Weighed in the Balance

5

AS MONK HAD TOLD HESTER, his journey was first to Dover, then across the Channel to Calais, then to Paris, and then the final, large and very gracious train which took him for a long journey south and east to Venice. Stephan von Emden had gone two days before and was to meet him when he arrived, so he was traveling alone.

The trip was both fascinating and exhausting, particularly since, apart from one journey up to Scotland, he was unfamiliar with travel of any distance. If he had ever been out of Great Britain before, it was lost in that part of his memory which he could not retrieve. Snatches came back when some experience echoed something from the past and produced a fragment, sharp and unrelated, puzzling him more than it enlightened. Usually it was no more than an impression, a face seen for a moment, perhaps a powerful emotion connected with it, sometimes pleasant, more often one of anxiety or regret. Why was it that pain seemed to return more easily? Was that something about his life or his nature? Or do the darker things simply mark themselves on the mind in a different way?

He spent much of the time, as the train rattled and swayed through the countryside, thinking of the case he was pursuing, perhaps fruitlessly. Hester’s attitude rankled with him. He had not appreciated that she was so fond of Rathbone. Perhaps he had never thought about it, but now he could see from the tension and the anxiety in her that she was concerned. She had seemed hardly able to think of anything else.

Possibly, her anxiety was well founded. Rathbone had been uncharacteristically rash in taking Zorah Rostova’s case before looking into it more thoroughly. It would be extremely difficult to defend. The more Monk learned, the more apparent did that become. The very best they could hope for would be some limitation of the damage.

He felt guilt at traveling in a manner he could not possibly have afforded on his own means. He was going to a country he had never been to before, so far as he knew, and on what he sincerely believed would be a hopeless quest, and doing it at Zorah’s expense. Perhaps honor should have dictated that he tell her directly that he did not know what he was looking for and thought there was only the slightest chance he could learn anything that would help her cause. In her interest, the best advice would be to apologize quickly and withdraw the allegation. Surely Rathbone must have said that to her?

The rhythmic rattle of the wheels over the rails and the slight sway of the carriage were almost mesmeric. The seat was most comfortable.

What if Rathbone withdrew his services? Then the Countess would have to find someone else to represent her, and that might be extremely difficult to do, perhaps sufficiently so to deter her altogether.

But Rathbone was too stubborn for that. He had given his word, and his pride would not let him admit he had made a mistake, and he could not accomplish the task—because it was not possible. The man was a fool!

But he was also, in some respects, Monk’s friend as well as his employer, so there was no alternative but to continue on this excellent train journey all the way to Venice, pretending to be a gentleman, and play the courtier to what was left of the exiled royalty and learn what he could.

He approached Venice by the new land bridge, arriving late in the afternoon as the light was fading. Stephan met him at the station, which teemed with people of extraordinary variety, fair skins and dark, Persians, Egyptians, Levantines and Jews as well as emperors of a dozen countries. A Babel of languages he did not begin to recognize sounded around him, and costumes of all manner of cut and color surged past him. Alien smells of spice, garlic and aromatic oils mixed with steam, coal smuts and salt wind and sewage. He remembered with a jolt how far east Venice was; it was the place where the trade of Europe met the silk roads and spice trails of the Orient. To the west lay Europe, to the south Egypt and Africa beyond, to the east Byzantium and the ancient world, and beyond that, India and even China.

Stephan welcomed him enthusiastically. A servant a couple of steps behind him took Monk’s cases and, shouldering them easily, forced a way through the crowd.

Within twenty minutes they were in a gondola moving gently along a narrow canal. High above them, the sun lit the marble faces of the buildings close in on either side, but down where they were, the shadows were dark across the water. Everything seemed to shift or waver, reflecting wave patterns on walls. The sounds of slurping and whispering came from every side, and the smells of damp, of salt, of effluent and wet stone were thick in the nose.

Monk stared to one side and then the other, fascinated. This place was unlike anything he had even dreamed. A flight of stone steps rose from the water and disappeared between buildings. Another mounted to a landing and an archway beyond which glimmered a door. Torches were reflected in shivered fire on the broken surface of the water. Other boats jostled up and down, bumping together gently where they were moored at long poles.

Monk was enthralled. He had not known what to expect. He had been too occupied with what he hoped to learn, and how he was going to go about it, to think of the city itself. He had heard tales of Venice’s glory—and its ruin. He knew it was an ancient and corrupt republic which was the seafaring gateway east and west of European trade, an immense power at its height, before the decadence which had brought about its fall. This was the Pearl of the Adriatic, the Bride of the Sea, where the Doge ceremonially cast a wedding ring into the lagoon as a symbol of their union.

He had also heard of its evil, its perversions, its stagnant beauty sliding inevitably into the waters, waiting for destruction. He also knew that it had been conquered and occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and he would find Austrian officials in government and Austrian soldiers on such streets as there were.

But as the sun set in a flaming sky, daubing the fretted roofs of the palaces in fire, and he heard the calls of the boatmen echoing across the water and the hollow sound of the tide sucking under the stone foundations, all he could think of was the eerie beauty of the place and its utter and total uniqueness.

Without having spoken of more than necessities, they reached a small private landing and stepped ashore. The landing was the rear entrance of a small palace whose principal facade faced a main canal to the south. A liveried attendant emerged almost immediately carrying a torch which shed an orange light on the damp stones and for a moment showed the dark surface of the water almost green. He recognized Stephan and held the torch aloft to show them the way over the flagged stones to the steps up to a narrow wooden door which was half open.

