and then he reached the gates and his traitorous fantasy crumbled in a single stroke for instead of the four-horse carriage and the armed and mounted escort hed been expecting , there stood before him an old , black , mangy mare , with a filthy pile of sackloth in the place of a proper saddle , and , hanging from a sheath across her flank , a sword so tarnished and blunt that even if hed been a master swordsman ( which he was most definitely not ; carving knives were the closest thing to a weapon he had ever held ) he could inflict with it as much injury as with a willow switch or a sprig of rosemary .