The numbers were on the table before the sun cleared the walls.
Arsini stood at the supply office door, three tablets stacked in her arms. She had been up since the fourth hour. The numbers did not wait for sunrise.
Lysander was already at his desk. He had not slept. The lamp was still burning.
"Grain," Arsini said, setting the first tablet down. "Ten months. Maybe eleven. Two years of stores plus the Egyptian shipment. Even with the Greeks taking the western fields, we hold."
"Good."
"Oil. Eight months. Linen for the medical ward. Enough."
"Water."
Arsini hesitated. Then she set the second tablet down. "The aqueducts are cut. They cut them three days ago. But the engineers found a spring. Southern slope. Underground. It adds two weeks to what the cisterns hold."
"Total."
"Seven weeks of water. Maybe eight if we ration hard."
Lysander nodded. Seven weeks. Not enough. But enough to breathe.
"The fields," he said. "The western fields."
