The carriage had been waiting at the palace's main entrance.
The palace carriage — Gorgina's, the estate's formal vehicle, sent in the morning with the household driver who had been doing this route for six years.
Gerffron had been at the main entrance at the sixth bell, coat on, documents under his arm, looking for the carriage that had been here this morning and was not here now.
He had found, in the carriage's place, a servant of the Wadee estate — one of the junior footmen, with the slightly apologetic expression of someone delivering information they had not chosen to be responsible for.
"The Duke's carriage is at the east entrance, sir," the footman said. "The Duke requests that you ride with her."
Gerffron looked at the east entrance.
He thought: she has moved the carriage specifically so that I have to come to her. This is a power statement delivered through vehicle logistics. I have been in this household for five years and I am still being surprised by the creativity of the mechanisms.
He went to the east entrance.
Gorgina's carriage was there.
Gorgina was in it.
The door was open.
Styrmir was standing beside it.
He had appeared from somewhere — from the garden direction, from wherever he had been for the past several hours — with the easy, unhurried quality of someone who had completed a productive afternoon and was ready for the next thing.
He looked at the carriage.
He looked at Gerffron.
He said: "Shall we?"
Gerffron looked at the carriage.
He looked at Gorgina inside it.
He thought: this is going to be a long ride.
He got in.
Styrmir got in behind him.
The door closed.
The carriage began to move.
— — —
Gorgina looked at the seat across from her.
The seat across from her contained her husband on the left and the person she least wanted in her carriage on the right.
She had invited Gerffron.
She had not invited Styrmir.
Styrmir was in her carriage.
She thought about the royal inspector.
She thought about the palace observer who visited every two weeks and who would, if he received a complaint about the treatment of a delegate, file it with the court's diplomatic protocol office, which would file it with the king's administrative secretary, which would produce consequences she did not currently have the energy to manage.
She thought: I cannot remove him from this carriage without a scene.
She composed her expression.
She said, to Gerffron, in the light, conversational register she used when she was performing normalcy:
"How was the session today?"
"Fine," Gerffron said.
She looked at him.
"The king was pleased with the summary," he added.
"Good," she said.
A pause.
"The winter ball preparations are progressing," she tried.
"Yes," he said.
"You have been given the delegation management role."
"Yes."
"That's — significant."
"Yes."
She looked at him.
He was looking at the window with the specific, composed quality of someone who was answering every question correctly and not contributing anything additional.
She was aware, in the specific, unpleasant way of awareness that arrived when you could not avoid what you were aware of, that the man on the right side of the carriage's opposite seat was watching this exchange with the focused, unhurried attention of someone who found it interesting.
She did not look at the man on the right.
"The estate's eastern garden is going to need the autumn maintenance," she said, to Gerffron.
"Mm," Gerffron said.
"I was thinking we might also address the gate's ironwork before the winter."
"The gate seems fine," Gerffron said.
"It has some rust at the base of the left pillar."
"I'll have a look," Gerffron said.
"I just meant that — I noticed it this morning and thought—"
"The palace's eastern garden," Styrmir said, conversationally, to the carriage in general, "is a beautiful space. I was there today, as it happens. The late-season roses are particularly — the autumn quality of the garden is really something."
Gorgina looked at him.
He looked back at her with the winter-pale eyes and the pleasant, mild expression of someone contributing to a conversation about gardens.
"I happened to see several interesting things in the garden today," he continued. "A man of about sixty with an injury to his right hand. A young woman who was very capable in managing the injury. A handkerchief on a garden bench, left behind by someone who had — I can only assume — finished with it." He tilted his head. "The palace's eastern garden sees more activity than I would have expected. For a private space."
The carriage was quiet.
Gerffron was looking at the window with the expression of a man who could not intervene in what was happening because intervening would require acknowledging that he understood what was happening.
Gorgina looked at Styrmir.
"Advisory Consultant Voss," she said, and her voice had the quality it had when she was being precise, "has a remarkable ability to find himself in the vicinity of things that do not concern him."
"The garden is a shared space," Styrmir said pleasantly.
"The garden," she said, "is private palace grounds."
"The delegation has standing access to the palace's grounds for the duration of the visit," he said. "As confirmed in the court's formal arrangement. I was on perfectly legitimate ground."
"Were you perched on a tree?" she asked incredulously.
A pause.
Gerffron's head turned very slightly.
He returned his attention to the window with the focused commitment of a man who was not going to look at either of the people across from him.
