A human ranger with a Fey Wanderer’s subclass and, somewhat at odds with that heritage, a deep and vocal resistance to the idea that any city should trade its freedom for the Fey Courts’ version of order. That disposition has not softened inside the palace. When the party encountered soldiers from Allosis under Captain Memorethian in the guard hall, Tam’s read of the room was quick — he knows the shape of an occupying force when he sees one, and seeing it here, inside the court itself, does not seem to have made him more comfortable with any of this.
The stables were more his element. Tam found the Black Prince’s hunting dogs with meat and animal speech — exactly the kind of approach that works when status and courtly maneuvering have their limits. Go to the creatures, speak their language, earn trust the direct way. Through Kolya the kennel master he learned the name of the Black Prince’s blue horse, Lazulin, and that the hunt is a high-court event with quarry conjured by Count Sammas Hallowgrin. This is the kind of intelligence that does not come from persuading courtiers. It comes from sitting in the straw and letting dogs decide you are acceptable.
Tam also took the measure of dueling culture — learned that rank can be won through single combat but that losses bleed status as quickly as victories build it. He filed that away rather than acting on it, which is its own kind of restraint for someone whose default register runs toward directness. He sits at status five, tied with Judith, which is respectable for a man who would clearly prefer to be somewhere with fewer courts and more honest enemies.