He arrived on a Monday, which was a deliberate choice.
Mondays in the duchy's administrative calendar were the days when the estate's senior staff held their weekly coordination meeting, when the Duke's schedule was most predictable and least flexible, and when an official visit, announced through the proper royal channels with precisely the required advance notice, would create the maximum degree of disruption to existing arrangements while remaining entirely within the bounds of protocol. The message from the royal administrative office had arrived six days prior, framed as a routine inspection of the duchy's financial records as part of a kingdom-wide audit cycle. The framing was accurate. The timing was not accidental.
I knew this because I had learned, in eight months of living inside this court's machinery, to read the shape of a move as well as its surface content. And the shape of this move said: Cassian had decided it was time to press again.
