A Fabris thinks post, the in-progress shot.

 Mostly just to prove that I'm Still Here (and I have yet another post-Pennsic thinks post still half-done, but...) it's the first step of my vague thought of trying to sort out some commonalities between a handful of specific Fabris single rapier plays.

Now that I've got these out here, I'm not sure what I want to do with it, but I feel like there's something here, so here we are.

No, not much more to this post than this so far. I'm just trying to figure out how to redact this into a more general use flowchart or concept or theory of "look, this is when you're going to want to lunge underneath vs pass underneath and how and why.

Random post-Pennsic thinks, mentor/dependent edition

The first of a few different post-Pennsic posts! With thinks!

So I'm a particularly interesting case for people in terms of being a mentor in the Peer/Dependent sense - I have a kind of neat Venn diagram when it comes to areas of study.

So I'm a Master of Defense. I sword good. I happen to sword in some Very Period Ways - both because they're interesting to me, if we're a society that studies and recreates history then we should fight in a period fashion, and because (shockingly!) they *work*.

I'm a Master of the Laurel. I specifically study, recreate, and teach period combat and combat-related cultural miscellanea. This isn't focused on winning fights, but on knowing a system inside and out, the context for it, and being able to understand it as well as the cultural context surrounding it.

There's a good amount of crossover here. It's not 100% for sure, but it's there.

I could absolutely be approached by someone who wants to become my Provost (ie, dependent of a Master of Defense) and just Get Good At Swords. Sure, they'd absolutely have a very historical focus to the combat (see above, we're a historical studies group and also it works), but I wouldn't expect them to crack a book themselves. Rather, I'd be instructing them in a system because that's the best way (IMNSHO) towards the goal of Get Good At Swords.

I could also be approached by someone who wants to Get Good At Arts and Science and be an Apprentice. I could help with deep dives and an understanding of historical combat systems, the culture around them, and all of that - independent of "apply this system on the list field." I could also help with research in general, documenting your work, directions of study, heraldic-related studies, and a number of other non-combat things, I imagine.

I suspect that anyone who rolled up on me and asked to see if I'd be a mentor-human in the SCA though, would be sitting in the middle of the Venn diagram. I'm niche, and that's okay. But here's the thing that I'm kicking around in my brain - relationship symbols.

So in the East, provosts typically get a blue livery collar. Apprentices get a green belt. Now, on a couple levels it would amuse me to give a dependent a green collar or a blue belt as a token and sign of the relationship - I'm very much a proponent of "the relationship is defined by the two people in it, and they can use whatever symbols they like." On the other hand, I also think that a large part of wearing something like a provost collar, an apprentice belt, a cadet scarf, a squire belt, or whatever else is that it's a visible sign to people that you are dedicating yourself to that particular art. (Or "track" if that works better for you. Whichever.) It's an indication that they have a peer to whom they are responsible, and who is responsible for them. It's a sign to peers in that discipline that this person is trying to become ready to be a peer themselves. In the social landscape that is the SCA, that kind of identifiability can be really important.

So yeah. I could just do a collar and belt for someone and call it a day - though trying to make a green sword belt would be a fun project. But I dunno, there's a part of me which is just feeling like that's Too Much and a single thing would be preferable, despite the social flagging which is helpful.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking things now. That's certainly a thing that happens, especially after Pennsic.

Lord Baltimore's Challenge

 Once again, it's been a hot minute since I posted here. Good times, good times.

So yeah, I know that I've still got some yelling about Silver and more Fabris and Marozzo and knives and stuff sitting in my drafts folder, languishing and incomplete, but I'm going to instead write about some thoughts, takeaways, and ideas that I have from attending Lord Baltimore's Challenge this past weekend. I have a bunch of them, and they're varied, so buckle up.

The first day had three tournaments - sidesword, single rapier, and rapier/dagger. This was my first time playing in a judged tournament format, and it was interesting. We were encouraged to self-call hits if we felt something and the judges missed it, which did happen occasionally. The rules for the tournaments, assuming I'm remembering them correctly, went something like:

• Sidesword
  These rules were intended to represent a lethal duel.
• Each pairing was three passes, stopped when a single blow was struck. Points got totaled up over the course of the pool.
• Cut or thrust to the head or torso: 3 points
• Cut or thrust anywhere else: 1 point
• Opponent steps entirely out of the ring: 3 points
• If there is a simultaneous 3 point wound, neither fighter was awarded points for that pass. The pass was not refought. Consider parrying.
• If there is a 3 point wound struck at the same time as a 1 point wound, the fighter who struck the lethal blow receives 3 points and the other fighter gets nothing.
• When the first blow is struck, the other fighter can return an afterblow, but it has to be thrown immediately and they have a single tempo worth of action to use. (In practice, this wasn't all too different than "if you're already in motion..." in the SCA, but some exceptions happened.)
• After each pass, the ring director has the discretion to award a "technical point" to a fighter who displayed good skill with their blow. These only counted to break ties.
  
