by C F Dunn
“On what grounds – by what law?”
He glanced up at me, his face strained. “By the ‘Act Against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits’. I studied it at Cambridge; it was fairly new then, one of James I’s contributions to humanity.” He grimaced. “Matthew Hopkins used it to enforce his peculiar form of persecution, if I remember correctly.”
I nodded. “You do. He didn’t style himself the Witch-Finder General without reason. At least you wouldn’t have been burned at the stake under the 1604 Witchcraft Act, only hanged.”
He kicked a stray bit of carrot away from one of the cupboards. “They would have had to convict me first.”
“Oh, come on, Matthew, they’d changed the law. Under the rules of escheat all your lands and goods would have been forfeit to the crown. There were financial incentives for a conviction; you wouldn’t have stood a chance. Your retainers, your household staff, your friends – all would have come under scrutiny, and who knows what any one of them might have felt compelled to do to protect his or her interests. Laws change to suit the times. Then it was witchcraft, now it’s… terrorism.”
“I’m hardly a terror suspect.”
“That’s not the point, is it? With your particular anomalies you’d keep the Army research guys, or whatever you call them over here, in work for decades. Think what they could do if they harnessed your life-enhancing potential, Matthew. You’re a gift to the military: you don’t need to eat or sleep, you’re unusually strong and fast, and you’re nigh on indestructible. They wouldn’t be interested in your rights then, and don’t tell me you haven’t thought about all this before, because I won’t believe you.”
The way he looked at me made me suspect that this had been a matter for conjecture for a considerable length of time.
“Yes, well, that may be so, but they didn’t get me then and I have no intention of falling outside of any law or statute now, God willing.”
“Amen to that,” I said with feeling.
“Your food’s getting cold,” he said, picking up the plate warming by the side of the stove, and closing the subject.
“Hang the food, I don’t care about the food, it’s your neck I’m worried about.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve managed to avoid detection for the last few centuries and that’s not about to change.” A note of irritation had crept into his voice, but this wasn’t an issue that could be dodged.
“But things have changed, Matthew; they are changing. Surveillance is so much better than it was…”
He put a finger over my lips, willing me to trust him.
“We’ll see. Now, eat.” He smiled, but whatever he might have me believe, I hadn’t been far from the truth.
CHAPTER
17
The Trial
“Winter’s nearly over,” Elena remarked, pulling on her coat and buttoning it up.
I glanced out of the window, distracted despite the seething army of ants crawling around inside me. Snow lay as thickly as ever on the branches of the old cedar tree. As I watched, a wedge slid off one of the boughs and I imagined the soft slumph as it fell into the yielding cushion of snow beneath.
“Is it?”
“It is, just you wait and see. Spring will be here soon.”
I liked winter in Maine. I liked the way everything became clothed in purifying white as predictably as it rained every winter in England. I liked the way the snow muffled the raucous voices of the students, and yet occasional birdsong echoed clear and strong. But at the mention of it, I felt a surge of longing for spring in Cambridge and for the caustic daffodils brushed by lime-green willows along the banks of the River Cam. I longed to walk in the cloistered gardens of the old stone colleges, sheltered from the bitter easterlies and scented by the warming sun. And I missed the Meadows at home, and the greening grass, and the kingfishers chasing low over the water. My throat began to tighten and I busied myself pulling on black leather gloves, feeling more as if I were going to a funeral than a trial.
Matias pushed the door open with his foot, bringing with him the smell of snowbound air.
“They’re on their way, Em.”
I started to do up the buttons of my new coat, the tailored black brushed cashmere gleaming like animal fur. Matthew had bought it for me to wear to the trial over my most restrained suit. My gloved fingers fumbled clumsily. Matias pushed my hands away and started to do the buttons up for me, ignoring my feeble objections.
“You don’t have to come with me, you two. It’s very kind of you, but it’s really not necessary.”
Elena wagged her finger as if she were scolding a child. “Then you should have told your parents what was happening. If they are not to be here, then we will. You should not have to do this alone.”
“I didn’t want them to know because there’s nothing they can do. Anyway, my grandmother’s ill and they can’t leave her now. And Matthew will be there, so I’ll be fine.”
Elena tutted. “Matias, tell her she is wrong. Her parents would want to know, da? And you said that you must pretend that you do not know Matthew so well, so he doesn’t count.” She shrugged, ending the argument in the uplifted movement of her shoulders.
Matias grinned in his brotherly, bear-like way that always made me feel better.
“Besides, we wouldn’t miss this for the world. A couple of days off work, free entertainment, and all at your generous expense – great.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and I managed something of a smile.
Elena might have been about to reprimand him, but the small man with the bushy black eyebrows – Hart, I discovered his name was – who had been appointed to accompany me to and from the court stood at the door expectantly, and she closed her mouth, glancing anxiously at me instead.
“Time to go, I think,” I said, sounding more upbeat than I felt.
We arrived at the courthouse early and I waited in Duffy’s office as instructed. Minutes passed and I had looked at my watch for the third time when she burst into the room, grabbed a file from a drawer, rifled through it, selected a few pages, and stuffed the file back where it had come from.
