[ Claude doesn't respond right away while he considers the question. Puts it into perspective from what it would've once meant had he asked the same across a war table, or even the Roundtable while setting a trap for an unwitting lord to stumble into even if he knows well that's not what Geralt is doing here. It's just that there are so many possible ways it could go and not enough to know where it will - the state of things without end, it seems. ]

When I led the Alliance... if I approached someone in the same way, answering questions of them without really giving much away in return, I made sure to phrase it as curiosity. Genuinely wanting to get to know whoever it was. And it was a way of getting to know them since that was the magnanimous sort of lord I was supposed to be as the sovereign duke, though it was never just that. Patience played into a lot of my plans even if the war postponed most of them, and had things gone differently I wanted to know who I might be able to call upon when the time came.

[ Because that much he'd felt certain about by way of where that conversation was headed, and even more so now that there hasn't been any contact since. Nothing to do but wait on their end and to see if it may go somewhere and hope that they hear something before that happens. The shrug of one shoulder he offers Geralt isn't particularly comforting to either one of them, and he knows it. ]

As for what we do with that, I think the answer is also probably wait and see as much as I don't like it. Goes against the whole liking to have plans at the ready thing I've cultivated.

[ Far from his best attempt at humor, but - a little bit of it amidst everything else never hurts. ]