Monk was cold only because he was tired, but he was glad to go up into the warmth and brightness of a wide entrance hall, marble floored but with thick Eastern carpets giving it a luxury and sense of immediate comfort.

Stephan followed him up, and the servant could be heard calling for a footman to fetch the cases.

Monk was shown his room in Stephan’s house, which was palatial, high-ceilinged, hung with dramatic tapestries now faded to earth tones of great beauty. Deep windows looked south onto the larger canal, where the light still played on the water, sending reflected waves rippling across the ceiling.

He walked straight over, ignoring the bed and the chairs, and leaned out as far as he could through the stone embrasure, staring down. There were still at least a score of barges and gondolas plying their slow way up and down the canal. On the far side, the carved and pillared facades were lit by torchflare, making the marble look rose and rust and the windows black sockets through which someone else might be staring, just as he was, from a darkened room, utterly enthralled.

Over dinner in a larger chamber, looking onto the Ca’ Grande, he forced his mind to the purpose for which he was there.

“I need to know a great deal more about the political alliances and interests of the people who were at the Wellboroughs’ when Friedrich died,” he said to Stephan.

“Of course,” Stephan agreed. “I can tell you, but I imagine you need to observe for yourself. My word is hardly evidence, and certainly not my opinion.” He leaned back and touched his napkin to his lips after the shellfish of the first course. “Fortunately, there are all sorts of occasions within the next few days to which I can take you and where you will meet the sort of people you need to.” His voice was full of optimism, but there was anxiety shadowing his eyes.

Again Monk wondered why he was so loyal to Zorah and what he knew of Friedrich’s death that moved him to take so much trouble trying to prove it had been murder. Was he part of the story or only an onlooker? What were his own loyalties? What would he lose or gain if Gisela were proved guilty—or if Zorah were? Perhaps Monk had been rash to have taken Stephan so completely at his word. It was a mistake he did not often make.

“Thank you,” he accepted. “I should be grateful for your advice and your opinion. You know these people far better than I ever will. And while certainly your view is not evidence, it may be the wisest counsel I shall have and the best guide towards finding proof other people will be obliged to believe, however much they may prefer not to.”

Stephan said nothing for quite some time. He looked at Monk at first with surprise, and then curiosity, and finally with a certain amusement, as if at last he had some measure of him in his mind.

“Of course,” he conceded.

“What do you believe happened?” Monk said bluntly.

The light was almost gone from the sky outside. There was only the occasional reflection of a drifting torch on the windows, and then more dimly on the water and back again on the glass. The air smelled of damp and salt, and in the background to everything there was always the constant murmur of the tide.

“I believe the atmosphere was right for murder,” Stephan said guardedly, watching Monk’s face as he spoke. “There was much to win or lose. People can convince themselves of all sorts of moralities where patriotism is concerned.”

A servant brought a dish of baked fish and vegetables, and Monk accepted a generous portion.

“Ordinary values of life or death can be set aside,” Stephan went on. “Almost as they can in war. You say to yourself, ’This is for my country, for my people. I commit a lesser evil that a greater good may be obtained.’ ” He was still watching Monk closely. “All through history people have done that, and depending on the outcome, they are either crowned or hanged. And history afterwards will call them hero one day and traitor another. Success is the common judge. It takes a rare man to set his values on other standards.”

Monk was caught by surprise. He had thought Stephan shallower, less thoughtful of the motives of those he seemed to treat with such casual friendship. His eye was keener than Monk had supposed. Again, he should not have been so quick to judge.

“Then I had better learn a great deal more,” Monk replied. “But a political murder does not help the Countess Rostova’s case. Or is her motive more subtly political than I imagined?”

Stephan drew in his breath to make an instant reply, then changed his mind. He laughed slightly, spearing a piece of fish and putting it into his mouth. “I was going to answer that with absolute certainty,” he replied. “Then the fact that you asked the question made me think about it. Perhaps I was mistaken. I would have denied it. She hated Gisela for entirely personal reasons and thought the Princess behaved from immediate, personal motives: pride, ambition, love of glamour, attention, luxury, status among her peers, envy, revenge for love wasted or betrayed, all the things that have nothing to do with patriotism or matters of state, simply humanity. But perhaps I was wrong. I don’t think I knew Zorah as well as I had assumed.”

His face became very serious, his eyes steady on Monk’s. “But I would lay my life that she is no hypocrite. Whatever her cause, there is no lie in it.”

Monk believed him. He was less sure that Zorah had not been used, but he had as yet no idea by whom. It was one of the things he might learn in Venice.

The next day Stephan took him to explore a little of the city, drifting gently down one waterway after another until they found themselves on the Grand Canal, and Stephan pointed out the palaces one after another, telling Monk of their history and sometimes of the present occupants. He pointed to the magnificent Gothic Palazzo Cavalli.

“Henry the Fifth of France lives there,” Stephan said with a smile.

Monk was lost. “Henry the Fifth of France?” He thought he knew there was no king of France, never had been for well over half a century.

