The senate granted Frederick forty minutes.
Dayla knew the number because she had negotiated it from twenty-five, written it into the audience request, and confirmed it twice with the chancellor's secretary. Forty minutes meant twelve for courtesies, eighteen for the proposal, seven for questions, and three for an ending that allowed the senators to believe the next meeting had been their idea.
Frederick used thirty-six.
They crossed the senate plaza beneath a colorless Manarian sky. The white marble building ahead had been designed to make petitioners feel late, poorly dressed, and temporary. Its steps were shallow enough to lengthen the climb. Its columns rose without decoration. Even the doors required two servants to open them.
Frederick climbed at the same pace he used everywhere. Dayla walked half a step behind with the proposal, her notes, and seven private profiles inside a black leather case.
"Von Staahl will ask about continuity," she said.
"He will ask who chairs it."
"Von Kraul will ask about enforcement."
"He will ask whether the army accepts it."
"Brennac may ask about the king."
Frederick glanced at her. "May?"
"His voting record supports the chancellor, but his speeches separate the office from the man. He defends royal procedure more often than royal power."
"Then he will ask about legitimacy, not the king."
Dayla adjusted that in her mind. She did not write while walking. Frederick noticed notes taken at the wrong time.
"And if one of them asks what position you intend to hold?"
"I intend to help."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the answer they are prepared to hear."
The doors opened.
Seven senators waited in the private chamber. The full senate contained eighty-one seats, public clerks, formal speaking rules, and a record that could be demanded by any noble house in Manaria. The senior council required none of those inconveniences. Seven men could call it consultation and change the direction of a kingdom before lunch.
Chancellor Rupert von Staahl sat at the center of the long table. At seventy, he had cultivated the white hair, heavy robes, and slow gestures of a man who expected artists to paint him after death. His two closest allies occupied the chairs beside him. Four others completed the arc.
Dayla knew the placement had been chosen before Frederick's request arrived. Power made habits, and habits left records.
She took the chair behind Frederick's left shoulder. From there she could see every senator, the chamber clock, and the faint reflection of Frederick's face in the polished water jug.
The first eleven minutes passed exactly as planned.
Frederick praised the senate's endurance through three reigns. He described Manaria's present disorder as a burden no single institution should be asked to carry. He referred to von Staahl's address on provincial obligations, von Kraul's paper on emergency levies, and Brennac's proposed standards for city accounts. Each reference was specific enough to flatter and incomplete enough to invite correction.
No one corrected him.
At the twelfth minute, he opened the proposal.
He never said overthrow. He said transition.
He never said removal. He said temporary separation of ceremonial and administrative authority.
He never said King Aldric's name.
The senate, Frederick explained, would provide the legal framework for a distributed government. It would define the transitional period, certify the transfer of provincial authority, and nominate a leader to coordinate the work until permanent offices could be established. No senator would lose his seat. No committee would be dissolved. The chamber's laws would remain the spine of the state.
It was an offer of extraordinary generosity.
It was also shaped like a trap.
Dayla had typed the final version herself. She knew which details were firm and which only sounded firm. The senate would nominate a transitional leader, but the proposal did not say its nominee would be appointed. It would define the period, but no clause gave it power to end that period. Its laws would remain, except where emergency administration required consolidation.
Every promise was true. Together they produced a conclusion that was not.
Five senators leaned forward.
Von Staahl touched one finger to the naming clause. His eyes brightened. He already saw himself announcing the transition to a waiting nation, perhaps from the senate steps, perhaps with Frederick positioned gratefully behind him.
Senator Aldus von Kraul leaned back. Dayla had expected that. He distrusted any sentence containing both temporary and emergency, a prejudice she considered healthy.
Heinrich von Brennac leaned back too.
That was new.
Dayla shifted her attention without moving her head. Brennac was sixty-four, widowed, wealthy without debt, and secure in a seat his family had held for four generations. He supported von Staahl on budgets, appointments, and trade. He opposed him on questions of process just often enough to maintain a reputation for independence without threatening the chancellor's control.
Dayla had classified him as comfortable.
Comfortable men accepted profitable uncertainty. Brennac was not looking at the proposal. He was watching von Staahl receive it.
She wrote in her private shorthand:
Brennac measures the chancellor, not the offer.
Frederick reached the question period with nine minutes remaining.
Von Staahl asked who would chair the transitional authority.
"The senate should determine the qualities required," Frederick said. "Manaria cannot afford a leader imposed without the chamber's confidence."
It sounded like consent. It promised none.
Von Kraul asked whether the army would obey a civil body assembled outside royal command.
"No durable transition can be built against the army," Frederick replied. "Its senior officers must be consulted before any public act."
Consulted. Not obeyed.
Another senator asked what would happen to the king.
Frederick's reflected face remained still in the water jug.
"His Majesty's safety and dignity are not negotiable," he said. "The purpose of this framework is to prevent administrative failure from becoming personal vengeance."
No one asked whether the king would remain king.
Brennac asked nothing.
That concerned Dayla more than a hostile speech would have.
At thirty-five minutes, Frederick closed his folder.
"I did not come to request a decision today. A decision of this scale deserves the chamber's private judgment. If the senior council wishes to continue, I remain at its service."
He had given them permission to believe delay belonged to them.
Von Staahl thanked him for his thoughtfulness and proposed a second session within the week. Five men agreed immediately. Von Kraul waited, then nodded. Brennac gave no sign until every other face had turned toward him.
"A second session," he said.
The chamber clock marked thirty-six minutes.
Outside, the marble corridor held the cold. Dayla walked behind Frederick at the proper distance while the senate doors closed at their backs.
"Von Kraul was less resistant than expected," Frederick said.
"He received no answer about the army."
"He received proof that I know an answer is required. For today, that is more valuable."
