"You've a ready grasp of politics, my lady," he says, bone dry, "despite your gentler sex. Which you'll find means far less here than I take it you're accustomed to."

Though by the way Martel speaks, for all his apparent acceptance, it's no less strange to him. ('Patriarch' is an ecclesiastic title in Eosia. Ehlana is an exceptional woman, but she is an exception.)