“Monsieur le Comte de Chambord,” Stephan said with a laugh, leaning back on one elbow in an oddly graceful gesture of comfort. “Grandson of Charles the Tenth, and king if there were a throne in France, a fact many people here prefer to overlook. His mother, the Duchesse de Berry, married a penniless Italian nobleman and lives in good style in the Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi. She bought it in 1844, practically for a song: pictures, furniture and everything. Venice used to be terribly cheap then. You know, in ’51 John Ruskin paid only twenty-six pounds a year for an apartment here on the Grand Canal, and for years before that Robert and Elizabeth Browning paid only twenty-six pounds a year for a suite at the Casa Guidi in Florence. But Mr. James, the British consul here, is paying one hundred sixty pounds a year for one floor in the Palazzo Foscolo. Everything is terribly expensive now.”

They rocked slightly in the wake of a larger barge, and the sound of laughter drifted across the water from a closed gondola a hundred feet away.

“The Comte de Montmoulin lives here too,” Stephan went on. “In the Palazzo Loredan, at San Vio.”

“And what is he king of?” Monk asked, catching the flavor but far more interested in the mention of poets and critics such as Ruskin.

“Spain,” Stephan replied. “Or so he would believe. There are all sorts of artists and poets and invalids, social and political exiles, some of marvelous color, others of utter tediousness.”

It seemed eminently the right place for Friedrich and Gisela, and those who chose to follow them, for whatever reason.

An hour later they sat in a small piazza eating luncheon. Passersby strolled across the square, talking idly. Monk heard the chatter of half a dozen different languages. Here and there soldiers in Austrian uniform lounged around, guns hanging, half ready if there should be any resistance or unpleasantness. It was a startling reminder that this was an occupied city. The native Venetians were not in control. They must obey or suffer the consequences.

The streets and canals were quieter than he had expected. He was used to the noise and ebullience of London, the constant bustle of life. The contrast between the teeming capital of an empire, with its opulence and squalor, the bursting confidence of its trade and the tide of wealth and expansion, its poor and its oppressed in ever-growing slums, had an utterly different air from this glorious ruin sinking into a gentle despair under foreign domination. The past was all around as an aching memory filled with beauty that crumbled. Visitors like Monk and Stephan sat in the autumn sunlight on marble pavements and watched over wanderers and expatriates talking in hushed tones, while Venetians went about their daily business, outwardly docile, seemingly apathetic. Austrians strolled with casual arrogance around the streets and squares of a city they did not love.

“Did Zorah come here often?” Monk asked. He needed to know more of the accuser in order to understand the charge. He had neglected her until now.

“Yes, at least once a year,” Stephan answered, stabbing his fork into a stuffed tomato. “Why do you ask? She did know Friedrich and Gisela well, over many years, if that is what you are wondering.”

“Why? She was not in exile, was she?”

“No, of course not.”

“Was it because of Friedrich?” Had he asked too bluntly to get an honest answer?

A Greek and a Levantine strolled past, and the breeze carried a perfume of spikenard and bay leaves. They were engaged in heated conversation in some language Monk did not recognize.

Stephan laughed. “Was she in love with him? You don’t know much about Zorah if you can even ask that. She might have been, a long time ago, but she would never waste her passion or her pride on a man whom she couldn’t win.” He leaned back a little in his chair, the sunlight on his face.

“She’s had many lovers over the years. I think Friedrich was probably one of them, before Gisela, but there have been several since, I assure you. There was a Turkish brigand, whom she loved for over two years, and there was a musician in Paris, but I don’t think that lasted long. He was too devoted to his music to be much fun. There was someone in Rome, but I don’t know who, and there was an American. He lasted quite a while, but she wouldn’t marry him.” He was still smiling. He had to raise his voice a little to be heard above the rising sound of chatter around him. “She loved to explore frontiers, but she didn’t want to live on one. And there was an Englishman. He entertained her hugely, and I think she really cared for him a great deal. And, of course, there was a Venetian, hence many of her visits here. I think he lasted rather a long time, and perhaps she returned here to see him.”

“Is he still here?”

“No, I’m afraid he died. I think he was older than she.”

“Who is it at the moment?”

“I don’t know. I rather think it may be Florent Barberini, but then again, it may not.”

“He spoke warmly of Gisela.”

Stephan’s face tightened. “I know. Perhaps I am anticipating or even simply wrong.” He sipped his white wine. “Shall I tell you something about the party tonight?”

“Yes, please.” Monk’s stomach knotted with apprehension. Would Venetian society be as formal as English society, and would he feel as monstrously out of place, as obviously not one of the small, closed elite?

“There will be about eighty of us,” Stephan said thoughtfully. “I chose this number because I thought you could meet a lot of the people who knew both Zorah and Gisela—and, of course, Friedrich. And there will be many Venetians as well. Perhaps you will understand a little of exile life. It is very gay on the surface, extravagant and sophisticated. But underneath there is a lack of purpose.” His face was soft with a weary compassion. “Many dream of returning home, even talk about it as if it were imminent, but they all know in the morning that it will never happen. Their own people do not want them. The places they were born for are filled by others.”

Monk had a sharp vision of alienation, the same sense of being apart that he had experienced with such loneliness in the earliest months after his accident. He had known no one, not even himself. He had been a man who belonged nowhere, without purpose or identity, a man divorced from his roots.

“Did Friedrich regret his choice?” he said suddenly.

Stephan’s eyes narrowed a little. “I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to miss Felzburg. Wherever Gisela was was home for him. She was everything he really needed or relied on.” A gust of wind blew across the pavement, something of salt and effluent.

