“The more, the merrier!” Kordas said, with hearty good humor he most certainly did not feel. Well if he’s been invited along, I might as well start the play-acting right now. He eased the False Gold, which towered over Merrin’s Sweetfoot palfrey, right up to Merrin’s stirrup. Alarm awoke in Merrin’s eyes, but before the man could move his gelding away, Kordas had given him a hearty back-slap as good as anything Grim could have delivered. Merrin half doubled over with an oof! as Kordas laughed. “Always good to have you along, Merrin, old man! We can show those prissy City lads what a good country fellow looks like!”

Merrin forced a smile and a nod, but his eyes flashed with annoyance. “That’s quite a bit of baggage, Valdemar,” he said, eyes narrowing.

Kordas shrugged. “Never know if his Imperial Highness will decide he has need of me. His stableman may need some schooling on these two Golds. Might as well come prepared. It’s not as if it’ll be hard to chuck the baggage back through the Gate if His Magnificence tells me to head back home.”

Merrin eyed his own baggage, loaded aboard four sturdy mules. “But you didn’t bring any pack animals . . . .”

Kordas shrugged. “A little exercise is good for the soul.”

Merrin looked appalled, as if that was no attitude for a noble to have.

The Land-Gate perched on a flat stone circle atop a rocky hill beside the road that led through the manor-village. As the Gate through which the representatives of the Empire would come and go, it was not the strictly utilitarian structure of stone pillars gently curving toward each other at the top that the Canal-Gates were. Instead it was a fanciful creation of metal swirls which currently framed only sky, and was just big enough for a horse and rider to pass through.

The Gatekeeper lived in a comfortable little building at the bottom of the hill. He was not a native of the Duchy, and took none of his needs from the Duchy. In fact, Gatekeepers were rotated out weekly—most likely to prevent them from making local friends. Not once had Kordas ever seen the same Gatekeeper here twice, or at least, not that he knew of. The Gatekeepers always wore the plain red uniform of the Imperial City Guard, which made as much sense as any other origin. They were not mages, which also made sense—that would keep them from tampering with the Gates they guarded.