The king's sixty-ninth birthday banquet had been on the estate's formal calendar for three weeks.
This was sufficient time for the household to prepare everything it needed to prepare, and for Wren and Sera to develop, in the final hour before Gerffron needed to leave, completely opposing and equally passionate opinions about what he should wear.
"The navy," Wren said.
"The charcoal," Sera said.
"The navy is the formal one. The banquet is a formal occasion."
"The charcoal is the one that fits properly. The navy pulls at the left shoulder."
"It does not pull at the left shoulder—"
"It absolutely pulls at the left shoulder. I have watched it pull at the left shoulder for two years."
"Two years ago the tailor adjusted the left shoulder."
"The tailor adjusted it once. It has pulled again since. Fabric does that."
"Sera," Wren said, with the patient firmness of someone who had a position and was not going to be moved from it, "the charcoal is for everyday occasions. This is the king's birthday banquet. There are protocols about what you wear to the king's birthday banquet and they do not include—"
"The protocol is formal dress. The charcoal is formal dress."
"The charcoal is formal-adjacent."
"There is no such category—"
Gerffron stood between them in his undershirt and looked at the two coats laid out on the bed and felt the specific, helpless quality of a man who has been overruled by his own household staff.
"If," he said, "either of you would like to know my preference—"
"Not particularly," Sera said.
"—I would be happy to—"
"We know your preference," Wren said. "Your preference is whichever one requires the least standing still while we sort out the buttons. Your preference is not a useful contribution to this conversation."
Gerffron looked at the ceiling.
He looked at the two coats.
He looked at Oswin, who was sitting in the corner of the room on his favourite blanket, two years old and very round with the specific, cheerful roundness of a toddler who had been well-nourished since birth and who had developed, over two years of close observation, a comprehensive understanding of the adults around him and their various patterns.
Oswin was watching the proceedings with the expression of a small person who has identified that something interesting is happening and is giving it his full attention.
"Oswin," Gerffron said.
Oswin looked at him.
"Which coat," Gerffron said, pointing first at the navy and then at the charcoal.
Oswin looked at the navy coat.
He looked at the charcoal coat.
He looked at Gerffron.
He pointed at the charcoal.
Sera looked at Wren with the expression of a woman who has just received confirmation from an independent source.
"He's two," Wren said.
"Yet he has an excellent taste," Sera said.
"He chose it because it's darker and he has a demonstrated preference for darker colours—"
"Ba!" Oswin said, which was the word he used when he wanted to be taken seriously, delivered with the specific emphasis of a small person who had something to say and was saying it.
He pointed at the charcoal again.
"The people have spoken," Gerffron said.
He picked up the charcoal coat.
Wren looked at Oswin with the expression of a mother who has just been outmaneuvered by her own child and is deciding how she feels about it.
Oswin beamed at her.
"He learned that from you," Wren said to Gerffron.
"He learned an informed opinion from me," Gerffron said, putting on the coat. "Entirely different thing."
"He learned to deploy it strategically," she said.
"Also different."
"Is it?"
Gerffron looked at Oswin.
Oswin was looking at the charcoal coat with the satisfied expression of a small person whose recommendation has been implemented.
"Possibly not," Gerffron admitted.
— — —
The estate had the quality it had when something was pending — the slightly compressed energy of a household that was getting ready for an occasion and performing the readying with the focused efficiency of people who took occasions seriously.
What the estate did not have was Gorgina.
Gorgina had left at the seventh bell.
She had left without announcement, without the normal domestic formality of a departure — no instruction left for the household, no coordination with Gerffron about the evening's logistics, no shared carriage, no nothing.
Orreth had informed him.
She had informed him with the specific, professional neutrality of a woman who was delivering information without performing a position on it, which was itself a kind of position.
Gerffron had said: "Thank you, Orreth."
He had gone back to the dressing room.
He had not performed a reaction about it, because performing reactions about it in front of the household was not something he was going to do.
He held the reaction in the specific, internal place where he kept things that were being held rather than processed, and he finished getting dressed, and he said goodbye to Oswin, who had by that point achieved his lap and was attempting to contribute to the button situation, and he went downstairs.
