Iolanthe’s confessions had always been made on the assembly line during the ladies’ hour at her local church at home, surrounded by veiled women, quiet whispers, giggles. This was quite different. What an odd choice of furniture for such a place, too; surely the point should be to make a penitent feel uncomfortable? But this chair was big and soft, like a set of enveloping arms—so big that you almost felt like a child in it, and you had to lean back to rest your spine. And the air was so heavy and warm. In spite of the dread she felt of the Lord Cardinal’s arrival, it was hard to hold onto that edge of alertness. She looked longingly at the cold marble, imagining how it would feel to nap there. Another ten minutes and she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open.
Her gaze fell on the angel above the pit. She thought, I wonder how my mother would look stretched out there. She straightened her back; unfilial though this thought was, it somehow made it easier to face the interview.
Iolanthe rose when he came in. “Thank you for coming, Father.”
“My daughter.” He held out his hands and advanced over the marble floor. “I see you still bear the marks of your tumble in the pit. Disgraceful. I don’t know what Adrian was thinking, and I wonder where your bodyguard could have been.”
The fading marks reddened deeply as blood rushed to her face. “It wasn’t their fault, really, Lord Car—” she cut herself off. “Father.” She paused. “I thought they were fading. They are fading, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are,” he assured her heartily, and cursed himself as she flinched. He took the confessor’s chair, motioning for her to sit. “I think you’ve found the City is not the chamber of horrors you may have imagined back home.”
“No, Father,” she agreed. She waited.
After a moment, he said, “Hartley Quince tells me you’re suffering a spiritual crisis … ?”
“Yes, Father.”
“I trust you’ll let me help you, Iolanthe. It is my job, you know.” He made certain his voice was concerned, rational, even slightly amused; altogether reassuring.
Her eyes had been modestly down. Suddenly she raised them; the violet eyes that odes had been written to on the Opal, odes that her parents had never allowed her to read, but which the Lord Cardinal had read and filed. Violet eyes like an aesthetic blow. “Surely it can’t be right, Father, to report on my husband to other people. Doesn’t the Book say that husband and wife are one flesh, and the husband is the head?”
“My dear, troubled girl.” He took her hand, holding it until she unclenched her fist. “First, the marriage ceremony has not yet taken place, has it? Second, isn’t the hierarchy of husband and wife but a mirror of the hierarchy of priest and laity? Which itself is but a mirror of God’s marriage with His people? And surely you can see, Iolanthe—I know you’re an intelligent girl—that these three things themselves are ranked, and the husband/wife relationship is the lowest? And ought not the lower give way to the higher?”
She sighed. “I cannot argue with you, Father.”
“I should hope you cannot,” he said, a trifle surprised. “What has argument to do with Confession, or with any young girl’s place?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t express myself well.”
He patted her hand. “Take your time, my dear. No hurry in the world.”
The Lord Cardinal bore Iolanthe no ill will, and he could sympathize with the pressure the child was under. She had her duty, and that could not be softened; but where he could give relief he would.
At last she said in a low voice, “I’m really not sure at all that you should have been called, Father. My silly ideas …”
“Not at all. No matter is trivial if it touches your duty, or your salvation. And as an old friend, I hope you believe me when I say that I would wish to know anything that disturbed you.”
“I didn’t really want to come here” said Io, looking around at the furnishings of the confessional room. “It’s really not important. Hartley Quince insisted—”
“And rightly. We’re assured of privacy here, child, and I think that that should be as reassuring to you as it is to me. Now, please, won’t you tell me what’s bothering you? I want to help.” The Lord Cardinal was perfectly sincere, and perhaps this was his greatest weapon.
“It’s about the Sawyer Crown.”
Amo sat back. “I beg your pardon?”
The magnificent eyes, troubled, were raised to his again. “Father, Adrian believes the Sawyer Crown is on Baret Two, and he intends to get it for himself.”
The silence in the confessional chamber was heavy. Then, slowly, the Lord Cardinal smiled. “My dear,” he said, and his genuine affection showed in his voice, “the Protector was very likely joking with you. You’re very young, and you take things so seriously, and young men do like to joke with their sweethearts. And boast, too.” His smile broadened—not a cruel smile, for love mixed with amused condescension.
She said dully, looking down, “He didn’t tell it to me. He didn’t even know I was listening. He told it to his adviser of the sixteenth rank, Brandon Fischer.”
Amo’s smile faded. “Where did you hear this?” he asked, after a moment.
She told him, undramatically, reporting in dry tones her own indignity of listening in doorways. He was silent again. Then he said, “My dear, I absolve you from the sin of eavesdropping, and your doubts, and any other related matters. May I open my heart to you?”
The look on her face said
