Now, normally, one did not put horses into harness to move them from one place to another. Normally, you would just herd them, like cattle. But these were mostly stallions, and allowing them to be loose in a herd was not just asking for trouble, it was sending trouble a hand-made, gilded, and highly decorated invitation. So instead, they were harnessed up in three “strings” of ten each. There would be a groom riding the lead and tail horse of each string, and Kordas and Beltran would each ride one of the False Golds, one at the front of the procession, and one at the rear.

Kordas was hoping that someone in the Emperor’s staff would take pity on them and send them straight from the Valdemar Land Gate to the Imperial Palace Gate, but he wasn’t expecting that. This was why each of the horses carried a bag of oats and a skin of water, and each of the humans had a small rucksack of provisions.

They had formed up in front of the stables and were ready to ride off, when suddenly, a swarm of servants followed by Isla came racing out of the manor. The servants were burdened with four large packs, and Isla was accompanied by his seldom-employed valet, carrying a full Court outfit.

The full Court outfit, complete with the ceremonial rapier, and the Ducal sidearm. A “Spitter.”

Oh, how he detested that thing, not for what it did, but for what it meant!

Only a noble could carry a Spitter. It was an awkward contraption used mostly for duels, a sort of hand-held crossbow, except instead of being a bow, it had a rolled-steel tube one loaded a bolt into—the bolt diameter and the tube’s inner diameter built, of course, to Imperial standard sizes. The Spitter’s tube ended in a simple cast-metal chamber, reached via a hinged “break” mechanism operated by linked thumbspoons—one on each side, for ambidexterity’s sake. One loaded a round pellet (a “robin’s egg,” they were originally called, being light blue) into the pellet chamber, folded the weapon back until the thumbspoons re-engaged, and the Spitter was considered “live.” To load a bolt, one would drop a beribboned ball into the barrel’s muzzle, push the Spitter-bolt in until the ribbon was folded in tightly against the ball, and that was it.