July 11-14, 2002
Kris and Signy matching quite nicely for court
Friday's bridge battle. Both Signy and I are in the picture (the first time we've fought together at an event), can you find us?
Signy and I left Wednesday evening, as she wanted to go to a class at 11am Thursday. As we drove, the horizion gradually closed in to a more reasonable distance. At one point, a car pasing us waved. Signy looked to see if we knew them, then we laughed when we saw their Northshield window sticker. They saw the spear on the roof and knew we were SCA!
We arrived on site around 9:30am, and were numbers 35 and 36! Wow! We found a nice place to set up camp. Some of our high school friends were coming from Minneapolis, so after camp was set up, we wandered around looking for them. We eventually found them in line at troll, having not made as good time as they had planned. Signy and Kris went off to the scribal class (How to Make an Award Scroll in 3 Easy Lessons), and I led Sara, Anna, and Aaron back to camp to set up. Most of the rest of the day was spent lazing about and getting settled in. We schmoozed Windhaven (and for once, avoided having to eat), and met both people that Kris and Aaron knew from Mankato (Rivenwood Tower?). That night, Sara cooked dinner on the fire, and we talked late into the night.
Friday morning, Signy and Kris went to the second part of their class. I enthralled Aaron to carry my gear and auth cards to the field. After being inspected, I was herded over to the rapier field, where there was a rapier/armored joint tourney going to happen, that was dangerously short of heavy fighters. I renewed aquaintance with a lady from my household, and inspected her armor, and then considered signing the marshal's roster. Come tourney time, I was assigned a partner of Kevin O'Shaunessey (which I'm sure is spelled wrong). He has a very cool fencing helmet with a perforated face. When the pair was announced, the rapier fighteres cheered and told me I had a good pick. I felt kind of bad, as I knew I'm not a great tourney fighter, but I refrained from apoligizing to him. The first round was matched weapons, so with my partner's advice of "don't die" hanging in my mind, I went to pick my fight.
I had not come to the field expecting a tourney at all, much less one with matched weapons: all I had with me was a polearm and a spear. Fine, I can borrow a sword and shield if need be and get slaughtered. My first fight was agains Armond. If you've never seen him, he's a foot taller than I am and has arms a mile long. He's also a good pole fighter. His pole is 7.5", mine is 6". I almost touched him. He killed me three times. Moral of the story: don't pick pole fights against people with mile long arms, especially if they know how to use them. My partner loses 2-1 to Toshikage, we lose. Luckily, it's double elim.
Second round: they've done away with matched weapons, I can pole against shields and die without shame. Whew. I draw the Queen's Champion. Argh! Three times we fight, and three times I fall. But my partner has also anihilated his opponent, so overall we're tied. We fight again. Again, I lose and my teammate wins. Again we fight. I face thrust, intending for him to block, leaving his legs open, which hopefully I can hit before he kills me. But he doesn't block it! Yeah! My partner also won, we're still in the tourney! Bragging rights to me, I killed the Queen's Champion (so what if he killed me four times, I got him once!).
The third round, I draw my household mate, who helped me out when I was KM in Mistig Waetru. She's fighting two stick. Fine, I have an utter terror of two stick, how fun. We fight, I fall. We fight again, and I kill her! Neat! She kills me again. My parnter wins 2-1, so we fight again, and we are triumphant! Yeah! (and she was a fun fight, too!)
Fourth round, there's 7 teams left. I draw Master Giles. I have fought him before, I know I'll die happy. First round to Giles. Second round, I drop to my knees, and *then* realize that the shot was rather low, like mid calf. I stand back up, accept his apoligy, and poke him in the face. Boy was he surprised, he thought he'd had that block! He kills me again, and we look to find that, with the partners, we've tied. We fight one last time, and he kills me quite dead. My parnter has also lost, so we're out of the tourney. Oh well, it was fun.
During this time, Signy has made the decision to *not* gild the umpteen bazillion ivy leaves on her scroll. Aaron has gone to the thrown weapons area and thrown his borrowed knives, "hitting once of every three" he says, which is better than I've done, so I tell him so, as it's his first event and he probably needs encouragement. Sara and Anna went to the lucet class.
Aaron and I wander back to camp for lunch and discuss the tourney. His impressions are different than mine, but I let him feed my ego anyway. Signy returns from scribe class and gets into armor. Together we walk up to the field and arrive just in time for the bridge battle.