  
• Single Rapier
  Similar to the sidesword contest, these were intended to replicate a lethal fight. Rules were identical to sidesword with the following exceptions:
• Cut to the head was 3 points. Thrust to the head or torso was 3 points.
• Cut or thrust anywhere else was 1 point.

The last tournament was set up differently:

• Rapier and dagger
  This was more SCA rapier style, but with Very HEMA scoring. The rules were intended to replicate a contest or display of skill, rather than a lethal engagement.
• Thrust only! Head or torso was 3 points, anywhere else was 1 point. Leaving the ring was worth 3 points for your opponent.
• In the case of simultaneous blows, both scored.
• Bouts lasted 90 seconds or until a fighter reached 15 points. 
• When a blow landed, time stopped and the fighters reset.
• Technical points worked as before.

These were fought in round robin pools, and the top eight scoring fighters across all the pools advanced to a single elimination bracket. (They did top 16 last LBC but in the interest of time, it had to be reduced.) Through arcane math, points were normalized for the pools which had 5 fighters vs the ones who had 4. I wasn't particularly stressed about this though. (Which is a theme I'll come back to.) Also, ring directors applied the technical points somewhat differently - some tossed them around like candy, for any blow which was thrown in tempo and was clean. Notably, Guy Windsor was very strict with his use of them, handing them out only for what he felt were excellent displays of technical skill.

I helped judge the sidesword tournament; I didn't have the time to get together the higher armor required for it, and honestly I wasn't sure if my shoulder could have handled it. After being there, I suspect it could have, but it would have been extremely tired for the rapier and dagger tournament, which would have been upsetting. Judging was certainly fun, although stressful, and absolutely forced me to spin up the long disused fight recall skills.

Fighting in single rapier was enjoyable as all get out. Definitely a different setup than the SCA in a lot of ways, and pretty cut heavy, but it was still a good time. I didn't perform as well as I would have liked, but I'm simply not as used to dealing with cuts (which I will have to remedy), and next time I'd really consider going down to a 39" rapier blade with a little more heft to it. I did walk out of Guy's pool with three (3!) technical points though, which served as an excellent counter to my brain being a bit down on my fencing. I was disappointed that I didn't do better, but I wasn't really angry with myself. I just have some concrete things to work on, is all. If you know me at all well, this will strike you as a shockingly well-adjusted response. It sure surprised me!

Rapier and dagger went similarly. I thought I performed quite well, though of course I have some things I need to work on there as well. Things to improve, but I wasn't stressed or angry about them. The vagaries of points kept me out of the top 8, but that's fine. I was wiped the hell out anyway, so getting to run back to the hotel a little sooner than normal and grabbing a shower was worth it.

Let's pause here during my recounting of the day's events and poke at a couple things. It was really weird to not be actively annoyed at my perception of my fencing. I think there are a few different reasons why, but the big ones had a lot to do with the atmosphere: I was just there to fence my best fencing - I wanted to bring my Fabris game and do it as well as I could, and if I did it well enough I should therefore do well in the tournament and that's good! That was it, though. Nobody was sitting around judging me. There wasn't pressure to Fight As Well As A Master Of Defense Should. I didn't need to put on a show or maintain a level of skill or anything. There were zero expectations on me that I felt like I had to fulfill in terms of how well I fought. I imagine that it would have been quite similar, if not more striking, for people who don't have these fencing awards - nobody's watching and judging and opining on whether you're Good Enough or anything like that. You could just go and do your best, whatever it was in that moment, and that's all. This was so goddamn refreshing, y'all. 

Seriously like... is this what a mentally healthy examination of a day's fencing is? Weird.

Let's talk about another thing that came up during the tournament: stepping entirely out of the ring was equivalent to a fatal blow struck against you. I loved this. I loved this so much. You actually needed to pay attention to where you were. You couldn't just retreat endlessly. No recentering. Not even a hold and restart. You either stopped and parried, moved sideways, or you lost. I want to do this so badly. Sure, I mean, if I'm doing a By The Book kind of thing, I can pull up (for instance) a stage size from my blog posts about it and set up a list to those dimensions and say if you put a foot out you've fallen off and lose. That's a really specific setting, though - the type of person to enjoy a By The Book tournament would probably be tickled by that kind of historic note. But most fencers in most other tournaments? Maybe not so much. But I want to do it anyway. 

