They opened the drain arch before dusk, and Grimridge did it in full view of itself.
That mattered almost as much as the work.
Cassian did not send a quiet pair below with pry bars and lanterns while the rest of the house pretended nothing had changed. He ordered the south yard cleared, the damaged stones washed clean enough to show what had been scored, and the old runoff line exposed from inside the wall under witness. The black pitch from the first attack still stained the store wall in long ugly streaks. Wet soot clung in the cracks between the yard stones. The smell of burned tar and burst steam had settled into the lower air and refused to leave. None of that was hidden. Men worked around it.
Women crossed the north routes instead of the old south lines and watched the south wall with open anger rather than the shame Rowan would have preferred. The house had been pressed there and had not folded. Now it was answering in the same place.
