The first exception was made before it was announced.
A carriage arrived at the northern gate under a dull banner, escorted by four riders whose armor was too clean to have travelled far. The guards at the gate stiffened without being told to. Papers were presented. Seals inspected. Heads inclined.
The carriage was allowed through.
No marker was moved.
No sign was removed.
The rules remained posted in place, unchanged.
Only the route did.
The detour it required was small on a map.
In the streets, it was not.
A restricted junction lay between the gate and the quarter where the carriage was meant to go. The guard captain stared at the marker beside the road as if it might offer permission on its own.
A clerk arrived with a second set of papers, breathless, ink still fresh.
The captain read them once, then handed them back without comment.
He turned to the men at the junction. "Open it," he said.
One of them hesitated. "Sir—"
"Open it."
The rope was unhooked. The barrier lifted. The carriage rolled through at a steady pace, wheels clicking against stone.
Men waiting with handcarts and bundles stepped back to make room.
Behind the carriage, the barrier was lowered again.
The junction returned to restriction as if nothing had passed.
He watched from the edge of his permitted street.
Not from curiosity. From placement. His work had brought him there with a ledger tucked under one arm and nothing else to do until the next instruction arrived.
The carriage did not slow as it passed the marker.
The riders did not look at it.
They looked ahead, as though the city had no boundaries at all.
A woman in fine cloth leaned briefly out of the carriage window and frowned at the men still waiting by the rope, as if the delay were an inconvenience she did not recognize.
Then the carriage turned and vanished into narrower streets.
That evening, the inspector from the Crown held a short meeting.
Not with the public. Not with the clerks. With the men who enforced routes and recorded deviations.
"Exceptions will occur," he said, as if stating weather. "They will be issued properly."
No one spoke.
"The rules remain in effect."
A pause.
"The rules are not for everyone," he added, quieter.
No one wrote that down.
The next day, a porter was stopped at the same restricted junction.
He carried medical linen stamped for the barracks infirmary. His arms shook with the weight.
"I need to pass," he said.
"You can't," the guard replied.
"I saw them open it yesterday."
The guard's expression did not change. "That was authorized."
"This is authorized," the porter said, lifting the stamp.
The guard glanced at it and shook his head. "Different authority."
The porter stared at him for a moment too long.
Then he turned back, shoulders tight, and began the longer route.
He did not see the porter again that day.
He heard about him.
A delay at the infirmary. A surgeon forced to reuse cloth he would have burned in better times. A patient who developed fever by nightfall.
No one called it the cause.
It was written down as complication. Misfortune. The sort of thing that happened when a city was strained.
That night, the restricted junction held.
The ground beneath it remained firm.
The inspector read the day's reports and nodded once, satisfied by the order they displayed.
In the southern quarter, beyond the markers, another roof sagged.
It did not fall.
Not yet.