The check-in letter arrived on the fourth day.
Fylon brought it before the second hour. Not urgent — the specific quality of something that had been expected and had arrived at the time it was supposed to arrive. He set it on the table.
Lysander looked at it.
He picked it up.
A commercial letter. The Carian trading house format. Three paragraphs about the grain prices in the Corinthian market and the current availability of the Argolid barley supply.
He found the word in the second paragraph.
Timber.
He read it three times to be certain.
Timber.
He set the letter down.
'Normal,' he thought. 'Situation normal, continuing. He is fourteen days out and he sent timber and the situation is normal.'
'Which means he has not encountered what the western network letter described. Or he has encountered the edges of it and has not yet understood what he is looking at.'
'Four days ago Cassandra said: more than days, less than months. Today is four days later.'
He went to Ampelos.
