The tablet from Lycia arrived on a Thursday and sat unopened on the table for exactly as long as it took Lysander to finish the line he was writing.
Not from reluctance. From a habit he had built over two years of receiving information that mattered — the discipline of completing one thing before beginning the next. An interrupted thought produced a worse thought. The grain distribution schedule was almost done. He finished the eastern districts, set the stylus down, and only then picked up the sealed tablet that Fylon had placed at the edge of the table with the specific care of someone who understood what it probably contained.
He turned it over once in his hands.
Sarpedon's seal. The routing mark of a fast ship — not the regular trading convoy but the kind of vessel a man sent when the answer he was carrying could not afford the slower route.
Eleven days, he thought. He went home, read the argument to his king, and the king sent this back in eleven days.
