The palace had a rhythm, and he had just stepped into it at the wrong beat. Servants slowed mid-step with trays half lifted, and even the knights in the inner corridor looked briefly unsure what protocol applied when a man was supposed to be gone for days and returned in less than one hour.
Whispers started immediately, not loud, but fast, darting between mouths like a contagion. Ludwig didn't feed it with a glance or a pause. Palaces lived on stories the same way slums lived on hunger, and he had no interest in being their evening's entertainment.
Ludwig could hear the music beyond the inner hall's closed gates. And when the massive-sized Knight who failed to move Ludwig's mace earlier noticed him, he pushed open the doors to the main hall.