“Hun, we have a change of schedule, so don’t hurry yourself. That lawyer from New York has made a request and I have some issues we need to discuss with the judge and that’ll take a while.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“Wrong? No, I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, as such, but he’s requesting a change of precedence and wants his witness to go after ours. It’s not that it’s controversial, but it’s not usual. Hell, even Staahl’s local counsel thinks it odd. It’s up to the judge, of course, but we’ll have a little chat about it first, don’t you worry; we’ll make it right.”
Her entreaty sounded hollow. This was the first time I had seen Duffy flustered, and it sent strobes of alarm through me.
It didn’t get any better.
The courthouse was packed. The judge was late and I sat facing the empty chair while the room filled up behind me. Individual voices merged becoming a sea of sounds, rising and falling along with the waves of nausea that had developed over the morning. I promised, no – threatened – myself that, whatever happened, I would remain calm and in control. I was the victim. I was the victim, and nothing that came out over the course of this trial could change that.
The windows of the second-floor chamber were set high up in the wall so I couldn’t see out, but sunlight streamed through, striking the wall opposite, particles of dust caught in the striated beams. It reminded me that even in this place I could find light and hope.
The jury had been selected beforehand and the jurors now sat at right angles in two rows on pew-like benches, like a choir in church.
Duffy leaned close to me. “Don’t play with your cross, it makes you look nervous.”
I took my hand abruptly from the chain, and clenched my clammy hands in my lap instead. I heard a suppressed laugh from someone on the prosecution team, but I didn’t look, I didn’t dare t
urn my head in case I saw Staahl – just in case he saw me.
“Don’t take any notice of them, they get up to tricks. You’ll be fine, hun. Just remember, stick to the facts – yes, no – nice and clear, don’t rush your answers but don’t be hesitant either. You’ll do OK.”
I barely heard her through the humming in my head. I searched for Matthew, feeling through the mass of bodies behind me, reaching out tendrils of awareness until I could find his familiar, comforting presence. But he was not there and I remembered that until I finished giving evidence, he would not be allowed in the courtroom.
A sudden hush fell and Duffy tugged at my sleeve. I rose with her as the judge, round as a bumblebee, approached the bench, shifted her robe so that it fell over the back of her chair, and sat down. The room sighed as the assembled mass sat as one.
The clerk of court read the declaration and announced Judge Everline Dusk to be presiding. There was a general shuffling and coughing as the crowded room settled to watch.
The lawyer from New York, acting as counsel for the prosecution, stood. Slowly, and with all the authority that his belief in his superiority afforded him, he took the floor. He was a big man with a big voice that reached out over our heads and drew us to him and, from the second he opened his mouth, he had his audience hooked. More than patrician, he was a statesman, and worked the room with all the aplomb of an actor in control of his stage.
“Your Honour,” he soothed with his bass voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, my colleague, counsel for the defense, will tell you a tale that would, were it true, be monstrous indeed.”
I didn’t like him.
“My client, a man of standing within an elite academic university – with an international reputation in his field of research and unimpeachable personal record – is, instead, the casualty of this young woman’s obsessive disposition.” He turned his body in my direction and I felt a swathe of eyes fall upon me. I straightened my shoulders and stared ahead at nothing, avoiding them.
“What is more, I will show you that, as a result of her subsequent actions, my client has suffered irredeemable damage to his career, resulting in catastrophic emotional trauma.” He paused as if struck by the tragedy of it all, before continuing. “I will demonstrate that, far from being a victim of a premeditated attack, this woman was the willing… willing participant of a fantasy that she consented to in a mutual, prearranged meeting.”
I really didn’t like him. Willing, mutual, consent, prearranged – I heard every word and understood every element of the implied meaning – and so did the onlookers. I could sense the swell of morbid curiosity that arose from them – not disbelief, not sympathy.
From a few yards to my left, a low hiss of breath escaping from between clenched teeth had my blood running thin and cold. I didn’t hear the rest of the opening address – I felt alone in the courtroom with Staahl, and it was all I could do to stop from getting to my feet and heading for the door like a bolt from a crossbow.
I started when Duffy tapped my hand and said, “I’m on,” and stood to make her initial address.
I phased out, concentrating on my breathing, letting her undulating drawl roll over me, resisting the temptation to look at the judge to see if she believed her. I heard snatches of her argument – everything that she had told me she would say – and then she sat down beside me again, shuffling papers in front of her.
She put a steadying hand on my arm. “OK, hun, you’re up.” I froze, aware only of Staahl looking at me. “Emma!” the woman said firmly.
I came to, feeling the eyes of the entire courtroom watching as I squeezed out from between my chair and the table and walked, with footsteps echoing in the hushed chamber, to the raised dais by the judge’s bench and the chair that sat upon it.
The jury stared at me, in eager condemnation it seemed, as I prepared to take the oath. “Do you affirm…” the clerk intoned, sounding bored.
Forgive me, Lord… I offered a silent prayer.
