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“Either Rolf, the Queen’s brother, or possibly Brigitte,” he replied. “They both had excellent reason. She was the one thing standing between Friedrich and his return home to lead the independence party. He wouldn’t have gone without her, and the Queen would not have had her back.”
“Why not?” she said immediately. “If she was so determined to fight for independence, why not have Gisela back? She might dislike her, but that’s absurd. Queens don’t murder people just out of dislike—not these days. And you’ll never get a jury to believe that. It’s preposterous.”
“An heir,” Monk replied tersely. “If he put Gisela aside … or she was dead, he could marry again, preferably to a woman from a rich and popular family who would unite the country, give him children, and strengthen the royal house rather than weaken it. I don’t know—maybe she has designs on the throne of all Germany. She has the gall—”
“Oh …” Hester fell silent, the magnitude of it suddenly striking her. She turned to Rathbone, her face furrowed with anxiety. Unconsciously, she moved a little closer to him, as if to support or protect. Then she lifted her chin and stared at Monk. “How has Zorah got caught up in it? Did she stumble on the plot?”
“Don’t be fatuous,” Monk said crossly. “She’s a patriot, all for independence. She was probably part of it.”
“Oh, I’m sure!” Now Hester was sarcastic. “That’s why when it all went wrong and Friedrich died instead, she started to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that it was murder, not natural death, as everyone had been quite happy to believe until then. She wants to commit suicide but hasn’t the nerve to pull the trigger herself. Or has she changed sides, and now she wants the whole thing exposed?” Her eyebrows rose. Her voice was growing harsher with every word, carrying her own pain. “Or better still—she’s a double agent. She’s changed sides. Now she wants to ruin the independence party by committing a murder in their name and then being hanged for it.”
Monk looked at her with intense dislike.
Rathbone turned sharply, an idea bursting in his mind.
“Perhaps that is not so lunatic as it sounds,” he said with urgency. “Perhaps it did all go wrong. Perhaps that is why Zorah is making a charge she knows she cannot prove. To force an examination of the whole affair so the truth can come out, and perhaps she is now prepared to sacrifice herself for it, if she believes it is for her country.” He was talking more and more rapidly. “Maybe she sees a fight for independence as a battle that cannot be won but can only lead to war, destruction, terrible loss of life, and in the end assimilation not as an ally but as a beaten rebel, to be subjugated, and her own customs and culture wiped out.” The idea seemed cleaner and more rational with every moment. “Isn’t she the sort of idealist who might do exactly that?” He stared at Monk, demanding the answer from him.
“Why?” Monk said slowly. “Friedrich is dead. He can’t go back now, whatever happens. If she, or one of the unification party, murdered him to prevent him going back, she has accomplished her aim. Why this? Why not simply accept victory?”
“Because someone else could take up the torch,” Rathbone replied. “There must be someone else, not as good, maybe, but adequate. This could discredit the party for as long as matters. By the time a new party can be forged and the disgrace overcome, unification could be a fait accompli.”
Hester looked from one to the other of them. “But was he going back?”
Rathbone looked at Monk. “Was he?”
“I don’t know.” He faced the two of them, standing unconsciously close together—and, incidentally, entirely blocking the fire. “But if you are even remotely close to the truth, then if you do your job with competence, let alone skill, it will emerge. Someone, perhaps Zorah herself, will make certain it does.”
But Rathbone was far from comforted when he entered court the next day. If Zorah were harboring some secret knowledge which would bring about her purposes, whatever they were, there was no sign of it in her pale, set face.
Zorah had taken her seat, but Rathbone was still standing a few yards from the table when Harvester approached him. When he was not actually in front of a jury his face was more benign. In fact, had Rathbone not known better, he would have judged it quite mild, the leanness of bone simply a trick of nature.
“Morning, Sir Oliver,” he said quietly. “Still in for the fight?” It was not a challenge, rather more a commiseration.
“Good morning,” Rathbone replied. He forced himself to smile. “Isn’t over yet.”
“Yes, it is.” Harvester shook his head, smiling back. “I’ll stand you the best dinner in London afterwards. What the devil possessed you to take such a case?” He walked away to his own seat, and a moment later Gisela came in wearing a different but equally exquisite black dress with tiered skirts and tight bodice, fur trim at the throat and wrists. Not once did she glance towards Zorah. She might not have known who she was for any sign of recognition in her totally impassive face.
The shadow of a smile flickered across Zorah’s mouth and disappeared.
The judge brought the court to order.
Harvester rose and called his first witness, the Baroness Evelyn von Seidlitz. She took the stand gracefully in a swish of decorous pewter-gray skirts trimmed with black. She managed to look as if she were decently serious, not quite in mourning, and yet utterly feminine. It was a great skill to offend no one and yet be anything but colorless or self-effacing. Rathbone thought she was quite lovely, and was very soon aware that every juror in the box thought so too. He could see it written plainly in their faces as they watched her, listening to and believing every word.
She told how she too had heard the accusation repeated as far away as both Venice and Felzburg.
Harvester did not press the issue of reaction in Venice, except that it was at times given a certain credence. Not everyone dismissed it as nonsense. He proceeded quite quickly to reactions in Felzburg.
“Of course it was repeated,” Evelyn said, looking at him with wide, lovely eyes. “A piece of gossip like that is not going to be buried.”
“Naturally,” Harvester agreed wryly. “When it was repeated, Baroness, with what emotion was it said? Did anyone, for example, consider for an instant that it could be true?” He caught Rathbone’s movement out of the corner of his eye and smiled thinly. “Perhaps I had better phrase that a little differently. Did you hear anyone express a belief that the accusation was true, or see anyone behave in such a manner as to make it apparent that they did?”
Evelyn looked very grave. “I heard a number of people greet it with relish and then repeat it to others in a less speculative way, as if it were not slander but a fact. Stories grow in the telling, especially if the people concerned are enemies. And the Princess’s enemies have certainly received great pleasure from all this.”
“You are speaking of people in Felzburg, Baroness?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But the Princess has not lived in Felzburg for over twelve years and is hardly likely ever to do so again,” Harvester pointed out.
