After the Fine Weather by Michael Gilbert

was rising to his feet.
    The first surprise was that he was not an old man. The lines of austerity and self-will cut into his pale face made it difficult to judge accurately, but he was a man, she thought, of no more than fifty. The nose was thin and straight; the mouth an uncompromising slit. From under thick eyebrows a pair of burning eyes looked out at a world of lesser men. Here was no holy dotard. Here was a fighter. A man who had discarded the easy shield of compromise and tact and soft dealing; a man who, when he hit his enemies, intended to hurt them.
    At his first few words a low murmuring ran through the crowd. Laura, who had been brought up almost inside a hunt kennels, thought of hounds. The quarry was not in sight but a hint, a faint and illusive hint, of his presence had reached the keener noses of the pack.
    And in some curious way, and still without understanding more than isolated words, she knew what he was saying. He was speaking of the glories of “Heiliges Land Tirol”; of the traditions of the hardy mountain folk who lived there, a small, but very precious, fragment of the human family, isolated, in difficulties, alone – betrayed. Betrayed. She felt certain he had used that word, and as he spoke it the crowd broke into a deep, baying roar of applause.
    Laura looked at the platform. On one side of the Bishop, Dr Miller sat, impassive. On the other, Hofrat Humbold was stirring. He cast a glance, first toward the crowd, then at the other distinguished guests, a chief secretary from Vienna, the honorary colonel of the regiment, and a number of other people whose functions she could only dimly guess.
    The Diplomatic Corps was concentrating with the painful attention of men who would have to summarize and pass on to their superiors, in Paris, Berlin, London and The Hague, every word that was now being spoken.
    Laura’s attention was again attracted to the crowd. It was undoubtedly enthusiastic, but it was not entirely unanimous. References to the virtues and sufferings of the Tyrolese were applauded, but when the speaker, his eyes burning in his white face, turned his artillery on the oppressors, when he spoke – and she could hear the venom in his voice – of the “Joch der Italiener” she could sense a restlessness in some parts of the crowd.
    The group that she had noticed before, standing under the lamp-post immediately opposite to her, appeared to be conducting a private debate in counterpoint to the Bishop’s speech.
    She looked at them more closely. There were four or five men, the most noticeable of whom was a tall, black-haired character in the middle who had his back to the speaker and appeared to be haranguing the group. A smaller man had hold of his left arm and the rest were either restraining him or egging him on. Behind them the crowd swayed in sympathy. It was as if in a deep, strong-flowing current a movement of opposition had made itself felt. There was a centre of turbulence, tiny as yet but significant.
    The Bishop stood for a few seconds without speaking. It was Merlin, brooding over the spirits he had raised; an unforgettable figure, tall, aesthetic, and mischievous, a pillar of ivory topped by the scarlet flame of a cardinal’s hat.
    The eyes of every man and woman in the crowd were fixed on him; except Laura’s. She was looking at a point above and to the right of the Bishop. There, as she had noticed before, was a circular window in one of the turrets that flanked the portico. When she had first looked at it she had imagined that it was a fixed window, but she saw that this was not so. The top half, a semicircle of frosted glass in an iron frame, opened outward on a ratchet. And it was opening now, slowly but quite steadily. And through the opening something protruded, something dull black, which gave back a glint of metal.
    A voice shouted from the group in front of her. It was the tall black-haired man, who was tearing himself free from his neighbours and was waving his