Garo is a broad, tusked orc whose face seems built for a challenge, though his attention is patient and exact. His olive-brown skin is weathered into a fine, dry grain by years of wind on Greenhill's exposed roads; the backs of his hands are darker from sun, and his knuckles are smooth rather than battered. He grooms with near-ceremonial care: his black hair is clipped close at the sides and combed into a stiff, narrow ridge, while his tusks are scrubbed bright and capped with tiny brass bands. He moves with a diplomat's measured economy, turning his whole body toward a speaker instead of merely swiveling his head. The surprising detail is a row of tiny, colorful stitched birds embroidered inside each cuff, visible only when he reaches to offer a hand.

Garo is warm in private and formally guarded in public, yet he will risk a room's approval to defend a person being dismissed. He enjoys elegant arguments but distrusts elegant solutions. In a crisis he becomes brisk and physical; after it passes, he is more likely to apologize for a harsh word than for a hard decision.

Garo is the third son of House Urren, a minor Greenhill family whose holdings consist of a wind-scoured orchard and a toll cottage nobody important wants. His elder brothers inherited the useful prospects; Garo was trained to make himself useful in rooms where nobody had planned to invite him. At nineteen, he accompanied a grain delegation to the upland villages. When a frightened guard raised a weapon during a tense meeting, Garo stepped between him and the village speaker and talked until the guard lowered it. The meeting succeeded, but a late frost ruined the promised harvest anyway. Garo learned that words can prevent bloodshed, not erase hunger, and he still sends part of his pay to the families who bore that loss. Now he represents Greenhill in negotiations over a disputed river toll. His eldest brother, Odran, wants him to concede the route to secure a marriage alliance; Garo's old traveling companion, Mair, believes the villagers have a stronger claim. His rival, Celyn, is a polished court envoy who treats Garo as a useful blunt instrument. Garo has little favor at home, but the people he once helped remember his name.