"He's the pharaoh's brother. Cleric of Abadar, does... trade policy? I think? I've never heard anyone complain about him. There was some nonsense about the wife? Maybe ask Mahdi, he follows that stuff."

"He does? Wouldn't've pegged him for celebrity gossip."

"Mahdi's going to be rich once he retires, right. He could buy his way into the Dome if he wants to. He's started paying more attention to it all. It's terrible."

"Huh. Where's he gotten to -"

He glances around. Waves him over. "Loot for you."

"Oh good. We're apparently going to be sitting around for a while."

"I hear you're up on celebrity gossip and I'm gonna be doing cultural consultancy for the office of Prince Merenre and want all the details."

"Celebrity gossip." He raises an eyebrow at Hagan. "I have heard that the Prince Merenre is a devoted servant of Abadar."

"Gosh. Maybe I have been misled."

"I do think it's one of the basic research responsibilities of the party wizard to know things about their government."

"C'mon, you've gotten way more into it lately."

"There's been more of it lately. All these royal marriages."

"They just recently aging into the cohort for it?"

"By ordinary standards they're a little young. I think Merenre's twenty-five? But then they have different duties than the rest of us."

"Was his wedding otherwise notable?"

Snort. "He invested a lot of crown money in a jewelry business and then a couple months after that the proprietor revealed she was actually a woman dressing as a man and now betrothed to him. Anyone's guess what actually happened, of course. I have heard that presumably he picked a fellow out and demanded he switch, or that the fellow switched of his own accord when he thought it'd get him a shot at it, or that it really was a woman all along but it's her brother who ran the shop..."

"Are they allowed to demand that people switch?"

"A good question. I think not strictly speaking? It's not obvious there would be avenues to decline short of fleeing the continent, though."

"They can take women without anyone's approval. I'm not sure it'd be different if one tried it with a man. It might bother people more."

"Well, my grandmother likes to say that you at least shouldn't marry someone who'd rather be dead - too likely they chance stabbing you in your sleep - but that's probably not the same bar in Osirion. I suppose I'll try not to interest any royalty."

"I don't think they're permitted nonhumans, so I wouldn't worry."

"Aren't they? Good to know. Brush me up on the protocol for kneeling and so on, will you -"

"Of course." And he explains. Osirion takes their royalty very seriously which is why you kneel in their presence and don't contradict or disobey them without a spectacularly good reason and so on.

"Is 'they're wrong' not a spectacularly good reason?"