"The trees," Styrmir said, "are also technically within the grounds."
"What you were doing in those grounds is not the business of a diplomatic delegate—"
"What was I doing, Your Grace?" Styrmir said. "I was in a garden. Enjoying the autumn roses. As anyone might."
"You were watching!" she said.
"Gardens reward attention," he said.
"You were watching things that are none of your—"
"What things?" Styrmir said. And his voice, which had been pleasant throughout, moved into the register that was quieter and more present — the one that wasn't performing pleasantness but was something more genuine underneath it. "What things would you prefer I hadn't seen, Your Grace? I am happy to discuss them specifically. Or we could continue to discuss the abstract category of things that were or were not appropriate for me to observe from a tree."
Gorgina looked at him.
He looked back at her.
"I think," he said, "that there are several people in this empire who would find the afternoon's garden interesting. The royal observer, for example. The king's investigative office. Lady Mallory's father, who I understand has quite a wide social network among the older noble families." He paused. "But I am, of course, simply a delegate enjoying the autumn roses. I have no particular interest in court politics."
"You have every particular interest in court politics," she said.
"You flatter me," he said.
"I am not—" she stopped. She breathed. She said, and her voice had the quality of someone who has reached the end of the managed version and has arrived at something less managed: "You are deliberately provoking me in my own carriage."
"I am having a conversation," he said.
"You are—"
"I am having," he said, "a very honest conversation. Which is different from the conversations that have been happening in this carriage for the past ten minutes, which were not honest conversations but performances of normal domestic exchange." He looked at her. "I find honest conversations more useful. Even when they are uncomfortable."
"Get out of my carriage," she said.
"We are moving," he said.
"When we stop—"
"Of course."
"I mean it."
"I know you do."
Gerffron said: "Could we possibly—"
Both of them looked at him.
He looked at the window.
He said: "The gate. The rust at the base of the left pillar. I'll have someone look at it this week."
Neither of them responded.
He said: "The autumn maintenance in the east garden is also a good idea. The roses specifically — they need the late-season cut to perform well in the spring."
The carriage was quiet.
He said: "I understand the ironwork on the south garden fence has also been—"
"Gerffron," Gorgina said.
"Yes?"
"Stop."
"I was simply—"
"Please," she said.
He stopped.
He looked at the window.
He thought: I have spent five years in this household and I have never successfully mediated anything in my life. This is consistent with my record.
The carriage moved.
The silence had the specific, charged quality of a silence that was between two people rather than around all three of them — the specific silence of Gorgina and Styrmir sitting with everything that had been said and not said in the past five minutes.
Gerffron looked at the window.
The capital moved past.
— — —
They descended at the estate gate.
The household staff received them.
Gorgina went inside.
She went inside with the compressed, forward-moving quality of someone who had decided that forward motion was the appropriate response to the current state of things.
Styrmir moved toward the east wing.
Gerffron caught his arm.
Not firmly — the specific, light catch of someone who needed a moment.
Styrmir stopped.
Gerffron said, quietly, at the volume calibrated for two people rather than three:
"She is not someone who forgets."
Styrmir looked at him.
"Whatever you said in that carriage — and I am aware that most of it was legitimate — she will file it. She files everything. And she will find a way to address it that does not produce a complaint to the inspector." He looked at Styrmir. "You are a delegate. You have the inspector's protection. But protection is a deterrent, not a guarantee. She is creative and she has authority in this household and she has five years of practice at managing situations that don't have clean solutions."
Styrmir was looking at him.
He was looking at him with the winter-pale eyes in the estate's late-afternoon light and the specific quality of a person who is receiving information and is also receiving the feeling behind the information.
"Are you worried?" he said.
"Yes," Gerffron said. "Obviously I am worried."
He said it the way he said things that were simply true.
Styrmir was quiet for a moment.
He said: "I'll be careful."
"I know you will be," Gerffron said. "I'm telling you because—" he stopped. He looked at the gate. He looked at Styrmir. "I'm telling you because I want you to understand the environment you're in. This is not the palace. Here she has fewer constraints."
"I understand," Styrmir said.
"Good."
"Gerffron."
He looked at him.
"Thank you," Styrmir said.
He said it simply.
Not for the warning, specifically — for the worry, which was the thing underneath the warning, which was the thing that the warning was an expression of.
Gerffron looked at the gate.
He said: "Don't make me regret it."
He went inside.
Styrmir stood at the estate gate for a moment.
He thought: Knowing her...she will not wait long.
He went to his designated chamber.