Three days.

He ran the drill each morning. The weight-shift sequence, six repetitions, the hesitation gone now — the movement completed itself and he started the next one. He worked through the supply allocation. He wrote the response to the second Carian timber contact. He reviewed the coastal watch reports. He ate. He slept four hours each night and woke before the lamp needed refilling.

He did not say anything about Rethon to anyone.

On the first day he made a list of what he knew. The meetings. The timing. Teles and the Corinthian network. Arsini’s note about the missed administrative sessions.

On the second day he made a list of what he did not know. The content of the meetings. Who received the letters in Corinth. What had been exchanged in return.

On the third day he looked at both lists and understood the problem.

The first list was not enough to act on.

The second list was not small enough to ignore.

He went to find Ampelos.

Ampelos was at the eastern office with the western correspondence files.

He looked up when Lysander came in and waited.

Lysander sat. He told him everything — the meetings, the timing, Teles, the Corinthian connection, Arsini’s observation about the missed sessions. He said it in order, without emphasis, the way you reported a supply discrepancy before you knew what it meant.

Ampelos listened.

When Lysander finished, Ampelos was quiet.

He put down the correspondence file.

He said: "How long have you been sitting on this."

"Three days."

"Good." He looked at the wall. "The first instinct."

"Remove him."

"Yes. The administrative review — the same mechanism as Doran."

"It does not work here."

"No. Rethon has been at the palace since Priam’s father. If he disappears from a council position the week after giving Priam a document — every frightened official in the building draws the correct conclusion. The fear doubles. The next three people who want to write a document decide not to because they have seen what happens."

"Which solves the Rethon problem and creates a larger one."

"Yes."

Lysander waited.

Ampelos stood and went to the window. He looked at the harbor for a moment.

He said: "What does Rethon have that Agamemnon’s network wants."

"The reasoning. Priam’s words in the council chamber. What Priam considered and what he dismissed."

"And if we knew exactly what Rethon was sending — could we change it."

Lysander looked at him.

"Tell me what you mean."

"Rethon sits in rooms. He hears things. He sends what he hears." Ampelos turned from the window. "What if what he heard was different from what he expected to hear."

"We feed him different information."

"Not false information. Selective information. True things that create a specific picture. Agamemnon’s network receives accurate intelligence from a trusted source — accurate about the facts, misleading about the implications."

"Rethon does not know he is being used."

"No. Which makes the intelligence more credible. A man who believes he is deceiving someone and does not know he is being used is the most reliable channel available."

Lysander sat with that.

’It is clean,’ he thought. ’Cleaner than removal. Removal is a loss. This is a gain.’

’It is also something I have not done before. The step from managing information to manufacturing it.’

’Not manufacturing — selecting. True things. The distinction matters.’

’Does it matter enough.’

He looked at Ampelos.

"You have done this before," he said.

"Once. Years ago." Ampelos picked up the correspondence file again. "It worked."

"What were the consequences."

"The people who received the intelligence made decisions based on it. The decisions were less effective than they would have been with accurate intelligence. We gained time."

"Time."

"Yes. It does not solve the problem. It delays it. The question is whether the delay is worth what it costs."

"What does it cost."

Ampelos looked at him directly.

"You will know something about how information works that you cannot unknow," he said. "And Rethon will eventually be wrong enough times that whoever is receiving his reports stops trusting him. At that point we have burned the channel and Rethon is discredited without knowing why."

"And Rethon."

"Is an old man who spent thirty years at this palace and will end his service having been used without knowing it."

The office was quiet.

Lysander thought about Doran. Two years ago. The administrative review, clean, surgical, over in a week. He had not liked doing it but he had understood it. This was different. This required him to look at Rethon across a formal table and know something Rethon did not know.

’He is already doing the same thing to us,’ he thought. ’He sits in council meetings and sends the content to Agamemnon’s network. He looks at Priam across the formal table and knows something Priam does not know.’

’That does not make it comfortable.’

’It makes it symmetrical.’

"I need to think about this," he said.

"Yes," Ampelos said. "You should."

He went out.

He ran the drill twice that evening.

The training ground empty at the late hour, the practice marks in the dirt, the sword warm from use. Six repetitions. Then six more. The movement clean, no hesitation, the body doing the thing without the mind interrupting.

He was finishing the twelfth repetition when he heard the gate.

Cassandra.

She came in and stood at the edge of the practice marks. She looked at him the way she sometimes looked at people she had been thinking about from a distance.

He lowered the sword.

She said: "You are deciding something."

"Yes."

"You have been deciding it for three days."

"Yes."

She looked at the practice marks.

"The narrowing," she said. "It is still this season."

"I know."

"The decision you are making now — it is not the decision I described. But it will shape the one I described."

He looked at her.

"How," he said.

"I cannot tell you how. I can tell you that the path you walk to reach the larger decision changes what the larger decision looks like when you reach it."

She went out without waiting for a response.

He stood in the training ground.

The lamp in the supply office was still burning through the window above him.

’The path changes what the decision looks like,’ he thought. ’Which means she is not telling me which way to go. She is telling me that how I go matters.’

’Not what I decide. How I decide it.’

He ran the sequence one more time.

Then he went inside.

The timber correspondence was on the table. The third Carian name had responded while he was in the training ground — he could see Fylon had left a note.

He picked it up.

The third supplier had timber. Better quality than the second. Lower cost than the Thracian northern pine had been. They wanted a formal arrangement.

He set the note down.

He thought about what Ampelos had said.

He thought about what Cassandra had said.

He thought about Rethon, who had been at the palace since Priam’s father, who had sat in the council chamber and sent the content of it south through a grain merchant’s brother.

He pulled a clean piece of clay toward him.

He wrote one line: The mechanism before the action.

He looked at it.

Then he wrote underneath it: What does using Rethon make me.

He sat with both lines for a long time.

The lamp burned down. He refilled it.

He was still at the table when the fifth hour came.

He picked up his shard.