Weighed In The Balance Part 33

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt; 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 her 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.s and of Felzburg's royal family. "All we need to know," he went on a little hoa.r.s.ely, "is if those were the pursuits of your time, and if the Prince and Princess had the relations.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sionately 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 s.h.i.+fting 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."

"How very proper-and English," she replied, but with a sudden tenderness in her voice. "You look exactly as if you would say such a thing, with your striped trousers and stiff, white collar, but perhaps you are right, for all that. Thank you, Sir Oliver. It has been most entertaining to know you." And with that she smiled more widely, with a warmth and radiance he had not seen in her before, and turned and left in a swirl of scarlet and russet skirts.

The room was darker without her. He wanted to go after her, but it would have been foolish. There was no place for him in her life.

Monk and Hester were at his elbow.

"Brilliant," Monk said dryly. "Another astounding victory-but Pyrrhic, this time. You will have lost more than you gained. Good thing you got your knighthood already. You'd not get it now."

"I don't need you to tell me that," Rathbone replied sourly. "I would not have done it, had not the alternative been even worse." But his mind was on Zorah, the br.i.m.m.i.n.g life in her, the recklessness and the courage. Perhaps honoring her was worth the cost and the sense of loss now.

Monk sighed. "How could such a love end like that? He gave up everything for her. His country, his people, his throne. How could the greatest love story of the century end in disillusion, hatred and murder?"

"It wasn't the greatest love," Hester answered him. "It was two people who needed what the other could give. She wanted power, position, wealth and fame. He seemed to want constant admiration, devotion, someone to be there all the time, to live his life for him. He hadn't the courage to stand without her. Love is brave and generous, and above all it springs from honor. In order to love someone else, you must first be true to yourself."

Rathbone looked at her and slowly his face creased into a smile.

Monk frowned. His eyes filled with intense dislike, then anger, then as he fought with himself, he lost the battle, and his body eased.

Deliberately, he put his arm around Hester.

"You are right," he said grudgingly. "You are pompous, opinionated and insufferable-but you are right."

On a sunless street deep in London's dangerous slums, a respected solicitor is found dead-and beside him lies the barely living body of his son.

BY ANNE PERRY.

Published by The Random House Publis.h.i.+ng GroupFEATURING WILLIAM MONKThe Face of a Stranger

A Dangerous Mourning

Defend and Betray

A Sudden, Fearful Death

The Sins of the Wolf

Cain His Brother

Weighed in the Balance