William Monk 07 - Weighed in the Balance

gentlemen of the jury.” His voice was precise, with a faint accent from somewhere in the Midlands. He had done his best to school it out, but it lingered in certain vowels. “On the face of it, this case is not a dramatic or distressing one. No one has received a grievous injury to his or her person.” He spoke quietly and without gestures. “There is no bloodstained corpse, no mangled survivor of assault to obtain your pity. There is not even anyone robbed of life’s savings or of prosperity. There is no business failed, no home in smoldering ruins.” He gave a very slight shrug of his lean shoulders, as if the matter held some kind of irony. “All we are dealing with is a matter of words.” He stopped, his back to Rathbone.
    There was silence in the room.
    In the gallery, a woman caught her breath and started to cough.
    A juror blinked several times.
    Harvester smiled mirthlessly. “But then the Lord’s Prayer is only words, is it not? The Coronation Oath is words … and the marriage ceremony.” He was talking to the jury. “Do you regard these things as light matters?” He did not wait for any kind of reply. He saw all he needed in their faces. “A man’s honor may rest in the words he speaks, or a woman’s. All we are going to use in this court today, and in the days that follow, are words. My learned friend”—he lifted his head a little towards Rathbone—“and I shall do battle here, and we shallhave no weapons but words and the memory of those words. We shall not raise our fists to each other.”
    Someone gave a nervous giggle and instantly choked it off.
    “We shall not carry swords or pistols,” he continued. “And yet on the outcome of such struggles as these have hung the lives of men, their fame, their honor and their fortunes.”
    He turned slowly so he was half facing the jury, half the gallery.
    “It is not lightly that the New Testament of Our Lord states that ’In the beginning was the Word—and the Word was with God—and the Word was God.’ Nor is it by chance that to take the name of God in vain is the unutterable sin of blasphemy.” His voice altered suddenly until it was grating with anger, cutting across the silence of the room. “To take any man’s or woman’s name in vain, to bear false witness, to spread lies, is a crime that cries out for justice and for reparation!”
    It was the opening Rathbone would have used had he been conducting Gisela’s case himself. He applauded it grimly in his mind.
    “To steal another’s good name is worse than to steal his house, or his money, or his clothes,” Harvester went on. “To say of another what has been said of my client is beyond understanding, and for many, beyond forgiveness. When you have heard the evidence, you will feel as outraged as I do—of that, I have no doubt whatever.”
    He swung back to the judge.
    “My lord, I call my first witness, Lord Wellborough.”
    There was a murmur in the gallery, and several scores of people craned their necks to watch as Lord Wellborough came through the doors from the outer chamber where he had been waiting. He was not immediately an imposing figure because he was of fractionally less than average height and his hair and eyes were pale. But he carried himself well, and his clothes spoke of money and assurance.
    He mounted the steps to the witness stand and took the oath.He kept his eyes on Harvester, not looking at the judge—nor at Zorah, sitting beside Rathbone. He seemed grave but not in the least anxious.
    “Lord Wellborough,” Harvester began as he walked out into the small space of open floor in front of the witness stand and up its several steps, almost like a pulpit. He was obliged to look upward. “Are you acquainted with both the plaintiff and the defendant in this case?”
    “Yes sir, I am.”
    “Were they both guests in your home in Berkshire at the time of the tragic accident and subsequent death of Prince Friedrich, the plaintiff’s late husband?”
    “They were.”
    “Have you seen the plaintiff since she left your home shortly after that event?”
    “No sir. Prince Friedrich’s funeral was held in Wellborough. There was a memorial service in Venice, where the Prince and Princess spent most of their time, so I believe, but I was unable to travel.”
    “Have you seen the defendant since that time?” Harvester’s voice was mild, as if the questions were of no more than social interest.
    “Yes sir, I have, on several occasions,”