Donatus is an enormous elderly man who seems to arrive several seconds before his conversation does. His shoulders are broad enough to make doorframes look narrow, and he moves with the careful, rolling balance of someone accustomed to carrying unstable machinery across wet ground. Years of court work left his hands marked by tiny ink burns and metal splinters, while farm work has roughened his knuckles and turned the skin of his forearms the color and texture of old saddle leather. His beard is clipped short in front but grows in a stubborn silver wedge beneath his jaw. He smells faintly of lamp oil, crushed mint, damp soil, and overheated brass. The unexpected contradiction is that his terrifying volume and massive frame are paired with extraordinarily delicate hands, capable of threading a needle through a moth's wing or repairing a clockwork bird without breaking its spring.