“I am not sure how much he even really wished to be king,” Stephan went on. “The glamour was wonderful, the adulation, and he could do all that very well. People loved him. But he didn’t like the discipline.”

Monk was surprised. “Discipline?” It was the last thing he had thought of.

Stephan sipped his wine again. Behind him, Monk saw two women walk by, their heads close together, talking in French and laughing, skirts billowing around them.

“You think kings do whatever they want?” Stephan said, shaking his head. “Did you notice the Austrian soldiers in the piazza?”

“Of course.”

“Believe me, they are an undisciplined rabble compared with Queen Ulrike. I’ve seen her rise at half past six in the morning, order her household for the parties and the banquets of the day, write letters, receive visitors. Then she’ll spend time with the King, encouraging him, advising him, persuading him. She’ll spend all afternoon entertaining the ladies she wishes to influence. She’ll dress magnificently for dinner and outshine every other woman in the room, and be present at a banquet until midnight, never once allowing herself to appear tired or bored. And then do the same again the following day.”

He looked at Monk over the top of his glass, his eyes wry and amused. “I have a cousin who is one of her ladies in waiting. She loves her and is terrified of her. She says there is nothing Ulrike could not and would not do if she believed it was for the crown.”

“It must have grieved her to the core when Friedrich abdicated,” Monk thought aloud. “But it seems there is one thing she would not do, and that was allow Friedrich back if he insisted on bringing Gisela with him. She could not swallow her hatred enough for that, even if it meant losing the chance to fight for independence.”

Stephan stared into his wine. All around them the soft sun-light bathed the stones of the piazza in warmth. The light was different here, away from the shifting glitter of the water. The breeze died down again.

“That surprises me,” Stephan said at last. “It seems out of the character I know of her. Ulrike doesn’t forgive, but she would have swallowed gall if she knew it would serve the crown and the dynasty.” He laughed sharply. “I’ve seen her do it!”

The party was splendid, a lavish, beautiful echo of high Renaissance glory. They arrived by sea along the Grand Canal just as dusk was falling. The barges and piers were all lit by torches, their flames reflecting in the water, fragmented into sparks of fire by the wakes of passing boats. The night wind was soft on the face.

The western arc of heaven was still apricot and a tender, faint blue above. The carved and fretted facades of the palaces facing west were bathed in gold. In the shadows against the light through windows shone the flickering of thousands of candles in salons and ballrooms.

The gondolas floated up and down gently, their boatmen dark silhouettes swaying to keep their balance. They called out to each other, sometimes a greeting, more often a colorful insult. Monk did not know the language, but he caught the inflection.

They arrived at the water entrance and stepped out onto a landing blazing with torches, the smell of their smoke in the wind. Monk was reluctant to go inside; the Canal was so full of vibrant, wonderful life—unlike anything he had seen before. Even in this sad, foreign-occupied decadence, Venice was a city of unique glory, and history was steeped in its stones. It was one of the great crossroads of the world; the romance of it burned like fire in his brain. He imagined Helen of Troy might have had such a beauty in her old age. The blush and the firm flesh would be gone, but the bones were there, the eyes; the knowledge of who she had been would be there forever.

Stephan had to take him by the arm and almost lead him inside through the great arched doorway, up a flight of steps and onto the main floor, which was so large it stretched from one side of the building to the other. It was filled with people laughing and talking. It blazed with light; reflections glittered on crystal, gleaming tablecloths, white shoulders and a king’s ransom in jewels. The clothes were gorgeous. Every woman in the room wore something which would have cost more than Monk earned in a decade. Silks were everywhere, as were velvets, laces, beading and embroidery.

He found himself smiling, wondering if perhaps he might even meet some of the great figures of legend who had come here, someone whose thoughts and passions had inspired the world. Unconsciously, he straightened his shoulders. He cut a very good figure himself. Black became him. He was of a good height and had a curious lean grace which he knew men envied and women found more attractive than they entirely wished. He did not know how he might have used or abused that in the past, but tonight he felt only a kind of excitement.

Of course, he knew no one except Stephan—until he heard laughter to his right and, turning, saw the dainty, elfin-faced Evelyn. He felt a surge of pleasure, almost a physical warmth. He remembered the rose garden and the touch of her fingers on his arm. He must see her again and spend more time talking with her. It would be an opportunity to learn more of Gisela. He must make it so.

It took him nearly two hours of polite introductions, trivial conversation and the most exquisite wine and food before he contrived to be alone with Evelyn at the top of a flight of stairs that led towards a balcony overlooking the Canal. He had stood there with her for several minutes, watching the light on her face, the laughter in her eyes and the curve of her lips, before he remembered with an unpleasant jolt that he would not be there at all were Zorah Rostova not paying for it. Stephan, as her friend, believing her innocence of motive, had brought him there and introduced him for a purpose. He could never have come as himself, William Monk, a private investigator of other people’s sins and troubles, born in a fishing village in Northumberland, whose father worked on boats for his living, read no book but the Bible.

He dragged his mind away from Evelyn, the laughter and the music and the swirl of color.

“How terrible to lose all this suddenly, in a few hours,” he said, gazing over her head at the ballroom.

