Claudius doesn't feel the first tear but then, he feels very little. It's not until he opens his mouth to speak that the salt-taste takes him by surprise. (Absently, he remembers reading that tears flush out the chemicals the body no longer needs. Compared to blood or bile, shedding tears may be the only form of fluid-letting that works.) "Ah," he says, as the words he'd meant to say leave him.