William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

have her rightful place beside him.”
    “But you told Rathbone that they would not accept her,” he pointed out. “You could not be mistaken about that?”
    “No.”
    “Then how could Friedrich still believe it?”
    She shrugged very slightly. “You would have to know Friedrich to understand how he grew up. He was born to beking. He spent his entire childhood and youth being groomed for it, and the Queen is a rigid taskmistress. He obeyed every rule, and the crown was his burden and his prize.”
    “But he gave it all up for Gisela.”
    “I don’t think until the very last moment he believed they would make him choose between them,” she said with faint surprise in her eyes. “Then, of course, it was too late. He could never understand the finality of it. He was convinced they would relent and call him back. He saw his banishment as a gesture, not something to last forever.”
    “And it seems he was right,” Monk pointed out. “They did want him back.”
    “But not at the price of bringing Gisela with him. He did not understand that—but she did. She was far more of a realist.”
    “The accident,” he prompted.
    “He was taken back to Wellborough Hall,” she resumed. “The doctor was called, naturally. I don’t know what he said, only what I was told.”
    “What were you told?” Monk asked.
    “That Friedrich had broken several ribs, his right leg in three places, his right collarbone, and that he was severely bruised internally.”
    “Prognosis?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “What did the doctor expect of his recovery?”
    “Slow, but he did not believe his life to be in danger, unless there were injuries that he had not yet determined.”
    “How old was Friedrich?”
    “Forty-two.”
    “And Gisela?”
    “Thirty-nine. Why?”
    “So he was not a young man, for such a heavy fall.”
    “He did not die of his injuries. He was poisoned.”
    “How do you know?” For the first time she hesitated.
    He waited, looking at her steadily.
    After a while she gave a very slight shrug. “If I could prove it, I would have gone to the police. I know it because I know the people. I have known them for years. I have watched the whole pattern unfold. She is performing the desolated widow very well … too well. She is in the center of the stage, and she is loving it.”
    “That may be hypocritical and unattractive,” he replied. “But it is not criminal. And even that is still only belief, your perception of her.”
    She looked down at last. “I know that, Mr. Monk. I was there in the house all the time. I saw everyone who came and went. I heard them speak and saw their looks towards one another. I have been part of the court circle since my childhood. I know what happened, but I have not a shred of proof. Gisela murdered Friedrich because she was afraid he would hear the voice of duty at last and go home to lead the fight against unification into greater Germany. Waldo would not do it, and there is no one else. He might have thought he could take her, but she knew the Queen would never permit it, even now, on the brink of dissolution or war.”
    “Why did she wait for days?” he asked. “Why not kill him immediately? It would have been safer and more readily accepted.”
    “There was no need, if he was going to die anyway,” she responded. “And to begin with we all thought he would.”
    “Why does the Queen hate her so much?” he probed. He could not imagine a passion so virulent it would overshadow even this crisis. He wondered whether it was the character of the Queen which nurtured it or something in Gisela which fired such a fierce emotion in Friedrich and the Queen—and seemingly in this extraordinary woman in front of him in her vivid, idiosyncratic room with its burnished shawl and unlit candles.
    “I don’t know.” There was a slight lift of surprise in hervoice, and her eyes seemed to stare far away to some vision of the mind. “I have often wondered, but I have never heard.”
    “Have you any idea of the poison you believe Gisela used?”
    “No. He died quite suddenly. He became giddy and cold, then went into a coma, so Gisela said. The servants who were in and out said the same. And, of course, the doctor.”
    “That could be dozens of things,” he said grimly. “It could perfectly well be bleeding to death from internal injuries.”
    “Naturally!” Zorah replied with some asperity. “What would you expect? Something that looked like poison? Gisela is selfish,