“Lose it all?” Her brows puckered in confusion. “Venice may be crumbling, and there are Austrian soldiers on every corner—do you know, a friend of mine was strolling along the Lido and was actually driven away at gunpoint! Can you imagine that?” Her voice was sharp with indignation. “But Venice can’t sink under the waves in an hour, I promise you!” She giggled. “Do you think we are another lost Atlantis? A Sodom and Gomorrah—about to be overwhelmed by the wrath of God?” She swiveled around, her skirts frothing against his legs, the lace catching on the cloth of his trousers. He could smell the perfume of her hair and feel the faint warmth of her, even a yard away as she was.

“I don’t see the writing on the wall,” she said happily, staring across the sea of color. “Don’t you think it would be fair to give us some sort of a sign?”

“I was thinking of Princess Gisela.” With difficulty he forced his attention back to the past. The present was too urgent, too giddy to his senses. He was desperately aware of her. “One moment she must have believed Friedrich was recovering,” he said quickly. “You all did, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes!” She looked at him with wide brown eyes. “He seemed to be doing so well.”

“You saw him?”

“No, I didn’t. But Rolf did. He said he was a lot better. He couldn’t move much, but he was sitting up and talking, and said he felt much better.”

“Well enough to think of returning home?”

“Oh!” She dragged out the syllable with understanding. “You think Rolf was there to persuade him, and Gisela overheard it and thought Friedrich would go? I’m quite certain you are wrong.” She leaned back a little against the railing. It was a gently provocative pose showing the curves of her body. “No one who knew them really thought he would go without her.” The laughter died and there was a faintly wistful look in her face. “People who love like that cannot ever be parted. He wouldn’t have survived without her, nor she without him.” She was half profile to Monk. He could see her delicate nose, a little turned up, and the shadow of her lashes on the smoothness of her cheek. She stared over the hubbub of noise from scores of people chattering, the music of violins and woodwind instruments.

“I remember when one of Giuseppe Verdi’s new operas was performed at the Fenice here,” she said with a rueful smile. “It was about politics in Genoa. The scenery was all rather like this. Lots of water. That was ten years ago.” She shrugged. “Of course, the theater is closed now. I don’t suppose you have noticed it yet, but there are no carnivals anymore, and Venetian aristocracy has all moved to the mainland. They don’t attend the official parties the Austrian government gives. I don’t know whether that’s because they hate the Austrians so much or because they are afraid of nationalist reprisals if they do.”

“Nationalist reprisals?” he said curiously, still watching the light on her face. “You mean there is a nationalist movement here so strong they would actually victimize people who openly accept the occupation?”

“Oh, yes!” She shook her head in a gesture of resignation. “Of course, it doesn’t matter to us, who are expatriates anyway, but to the Venetians it’s terribly important. Marshal Radetzky, he’s the governor, said that he would give balls and masques and dinners, and if the ladies would not come, then his officers would waltz with each other.” She gave a rueful little laugh and glanced at him quickly, then away again. “When the Austrian royal family came here, they went in procession down the Grand Canal, and no one even came to the windows or balconies to look! Can you imagine that?”

He tried, visualizing the sadness, the oppression and resentment, the dignified, rather pathetic figures of the royalty in exile keeping up their pretense of ceremony, and the real royalty, carrying all its power of empire, sailing down those glittering waters in silence as they were totally ignored. And all the while the real Venetians busy elsewhere, planning and fighting and dreaming. No wonder the city had an air of desolation unlike any other.

But he was here to learn about Friedrich and Gisela, and why Zorah had made her charge. He was standing very close to Evelyn. He could feel the warmth of her body. Her soft hair was faintly tickling his face, and the perfume of her seemed to be everywhere. The noise and the glitter swirled around him, but he was islanded alone with her in the shadows. It was hard to focus his attention back to the issue.

“You were going to tell me something about Friedrich,” he prompted her.

“Oh, yes!” she agreed, glancing at him for a moment. “It was the opera. Gisela wanted to go. It was to be a special performance. All sorts of old Venetian nobility were to be there. As it turned out, they were not. It wasn’t really a success. Poor Verdi! Gisela was determined, and Friedrich refused. He felt he owed it to some Venetian prince or other not to go, because of the Austrian occupation. After all, Venice was his home after so many years here. A sort of loyalty, I suppose.”

“But Gisela didn’t care?” he questioned.

“She wasn’t very political …”

Or very loyal either, he thought, or grateful to a people who had made her welcome. It was suddenly an ugly tone in a picture up to then in totally romantic colors. But he did not interrupt.

From the ballroom the music floated up to them, and a woman’s sudden laughter. He glimpsed Klaus in conversation with a white-bearded man in military uniform.

“She dressed in a new gown,” Evelyn went on. “I remember because it was one of the best I had ever seen, even on her. It was the shade of crushed mulberries, with gold braid and beaded embroidery, and the skirt was absolutely enormous. She was always slender, and she walked with her head very high. She wore a gold ornament in her hair, and a necklace with amethysts and pearls.”

“And Friedrich didn’t go? Who escorted her?” he asked, trying to picture it but seeing in his mind’s eye only Evelyn.

“Yes, he did go,” she said quickly. “That is, she went with Count Baldassare, but they had barely sat down when Friedrich arrived. To anyone else it could have looked merely as if he was late. It was only by chance I knew the truth. I don’t think Friedrich even knew what the opera was about. He couldn’t have told you whether the soprano was dark or fair. He watched Gisela all night.”

“And she was pleased to have won?” He tried to understand whether it had been a battle of wills, a jealousy, or simply a domestic tiff. And why had Evelyn elected to tell him this?

