Claudius doesn't speak, once the two have started talking, intent and focused on the screen. At a remove, he almost understands what Aornis meant, when she asked if she looked like a provocateur. On screen, she doesn't have much presence. But to him, she looks like someone who could slip into a well-to-do party and not to be noticed, then unassumingly speak the right word into the right ear.

There's a slipperiness to her answers. Claudius almost rolls her eyes at that flat I can't, how she set up the question and answered it herself, a sort of false openness that -- in truth -- Claudius could do well to take notes on. It's effective, for all that he's sure Laertes caught it and let it pass. It sounds like being forthright, but it's misdirection, pulling attention away from other questions Laertes should be asking.

The concern, to Claudius, isn't whether she can send them all back to their books at this instant. It's whether she could, whether she would, if she found a way out and to contact the rest of her agency. The substance of his secret agreement with Aornis was to control that flow of information and power, when and if that time ever came.

What Claudius suspects is this indefinite state wasn't meant to drag on this long -- whether Aornis was an jurisfiction agent in truth, or posing as one. If I could, don't you think I would've left by now? I have my own unfinished business at home. There's likely truth to that. Some liars are playful, and like to see how many half-truths they can string between lies. Some liars know they don't have the presence or charm to push a lie too far. So far, he has the sense that Aornis hasn't lied yet.