Chapter 46: Timeline
Conrad and Iris both had their mouths wide open as Maximilian von Rhenia calmly made his way to the witness stand, positioning himself next to Rowena without hesitation and leaning casually on his cane.
“Your Grace, are you certain about this?” asked the bishop. “As a duke, you cannot be compelled to appear in court by anyone other than Her Holiness.”
Duke von Rhenia looked straight at the bishop. “Am I to understand you are questioning my judgement?”
Bishop Dicton sank into his chair. “Why, I would never!”
“I thought not.” The duke placed his elbow on the railing. “I waive my right to the High Court. I don’t expect that Miss Casewell intends to accuse me. Or perhaps I should say, Counsel Casewell.”
Clara gulped. “Of course, I have no such plans, Your Grace.”
A few years ago, Caine, Polis & Smith had been involved in a major merger deal between two large civilian and military aircraft manufacturers. The deal failed in the end, but not before Clara had had to stand in heated meeting rooms with CEOs and four-star generals from several countries, not to mention Daniel Caine and Sharla Smith themselves. They were men and women who radiated authority, imposing from head to toe. It was the most nerve-wracking experience of Clara’s life.
Right now, Duke von Rhenia was on that same level.
He stood beside the massive Rowena, taller and bigger than himself, and made her look comparatively tiny. His chin was slightly raised—just enough to convey superiority without outright rudeness. His shoulders were relaxed, but always without compromising his perfect posture. And his amethyst eyes. They moved slowly, never averting contact, and were deep in a way that could swallow you whole before you realized it. Despite Clara rationally knowing they were the same eyes Iris had, they couldn’t have felt more different.
This was the man ready to plunge the Kingdom into war over his daughter’s house arrest and the fate of a maid. What would he be capable of if he wasn’t satisfied with the outcome of the trial for the death of his most trusted knight?
Clara lowered her head. Though she wasn’t a von Rhenia servant anymore, it still felt like the right thing to do. “Thank you for offering your assistance, Your Grace. I’ll try my best to be brief.” Then she raised it and glanced at Rowena. The golden light pulsed, but it wouldn’t be long before Tobias let it fall, with the accused’s interrogation over for now.
“Before we begin, I’d like to make a request of the prosecution. Or rather, of the inquisitor-in-training,” said Clara.
“And what would that be, Counsel?” Warren had maintained his usual composure despite the duke’s presence.
“I would like Dame Rowena to be kept under the Blessing of Truth for the duration of the duke’s testimony.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you don’t trust your client to tell the truth?”
“It’s not her morals that I don’t trust. It’s her memory. If we are to get a full understanding of what took place, we may need her to recall things she wouldn’t be able to without the Blessing.”
“Hmm.” Warren turned to his side. “I don’t object, as long as Tobias believes he can do it.”
There was sweat running down the boy’s brow, but his face was determined. “Thank you for your concern, Lord Warren. I assure you I can still hold on, for now.”
“Very well. Then you may continue for as long as you can, but do not strain yourself unnecessarily.”
Now that Clara thought about it, it was no surprise that casting a spell that lasted as long as the Blessing was taxing—she hadn’t managed to hold any magic, no matter how simple, for more than a few minutes. She had a newfound respect for Inquisitor Aldric, who’d made the Blessing look effortless despite having to do it twice while simultaneously conducting Clara and Iris’s interrogations. He might be shameless and inept as a prosecutor, but he was clearly a much better spellcaster than she’d given him credit for.
“Thank you, Prosecutor Righton.”
Clara turned to Duke von Rhenia.
Every question she asked would need to have thought put into it; the duke was not a man who suffered time-wasting or imprecision, and he was certainly not someone she could afford to antagonize. Not that she hadn’t already done that, in a way, by simply standing behind this desk at all.
“Your Grace, could you describe the sequence of events that led you to Dame Rowena’s room?”
“The duchess and I had just retired from the ball. Right as we entered our chambers on the upper floor, I heard noise coming from the opposite wing, where our staff is staying. Muffled voices, then dull impacts, as if a fight were taking place. I thought it strange, as I had granted the staff leave to enjoy the banquet. I told my wife to stay inside and followed the sounds to Dame Rowena’s room.”
“By yourself? Even though you’d just heard sounds of a potential fight?”
Duke von Rhenia spun his cane, catching it in front of himself with his free hand. “What of it?”