“She didn’t seem so. And yet I know perfectly well she had no interest in Count Baldassare, nor he in her. He was merely being courteous.”

“He was one of the Venetian aristocracy who remained?” he assumed.

“No. Actually, he’s gone too now.” She sounded curious and surprised. “The fight for independence has cost a lot of people far more than I used to think. Count Baldassare’s son was killed by the Austrians. His wife has become an invalid. She lost a brother too, I think. He died in prison.” She looked rueful and puzzled. “I’m not sure how much it is all worth. The Austrians aren’t bad, you know. They are very efficient, and they are one of the few governments in Europe who are not corrupt. At least that is what Florent says, and he’s half Venetian, so he wouldn’t say it if it were not true. He loathes them.”

Monk did not reply. He was thinking of Gisela. She was an unclear picture in his mind. He had never seen her face. He had been told she was not beautiful, but his vision always saw her with wide eyes and a turbulent, passionate kind of loveliness. Evelyn had marred it with the story of the opera. It was a very slight thing, only an ungraciousness in insisting on attending a function her husband had considered dishonor to their hosts, a form of ingratitude he had forbidden, and she had defied him for the pleasure of an evening’s entertainment.

But in the end Friedrich had gone too, rather than endure her displeasure. Monk did not admire that either.

Evelyn held out her hand, smiling again.

He took it immediately; it was warm and delicately boned, almost like a child’s.

“Come,” she urged. “May I call you William? Such a very proper English name. I adore it. It suits you perfectly. You look so dark and brooding, and you behave with such gravity, you are quite delightful.” He felt himself blush, but it was with pleasure. “I shall make it my task to teach you to unbend a little and enjoy yourself like a Venetian,” she went on happily. “Do you dance? I don’t care whether you do or not. If you don’t, then I shall teach you. First you must have some wine.” She started to lead him towards the steps down into the ballroom again. “It will warm your stomach and your heart … then you will forget London and think only of me!”

Her effort was unnecessary; he was already thinking only of her anyway.

He spent much of the rest of the night with her, and of the following night as well, and of the afternoon of his fourth day in Venice. He did learn much of the life of the exile court, if it could be called such when there was still a king on the throne at home, and a new crown prince.

But he was also enjoying himself enormously. Stephan was a good companion for the mornings, showing him the byways and back alleys and canals as well as the obvious beauties of Venice, and telling him something of the republic’s history, showing him its glory and its art.

Monk kept on asking occasional questions about Friedrich and Gisela, the Queen, Prince Waldo, and the politics of money and unification. He learned more than he had imagined he ever could about the great European revolutions of 1848. They had touched almost every country as desire for freedom, undreamed before, swept from Spain to Prussia. There had been barricades in the streets, gunfire, soldiers billeted in every city, a wild resurgence of hope and then a closing in of despair. Only France seemed to have gained anything specific. In Austria, Spain, Italy, Prussia and the Low Countries, the moment’s freedom had been illusory. Everything returned to the oppressions of before, or worse.

In the afternoons he continued to see Evelyn, except once when she arranged it before he had the opportunity, and that knowledge gave him a lift of pleasure like a bursting of wings inside him. She was beautiful, exciting, funny, and she had a gift for enjoyment unlike anyone he had known before. She was unique and wonderful. In company with others, they attended soirees and parties, they rode in barges down the Grand Canal, calling out to acquaintances, laughing at jokes, bathed in the brilliant, shifting light of a blue-and-golden autumn. Although the Fenice was closed, they attended small theaters and saw masques and dramas and musical plays.

Monk usually got to bed by about two or three in the morning, so he was delighted to remain there until ten, be served breakfast, and then choose which suit to wear for the day and begin the new adventure of discovery and entertainment. It was a way of life to which he could very easily become accustomed. It surprised him how very comfortable it was to slide into.

It was over a week through his stay when he met Florent Barberini again. It was during an intermission in a performance of a play of which Monk understood very little, since it was in Italian. He had excused himself and gone outside onto the landing to watch the boats move up and down the canal and to try to arrange his thoughts, and think about his mission there, which he was neglecting, and about his feelings for Evelyn.

He could not honestly say he loved her. He was not sure how much he even knew her. But he loved the excitement he felt in her company, the quickening of the pulse, the delicious sense of heightened enjoyment in everything from good food and good music to the humor and grace of her conversation, the envy he saw in other men’s eyes when they looked at him.

He was aware of the large, oddly perverse figure of Klaus in the background. Perhaps the risk of it, the necessity for some semblance of discretion, added a certain sharpness to the pleasure. Now and again there was a prickle of danger. Klaus was a powerful man. There was something in his face, especially caught in repose, which suggested he would be an ugly enemy.

But Monk had never been a coward.

“You seem to have taken to Venice with a will,” Florent said out of the shadows where the torchlight cast only a faint glow.

Monk had not seen him, he had been lost in his own thoughts and in the sights and sounds of night on the canal.

“Yes,” he said with a start. He found himself smiling. “There cannot be another city like it in the world.”

Florent did not answer.

Monk was suddenly aware of a sense of grief. He looked across at Florent’s dark face and saw in it not only the easy sensuality that made it so attractive to women, the dramatic widow’s peak and the fine eyes, but the loneliness of a man who played the dilettante but whose mind was unfashionably aware of the rape of his culture and the slow dying of the aching splendor of his city, as decay and despair eroded its fabric and its heart. He might have followed Friedrich’s court for whatever reason, but he was more Italian than German, and under his facile manner there lay a depth which Monk, in his prejudice, had chosen not to see.

