The packing had been going on since the seventh bell.
This was, in Styrmir's assessment, approximately six hours longer than any reasonable packing exercise should require, given that his personal belongings — the ones that were his rather than the palace's provision — occupied one pack and a secondary bag and had been accumulated over three years of mobile existence in the way of a person who had learned early that portability was a virtue.
He travelled light.
He had always travelled light.
The pack was packed.
It had been packed by the eighth bell.
The secondary bag had been packed by the ninth.
He had then sat on the bed and looked at the packed bags and thought: that's it.
The problem was that Princess Caelith had arrived at the tenth bell.
— — —
"You've packed the star charts?" she said, from the doorway.
"Yes," he said.
"Both sets?"
"I only have one set."
"You have the working set and the reference set."
"Those are the same set."
"They are not the same—"
"Caelith."
She came into the room.
She looked at the bags.
She looked at the room.
She walked to the desk.
She opened the drawer.
She looked in it.
"The secondary correspondence files," she said.
"In the bag."
"The physician's referral documents?"
"Also in the bag."
"The formal attire — the court colours—"
"In the bag."
"How," she said, "are all of these things in one bag."
"I pack efficiently," he said.
She looked at the bag.
She looked at him.
"You are not even curious about how they fit," he said.
"I am deeply curious about how they fit," she said. "I am choosing not to ask because asking would mean spending time on a packing question when there are more interesting questions available."
He looked at her.
She sat in the room's chair — not the desk chair, the one by the window, the one that had the afternoon light in it — and crossed her legs and looked at him with the expression she wore when she was about to say something that she had been thinking about for a while and had found the occasion for.
"The Wadee estate," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"You know the layout."
"I've been there."
"Not officially."
"Not officially," he agreed.
"The east wing has the guest rooms. The library is the south-facing room on the ground floor. The garden is accessed from the east door." She looked at him. "You've mapped it."
"I have a good memory for layouts."
"You have a very specific good memory for this particular layout."
He said nothing.
She looked at the window.
She looked at the bags.
She said: "Have you packed everything?"
"Yes," he said.
"You're certain."
"I'm certain."
"Nothing left behind?"
"Nothing."
She looked at him.
"Are you sure," she said, and her voice had moved from the practical register into the other one, the warm one, the one that was only available when they were in rooms with no audience, "that you haven't left anything behind?"
"I am sure," he said.
"Nothing important?"
"Nothing important."
"Because," she said, pleasantly, "I was thinking about this on the way here, and I thought — you know, Styrmir has been very thorough about packing. The charts, the documents, the formal attire. Everything." She paused. "Everything except, possibly, his heart, which has already been at the Wadee estate for quite some time."
He looked at her.
"Since before we even arrived, actually," she continued, in the specific, cheerful tone of someone who has been waiting to say something for a considerable period and is enjoying the saying of it. "Since — oh, approximately three years ago, when a certain person packed a certain bag and got on a trade ship and crossed a border in disguise, which was already a fairly clear indication of where the important things were located—"
He crossed the room.
He reached for her.
Specifically, he reached for her face — for her mouth, with the flat of his palm, with the specific, focused intention of a person whose primary objective was the silencing of a specific ongoing sentence.
She was faster.
She ducked.
"The Wadee estate," she said, from behind the chair, "which contains a certain library and a certain resident of that library who has been known to—"
"Caelith," he said.
"—eat snacks in the afternoons and talk to a baby about vocabulary and whose ears—"
He got to the chair.
He got his hand over her mouth.
She looked at him over the hand.
Her eyes were doing the thing they did when she was genuinely, completely delighted — the specific quality of a person who has produced exactly the reaction she intended and is entirely satisfied with it.
He looked at her.
"If you say one more word," he said, and his voice had the quality of someone managing something with enormous effort, "about ears—"
She said nothing.
Technically.
She said nothing because his hand was in the way.
But her eyes said it.
He removed his hand.
He stepped back.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the packed bags.
The room was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, in the actual voice, the warm one, the one that was not performing anything:
"I'm glad you're going. I mean it."
He looked at her.
"It's been three years," she said. "You've been patient for three years. You've been building and waiting and managing everything — the court, the delegation, the king, the whole — everything. And now you're going to be in the same building." She looked at him. "I'm glad."
He was quiet for a moment.
He said: "He doesn't know what to do with it yet."
"I know."
"He's going to—"
"I know," she said. "He's going to be difficult and sassy and find reasons and talk about being married and tell you you're too young — which is absurd, three years is nothing — and generally make it harder than it needs to be."
"Yes," he said.
"And you are going to be patient," she said. "Because you have been patient for three years and you know how to do it and because—" she looked at him "—he is worth it."
He looked at his hands.
He said: "Yes."
He said it simply.
The way you said things that had finished requiring explanation.
She stood.
She went to the door.
She knocked on it twice — the specific, signaling knock of someone communicating to the person outside that the room was ready for what came next.
The door opened.
One of the delegation's attendants appeared — a young man who had been stationed outside for the morning's departure preparations and who now entered with the slightly bewildered expression of someone who has knocked on a door and found two people in a room with the specific atmosphere of a conversation that had been more than practical.
He looked at the bags.
He looked at Styrmir.
He looked at the princess.
He looked at the window.
He said, with the careful professionalism of someone choosing to see only what was useful:
"Your Highness, Advisory Consultant Voss. The carriages are ready for departure to the respective residences. The other delegates are assembled in the main entrance."
"Thank you," Caelith said.
She looked at Styrmir.
"Well," she said. "Everything packed?"
He looked at her.
He looked at the attendant.
He picked up the pack.
He picked up the secondary bag.
He said: "Everything."
She smiled.
He did not give her the satisfaction of acknowledging what the smile was about.
He went to the door.
The attendant, who had decided that the specific atmosphere of this room was firmly in the category of things he was not going to process until he was off duty, picked up the remaining document case and followed.