On the willows there, we hung up our lyres

"Claudius told me that he had been playing political games he could not possibly win." The side of his mouth twitches with an eloquent little combination of exasperation and fondness, with his assumption that Galahad will follow the throughline from this information to Claudius seeing himself in Alphinaud. "He also told me that, because Alphinaud had always been an outsider, he understood the necessity of finding common ground and understanding. On their journey to meet Hraesvelgr, he became interested in ruins and their architecture."