He wondered now if Florent were, in his own way, fighting for the independence again of Venice, and what part Friedrich’s life or death might play in that. In the last few days he had heard whispers, jokes from the ignorant, of Italian unification also, a drawing together of all the different city-states, the brilliant, individual republics and dukedoms of the Renaissance, under one crown. Perhaps that also was true? How insular one could be, wrapped in the safety of Britain and its empire—an island world, forgetful of changing borders, the shifting tides of nations in turmoil, revolution and foreign occupation. Britain had been secure for nearly eight hundred years. An arrogance had developed unlike any other, and with it a lack of imagination.

He was there as Zorah’s guest. It was long past time he did all he could to serve her interests—or, at the very least, the interests of her country. Perhaps that was why she had made this absurd, self-sacrificing accusation—to expose the murder of a prince and awaken her countrymen to some sense of loyalty before it was too late.

“I could fall in love with Venice very easily,” he said aloud. “But it is a hedonistic love, not a generous one. I have nothing to give it.”

Florent turned to look at him, his dark brows raised in surprise, his lips in the torchlight twitched with humor.

“So does almost everyone else,” he said softly. “You don’t think all those people are here, the dreamers and the would-be princes of Europe, except to live out their own personal charades, do you?”

“Did you know Friedrich well?” It was not an answer, but Florent could not have expected one.

“Yes. Why?” he asked.

Out on the water, someone was singing. The sound of it echoed against the high walls and back again.

“Would he have gone back if Rolf, or someone else, had asked him?” Monk said. “His mother, perhaps?”

“Not if it meant leaving Gisela.” Florent leaned over the stone parapet and stared into the darkness. “And it would have. I don’t know why, but the Queen would never have allowed Gisela back. Her hatred was boundless.”

“I thought she would have done anything for the crown.”

“So did I. She’s a remarkable woman.”

“What about the King? Wouldn’t he allow Gisela back if it was the only way to persuade Friedrich?”

“Override Ulrike?” There was laughter in Florent’s voice, and the tone of it was answer in itself. “He’s dying. She is the strength now. Perhaps she always was.”

“What about Waldo, the Crown Prince?” Monk pressed. “He can’t want Friedrich home!”

“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.”

Monk said nothing. The dark waters of the canal lapped at the marble behind him, and from inside came the sound of laughter.

The autumn days continued warm and mellow. Monk pursued Evelyn because he enjoyed it. Her company was delightful, making every event exciting. And he was flattered because she obviously found him interesting, different from the men she was used to. She asked him probing questions about himself, about London and the darker side of it he knew so well. He told her enough to tantalize her, not enough to bore. Poverty would have repelled her. He mentioned it once and saw the withdrawal in her eyes. The subject required an answering compassion, even a sense of guilt, and she did not wish either of those emotions to cloud her pleasure.

Also, since she was Klaus’s wife, he was able to ask just as many questions of her. In the pursuit of truth he needed to know as much as possible about Klaus and his alliances with either Waldo or any other German power.

He saw her at dinners, theaters and a magnificent ball thrown by one of the expatriate Spanish aristocrats. He danced till he was dizzy and slept until noon the following day.

He drifted in the lazy afternoon along quiet backwaters, hearing little but the lapping of the tide against the walls, lying on his back and seeing the skyline slip past, exquisite towers and facades, lace carved in stone against the blue air, holding Evelyn in his arms.

He saw the Doge’s palace, and the Bridge of Sighs, leading to the dungeons from which few returned. He thought of going back to the winter in London, to his own small rooms. They were quite agreeable by most standards, warm and clean and comfortably furnished. His landlady was a good cook and seemed to like him well enough, even if she was not at all certain if she approved of his occupation. But it was hardly Venice. And inquiring into the tragedies of people’s lives which led to crime was a very different thing from laughter and dancing and endless charming conversation with beautiful women.

Then, when walking up a flight of stairs, he had a jolt of memory, one of those flashes that came to him now and again, a sense of familiarity without reason. For an instant he had been, not in Venice, but going up the stairs in a great house in London. The laughing voices had been English, and there was someone he knew very well standing near the newel post at the bottom, a man to whom he was immeasurably grateful. It was a feeling of warmth, a comfortable sort of certainty that the friendship required no questioning, no constant effort to keep it alive.

It was so sharp he actually turned and looked behind him, expecting to see … and there the image broke. He could bring no face into focus. All that remained was the knowledge of trust.

He saw the large, rather shambling figure of Klaus von Seidlitz, his face lit by the massed candles of the chandeliers, its broken nose more accentuated in the artificial light. The people beyond him were all speaking a medley of languages: German, Italian and French. There was no English anymore.

Monk knew who it was he had expected to see, the man who had been his mentor and friend, and who had since been cheated out of his good name and all his possessions, even his freedom. Monk could not remember what had happened, only the weight of tragedy and his own burning helplessness. It was that injustice which had caused him to leave the world of investment and banking and turn instead to the police.

Had he been good at banking? If he had remained with it, would he now be a wealthy man, able to live like this all the time, instead of only on Zorah’s money and on Zorah’s business?

What had caused the overwhelming gratitude he felt towards the man who had taught him finance and banking? Why, in the moment when he turned on the stairs, had he felt such a knowledge that he was trusted and that there was an unbreakable bond between himself and this man? It was more than the general relationship he already recalled. This was something specific, an individual act.

