Page 115 of Weighed in the Balance (William Monk 7)

“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 shifting 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.