In less than a second, hands were reaching for her, finding purchase under her arms, lifting. She felt the bog resist, not wanting to let go. Then came an ugly popping sound, and she was dragged out onto comparatively dry land.
A rag was wiping her face. She opened her eyes and found herself looking at Will Stockton. A red streak was on his left cheek and his uniform sleeves were coated with muck. The hands that were wiping her face were a horror: raised red welts covered them like some abstract engraving. Seeing her reaction, Will stood up. “I’ll send for a chair, sir, so we can get her back to court level—” But even as he was speaking, the logic of the situation was presenting itself to Iolanthe’s mind, frightening her far more than a brush with death in a vastule bog. His hands … She looked at her own. They were even worse than Will’s. She put her palms to her face; it felt like a corridor map there. She moved her hands compulsively over her forehead, her chin, her cheeks—
She started to cry. They had made it very clear to her at home that beauty was all she had, and it was gone forever. She was trapped among strangers with nothing at all to offer them that would save her from being trampled in their own plans and stratagems. A figure of mockery, a disgrace to her family, a thing from a horror story—
At once Adrian knelt behind her, circling her in his arms, holding her as though she were a small child. “No, don’t cry. My dear, my sweet Iolanthe, my darling Pouncer.” She had an overpowering urge to weep even harder, knowing that she would be nobody’s darling when they all saw her face. She started to choke, forcing down the sobs. “Sweetest child, it will be all right, I swear.”
“My face,” she said, barely intelligibly.
“It’ll fade. It’ll be all right. It’s only a matter of time.” She had no faith in his assurances. He was a man who lied to get his own way, as all men did, her nurse had warned her, but this one more than most—all his verbal playfulness was now weighed against him, and she condemned him in her heart. He would say what he liked to get her to behave, then he would send her back to Opal in disgrace, or marry her and let her be the laughingstock of the court—
Will Stockton knelt before her. The welt on his left cheek throbbed. “It’s true, Io. Do you hear me? It’s just a skin irritation. It’ll go away.”
Stolid, dependable Will. Opal-born. He wouldn’t lie to her. “Oh, Will,” she said, and reached out her arms to hug him.
The hem of Prudence’s gown appeared in her line of sight. “I’ve called for a chair,” said Prudence’s voice. “A closed chair, Io, nobody will see you. We’ll take you home and put you in a cold tub, to get the swelling down. Io, let go”
Iolanthe released Will from her hold, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her gown. There was no self-consciousness in the movement. There was freedom in being a troll instead of a beautiful woman.
Will stood up, facing Adrian. “She was upset.”
“Yes,” said Adrian. “Will you step aside a moment with me, Sergeant?”
Heart pounding faster, Will followed him to the other side of the table. Adrian regarded him for a moment. Then he said, “Was the pit in your line of sight most of the time you were here?”
“No,” Will said, relieved. “I’d already thought of that. I’ll be checking with my men, and I presume you’ll check with yours, but my impression is that nobody was watching it that closely. When the planter fainted, that drew everybody’s attention. I did do a visual scan a few times while that was being dealt with; but this building is a big place.”
“And there are a lot of people in it.”
“Yes, and a lot of them moving around in the course of their business. Any number of water-carriers would have passed by the pit on their way farther down the line.”
“But you couldn’t guarantee it would have to be a water-carrier.”
“I couldn’t even guarantee it was sabotage, at this point, but I want the strap attachments checked.”
Adrian glanced thoughtfully toward Iolanthe, who was being helped up by Prudence. “Are you putting through a formal request to have the bog swept for the strap?”
“No need.” Will reached into his mud-caked jacket and withdrew the strap in question. Adrian looked at him in surprise. “She was still clutching it when we pulled her out. I had to pry her fingers off it one by one—I don’t think she was even aware she was holding the thing.” Adrian met his eyes. “Sergeant, I would like to ask a favor.”
“Yes, sir?” Will’s voice was noncommittal. “Appearances are an important thing at court.”
“Sir.”
“We could never hush this up, though that would be my first preference. My second … I would like to present this to the Diamond not as a plot to embarrass Iolanthe—which I’m sure you’ll agree is more likely— but as an attempt to kill her.”
“Another few minutes and she would have died. If we weren’t here—”
“But we were here. Nevertheless, I want to stick with the more serious scenario. Your own folk on Opal will yowl, but—” He looked over again toward where Iolanthe stood huddling beside Prudence, her face down, every aspect miserable. “She has to live at court a long time. For her sake, I’d rather present this as an unsuccessful murder try—there’s dignity in that—than as a successful attempt to humiliate her.”
Will followed his gaze, a lot of thoughts tumbling through his mind: his guardsman oath, the Opal council, his sister at home, the way Iolanthe had stood up to dealing with Hartley Quince. Earlier than he would have thought possible, he found himself saying, “I’ll back you up, sir.”
“Thank you.” They walked back toward the two
