They reached the estate's west door at approximately the same time.
The west door was the garden-facing door — the one that Gerffron used most often when he went to the garden and which was the closest available shelter from the rain, which by the time they reached it had achieved the specific, comprehensive quality of a summer storm that had no interest in being moderate.
They came through it in the specific, slightly undignified way of two people who have been running in rain and have arrived somewhere dry and are now conducting the immediate inventory of how wet they are.
Very wet.
They were very wet.
The rain had not been gradual. It had been thorough. The kind of thorough that reached the skin through multiple layers and which left no part of the external presentation of either of them in a state that could be described as anything other than completely soaked.
Gerffron looked at himself.
He looked at Styrmir.
He said: "Stay there. Don't move further into the house."
"I'm—" Styrmir started.
"You're dripping," Gerffron said. "On Orreth's floor. Stay there."
He went to the linen cupboard in the east corridor.
He produced two towels.
He returned.
He handed one to Styrmir.
He applied the other to his own hair with the focused efficiency of someone who was managing a practical situation.
Styrmir applied his towel.
He applied it to his hair with the same hair-pushing-back gesture he always used — the habitual, impatient redirection of his hair from his face, now performed with a towel rather than his hand, producing roughly the same result.
Gerffron looked at him.
He looked at the state of them both.
He said: "I'll heat water. There's a boiler in the east utility room." He looked at the towel. "You need to change. I'll get clothes."
"I'll get my own—" Styrmir started.
"Your room is through the main corridor," Gerffron said. "If you walk through the main corridor in this state at the third bell of the night you'll wake up the entire household and Orreth will have something to say about it in the morning."
Styrmir looked at the corridor.
He looked at his soaked state.
He said: "Fair."
"Stay here," Gerffron said.
He went to the east utility room to start the boiler.
— — —
The east utility room had the specific, functional quality of the rooms in a household that existed for practical purposes — the good boiler, the cleaning supplies in their organized arrangement, the specific smell of soap and heated stone that accumulated in rooms of this kind.
Gerffron got the boiler going.
It was a good boiler — the estate's kitchen had the large one for the daily household needs, but the east utility boiler was the personal-use size, the one that heated water for the attached bathroom off the east guest corridor.
He watched the temperature gauge.
He thought about the garden.
He thought about the rain arriving mid-sentence.
He thought about: I would believe anything you told me.
He thought about what he had been about to say.
He thought: it would have been a very long conversation.
He went back to the west corridor.
Styrmir was exactly where he had left him — not because he was particularly obedient but because the alternative was the main corridor and the main corridor was Orreth's floor.
He had dried somewhat.
He was still very wet.
"Water's heating," Gerffron said. "I'll get clothes."
"I'll come," Styrmir said.
"You don't need to come, I'll just—"
"Your room is this way," Styrmir said, pointing down the east corridor toward the guest wing's connection to the main building.
"My room is the other direction. Through the—"
"The main corridor," Styrmir said. "The one you just told me not to use."
Gerffron looked at the corridor.
He thought: he is correct. My room is through the main corridor.
He thought: I have trapped myself.
"Fine," he said. "Come on."
— — —
His attached room was accessed through the library — the specific arrangement of the estate's ground floor that had the library between the main corridor and the private suite, which he had always considered an excellent arrangement and which now had the specific quality of an arrangement that was about to be tested.
He moved through the library quietly.
Styrmir followed.
He moved through it with the respectful, attentive quiet of someone in a space that belonged to someone else and who understood that the belonging meant something.
Gerffron reached his wardrobe.
He opened it.
He looked at the contents.
He pulled out a change of clothes for himself.
He looked at the wardrobe and rummaged for a bigger set of clothes.
He thought: Styrmir is broader than me most of this is not going to fit.
He found, at the wardrobe's back, the specific category of clothing that households maintained for guests — the simple, practical pieces that existed for exactly this kind of situation, that were sized generously rather than fitted.
He pulled out a set.
He turned around.
He held them out.
Styrmir took them.
He held them against himself.
The shirt was generous.
"These'll work," he said.
"Good," Gerffron said.
He was about to say something else — something about going back to the utility room, about the water temperature, about the practical logistics of the next fifteen minutes — when he looked at Styrmir properly.
