On Thursday the Norwegian palace said what it had been working around for ten days: the condition of King Harald V is very serious. The 89-year-old monarch has been in hospital in Oslo since 17 August, is responding to treatment, but is not recovering. Those are the two sentences the palace released together, and anyone who has ever waited in a hospital corridor knows how they read when they stand side by side.

The diagnosis is not one but two, in sequence. First haemolytic anaemia and fluid retention, which is why he was admitted. Then, on 23 August, the palace announced that a bacterial infection had been found in his blood and that he was receiving antibiotics. In a man of that age, with blood counts that are already failing, the second is not a complication - it is a new fight.

The regency is not a formality, it is a response

Crown Prince Haakon has taken over duties as regent. He and Queen Sonja have cancelled all official engagements and the whole family is at the hospital. The Norwegian monarchy runs on rules written for exactly this kind of day, and that machinery switched on quietly, without drama and without a speech in front of cameras.

What is more interesting is the reaction outside the palace. Norwegians are writing messages to the hospital - "Your Majesty, thank you so much for everything you have done for us", "King Harald, thank you for being who you are". These are not protocol telegrams from institutions, but people who sat down and wrote something to a man they have watched on television their whole lives.

Harald has reigned since 1991 and is a monarch who did not build his popularity on splendour. Here, institutions wear out far faster than the people who lead them. There, it seems, the opposite happened - and it is worth asking why.

The palace did not say what comes next, or when there will be new information. That is the only thing left to read between the lines.