The estate's main entrance had no carriage waiting.
He stood at the entrance and looked at the drive.
He thought that the palace is forty minutes on foot, he'll will be late if he walks yet he does not have a better option.
He started walking.
— — —
The prime minister's carriage found him approximately eight minutes into the walk.
He heard the hooves first — the specific, rhythmic quality of a well-managed carriage horse at a moderate pace — and then the carriage itself appeared at the road's bend, moving in the same direction he was.
It slowed.
The window came down.
Deldric Harren looked out at him with the expression of a man encountering a specific and unexpected piece of information.
"Consort Wadee," he called out.
"Prime Minister," Gerffron greeted.
"You are walking?" Deldric said.
"I am," Gerffron said.
"To the palace??"
"Yes."
"The palace," Deldric said, "is forty minutes from here by carriage."
"I'm aware of the distance."
"On foot, it would be—"
"Also aware," Gerffron said pleasantly.
Deldric looked at him.
He looked at the road ahead.
He looked at Gerffron again.
"Get in the carriage," he said.
"I don't want to impose—"
"I am not offering out of charity," Deldric said. "I am offering because if you arrive at the king's birthday banquet in a state of perspiration having walked forty minutes in the evening heat, the prime minister who is accompanying you will look like a man who failed to notice that his liaison had no transportation, which reflects poorly on the prime minister's situational awareness. Get in the carriage."
Gerffron got in the carriage.
It was a good carriage — the prime minister's formal one, the one that came out for significant occasions, with the better upholstery and the lamp that actually worked in all weather conditions.
Deldric looked at him as the door closed.
"Where is your carriage?" he asked.
"What a beautiful evening," Gerffron said, looking at the window.
"Consort Wadee."
"The light at this hour is really something, isn't it? The way it comes through the capital at the end of summer — there's a quality to it that I find—"
"Where," Deldric said, with the patient directness of a man who had been managing deflections for thirty years, "is your carriage?"
Gerffron looked at the window for a moment.
He said: "I sent it ahead with the luggage."
Deldric looked at him.
"There is no luggage," Deldric said. "It is a banquet, not an extended visit. You are not bringing luggage."
"Administrative luggage," Gerffron said. "The final session reports. The consolidated documents from the delegation's—"
"Those documents," Deldric said, "are in my carriage. I have been carrying them since the fourth bell because my secretary delivered them this afternoon. I know exactly what luggage is and is not in this carriage and what has and has not been sent ahead."
Gerffron looked at the window.
He thought: the prime minister is, professionally, better at this than I am.
"The Duke," he said, carefully, "had use of the household carriage this evening for her own travel arrangements."
Deldric was quiet for a moment.
He had the specific, considered quality of a man who has received a piece of information and is deciding how much of his understanding of it to make visible.
"I see," he said.
He said nothing further on the subject.
He picked up the document on his lap.
After a moment he said, in the tone of a man choosing a different register entirely: "The page ninety-four problem. I have been thinking about it."
Gerffron looked at him.
"I think," Deldric said, "that the author was wrong about the eastern boundary provisions in the third chapter, which is what produces the contradiction on page ninety-four. If you go back to the third chapter with that assumption—"
"I tried that," Gerffron said, sitting forward slightly. "The third chapter isn't wrong, the problem is that the author assumes the Veldrath precedent applies to the western territories and it doesn't, it only applies to the northern ones, so by the time you reach page ninety-four the entire framework has been built on a geographic misreading—"
"Show me," Deldric said.
"I don't have the book."
"I have it in my bag. I have been carrying it for a week."
"You have been carrying the constitutional history—"
"Because I knew this conversation was coming."
Gerffron looked at him.
"You," he said, "are the most prepared person I have ever met."
"I have been the prime minister for twenty-two years," Deldric said, producing the book from the bag at his feet. "Preparation is the entire job. Now. Page ninety-four. Show me the geographic misreading."
The carriage moved through the summer evening toward the palace.
They were seven minutes late.
Neither of them noticed.