The treaty review began on a Wednesday morning in the small judicial chamber adjoining the Senate floor, which was a deliberate choice — close enough to the Senate to signal legitimacy, separate enough to allow frank conversation without the performance that the full chamber required.
Lucian sat at the head of the table with his two senior diplomats — Flavius, who was sixty and had negotiated half the current border agreements, and Mira, who was forty-two and had a mind like a very sharp and slightly impatient knife. Across from them sat the eastern provincial delegation: three men and one woman, all of whom had traveled a significant distance and arrived with the particular alertness of people who know that what happens in this room will define the next decade.
Daria's uncle, Lord Castor, led the eastern delegation. He was not what Livia's analysis had led Lucian to expect — she had described him as practical, and she was right, but she had undersold the quality of his practicality. Castor was a man who had thought carefully about what he wanted and had arrived with the specific arguments to support it. He was going to be, Lucian realized within the first ten minutes, an excellent negotiating partner.
The first day covered section four — the military clauses. The discussion was technical and long and went well.
The second day covered section seven — the trade provisions. This was where Livia's analysis proved its value. She had mapped the discrepancy between the original assumptions and the current economic reality with the precision of someone who had grown up watching policy work and fail at close range, and Lucian had prepared his case around her framework without, obviously, attributing it to her. Three times during the second day Mira referenced a point that came directly from Livia's document and Lucian felt the particular satisfaction of watching someone's best work do its work in the world.
The third day was section twelve.
The marriage clause.
Lucian had known this day was coming and had prepared for it as carefully as he had prepared for anything in his professional life, which meant extremely carefully and also with the full awareness that preparation was not the same as certainty.
He had spoken to Daria the night before. That conversation had been one of the more difficult and more honest conversations of his adult life.
"I am not asking you to release me from the engagement," he had said, which was true. "I am asking you to participate honestly in a conversation about whether the terms of the alliance require this specific form of commitment, or whether there are terms that would serve the same strategic purpose while allowing both of us more latitude."
Daria had been quiet for a long time. She had looked out the window at the Roman night and said, finally: "My mother will be furious."
"Yes."
"Lord Castor will not be furious." She turned to look at him. "I have suspected for some time that my uncle has a different understanding of what this alliance needs than my mother does." Another pause. "And I have suspected, since my arrival here, that you have found something you were not expecting to find."
He had not insulted her with a denial.
"I want you to know," she said, "that I do not blame you for that. I want you also to know that I am not a woman who will be easily consoled with a title and a position and a husband who is present in the political sense only." She met his eyes. "If there is a way to structure this that gives us both real lives, I would prefer it to the alternative."
He had, at that point, a great deal more respect for Princess Daria than he had had at the start of the week.
In the treaty chamber on the third day, the marriage clause discussion was careful and indirect and extremely well-mannered by the standards of such things. It did not resolve. It was agreed that it required further consideration and a follow-up session. Lord Castor expressed, with considerable diplomatic elegance, that the eastern provinces' primary interest was in the stability provisions of the alliance, and that the specific mechanism by which that stability was expressed was, perhaps, a matter of some flexibility.
Lucian wrote to Livia that evening:
Day three. Section twelve was not resolved. It was, however, opened. Lord Castor is a pragmatist. Daria is a more complex and admirable person than I gave her credit for. My father attended the afternoon session and said nothing, which in his language means a great deal.
We are not there yet. But I am beginning to believe that we might get there. That is different from hoping. That is something closer to planning.
She wrote back within the hour:
Keep going. I am here.
Three words. He read them until the lamp burned low.