“… that the testimony you are about to give…”
… if I take the truth in vain…
“… is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…”
… and sin against you…
“… and this I do under penalty of perjury,” the clerk finished.
I hesitated, then in a strong, loud voice that couldn’t have been mine replied, “So help me God, I do.”
A murmur ran through the room and Duffy winked at me. “Sit down!” she mouthed. I sat a little too rapidly and a titter rippled among a few of the watchers. Heat needled my skin.
Duffy rose and straightened her jacket, stepping forward into the empty space in front of the bench with a practised air. She stood squarely, making the most of her medium height, looking solid, dependable, and utterly trustworthy.
“Professor D’Eresby, you heard me describe the vicious attack made upon you on the night of October 31st of last year…”
“Objection, Your Honour.” The counsel for the prosecution was on his feet faster than I would have thought possible for his size. “That is prejudicial; the nature of the event is yet to be decided.”
The judge waved a hand at him. “Yes, yes. Counsel for the defense will refrain from making remarks that might lead the witness.”
Duffy didn’t look in the least bit reprimanded. “Thank you, Your Honour, if I might now continue…”
The judge looked over the edge of her glasses. “I wish you would.”
A sniggered murmur issued from Staahl’s team, and the judge turned on them. “And time would be best served if you keep your comments pertinent.” They fell silent.
Duffy resumed. “It is my job to convince the court that you repeated statements of fact which you believed to be true and, in so doing, are not guilty of defamation per se, which implies intent to cause harm to an individual’s reputation. Professor D’Eresby…” She paused. “Do you know, I just love that name. You’re from England, are you not?”
Staahl’s counsel started to rise but the judge waved him back. He sat down with a shrug.
I cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“And you’re a professor of history at the University of Cambridge, England, on secondment to Howard’s Lake College for a year?”
“Yes.”
“So at the time of the alleged attack, you had been in these United States of America for… how long?”
“Six weeks.”
“Six weeks, and in those six weeks, had you met the defendant at all?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
I swallowed, “Four – no, five times.”
“Just five times, including the night on which you received your life-threatening injuries?”
“Yes.”
The big man was on his feet again. “Your Honour, it is a matter of conjecture whether the injuries were life-threatening or not.”
Duffy waved a finger at him, then addressed the bench. “Your Honour, I think I can show beyond reasonable doubt that the injuries received by Professor D’Eresby were indeed life-threatening, with the testimony of an expert witness.”
Matthew, she meant Matthew. My pulse stuttered briefly. Duffy had asked another question; I must concentrate.
“Professor D’Eresby, on the night in question, you attended an event called the All Saints’ dinner in the main hall of the college, is that right?” An image of the great dining hall flashed through my memory: crowded, hot, noisy.
“Yes.”
“And all members of staff are expected at this event, is that not so?”
“Yes.”
“Including Professor Staahl.”
“Yes – but… but he wasn’t there.”
“He wasn’t there? And how do you know that?”
“Because I looked for him and he wasn’t there.”
“Why did you look for him?”
My heart thundered, deafening me. “Because I didn’t want to see him.” Even to my ears that sounded pathetic.
“You didn’t want to see him. Why was that, Professor D’Eresby?”
“He frightened me, he… he had been following me. I dreaded seeing him.”
I knew this to be dodgy ground so I was surprised when she pushed the point.
“Professor Staahl had been following you?”
“Objection.” The prosecution counsel rose again.
“I’m just trying to show the state of mind of this young lady on the night of the attack – my apologies – alleged attack, Your Honour.”
The judge snuffled and blew her nose. “Overruled. Sit down, counsel.”
Duffy directed another question at me. “Did you tell anyone else of your fears?”
“Only Professor Smalova and Professor Lidström.”
“Your colleagues. No one else – you are sure of that?”
I sifted rapidly through my memory. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Now…” She took a step towards me and looked up through her lashes, lowering her voice to a soothing tenor that warned me she was about to ask something I wouldn’t like. “I’d like to take you back to the events surrounding that night.”
She took me through the attack step by grinding step until I came to the point when Staahl had held the knife to my wrist and Matthew stood beyond the doorway.
“And at that time, did you believe that Professor Staahl intended to take your life?”
“Objection.”
“Yes,” I said, but so nervously that my voice came out more quietly than I intended.
“I’m sorry, Professor D’Eresby, will you repeat that?”
“OB-JECTION!”
Duffy rounded on Staahl’s counsel. “There is no need to shout. Your Honour…”
The judge called both attorneys to the bench and the room descended into a hum. I had never felt so lonely, the sea of faces before me no more than a blur of shapes and colours, mouths opening and closing, eyes staring. Elena and Matias were in the row directly behind where I had been sitting. Elena clutched Matias’s arm, her face pale as she whispered in short bursts to which he replied, the deep creases either side of his mouth moving shadows as he spoke. But near the front, a few rows behind my friends, one face stood apart from the others by its stillness. I focused – it was Henry. Calm and still, he fixed me with a steady gaze and I thanked him silently. He smiled as if he’d heard me.