His question comes before she can pose a few back to him - what would he do instead, to learn those things? - and it slows her, the care she feels must be taken with answering. She will have to answer this question more than once, she thinks; she should know swiftly how she intends to do it.

"I followed my husband on his military campaigns," she says, neutrally. "He and I studied magic together - I'm afraid I am still very much running to catch up to his tutelage in it. I was in some things his advisor."

An unavoidably sanitised version; the full story is nothing to lead with.

"I found the opportunity to study his tactics very - educational."