“She’s quite the skillful equivocator,” Claudius says, taking a moment to admire the twisted shapes of the still-green fruit, the fingers that were most recently flowers. He touches his own fingers to them, like a child’s hand. “But thou wert as skilled in sounding her. I could see thee turn the conversation like a conjured light in thy hand.” And he does dearly want to kiss and congratulate Laertes for it, but first: “I am sorry I did not warn thee all the turns it could take. I should have. When I told thee the fate forewritten for Gertrude, I should’ve told thee all else I knew.”