The library in the evening had a different quality from the library in the morning.
The morning library was the working library — the one Gerffron arrived at with his tea and his book and the day's agenda in the back of his mind, the one that was occupied with the specific, forward-moving energy of a person who had things to do and was doing them in the most comfortable available environment.
The evening library was the other one.
The one where the lamp on the corner table was the primary light source and the fire was the secondary one and the combination produced the specific, amber quality of a room that had settled into itself and was no longer performing any particular function except existing warmly.
Gerffron had been in the evening library since the seventh bell.
He had been there with his book — the constitutional history, the one he had been working through for three weeks, the one that had the page ninety-four problem that he and Deldric had been arguing about in various configurations — and his tea and the specific, quiet quality of an evening that was simply itself.
Styrmir came in at the eighth bell.
He came in with the specific, comfortable ease of someone who had identified a space as good and was returning to it — not asking, not performing a request for entry, simply arriving and finding the second chair and sitting in it the way people sat in chairs that were available in rooms they had decided were welcoming.
Gerffron looked at him.
Styrmir looked at his book.
He said: "What are you reading?"
"Constitutional history," Gerffron said.
"Interesting."
"Very. There's a problem on page ninety-four that I have been—" Gerffron stopped. He looked at Styrmir. "No. We are not discussing page ninety-four. We are discussing the breakfast table."
Styrmir looked at him.
"This morning," Gerffron said, setting the book on his knee with the deliberate, attentive quality of someone who is about to make a point and wants both hands free for it, "you engaged in what I can only describe as a competitive food-distribution exercise with my wife. You served things onto my plate in direct competition with her serving things onto my plate, and the two of you escalated to the point where I was sitting in front of a meal that would have adequately fed an entire guild hall."
"I was making sure you ate properly," Styrmir defended.
"You were competing," Gerffron said.
"The two activities are not mutually exclusive."
"They are when the result is — when the competitive spirit produces a quantity of food that no individual human being could consume in a single sitting without consequences. Which I am aware of because I spent the rest of the morning with those consequences, thank you very much."
Styrmir looked at him.
"Indigestion?" he said.
"Yes," Gerffron said. "Because you and Gorgina between you served me enough food for—"
"Indigestion," Styrmir said again, and stood up.
Gerffron looked at him.
"Where are you—"
Styrmir crossed the room.
He crossed it with the specific, focused efficiency of someone who has identified a goal and is moving toward it.
He reached Gerffron's chair.
He crouched.
Before Gerffron had fully processed what was happening — before the sequence of events had completed its journey from observation to comprehension to the appropriate physical response — Styrmir had lifted the hem of his shirt.
Gerffron looked down.
His shirt hem was up.
Styrmir's face was at approximately stomach level.
He said: "What are you—"
Styrmir blew a raspberry directly onto his stomach.
The sound was enormous.
The sensation was — the specific, unexpected, completely undignified sensation of a raspberry blown on bare skin by a person who was evidently very committed to the execution.
Gerffron made a sound.
The sound was not a dignified sound.
It was the involuntary, surprised sound of a person who has encountered something entirely outside the range of what they had prepared for and whose body has responded before the brain could intervene.
He jerked back.
He knocked the book off his knee.
He grabbed for the armrest.
He looked down at Styrmir, who was still crouching at approximately knee level with the expression of someone who has performed an action and is entirely satisfied with the result.
"What," Gerffron said, and his voice had the very specific quality of someone managing multiple simultaneous reactions none of which had yet resolved into a dominant register, "was that?!"
"It helps with indigestion," Styrmir said, pleasantly.
"That is absolutely not—"
"It stimulates the abdominal—"
"That is not a thing," Gerffron said. "That is something you have just invented. That is entirely invented. No physician anywhere has ever—"
"I am willing to repeat the treatment," Styrmir said, "if the indigestion persists."
"I—"
He stood.
He stood with the ease of someone who had completed an errand and was resuming their previous activity, and he crossed back to his chair, and he sat down, and he picked up the book he had apparently brought with him and opened it with the pleasant, unhurried quality of someone settling in for a reading evening.
Gerffron sat in his chair with his shirt slightly displaced and the book on the floor and the specific, slightly winded quality of a person who has just had something happen to them that they have not yet finished processing.
He looked at Styrmir.
Styrmir was reading.
Gerffron looked at the ceiling.
He looked at the floor.
He picked up his book.
He straightened his shirt.
He sat back.
"If you ever," he said, "do that again—"
"Noted," Styrmir said, without looking up.
"I am serious."
"Also noted."
"I will—" Gerffron stopped. He looked at his book. "I will do something about it."
"I look forward to knowing what that something is," Styrmir clearly amused.
The library was quiet.
The fire moved.
The lamp burned.
After approximately four minutes, Gerffron said, into the book he was reading:
"Page ninety-four."
Styrmir looked at him.
"The constitutional history," Gerffron said. "There's a geographic misreading in the third chapter that produces a contradiction on page ninety-four that no one has adequately—"
"Show me," Styrmir said.
Gerffron showed him.
They argued about page ninety-four for an hour and a half.
It was, in the specific, private accounting of the evening, a very good hour and a half.
Neither of them acknowledged this.
Both of them were aware of it.