It was broken now. He could not even remember what it had been, except the sense of debt. Had their relationship been so unequal? Had he been given, in money, friendship, faith, so much more than he was worth?

Evelyn was talking to him, telling him some story of Venetian history, a doge who had risen to power in a spectacular way, over the ruin of his enemies.

He made an appropriate remark indicating his interest.

She laughed, knowing he had not heard.

But the feeling remained with him all evening, and would not be shaken, that he had owed something profound. The harder he tried to recapture it, the more elusive it was. And when he turned away to think of something else, it was there, touching everything.

The following day, as he drifted along a canal with Evelyn warm beside him, it still crowded his mind.

“Tell me about Zorah,” he said abruptly, sitting upright as they moved out of a byway into another of the main canals. A barge with streamers rippling in the breeze moved across their bow, and they were obliged to wait. Their gondolier rested his weight, balancing with unconscious grace. He made it look as if it were quite natural to stand with the shifting boat beneath him, but Monk knew it must be difficult. He had nearly lost his own footing and pitched into the water more than once.

“Why are you so interested in Zorah?” Evelyn was equally blunt. There was a sharp light in her eye.

Monk lied perfectly easily. “Because she is going to make an extremely unpleasant scene, but it might bring you back to London, and I shall like that, but not if she has the power to hurt you.”

“She cannot hurt me,” Evelyn said with conviction, smiling at him now. “But you are very charming to worry. People at home don’t take her as seriously as you imagine, you know.”

“Why not?” He was genuinely curious.

She shrugged, sliding a little closer to him. “Oh, she’s always been outrageous. People with any sense will simply think she is trying to draw attention to herself again. She’s probably had an affair die on her, and she wants to do something dramatic. She gets bored very easily, you know. And she hates to be ignored.”

Thinking of Zorah as he had seen her, he could not readily imagine anyone ignoring her. He could understand finding her intimidating, or embarrassing, but never boring. But perhaps even eccentricity could become tedious in time, if it were contrived for effect rather than springing from genuine character. Was Zorah a poseur after all? He would be surprisingly disappointed if it should prove to be true.

“Do you think so?” he said skeptically, touching her hair, feeling its softness slide through his fingers.

“I have no doubt. Look across the lagoon, William. Do you see the Santa Maria Maggiore over there? Isn’t that marvelous?” She pointed across the great stretch of blue-green tide to the distant marble of the domed church which seemed to be floating on the water’s face.

He saw it with a sense of unreality. Only the breeze on his skin and the slight movement of the boat made him realize it was not a painted scene.

“Last time Zorah had an affair which went wrong, she shot him,” Evelyn said casually.

He stiffened. “What?”

“Last time Zorah had an affair and the man left her, she shot him,” Evelyn repeated, twisting around to look up at Monk with wide, pansy-brown eyes.

“And she got away with it?” Monk was incredulous.

“Oh, yes. It was all quite fair. Dueling is accepted in our country.” She regarded his amazement with satisfaction. Then she started to laugh. “Of course, it is normally men who duel, and then with swords. I think Zorah chose a pistol deliberately. She used to be quite good with a sword, but she’s getting slower as she gets older. And he was quite young, and very good.”

“So she shot him!”

“Oh, not dead!” she said happily. “Just in the shoulder. It was all very silly. She was furious because he appeared at a ball and made much play with this other woman, who was very pretty and very young. It all degenerated into a quarrel a few days later. Zorah behaved appallingly, striding into his club wearing boots and smoking a cigar. She challenged him to a duel, and without looking a complete coward, he had to accept, which made him seem a fool when she won.” She nestled a little closer to him. “He never really got over it. I’m afraid people laughed. And, of course, the story grew in the telling.”

Monk had some sympathy with the man. He had had his fill of overbearing women. It was an extremely unattractive trait. And it required more courage than many have, especially the young, to withstand mockery.

“And you thought she might have made this accusation simply to become the center of attraction again?” he asked, smiling down at her and tracing his finger over the curve of her cheek and neck.

“Not entirely.” She was smiling. “But she has little compunction where she feels strongly.”

“Against Gisela?”

“And against unification,” she agreed. “She spends very little time at home, but she is a patriot at heart. She loves individuality, character, extremes, and the right to choose. I doubt she will see the benefits of trade and protection of a larger state. It is unromantic, but then most people lead very unromantic lives.”

“And you?” he asked, kissing her cheek and her throat. Her skin was soft and warm in the sunlight.

“I am very practical,” she said seriously. “I know that beauty costs money; you cannot have great parties, lovely works of art or theater, horse races, operas and balls if all your money is going into arms and munitions to fight a war.” She pushed her fingers gently through his hair. “I know land gets trampled, villages destroyed, crops burned and men killed when a country is invaded. There is no point whatever in fighting against the inevitable. I would rather pretend it was what I wanted all along and give in to it gracefully.”

“Is it inevitable?” he asked.

“Probably. I don’t know a great deal about politics. Only what I overhear.” She pulled back a little and stared up at him. “If you want to know more, you’ll have to come home with me when we go, next week. Perhaps you should?” There was laughter in her face. “Discover if there was really a plot to bring Friedrich back to the throne and someone murdered him to prevent it!”

“What a good idea.” He kissed her again. “I think that will be absolutely necessary.”