“N-nothing, I suppose,” Clara stammered, then gave herself a moment to recover. “What did you hear when you got outside the room?”
“Major Ricardo’s and Dame Rowena’s voices. The walls at the Westwick Plaza were quite thick, so I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but it was certainly them. There were also heavy impacts, which I suspected came from furniture being overturned.”
“So you did not personally hear the harsh words Dame Rowena attributed to Major Ricardo?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. Now, in all your years knowing Major Ricardo—as his liege lord, as someone who entrusted him with the safety of your family—did you ever hear him speak disparagingly of Dame Rowena, Prince Ciarán, or of anyone’s birth?”
Duke von Rhenia shook his head. “Ricardo Macedo was many things. Proud. Stubborn. At times, overconfident.” The duke’s voice dropped, and Clara could almost hear a tinge of emotion under the bitter steel. “But he was not cruel. He tried to see the best in everyone—to a fault, at times. I never once heard him demean another person for the circumstances of their birth, nor speak ill of another knight. It was simply not in his character.”
When the words hit the gallery, Clara could sense a shift in the spectators’ attitude. The hostility lessened, and in its place, there was much more confusion. She could almost hear the questions ringing in their minds.
If the duke is right, then what is going on? Was Rowena wrong? What about the Blessing?
“Not that I intend to question the duke’s judgement,” Warren looked more guarded as he finally spoke, “but I will remind the court that the accused spoke under the Blessing of Truth. Unless the defense means to suggest she somehow lied through the Blessing, Dame Rowena’s words remain the truth, regardless of His Grace’s impression of the victim.”
Duke von Rhenia narrowed his eyes.
The bishop nodded cautiously. “Indeed, Prosecutor Righton.”
Clara cleared her throat. “Your Grace, let us go back to what you heard that night. How long did the noises coming from Dame Rowena’s room last?”
“A minute or two. I knocked on the door and announced myself. When there was no response, I tried to go in, but it was locked. So I made my way back to the east wing and called for the guards stationed outside my suite to come break it down.”
A locked door was consistent with someone exiting through the window. Then again, it was also consistent with nobody else being there at all.
“How much time passed between the noise dying down and the door being broken?”
“Very little. Another two minutes, at most.”
“You’re certain?”
“I do not make a habit of being uncertain, Counsel.”
“Of course, Your Grace. Forgive me.” I keep forgetting who I’m dealing with. “After the door was broken down, please describe exactly what you saw, in as much detail as you can.”
“Ricardo was on the floor, face-up. The short sword was in his throat. Dame Rowena lay fallen on the floor beside him. Though she appeared to be unconscious, she was still breathing, so I ordered the guards to bind her as a precaution. Several pieces of furniture had been overturned. Blood was pooling rapidly beneath the victim.”
This matched Clara’s own observations, and was consistent with Rowena’s confession. It was looking more and more like this was the straightforward case the prosecution had argued it was. That all the unanswered questions—Ricardo’s weird behavior, the pills, the window—were simply unrelated to a drunken fight with a tragic ending.
She wanted to believe there was more to it. That there was a more satisfying, coherent solution, one that answered all those questions. But was that a desire for the truth, or was it really just Clara grasping at straws to validate her decision to defend Rowena? She couldn’t say.
Clara continued her questioning. “And as you indicated before, the window was open?”
“Indeed. I noticed it immediately, as there was a draft coming in,” said the duke.
Clara paced slowly, pondering her next words. Should she insist on pressing the window discrepancy?
There could have been a mysterious third party, the true culprit, who had somehow orchestrated everything. Someone lurking away from Rowena’s field of view, who opened the window when she passed out and jumped out the fifth-floor window just before the duke came in. Clara wasn’t sure what means that culprit could have used, since Warren had been adamant that direct magical manipulation was off the table, but there may have been other ways she just hadn’t thought of yet.
Or there could just have been an unusually strong draft during those two minutes, pushing the window open. If so, everything would be in order, just as Warren had claimed.
Occam’s razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is correct, regardless of how much Clara didn’t want it to be. That she should accept it as the first and best answer for what took place, and shift gears into trying to reduce the severity of Rowena’s crime by appealing to the fact that she was drunk and had been provoked.
She dearly wished she’d had more trial law training.
As a lawyer, what was the correct course of action for her here?
Focus on the fundamentals, Casewell.
