The crowd behind the wooden wall parted with sudden, hushed respect.
Riding through the open gateway of the valley approach came four mounted heralds wearing black velvet tabards stitched with the Imperial Scales of Justice. Behind them rode six Crown court guards in dark blue wool coats. They carried long ash staves tipped with silver eagles.
And in their center, mounted in an open, four-wheeled traveling carriage lined with beaver fur, sat High Court trial Magistrate Corin Pell.
Magistrate Pell was a man in his late sixties, with sharp, hawkish features, silver hair trimmed close beneath a black velvet court cap, and wire-rimmed glasses that sat perched on a thin, high-born nose. He wore the scarlet robes of the High Court trial, over which was draped the heavy ermine collar of a Circuit Judge.
Beside the carriage ran young Dann Thorne on his snowshoes, his chest heaving, his face covered in dried sweat and rime, his task completed.
The carriage halted ten paces behind the timber gate.
Magistrate Pell adjusted his glasses, took an ivory-handled walking staff from his court guard. Then he stepped down onto the snow with slow, dignified care.
He looked up at the closed timber barrier, then at the twenty sentries who stood with grounded weapons on the walkway, and finally at Senior Quartermaster Vance, who sat frozen on his gray charger.
