at length. "We appreciate that must have been painful for you to have to reveal, in your regard for the innocent. However, it explains Queen Ulrike's undying contempt for Gisela ..." He too almost unconsciously omitted her title. "And the reason she could not, in any circumstances, permit her to return to Felzburg and become queen. Were this to become public knowledge after that event, the scandal would be devastating. It could bring down the throne. It was not possible that she should permit that."
He took a step back, turned, and then faced Rolf again. "Count Lansdorff, was Prince Friedrich aware of this past tragedy and of Gisela's son?"
"Of course," Rolf said bleakly. "We told him when he first sought to marry her. He disregarded it. He had an ability not to see what he did not wish to."
"And the later abortion? I presume that is why she has not since conceived a child?"
"You presume correctly. She now cannot. I doubt you will get the doctor to testify to that, but it is true."
"And was Prince Friedrich aware that his child was killed in the womb?"
There was a gasp around the room. In the center of the gallery, a woman was weeping. The jurors were like a row of men at an execution.
Rolf blanched even further.
"I don't know. I did not tell him, although I knew it then. I doubt she told him. Unless Barberini did. I think that unlikely."
"You did not use it to persuade him to leave his wife? I confess, I believe I would have."
"I would have too, Sir Oliver," Rolf said grimly. "But only as a last resort. I did not want a broken man. As it happened, I did not have the opportunity, and after his accident it would have been brutal. It might have killed him. Whether I would have told him later, had he recovered, I cannot tell you. I do not know."
"Thank you, Count Lansdorff. I have no further questions for you. Please remain, in case Mr. Harvester has."
Harvester rose, swayed a little, as if caught in a great wind, and cleared his throat.
"I... I assume, Count Lansdorff, that this monstrous story is one you could, and would, prove in this court if required to?" He attempted to sound brave, even defiant, but his ability failed him. He was obviously as appalled as anyone in the room. He was a man quietly devoted to his own wife and daughters, and his emotions had been too profoundly outraged for him to conceal it.
"Of course," Rolf said dryly.
"You may be required to do so. Naturally, I shall take instruction." There was nothing he could say to rebut the charge, and to have spoken now of its irrelevance to Zorah's slander would have been ridiculous. No one cared. No one was even listening. He sat down again a changed man.
The judge looked at Rathbone, his face pinched with sadness.
"Sir Oliver, I feel, regrettably, that you had better provide whatever substantiation is open to you. We do not impugn Count Lansdorff 's testimony, but so far it is still only his word. I think it were better the issue were closed now, if that is a chance available to us."
Rathbone nodded. "I call Baron Bernd Ollenheim to the stand."
"Baron Bernd Ollenheim!" the usher repeated.
Very slowly, Bernd rose to his feet and made his way forward from the gallery, across the floor and up the steps of the witness stand till he turned at the top and faced the court. He was white, his eyes sick with distress. He looked over Rathbone's head towards Gisela as if she were something that had crept out of a cesspool.
"Would you like a glass of water, sir?" the judge asked him gently. "I can send an usher for one with no difficulty."
Bernd recalled himself. "No ... no, thank you, my lord. I shall be quite in command of myself."
"If you wish for assistance, you may request it," the judge assured him.
Rathbone felt like a man stripping another naked. He did it only because the question must be answered now, and finally.
"Baron Ollenheim, I shall not keep you long." He took a deep breath. "I regret the necessity for calling you at all. I simply wish to ask you either to substantiate or to deny the testimony of Count Lansdorff regarding your son. Is he indeed also the son of Gisela Berentz?"
Bernd had difficulty in speaking. His throat seemed to have closed. He struggled to fill his lungs with air, and