, and then shook his head and sat down again. He looked ill.

  The jury retired and was absent for only twenty minutes.

  “We find in favor of the defendant, Countess Zorah Rostova,” the foreman announced with a pale, sad face. He looked at the judge first, to see if he had fulfilled his duty, then at Rathbone with a calm, grave dislike. Then he sat down.

  There was no cheering in the gallery. Perhaps they did not know what they had expected, but it was not this. It left them unhappy—with truth, but no victory.
Too many dreams were soiled and broken forever.

  Rathbone turned to Zorah.

  “You were right, she did murder him,” he said with a sigh. “What will happen to the fight to keep independence now? Will they find a new leader?”

  “Brigitte,” she answered. “She is well loved, and she has the courage, and the belief, and the dedication to her country. Rolf and the Queen will be behind her.”

  “But when the King dies, Waldo will succeed him. Then Ulrike will have far less power,” Rathbone pointed out.

  Zorah smiled. “Don’t believe it! Ulrike will always have power. The only one who is remotely a match for her is Brigitte, in her own way. They are on the same side, but unification will come; it is simply a matter of when and how.”

  She rose to her feet amid the shifting and muttering of the crowd as they moved to leave. “Thank you, Sir Oliver. I fear my defense has cost you dearly. You will not be loved for what you have done. You have shown people too much of what they would prefer not to have known. You have made the wealthy and the privileged see themselves, however briefly, a great deal more clearly than they wished to, parts of themselves they would have preferred to ignore.

  “And you have disturbed the dreams of ordinary people who like, even need, to see us as wiser and better than we are. In future it will be harder for them to look on our wealth and idleness and bear it with equanimity—and they have to do that, because too many are dependent upon us, one way or another. And neither will we forgive them for having seen our faults.”

  Her face tightened. “I think perhaps I should not have spoken. Maybe it would have been better if I had allowed her to get away with it. It might have done less harm in the end.”

  “Don’t say that!” He clasped her arm.

  “Because it was a hard battle?” She smiled. “And we paid too much to win? That had nothing to do with it, Sir Oliver. How much it costs has nothing to do with how much it is worth.”

  “I know that. I meant don’t believe that it is better to allow a helpless man to be murdered by the person he trusted above all others, and for it to go unquestioned. The day we accept that, because it will be uncomfortable to look at the truth it exposes, we have lost all that makes us worth respecting.”