Fifteen days.
The palace had counted them the way you counted things you were not supposed to be counting — quietly, without announcing the count, each day added to the previous one with the grim arithmetic of people who understood that numbers had meaning and this particular number was becoming meaningful in ways nobody wanted to say out loud.
Fifteen days of trays returned to the kitchen with the food rearranged rather than eaten, because the king had learned that sending back untouched trays caused concern and rearranged trays suggested engagement and he was apparently still managing perception even now, which was either admirable or the most unsettling thing the kitchen staff had ever encountered depending on who you asked.
Fifteen days of maps.