Clara recalled the words of her first mentor, Senior Counsel Vasconcellos, her direct superior during her internship. ‘In any given situation, the first theory or idea that comes to mind is just that: the first. Its timeliness does not grant it any inherent superiority. A great lawyer does not let herself be boxed in by it or by any other solution, no matter how convincing it may appear at first.’
So, before accepting the prosecution’s case, it was time to think outside the box. To assume there was a different explanation for why the window was open, one that wasn’t either of those theories. Maybe even one that didn’t require the window to have been opened in the short time between Rowena’s attack and the duke entering the room.
Two minutes… even that was something she shouldn’t take for granted. Was it possible that there could have been more time between the two events? No, that shouldn’t be the case, since it would contradict the duke and Rowena’s testimonies.
No, you’re boxing yourself in again. Let yourself think, truly consider everything before you start eliminating things. Revise all the assumptions you’ve made so far, no matter how trivial they seem.
“Dame Rowena, can you recall what time it was when you retired to your room?”
The blessing pulsed. “It was just after half seven. The grand clock in the banquet hall said so.”
“And Your Grace, what time was it when you heard the noises?”
He did not hesitate. “It was exactly ten.”
Exactly? Surely even the duke’s senses weren’t good enough to tell exactly what the time was at any specific moment. Well, he could have looked at a pocket watch. That would explain it.
No. Stop making assumptions.
“How could you tell what time it was so precisely, Your Grace?”
“The town bell started ringing just as I reached the door of Dame Rowena’s. While their fight was still ongoing.”
Right, the bells ring every hour from ten in the morning to ten at night.
So it was seven thirty when Rowena left the banquet hall, and ten when the duke heard the fight… A theory was forming in Clara’s mind. It sounded so incredibly outlandish, so displaced from reality, that she had to force herself not to dismiss it outright.
“Dame Rowena. This is very important, so I’d like you to make your best effort to remember it.”
The knight lifted her head. She looked wrung out, but her eyes were alert.
“You told us you were asleep when Major Ricardo entered your room. That you woke to the sound of your door being opened and his voice. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“So you wouldn’t know how much time passed since you fell asleep, then.”
“I suppose not.”
“Now, Duke von Rhenia just told us the bells rang during your confrontation with Major Ricardo. Do you recall that?”
“Now that you mention it, I can hear it. Yes. There were chimes while I attacked Ricardo. I… I can even hear a clang when I see the sword going into his throat.”
Clara’s heart was about to burst, but she kept her voice steady. “How many times did the bells ring?”
The golden light bloomed. Rowena’s lips moved silently for a moment, as if counting along with the memory the Blessing was showing her.
“Eight,” she said. “They rang eight times.”
Her words hung in the air.
Warren was the first to react. His shoulders straightened, and his brow creased. Then the bishop’s hand froze on his beard.
“That,” Clara announced, “is a discrepancy of two hours.”
Warren was already on his feet. “Objection. The accused was heavily intoxicated and in the middle of a fight. She could have miscounted. A woman who can barely stand is hardly a reliable clock.”
“The Blessing of Truth disagrees!”
“Perhaps she simply couldn’t hear the first two chimes, or the last two. You will recall His Grace’s earlier testimony: the walls at the Westwick Plaza are thick.”
“If that were the case, the duke would not have been able to hear them either. After all, he was in the hallway, while Rowena was in her room. There are more walls separating him from the outside than her!”
Warren winced, and Clara continued. “Therefore, we can only conclude that whatever Dame Rowena experienced—the insults, the rage, the stabbing—took place at exactly eight o’clock. A full two hours before Duke von Rhenia would hear any fighting.”
“But how could that be, Counsel?” asked the bishop. “How would the duke have heard a fight that took place two hours beforehand? Surely that cannot be possible.”
Clara didn’t have an answer. But she had an increasingly less far-fetched theory.
“Indeed, Your Excellency. It isn’t possible. Which leads us to the inevitable conclusion—Duke von Rhenia did not hear a fight that took place two hours before.”
Clara walked as calmly as she could to the center of the room. Her heart was ringing so loudly in her ears that she could almost have mistaken it for the town bell. If she were right, she was about to blow the lid off this case. If she were wrong, she was about to look like a lunatic.
She pointed straight at the witness stand.
“The defense asserts that what His Grace heard and what Dame Rowena confessed to are completely separate events that took place hours apart!”
The gallery exploded.