William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

strong, rather square chin. “At first we thought he was getting better. It is very difficult for even the best doctor to tell how serious an internal injury may be. Then suddenly he relapsed … and within hours he was dead.”
    She stood absolutely immobile, her face a mask of hopelessness. She did not weep. She looked as if she were already exhausted by grief and had nothing left inside her but endless, gray pain, and ahead only an untold number of years of loneliness which no one could reach.
    Harvester allowed the court to sense her tragedy, her utter bereavement, before he continued.
    “And the doctor said the cause of death was his internal injuries?” he said very gently.
    “Yes.”
    “After the funeral you returned to Venice, to the home you had shared with him?”
    “Yes.”
    “How did you hear of the Countess Rostova’s extraordinary charge?”
    She lifted her chin a little. Rathbone stared at her. It was a remarkable face; there was a unique serenity in it. She had been devastated by tragedy, and yet the longer he looked, the less did he see vulnerability in the line of her lips or the way she held herself. There was something in her which seemed almost untouchable.
    “First, Lady Wellborough wrote and told me,” she answered Harvester. “Then other people also wrote. To begin with I assumed it was merely an aberration, perhaps spoken when … I do not wish to be uncharitable … but I have been left no choice … when she had taken too much wine.”
    “What motive can you imagine Countess Rostova having to say such a thing?” Harvester asked with wide eyes.
    “I should prefer not to answer that,” Gisela said with icy dignity. “Her reputation is well-known to many. I am not interested in it.”
    Harvester did not pursue the point further. “And how did you feel when you heard of this, ma’am?”
    She closed her eyes. “I had not thought after the loss of my beloved husband that life could offer me any blow which I should even feel,” she said very softly. “Zorah Rostova taught me my mistake. The pain of it was almost beyond bearing. My love for my husband was the core of my life. That anyone should blaspheme it in such a way is … beyond my ability to express.”
    She hesitated a moment. Throughout the room there was utter silence. Not one person looked away from her face, nordid they seem to consider the word
blaspheme
out of place. “I shall prefer to not, and indeed I cannot, speak of it if I am to retain my composure, sir,” she said at last. “I will testify in this court, as I must, but I will not display my grief or my pain to be a spectacle for my enemies, or even for those who wish me well. It is indecent to ask it of me … of any woman. Permit me to mask my distress, sir.”
    “Of course, ma’am.” Harvester bowed very slightly. “You have said quite enough for us to have no doubt as to the justice of your cause. We cannot ease your grief, but we offer you our sincerest sympathies and all the redress that English law allows.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “If you will remain there, ma’am, it is conceivable Sir Oliver may have some questions to ask you, although I cannot imagine what.”
    Rathbone rose. He could feel the hatred of the court like electricity in the air, crackling, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. If he even remotely slighted her, was less than utterly sympathetic, he could ruin his own cause far more effectively than anything Harvester could achieve.
    He faced Gisela’s steady, dark blue eyes and found them oddly unnerving. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of grief, but there was something dead about her gaze.
    “You must have been stunned by such a devastating accusation, ma’am?” he said deferentially, trying not to sound too unctuous.
    “Yes.” She did not elaborate.
    He stood in the center of the floor looking up at her.
    “I imagine you were not in the best of health after the shock of your bereavement,” he continued.
    “I was not well,” she agreed. She stared at him coldly. She was waiting for an attack. After all, he represented the woman who had accused her of murder.
    “In that season of shock and grief, did you have the time, or the heart, to consider the political happenings in Felzburg?”
    “I was not in the least interested.” There was no surprise in her voice. “My world had ended with my husband’s death. I hardly know what I did. One day was exactly like the next … and the last. I saw no