"Brennac asked nothing."
"Yes."
Frederick's tone carried interest. Not worry.
They had nearly reached the avenue doors when a voice followed them through the corridor.
"Von Vilhelm."
They turned.
Heinrich von Brennac approached alone, his dark coat buttoned high against the chill. His pace was unhurried. A man who feared being seen with Frederick would have walked faster or waited longer.
"Senator," Frederick said.
"A moment, if you please."
His gaze moved to Dayla.
Frederick did not dismiss her. "Of course."
"Both of you," Brennac said.
That was the first decision he revealed.
He stopped beyond easy speaking distance and forced them to close half the gap. Dayla noted it. Men disclosed their sense of danger in where they placed their bodies.
"Your proposal was well made," Brennac said.
"I am glad it was clear."
"It was clear where you wished it to be clear."
Frederick waited.
"The chancellor will accept," Brennac continued. "So will most of the council. You offered them authorship of the future, and men of our profession are rarely able to resist signing their names to history."
"You did not lean forward," Dayla said.
Brennac looked at her. "No."
Frederick's attention sharpened. Dayla had spoken without invitation. He would ask later why.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because he offered us every visible power except the power to refuse him after we accept."
The corridor seemed to grow quieter.
Frederick smiled, not warmly. "You read carefully."
"I have survived forty years in a building devoted to making theft resemble procedure. Careful reading is the minimum."
"Then you know nothing in the proposal can be enacted without the senate."
"At first."
"At every stage defined by law."
"Law enforced by whom?"
Frederick did not answer at once. It was the first unscripted pause Dayla had seen from him that morning.
Brennac's gaze remained steady. "I see what you are giving the senate. I do not yet understand what you are taking."
"Nothing that is not offered."
"The giving may be the part you constructed most carefully."
A door opened somewhere beyond the bend. All three waited until footsteps passed into another wing.
"Come to my office tomorrow," Frederick said. "We can discuss your objections privately."
"You will tell me what you choose."
"As will you. That is how private conversation works."
Brennac almost smiled. "I am not objecting yet. I am trying to understand the price before men who trust me agree to pay it."
His eyes returned to Dayla.
"Your notes were excellent."
"You did not see them."
"I saw when you stopped writing."
Dayla felt the statement more sharply than she allowed her face to show.
"You stopped three times," Brennac said. "Once when von Staahl touched the nomination clause. Once when the king was discussed. Once when I asked no question. A secretary records what her principal requires. A witness records what she may someday need."
Frederick stepped half a pace closer. It was a minor adjustment, almost courteous. It placed him between Brennac and Dayla without fully blocking either.
"Are you threatening my cousin?" he asked.
"No. I am telling her I recognize the burden of keeping an accurate record beside a powerful man."
"I keep the record required of me," Dayla said.
"I am sure you do."
Brennac inclined his head.
"I will come tomorrow, Von Vilhelm. I expect to remain unsatisfied."
"Then we already agree on the likely outcome."
Brennac walked away. His footsteps crossed the marble at the same patient pace. He did not look back.
Dayla waited until he passed through the council door.
"He is dangerous," she said.
"Yes."
"He found the missing power in one reading."
"So did you."
"I drafted it."
"That is not why."
Frederick resumed walking.
Outside, the plaza wind pressed cold through Dayla's gloves. Carriages moved along the avenue. Two newspaper boys shouted about grain prices beside the senate steps, unaware that seven men inside had just discussed removing the authority behind every coin they named.
"You expected someone to see it," she said.
"I allowed for it."
"That is not the same answer."
"No."
"What happens if he refuses?"
"Refusal is information."
"And after the information?"
Frederick looked toward the traffic rather than at her. "We learn whether his courage is private or contagious."
There it was. Brennac was not only a risk. He was a test Frederick had permitted the senate to perform on itself.
Back at the consultancy, Dayla opened her official record. She copied the questions, the commitments, and the time of adjournment. She did not record Brennac's words in the corridor. She did not record Frederick's answer on the plaza.
The omissions remained visible to her, blank spaces with exact borders.
Frederick appeared at her desk before she closed the official ledger.
"Why did you speak?" he asked.
She knew which moment he meant. "Brennac was measuring whether I had a mind separate from yours. Silence would have answered him too."
"And what answer did you intend?"
"That I had read the room."
"Not the proposal?"
"He already knew I had read the proposal."
Frederick looked at the open ledger. His gaze rested on the blank space after the record of adjournment, where an ordinary clerk might have included the corridor exchange as a supplementary note.
"Will you meet him if he approaches you alone?" he asked.
"Do you want me to?"
"I asked what you will do."
The distinction felt deliberate. Frederick could have given an order and converted every later choice into obedience or disobedience. Instead he left ownership with her.
"Yes," Dayla said. "I will hear him."
"Will you tell me what he says?"
"If it affects the work."
For the first time that day, Frederick's expression became unreadable to her. It lasted only a moment.
"Good," he said.
He left without asking what she considered part of the work. Dayla watched the doorway after him and understood that his trust could be more controlling than suspicion. Suspicion made a person defend herself. Trust made her afraid to become the person who proved it foolish.
Late that evening, she opened the private profile she had prepared on Brennac. At the bottom, beside comfortable, she drew a single line through the word.
She considered replacements.
Principled was too generous. Suspicious was too shallow. Brave described an action, not a man. She finally wrote: willing to lose position in order to keep judgment.
Then she added a second sentence.
Frederick is interested.
She stared at the page. The honest record would have included a third sentence: so am I.
Dayla closed the file without writing it.
For most of her life, accuracy had meant putting the correct words in the correct place. Now accuracy had begun to include the words she withheld, and she did not yet know whether that made her a better witness or a more useful accomplice.