William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

glittering sky with its sweeping darkness, and at the pale clouds of steam windblown across the platform. The heavy noises of coal and steam seemed far away, and he was acutely conscious of Evelyn beside him.
    “Has Zorah no friends, no family who could prevail on her to withdraw this insane charge?” he asked.
    He heard Evelyn’s sigh of impatience, and was furious with circumstances for offering him so much and at the same time preventing him from taking it. Damn Rathbone!
    “I don’t think she has any family,” Evelyn replied sharply. “She always behaved as if she hadn’t. I think she’s half Russian.”
    “Do you like her? At least did you, until she did this?”
    She moved a step closer to him. He could smell her hair and feel the warmth of her skin near his cheek.
    “I don’t care about her in the slightest,” she replied softly. “I always thought she was a little mad. She fell in love with the most unsuitable people. One was a doctor, years older than herself and as ugly as an old boot. But she adored him, and when he died she behaved atrociously. She simply ignored everyone. Had him burned, of all things, and threw his ashes off the top of a mountain. It was all rather disgusting. Then she went off on a long trip somewhere ridiculous, up the Nile, or something like that Stayed away for years. Some said she fell in love with an Egyptian and lived with him.” Her voice was thick with disgust. “Didn’t marry him, of course. I suppose you couldn’t have a Christian marriage with an Egyptian anyway.” She laughed abruptly.
    Monk found all this peculiarly jarring. He remembered Zorah as he had seen her in London. She was an extraordinary woman, eccentric, passionate, but neither overtly cruel nor, as far as he could tell, dishonest He had liked her. He saw no offense in falling in love out of your generation or with someone of another race. It might well be tragic, but it was not wrong.
    Evelyn lifted her face to look at him. She was smiling again. The starlight on her skin was exquisite. Her wide eyes were all softness and laughter. He leaned forward and kissed her, and she melted into his arms.
    The train arrived in Felzburg at noon. After several days’ travel, Monk was tired and longed to stand in an unconfined space, to walk without turning after three paces, and to sleep stretched out in a proper bed.
    But there was little time to be spent on such business. He had a letter of introduction from Stephan, whom he had left in Venice, and went immediately to present himself to Colonel Eugen.
    “Ah, I was expecting you!” The man who received Monk was much older than he had imagined, in his middle fifties, a lean, gray-haired soldier who bore the marks of dueling on his cheeks and stood ramrod stiff to welcome his guest. “Stephan wrote to me that you might come. How may I be of help? My home is yours, as is my time and such skill as I possess.”
    “Thank you,” Monk accepted with relief, although he was unsure even of what he was seeking, let alone how to find it. At least he was delighted to accept the hospitality. “That is most generous of you, Colonel Eugen.”
    “You will stay here? Good, good. You will eat? My man will take care of your luggage. The journey was good?” It was a rhetorical question. Monk had a powerful feeling that the Colonel was a man to whom any journey would be good if he reached his destination alive.
    Monk agreed without additional comment and followed his host to where a good luncheon was set out on a dark wood table gleaming with embroidered linen and very heavy silver. A small fire burned halfheartedly in the grate. The paneled walls were hung with swords of varying weights from rapiers to sabers.
    “What may I do to assist you?” Eugen asked when the soup had been served. “I am at your disposal.”
    “I need to learn the truth of the political situation,” Monk replied candidly. “And as much of the past as I am able to.”
    “Do you consider it possible someone murdered Friedrich?” Eugen frowned.
    “On the basis of the factual evidence, yes, it is possible,” Monk replied. “Does it surprise you?”
    He expected shock and anger. He saw neither in Eugen’s response, only a philosophical sadness.
    “I do not believe it could be Gisela Berentz, but I would not find it hard to believe that someone did it, for political reasons,” he answered. “We are on the brink of great changes in all the German-speaking states. We survived the