Merit and Inheritance
Chapter Eighteen
Swiss Francs
A little over an hour later, Harry and Pansy had brought the two Bergs upstairs and out to the garden. They watched the time closely and kept the two under anti-mobility charms until just before the portkeys went active. Once the Bergs were safely off to Switzerland Harry brought Pansy with him to retrieve Romilda and escort her to the salon.
Romilda was miffed about her confinement, observing that if she had wanted to be locked up in a dungeon she could probably have achieved that at Our Place without all the extra trouble. Harry sat, patiently waiting for Romilda to wind down before getting on to the serious business.
Pansy went to the garden to unfix the cup with an 'incantatem finite.'
"Use the coffee table," Harry said. Pansy turned the cup upside down and the contents poured out. Harry grabbed the wands and put them inside his jacket.
"The cup was on the mantle," said Harry, pointing. He turned back to Romilda.
"Have you given us all the pertinent information about the Bergs and your experience at Our Place, Romilda?" Harry began.
"Yes!" Romilda exclaimed. "What do you want, Harry? You saw how those people are. I barely got out of there alive."
"I've no reason to doubt that," said Harry. "I just want to ask you a few things, to fill in some blank spaces I don't really understand. Much as I want to help anyone in distress, there are people, innocent people, around me who could be hurt if something aimed at me went wild. Do we know everything we need to know about why they would have wanted you back so badly?"
Pansy sat, staring fixedly at Romilda, idly tapping her wand tip against the fingers of her left hand. She wasn't quite as convinced as Harry was that Romilda had withheld information, but there were certain facts that she couldn't explain.
"How did you shop, when you first got back to London?" Harry asked.
"I'd managed to put a little local currency aside, over the years," Romilda said. "I brought it with me."
Harry thought he had to give Romilda credit. She looked him straight in the eye when she said it.
"That was generous of your husband," said Harry. "You wouldn't have had a job that paid a salary, I don't suppose."
"Lorenzo was generous," Romilda replied.
"How much was your allowance?" asked Harry.
"I don't know," Romilda said. "Adequate."
"What does the baron's wife use money for, at Our Place?"
"Oh, anything, pin money," said Romilda. "Tips. Harry what is this? Are you an auror? Do I get a lawyer? I'm not the criminal here."
"Romilda, I'm not an auror," Harry said. "You don't need a lawyer, as far as I can tell. It's just this…What is the Berg currency?"
"They don't have anything," said Romilda. "They use the local equivalent of galleons, sickels, and knuts."
"What for?" Harry asked. "Up in their high valley, avoiding contact with the outside. I can see if they were conservative about cash. Very little coming in, they'd be careful about their spending."
Romilda's face changed. She had been puzzling over where Harry was going, and now she knew. Harry reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment.
"You made a stop before you went shopping," Harry said. "I was thinking you had pawned a piece of jewelry, something your baron had given you as a gift, to get a little shopping and walking-around money. You left this in your rucksack. I ditched it, in an appropriate location, after being very careful to search for charms or anything physical that could be traced back to me, Pansy, you, anyone or any place you'd stopped to see before you got here."
"I earned that!" Romilda shouted. "They'd have killed me! If not Derek then Marcella. You saw what she tried to do to me. She practically cost you a hand, Harry Potter."
"True," said Harry. "What I don't understand, though, is why you kept this from us?"
Harry handed the parchment to Pansy. It was a receipt from Gringotts for currency exchange.
"Forty-eight thousand Swiss francs?" said Pansy.
"It's not that much in galleons," said Romilda. "A start, that's all. I'm going to have to find something to do. Lorenzo never locked anything up. That was in his desk drawer. I had a legitimate fear for my life. I had been there for years, keeping my husband's back warm at night. No education. I'm eleven or twelve weeks along. I'm…"
Romilda ran out of words. She sat, silent, staring at the floor.
"Can I throw myself on your mercy, Harry?" Romilda sighed. "Until the baby is born?"
Harry took a moment, collecting his thoughts and leaving Romilda to hers. He was determined to come up with a humane way forward but was stumped as to what that might be.
"Romilda, is there anything you left out?" Harry asked. "I have to know it all. Pansy won't turn you in. If we don't know the whole story it could mean disaster later on because we didn't prepare, out of ignorance. Derek? Marcella? The old baron?"
