The carriage arrived at the market district's main avenue at the third bell.
The delegates filed out with the specific energy of people who had been in formal session rooms for seven weeks and were encountering, for the first time since their arrival, the specific, unmediated quality of a city that was simply itself — not performing for visitors, not arranged for diplomatic purposes, only existing in the busy, layered, slightly overwhelming way that capital city markets existed.
Gerffron assembled them on the avenue.
He gave the opening orientation — the district's geography, the categories of shops, the specific areas of the market that were relevant to the delegation's members' personal and professional interests, the practical information about the city's customs regarding bargaining and service.
He did all of this with the focused, professional clarity that he had developed over seven weeks of being the person who explained things to people who needed them explained.
The delegates listened.
The princess listened.
Styrmir listened.
One delegate — a senior advisory staff member named Orveth, who was forty-four years old and had the compact, slightly weathered quality of a man who had been on many delegations and who had survived them by being unobtrusive and cooperative — was standing at the group's edge.
The princess drifted toward him.
She drifted with the specific, unhurried ease of someone for whom drifting into someone's vicinity was a movement that attracted no particular attention.
She leaned slightly toward his ear.
She said something very quietly and very quickly.
She stepped back.
Then, in a single motion that was so casual and so natural that the three people standing immediately adjacent to it would have had difficulty, afterward, providing a clear account of what they had seen — she delivered a precise, compact punch to the man's solar plexus.
Gilmour doubled.
He doubled with the specific, eloquent collapse of a man who has been hit in the exact location that the human body had designated as the most effective point for producing involuntary incapacitation.
He made a sound.
The sound was not a dignified sound.
"Oh, goodness," the princess said, turning to the group with the expression of a woman observing an unfortunate development. "Gilmour— are you all right? He's been having stomach trouble since yesterday — I should have insisted he rest today—"
Several delegates moved toward Gilmour, who was still doubled and making the sounds of a man processing what had just happened to him with the confused urgency of someone who knew something had happened and did not know exactly what.
The princess leaned in again.
She said very quietly: "There is an additional quarter-bonus in your end-of-delegation payment. I also recommend that you groan more convincingly."
Gilmour groaned more convincingly.
"Your Grace, Gerffron," the princess called out, turning with the warm, slightly frantic quality of a concerned superior managing an unexpected situation, "there's a medical shop on this street, isn't there? I saw it on the district map. Gilmour really needs to see someone — and you should come too, that ankle needs attending to."
She looked at him with the full, frank regard of a crown princess who had made a decision.
Gerffron looked at Gilmour.
He looked at the princess.
He looked at Styrmir, who was standing at the group's edge with the expression of a man who has just watched a plan execute and is finding the execution considerably more impressive than he had anticipated.
"I'll take the rest of the delegates ahead," one of the junior liaison staff offered, helpfully. This was also, Gerffron did not know, a suggestion that the junior liaison staff had been primed to make.
"The medical shop is on the left, second building past the cloth merchants," Styrmir said, with the helpful, informative quality of someone consulting an internal map.
Gerffron looked at the left side of the street.
He looked at Gilmour, who was still hunched.
"Fine," he said.
— — —
The medical shop occupied the ground floor and upper floor of a narrow building that had the specific, accumulated quality of an establishment that had been providing a service in the same location for a very long time.
The ground floor had the characteristic smell — herbs, medicines, the clean, slightly sharp quality of a space that took its function seriously.
A cheerful woman behind the counter looked at Orveth and directed him toward the consultation room on the ground floor.
"The physician for the leg," the princess said, gesturing at Gerffron with the airy confidence of a woman who had prepared for this, "is upstairs. Second door."
She said this to Styrmir, which was technically correct because she was addressing the person who was going to escort Gerffron up the stairs.
Styrmir looked at her.
She looked at him.
"Second door," she said.
She turned to attend to Gilmour.
Styrmir looked at Gerffron.
"Shall we?" he said.
Gerffron looked at the stairs.
He looked at the princess's back.
He thought: this is extremely orchestrated.
He thought: the ankle does actually hurt.
He said: "Fine."
They went upstairs.
— — —
The second door was a good door.
It was the kind of door that closed firmly and completely when pushed, that produced a satisfying, definitive click when the latch engaged.
The room behind the second door was a storage room.
This was immediately apparent — the shelving, the medical supplies in organized rows, the specific, functional quality of a back room rather than a consultation room.
There was no physician.
Gerffron looked at the room.
He looked at the door.
He tried the door.
The door did not open.
"Interesting," Styrmir said.
"Try it," Gerffron said.
Styrmir tried the door.
He tried it with considerable effort — the physical effort of a twenty-three year old who was considerably stronger than his companion and who was applying that strength to the door with the focused commitment of someone genuinely attempting to open it.
The door did not open.
"It got locked from the outside," Gerffron said.
"Yes," Styrmir said.
"We got locked in a storage room above a medical shop."
"Yes."
"She punched one of the delegation members to facilitate this."
"Uh....well....he told me she had a plan," Styrmir said sheepishly. "I did not expect the punching."
Gerffron looked at him.
"You told her — you knew—"
"I knew she had a plan," Styrmir said. "I did not know the specific execution method."
"Did you know," Gerffron said, with careful, dangerous calm, "that the plan involved locking us in a room?"
Styrmir considered this.
"I suspected the plan involved creating an opportunity for privacy," he said. "The specific mechanism was—"
"A storage room."
"—a creative interpretation of the goal," Styrmir finished.
Gerffron looked at the door.
He looked at the storage shelves.
He looked at the small window — too small, set high in the wall, letting in the specific quality of summer morning light and a distant slice of the market's sounds.
He sat down on a crate.
He put his head in his hands.
"Sit down," he said, without looking up. "We are clearly not going anywhere until someone decides to let us out. Sit down and stop standing there looking like you find this amusing."
"I do find it a little amusing," Styrmir said.
"I know," Gerffron said.
"Is that all right?"
"It's honest," Gerffron said. "Which is a thing I generally respect even when I find the specific instance of it inconvenient."
Styrmir sat down on the crate across from him.