The Travelling Court

Each stop relies on a person or small group able to guarantee rooms, covers, movement, local mediation and first response to incidents. The Host is not governor of the city on behalf of the sovereigns.

Hosting the Court brings prestige, debts and a concrete burden. Cities negotiate visitor numbers, audience length and the resources the Court will mobilise.

Armand, Alix, advisers, witnesses to debts, messengers and certain offices move. Archives never all travel together. Human covers, hunting grounds and ordinary authorities remain largely local.

An office is worth the task performed, not a fixed seat. Some functions appear for one stop and disappear when the need ends. This flexibility avoids copying the Offices of Paris.

Local matters are first handled by the city. The Court hears disputes crossing several domains, involving a major debt, concerning an outsider or threatening the Masquerade beyond one stop.

Audiences are granted according to urgency, recommendation and responsibility. A Parisian title may hasten access but does not decide judgement. An unknown guest backed by a respected host may be heard before a dignitary without a respondent.

The Court distinguishes what is owed to a person, a Host, a city or the territory. Important commitments are confirmed by witnesses from several stops so that movement alone cannot erase them.

A service rendered in Toulouse does not guarantee Béziers' affection. It does ensure that an acknowledged debt will not conveniently be forgotten when the Court moves.

Cities maintain hosting capacity without knowing the next movement far in advance. Preparations are fragmented: rooms, transport, covers and security do not depend on one circuit.

Mobility reduces predictability without creating invisibility. A hurried change may leave more traces than a regular stop. The Court therefore accepts friction rather than permanent improvisation.

When the Court leaves, Truce venues lose their status unless a separate local agreement applies. Judged disputes and acknowledged debts remain. The Host accounts for incidents, then returns to an ordinary place in the city.

This withdrawal is essential. If Court machinery remained, each stop would gradually become a permanent administration and rotation would be no more than scenery.

Between Stops, the Court is officially hosted nowhere. Ordinary audiences are suspended; requests continue to be recorded and only emergencies are heard. Local decisions remain with the domains. This period may last a night or longer: it is neither a fifth Court city nor a legal vacuum for the sovereigns to fill at will.

The Court hears conflicts between domains, common law, relations with outside powers and matters whose consequences extend beyond their place of origin. A hunting dispute between two inhabitants of Toulouse belongs to the Capitoulat. A conflict between one from Toulouse and one from Béziers may belong to the Two Seals. Appeal checks compliance with common principles; it does not allow the same facts to be retried until the answer becomes more agreeable.

The temporary Elysium does not replace local customs: the Peace of the Stop overlays them during the hearing. Violence and hunting are prohibited. Using Blood to compel a witness, distort a hearing or covertly influence a decision is a major violation. The purpose is not to forbid every supernatural manifestation indiscriminately, but to prevent it replacing argument.

The person responsible for security receives a temporary office ending with the Stop. They are chosen with local authority and answer to it as well as to Armand and Alix. They may refuse an instruction immediately threatening the Masquerade or breaching the host’s conditions; they must explain that decision and may be wrong. This independent judgement prevents security becoming a regional occupying force.