On our side is Castel Rouge and the two of us. On the other side is everybody else. We get a few last minute stragglers, and the commander puts together a shield wall. Signy gets the left side, right next to the other new new guy. It's her first event fighting, besides the practice at Woodland Romp. The shields advance, then stop and ground their shield. Signy gets picked off by a face thrust and dies off the bridge. I step into ther place and start throwing shots. I kill some people, but I'm not in range quite for most shots. Eventually, I die, our side loses, and we reset.
This time, we have tatics! But I don't know what they were, because the commander on our side was only talking to his guys. I eventually fixed my range problem, and Signy didn't get one shotted again.
After that, we unarmored and went shopping. The shopping trip started with the two of us, and eventually ended up with Sara, Aaron, Ceara (from Mistig Waetru) and Ottar (from Skerrstrand). We bought treats from Viscountess Aramanthra's booth, yum. Ceara and I both got floppy felt hats (that won't blow away as easily as my birchbark hat), Signy and I bought a CD by Own Alun, and one from Windryth, and I got bells from Pillaged Village to put on the ends of my braids for when I'm fighting a tourney I want to look good in. Later, Signy got a shield blank, and I got a new helm (which I need to make a new gorget for, but it's so much nicer then my current helm..).
Friday night Signy cooked for the camp plus Ottar. Wulfric and Ulfin got the lfetovers, as they were making camp in our back yard as we were eating. Wulfric shared dried apples, homemade jerky, and venison sausage. Yum. We toasted marshmallows over the fire, and Thora (Ulfin's 7 year old) threw a flaming marshmallow onto Signy. Fire was put out, clothes were changed, a happy sugar time was had by all.
The camp mates went out drinking. Most of them didn't get too drunk, but I did find one of them asleep on my weapons at one point. Signy and Ceara went to Windryth's CD release party. I tended the fire and was visited by pretty girls.
Saturday morning, everyone went to class but me. Scribe class, tablet weaving class, bardic circle (songs of Northshield), something else I don't remember... I armored up and went to the field, because the schedule said there were melees sarting at 10. The schedule lied. I talked to some people, and discovered that the first real fighting was going to be champions battles. When the Northshield Army mustered, Prince Raito looked at me, said "You're not in Northshield anymore, I can't make you go," which made me feel special because a)I hadn't realized he recognized me, and b)the Illiton tabards the baronesse made us work for recognition! At court, there was one put on vigil for the pelican, and the musician who tried to trip me during hole in the wall a year ago was put on vigil for the laural. They were both elevated that night.
I went to camp for lunch. While I was eating, Fya came by. I hadn't realized she was going to be there, and it was good to see her. She was my first student and sucessor as knights marshal. She had come to the event with everything she needed to fight except leg armor. Oops. I went back in time for the resurrection bridge battle. I got hit twice with arrows. I was charged into the ground once (not dead though!). I killed some people. I fought for most of the 30 minute battle. Then were capture the flag field battles. Petro reminded me what spears do to open up charging shields. The first engangement, I was on the leading edge of the ravening pack of sticks, and Petro charged me. So I didn't run, I opened him up. And got run over by his corpse. Spit the dirt out and stand up, I'm not dead! The next battle, I did an oopsie, and hit Kenneth when he was talking to another fighter and we weren't engaged. I apoligized, no hard feelings. I fought in all but the last of those battles.
After the battles were over, I got my threatened sword and shield time with Kenneth. I must weight my swords like his, wow! Counterweighting really makes a difference! He also approved of my new shield, saying that he had been trying to kill me all that time. No, I didn't hit him much, but he didn't hit me much either! I *can* fight sword and board! Corydon, who had my the summer I authorized, also came over to tell me that I was looking a lot better. It was a good weekend for my ego.
After fighting I took a shower in the very cool showers there. Someday my muse will bite me and I will write an ode to those showers.
Sara had managed to start the fire early enough that it was set for cooking when we were hungry! Yeah Sara! For some reason, campfire cooking always tastes better than it has any right to. It's even better after fighting all day. Huh. So we managed to eat before court.
At court, wow, a lot of awards were given out. 70ish items of business. Thora got her Dragon's Treasure, and they asked for someone to accept because she's so short that no one on the dais could se her coming! There were a *lot* of Willows. My buddy Hamish got his Purple Fret, and Signy made the scroll for it! So cool! Kris' scroll was also given to someone I know! During the intermission, I talked to Uthyr's Lady (I don't know her name, but she's really cool) and Baronesse Windhaven.
After court, the socializing was at our camp. At one point, we could hear belly dancers, and decided we needed some. So the man with the drum beat out a rhythm, and we called out to some passing jingling ladies to dance for us. They declined, as they weren't good belly dancers (so they claimed), but they chatted for a while. It was very late when everyone went to bed.