Looked at him in the specific, detailed way that his eyes did sometimes when his brain was occupied with something else and his eyes operated without the usual editorial.
Styrmir was soaked.
The shirt was soaked.
The shirt, which had been a reasonably substantial piece of clothing when dry, had in its soaked state achieved a transparency and adhesion that communicated, with thorough and entirely unintentional accuracy, the specific structure of everything underneath it.
Gerffron looked at the wardrobe.
He said: "The water should be ready."
They went back to the utility room.
— — —
The water was ready.
The boiler had done its work and the temperature gauge showed the specific, soothing range that Gerffron had been aiming for — hot enough to warm, cool enough to be comfortable, the specific quality of water that was not a medical requirement but a genuine pleasure.
The attached bathroom off the utility corridor was not large but it was functional — the tub, the fixtures, the organized arrangement of the estate's bathroom supplies.
Gerffron began moving water.
The process of moving water from a boiler to a bathtub was one of the specific, functional realities of a household without modern plumbing infrastructure — a process involving the large ladle and the carrying bucket and the specific, repetitive motion of filling and emptying and filling again.
He picked up the bucket.
He filled it.
He carried it.
He poured it.
He carried it back.
He looked at his arms.
He thought: this is going to take a while. I have spaghetti arms for this kind of work.
He said, to himself, under his breath, the specific collection of words that were the twenty-first century's most useful inheritance and which this era unfortunately did not share.
"Allow me," Styrmir said.
He had appeared at the bathroom doorway with the easy, natural quality of someone stepping into a task that had been identified as requiring help.
"I'm fine," Gerffron said.
"You've been calling your arms sprai-gheti," Styrmir said.
"I said no such—"
"Under your breath. I have very good hearing."
Gerffron looked at him.
He looked at the bucket.
He said: "One trip. That's all I needed."
Styrmir took the bucket.
He filled it.
He lifted it.
He carried it.
He poured it.
He did it with the specific, unhurried ease of someone for whom the physics of the task presented no particular challenge — the bucket was full, it was heavy, the carrying and pouring of it required a certain amount of physical commitment, and all of these things were applied without apparent effort.
The arm that performed the pour had a specific, functional quality in the act of it.
The forearm, the specific flexion required for the pour, the exact character of muscle that had been developed through years of — whatever Veldrathi courtiers did that produced this particular quality of arm.
Gerffron was looking at the tub.
He was looking at the tub and not at anything else.
"One more," Styrmir said.
"Yes," Gerffron said.
Styrmir filled the bucket a second time.
He lifted it.
He poured it.
The bicep, at the top of the pour, achieved the specific peak of the action's full extension.
Gerffron's eyes, which had been pointed at the tub, had moved approximately eight inches to the left.
"Like what you see?"
Gerffron's eyes returned to the tub.
He said: "I was checking the water level."
"From that angle?"
"The surface reflection is clearer from this—"
"I can do it again," Styrmir said pleasantly. "If the water level needs checking from additional angles."
He flexed.
He flexed with the specific, deliberate commitment of someone who had identified an audience and was performing for it with the complete, unselfconscious ease of someone who found this genuinely funny.
Gerffron said: "Put your arm down."
"I'm—"
"Put it down and get in the bath. The water is ready."
"You go first," Styrmir said.
Gerffron looked at him.
"You heated the water," Styrmir said. "You should go first. It's your bathroom."
He began moving toward the doorway with the specific, stepping-back motion of someone vacating a space for someone else.
Gerffron picked up his change of clothes.
He moved toward the bath.
Styrmir's hand closed around his wrist.
Not tightly — the specific, gentle firmness of a request rather than a grip.
He turned Gerffron.
The turn was unhurried — the specific, deliberate motion of someone who had something to say and was creating the conditions under which to say it.
Gerffron found himself facing Styrmir's chest.
He looked up.
Styrmir looked down at him with the winter-pale eyes and the slow, warm expression that was his most honest register.
He said: "Why don't we share the bath."
Gerffron's expression did several things.
"It's practical," Styrmir said. "You've already heated this water once. Heating a second round requires the same process — the boiler, the bucket, the — what did you call it — the noodle arms."
