Page 38 of Weighed in the Balance (William Monk 7)

“No, but if you are thinking he had him killed, I doubt it. I don’t think he ever wanted to be king. He stepped into his brother’s place only reluctantly, because there was no one else. And that was not affected. I know him.”

“But he will not lead the battle to keep independence!”

“He thinks it will mean war, and they will still be swallowed up in Germany anyway, sooner or later,” Florent explained.

“Is he right?” Monk shifted his weight to turn and look more directly at him.

On the canal, a barge went by with pennons flying, music floating behind it, and torchlight glittering on the dark water. Its wake surged and lapped over the steps of the landing with a soft sound, whispering like an incoming tide.

“I think so,” Florent answered.

“But you want Venetian independence.”

Florent smiled. “From Austria, not from Italy.”

Someone called out, his voice echoing over the water. A woman answered.

“Waldo is a realist,” Florent went on. “Friedrich was always a romantic. But I suppose that is rather obvious, isn’t it?”

“You think a fight to retain independence is doomed?”

“I meant Gisela, actually. He threw duty aside and followed his heart where she was concerned. The whole affair had an air of high romance about it. ’All for love, and the world well lost.’ ” His voice dropped, and his banter died. “I am not sure if you can really love the world and keep love.”

“Friedrich did,” Monk said quietly, but he thought even as he spoke that perhaps he meant it as a question.

“Did he?” Florent replied. “Friedrich is dead—perhaps murdered.”

“Because of his love for Gisela?”

“I don’t know.” Florent was staring over the water again, his face dramatic in the torchlight, the planes of it thrown into high relief, the shadows black. “If he had stayed at home, instead of abdicating, he could now lead the struggle for independence without question. There would be no need to plot and counterplot to bring him back. The Queen would not be making stipulations about whether his wife could come, or if he must leave her, set her aside and marry again.”

“But you said he wouldn’t do that.”

“No, he wouldn’t, not even to save his country.” Florent’s voice was flat, as if he were trying to be objective, but there was condemnation in it, and looking at him, Monk saw anger in his face.

“That would be a very romantic thing to do,” he pointed out. “Both personally and politically.”

“And also very lonely,” Florent added. “And Friedrich was never one to bear loneliness.”

Monk thought about that for several minutes, hearing the hum of laughter and conversation behind them as a group of people came out of the theater and hailed a gondola, and the splash of water as its wake slurped over the steps.

“What are Zorah’s feelings?” Monk asked when they had moved away. “For independence or unification? Could this charge she has made be political?”

Florent considered before he replied, and then his voice was thoughtful.

“How? What could it serve now? Unless you think she is trying to suggest someone else is behind Gisela. I can’t see that as likely. She never kept any affiliations to anyone at home.”

“I meant if Zorah knew Friedrich was murdered, not necessarily by Gisela at all, but felt accusing her would be the best way of bringing the whole issue out into the open,” Monk explained.

Florent stared at him. “That is possible,” he said very slowly, as if still mulling it over in his mind. “That hadn’t occurred to me, but Zorah would do something like that—especially if she thought it was Klaus.”

“Would Klaus kill Friedrich?”

“Oh, certainly, if he thought it was the only way to prevent him from going home and leading a resistance which could inevitably result in a war of independence which we would lose, sooner or later.”

“So Klaus is for Waldo?”

“Klaus is for himself,” Florent said with a smile. “He has very considerable properties on the borders which would be among the first to be sacked if we were invaded.”