It didn’t cover the fact that every time she spoke Norwegian, some primitive part of me tried to stand up and take credit for language as a concept.
I drank water. The handlers had, blessedly, learned.
Yuki turned a page. “Lord Solberg, your delegation’s position on long-term reliability includes a proposed review every four years.Ashenmere requested six.”
Catalina translated the question into Norwegian. Her pronunciation was impeccable.
Horribly inconsiderate.
Bjorn glanced at me.
My portion.
I’d practiced this. I knew the answer. It had three parts: market volatility, extraction constraints, and political realities inside the Northern bloc. I’d drafted it myself and improved it twice. I could’ve recited it under sedation.
I looked at Yuki and tried not to look at Catalina.
My eyes went to Catalina anyway. They had their own diplomatic policy.
The enforcer’s head shifted by one degree.
I returned my attention to Yuki and delivered the first two parts of the answer correctly. The third came out wrong.
Elegantly wrong, which was worse than treaty-breaking wrong. Wrong enough to sound intentional. Wrong enough to require response.
Bjorn’s water glass paused halfway to his mouth.
Yuki’s expression didn’t change.
Catalina’s didn’t either. She translated exactly what I’d said. That was what a good translator did. That was also what a woman did when she wanted to see if you could clean up your own blood.
Yuki looked at me and the room waited.
I smiled. There were many kinds of smiles in diplomacy. This one admitted authorship.
“I should clarify,” I said.
Catalina translated. Her eyes held mine without softening.
I corrected the clause, tied it to port redundancy, and handed the revised phrasing to Bjorn as if I’d planned the concession all along. Bjorn accepted it smoothly because Bjorn had been cleaning up after the men in his family since before I was born and was very tired of allof us.
Yuki let the correction stand and the meeting moved on.
I didn’t look at Catalina for seven full minutes.
A personal achievement, given the circumstances.
At minute eight, one of the Ashenmere councilors asked whether the Norwegian side would accept an inspection provision tied to delivery delays.
Bjorn’s answer was no. My answer was also no. The answer that would move the room forward was no, offered in a way that sounded like yes had been seriously considered by reasonable men.
Catalina translated the question. I heard the phrasing she chose in Norwegian and understood, a beat before Bjorn answered, that she hadn’t translated the wordinspectionas the broad term. She’d chosen the narrower one. The one that implied documentation review, not physical entry.
She’d given us room.
Bjorn heard it too. He glanced at her. Then at Yuki. Then he answered in the space she had opened.
I watched Catalina from the corner of my eye. She was looking at her notes. She had just moved a negotiation and made it look like grammar.