"I did not—"
"And the fuel cost," Styrmir said. "The boiler fuel. In a household that has been managing its resources carefully since—"
"You are using fuel economics," Gerffron said, "to argue for bathing together."
"I am raising a legitimate practical consideration," Styrmir said.
"That is not what you are doing."
"The fuel cost is—"
"Styrmir."
"Yes?"
"That," Gerffron said, pointing at the bath and at the specific suggestion it contained, "is not a fuel economics decision."
"It could be both," Styrmir said.
"It cannot be both."
"I disagree. I think—"
"Don't think," Gerffron said. "Don't — just—" He looked at the bath. He looked at the clean clothes in his hand. He looked at Styrmir. "You are doing that thing where you find the argument that makes the thing I want to refuse sound like a practical decision so that I have to argue against the practical version of it rather than the actual version."
"Is it working?" Styrmir said.
Gerffron looked at the bath.
He said: "It is not working."
"Your face suggests—"
"My face is managing several things and none of them are agreement."
"You're blushing," Styrmir said.
"I'm—"
"It's warm in here. From the boiler." He tilted his head. "Could be the heat."
"It is the heat," Gerffron said firmly.
They looked at each other.
Styrmir waited.
This was the specific, patient quality of someone who had been waiting for things for a long time and who had learned that waiting was not the same as losing ground.
Gerffron looked at the bath.
He thought about the garden and the rain arriving mid-sentence and the conversation that had been about to happen.
He thought: I said maybe later.
He thought: this is later.
He said: "If I agree—"
Styrmir said nothing.
"—you look the other way," Gerffron said. "While I get in. You face the wall."
"Done," Styrmir said.
"And no — no commentary," Gerffron said. "No remarks. No—"
"I will be completely silent," Styrmir said.
"You're never completely silent."
"I will be considerably quieter than usual."
Gerffron looked at him for a moment.
He said: "We are both men. This is—"
"Yes," Styrmir said.
"It's not—"
"No," Styrmir said.
"It's just—"
"A bath," Styrmir said. "With two people in it."
Gerffron looked at him.
He said: "Face the wall."
Styrmir turned.
He faced the wall with the immediate, complete compliance of someone who had received the instruction they wanted and was executing it before the instruction could be reconsidered.
Gerffron looked at the wall.
He looked at the bath.
He looked at the clothes in his hand.
He put them on the bench.
He began undressing.
He did it with the focused, concentrated efficiency of someone who had made a decision and was implementing it before the making-a-decision part of his brain could catch up with the implementing part.
He reached the last piece.
He said: "Still facing the wall?"
"Still facing the wall," Styrmir confirmed.
He removed the last piece.
He got into the bath.
The water was the specific, perfect temperature — the temperature that the word soothing existed to describe, that moved from the feet upward with the comprehensive, uncomplicated warmth of something that asked nothing except to be present.
He exhaled.
He said: "All right."
Styrmir turned.
He looked at the bath.
He looked at Gerffron.
His expression had the specific, careful quality of someone managing something — not performance, not comedy, the actual management of a feeling that was too large for the room and which he was treating with appropriate respect.
He undressed.
He did it with the same straightforward efficiency — quickly, practically, without the performance of it.
He got into the bath.
The specific, contained warmth of the water and the specific, immediate awareness of proximity — not contact, only proximity, the specific quality of a space that was smaller than usual and which had two people in it who were aware of being two people in it.
Gerffron looked at the ceiling.
The ceiling of the east utility bathroom was exactly as interesting as ceilings were generally interesting, which was not very.
He looked at it anyway.
He said: "This was your idea."
"Yes," Styrmir said.
"The fuel economics argument was weak."
"I know."
"You knew it was weak when you made it."
"Yes."
"And you made it anyway."
"Yes."
Gerffron looked at the ceiling.
He thought: this is the point at which I make a remark and he makes a remark and the remarks produce the specific, safe quality of two people being witty about the situation instead of being in it.
He looked away from the ceiling.
He did not look at the wall.
He looked at Styrmir.
Styrmir looked back at him.
The water was warm.
The garden was outside.
The rose was almost open.