Free A Certain Justice by P. D. James

romance. He had felt his jacket brushed by the gorgeous robes of Henry III and his nobles as they processed into the Round Church on Ascension Day in 1240 for the consecration of the magnificent new choir; had heard the weakening moans as a condemned knight starved to death in the five-foot-long Penitential Chamber. The eight-year-old had found the story more interesting than horrific.
    “What had he done, Grandfather?”
    “Broken one of the rules of the Order. Disobeyed the Master.”
    “Are people put in the cell today?” He had stared at the two window slits, imagining that he could see desperate eyes peering down.
    “Not today. The Templars Order was dissolved in 1312.”
    “But what about the lawyers?”
    “I’m happy to say that the Lord Chancellor is satisfied with less draconian measures.”
    Hubert smiled, remembering, sitting still and silent as if he, too, were carved in stone. The organ music had ceased, he couldn’t remember when any more than he could remember how long he had been sitting there. What had happened to those years? Where had they gone, the decades since he had walked between the stone knights with his grandfather, had sat with him Sunday after Sunday for matins? The simplicity and ordered beauty of the service, the splendour of the music had seemed to him to represent the profession into which he had been born. He still attended every Sunday. It was as much a part of his routine as buying the same two Sunday newspapers at the same stall on his way home, the luncheon taken from the fridge and heated up in obedience to Erik’s written instructions, the short afternoon walk through the park, then the hour of sleep and the evening of television. The practice of his religion, which, it seemed to him now, had never been more than a formal affirmation of a received set of values, was now little more than a pointless exercise designed to give shape to the week. The wonder, the mystery, the sense of history — all had gone. Time, which took so much away, had taken that as it was taking his strength and even his mind. But not, please God, his mind. Anything but that. He felt himself praying with Lear: “O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet Heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad!”
    And then there came into his mind a more accepting, more submissive prayer. “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and with thine ears consider my calling. For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence, and be no more seen.”
     
Chapter 6
     
    I t was four o’clock on Tuesday, 8 October, when Venetia hitched her gown more firmly on her shoulders, shuffled her papers together and left a court in the Old Bailey for what was to be the last time. The 1972 extension with its rows of leather-covered benches was empty. The air held the expectant calm of a normally busy concourse now cleansed of discordant humanity and settling into its evening peace.
    The trial had made few demands on her, but she felt unexpectedly weary and wanted nothing more than to get to the lady barristers’ robing-room and to put aside her working clothes for yet another day. She hadn’t expected this case to come on at the Bailey. The trial of Brian Cartwright on the charge of grievous bodily harm had originally been scheduled for Winchester Crown Court but had been transferred to London because of local prejudice against the defendant. He had been more chagrined than gratified by the change, complaining bitterly throughout the two weeks’ trial of the inconvenience of the venue and the time lost in travelling from his factory to London. She had won and, for him, all inconveniences were forgotten. Volatile and indiscreet in victory, he had no intention of hurrying away. But for Venetia, anxious to see the last of him, it had been an unsatisfactory case, ill-prepared by the prosecution, presided over by a judge who she suspected disliked her — and who