"Derek forced himself on me twice," said Romilda. "The first time Marcella really did watch and abuse me. The second time was when I escaped. I told the truth about that."
"Did you kill your husband?" Harry asked.
"NO!" Romilda shouted. "I really did like Lorenzo, eventually. He treated me decently, like I was a human being. The others just saw an outsider. They're blindly prejudiced and hostile. The women, especially. There were two or three of the younger ones who would actually talk to me, as a person. One of them said I had to understand that, of course, the family just naturally saw me as Lorenzo's property, a slave and a concubine, something like a spoiled dog to amuse and distract the old man as Death approached. I'm convinced she truly believed she was being kind and gentle in the way she told me the truth."
"The baby?"
"Lorenzo's, I think," said Romilda. "The last time he and I…If I had a calendar I might be able to reconstruct the timing. I'm not an expert on that. My education stopped at fifteen. It's a wonder I know how babies get started."
"Oh, Romilda," said Pansy, starting to laugh. "Sorry, but what a predicament!"
"I know, don't feel bad," Romilda said. "If it were anyone else I'd laugh too. How does this happen to someone?"
Romilda's eyes filled up and she needed some sniffing and eye-corner-dabbing to get back to normal.
"Do you want the money, Harry?" Romilda asked. "You can have it. I'll figure something out."
"Stop," said Harry. "I don't need the money nor do I want it. If the Bergs have enough sense to follow the money it leads to right here, now, anyway, doesn't it? I want it as far away from here as possible. How'd the baron put a little cushion like that together, in the first place?"
"They're inbred Romans mixed with whatever native villagers were there two thousand years ago," said Romilda. "That doesn't make all of them stupid. They own some land lower down, it's mostly rented pasture and cropland, but they also own some acreage on the mountains around. In winter those are some of the most famous ski runs in the world. The rent goes through a couple of corporations. I don't understand it, but the arrangement keeps the Bergs out of it. The people in the middle are well-compensated. When he was lucid, Lorenzo used to tell me, 'Always pay your insurance premiums on time, Romilda, insurance is a bargain, believe me.' Then he would chuckle. He meant the middlemen. They were the key to the whole thing. He let me see what he had in his bottom drawer. That might have been intentional. There's no way of knowing, of course."
"Of course," said Harry. "Why don't we agree among ourselves that it was, intentional, I mean? Lorenzo couldn't come right out and give it to you, could he? It would have been a burden to you, having to think up ways to conceal it from the pack. So, he just let you see it was there. If you could get to it and slip away, when his time came, he would make sure his little survivor had enough to get a start somewhere else."
Romilda sat, head lowered, with her hand held over her eyes, like a sun visor.
"Did you tell your husband about your suspicions? That you might be pregnant?" Harry asked.
"Harry that is personal!" Romilda shot back, obviously insulted by the intrusion.
"True," said Harry, "And now you've dropped in on us after a number of years away and needed help and you brought your in-laws down upon us and all we want to do is find a way to get you out of the immediate danger and formulate a longer-term plan so you can get the privacy and the support you need to get through your pregnancy and give your child the best chance possible, so you are going to answer all of my questions, do you understand? Because half-truths just won't do, not in these circumstances. So, once again, did you discuss your condition with Lorenzo?"
"No, by the time I noticed I was overdue enough to think about it, he wasn't really there anymore," said Romilda.
"Did you discuss your condition with anyone who might have a suspicion there is another member of the ruling family on the way?" Harry asked.
"No," said Romilda.
Harry bore on.
"Who did your laundry?"
"Elves," said Romilda. "A lot like our house elves."
"Would the laundry elf have reported to anyone? Marcella, for example?"
Romilda puffed her cheeks and blew her breath out between pursed lips. She shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know," she said, a bit of genuine wonder in her voice, "It never occurred…"
"If the Bergs knew, would they try to get their kinsman back? Or kinswoman?"
"They might," said Romilda, then again, "They just might. Do you know if Dieter is alive? If Dieter is dead, a boy would be senior, even if Derek is the father. The next baron."
Harry felt a chill. He didn't know Romilda well enough to get the truth out of her tale, the gaps she'd sewn in, and the actual evasions. As far as he could establish, Romilda hadn't told an actual lie, she just told everything so it came out a certain way. Harry looked at Pansy, who sat still, studying Romilda. Pansy could become a sphinx. She'd just done, as a matter of fact.