The rings were 8 meters in diameter, which was plenty of room for us. They were using these foam interlocking pieces sold by Purpleheart Armory, though they aren't currently listed on their site. When they were, they were something like $535, which is a bit prohibitive to casually pick up. (This sounded like a lot to me, then I did the math about how long that circumference would be.) They were really cool though - not remotely a tripping hazard, but enough to give you feedback if you stepped on it, and enough that you can see them while you fight. Much better than ropes as a boundary if you're using this kind of rule. Other concerns for doing this in a tournament would be that lists must be of a uniform size and shape. I prefer circles for this because, honestly, no corners to get stuck in. So I'll be idly poking around for ideas for making this kind of list work. Lilias suggested cable covers, which might be a good place to start, if I can find some which aren't expensive and also can take a curve. We'll see.

Moving on! Sunday had classes - which is one of the two biggest reasons for me to go to these kinds of things! 

I ended up starting with Kaja Sadowski's classes on Godinho's two sword material, which was tons of fun to play with, great to learn about, and honestly a chill movement warmup for the morning. To summarize: Godinho's two sword material is all about crowd control and surviving. Not beating everyone there, but living until help comes or you get away. It's really cool and playing around with it in that context is great.

I followed these up with Guy Windsor's classes on Controlling The Story, which was about both mindset things and also maintaining blade control, as well as his class on diagnosing and figuring out fixes for fencing problems. These were excellent, and I'm looking forward to applying the lessons learned here in building drills and fixing the problems I noted the day before.

The other big reason I go to these things? The people. Getting to hang out and socialize and chat about nerdy sword things with other nerdy sword people is a joy. I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with David Biggs, and he generously let us examine and (carefully) take out some of the Actual For Reals Very Sharp antiques that he had. I've noticed it before, but I was struck by it again - these blades vanish if they're pointed at you correctly. Remy got some pictures of us with them (all the photo credit is his, and thank you for letting me use them), and as weird as it is to see it in this form, let me tell you, it's bonkers scary to experience it.

Here I am in my "I have been on a plane and traveling and am tired" Fabris stance. Spot where the blade is. For bonus points, tell me if you can guess the size of it and how far it is from you.

Remy's here in a more upright Capo Ferro stance. There isn't much more of the blade to see in here, either.

Finally, here I am with Guy Windsor, as we show each other how scary it is and why using swords properly was a thing people did.

The third picture really illustrates a lot to me - if anyone ever thinks, "Why do I need to find my opponent's sword? I can just take a bazillion other positions that work well," I think they're missing a really important historical point - actual rapiers are scary, they're sharp, and it's really hard to see them clearly. Our simulators have tips which stand out, and wider blade geometry which makes a difference too. If someone was pointing something like this at you, trying to put your sword right in the way and doing your best to close that line is what hopefully keeps you from panicking and dying.

Anyway! This was an absolutely amazing time, I had tons of fun, I got to see people I haven't seen in literally years and catch up with them and also be giant sword nerds with them and I cannot wait to see if this happens again next year. If it does, I will absolutely be there.

Corble Collection To Be Digitized!

This is ridiculously exciting news! Big thank you to Gunðormr Dengir for pointing me at this!

(This is going to be an exclamation point heavy post. Deal with it.)

A portion of the headline reads, "KBR, KU Leuven Libraries and Google signed agreements to share a large portion of important digitised documents reflecting the rich cultural and historical heritage located in the libraries."

The article notes that more than 80,000 individual works are going to be made freely available, which is itself absolutely bonkers exciting. However, of special interest to me is the last bullet point example of what's going to be put up on Google books: "Corble collection: collection of the British fencer Archibald Corble (1883-1944), one of the world's most extensive collections on the history of fencing."

The Corble collection is probably one of the most extensive fencing-related collections you may never have heard of. A description of it is here, but let me just quote from it: "The collection consists of about 1,900 copies, dating from the 15th to the 20th century, and mainly originates in France, England, Latin America, Italy and Germany." Additionally, it notes that "This valuable collection is attractive to many scholars because of its diversity. The scope of the Corble Collection is much broader than only the art of fencing. It also contains treatises on duelling written by various fencing masters; works on self-defence; and books on the handling, making, and evolution of stabbing weapons and firearms. But the collection also contains material that focuses on the legal and religious side of duelling, such as pamphlets on lawsuits and legislation, as well as religious pamphlets that warn audiences against the dangers of duelling."

I am so excited for this! There's what looks to be a partial list of the collection here. That's just from a quick digging around - if I find a better or more useful list, I'll edit this post to include it. There are definitely works in there that are readily available in translation (Marozzo's Opera Nova, for instance) but I can't wait to see what manuals or treatises we haven't had ready access to before this get to be seen by anyone on the internet.

This is so awesome and I cannot wait.

Marozzo's Second Presa Revisited and Translation Funtimes

So a couple days ago I did a look at Marozzo's second presa. It was fine, it's a short little thing, and a fun play. Good times!

Then my friend Kate (whose blog is here, and has made some fantastic things and also has done some translation work!) was chatting with me about it and said that the take on it that she had was less of a shove, and more of a lifting motion from the legs. I could see that, but didn't have that as my takeaway. She mentioned having grabbed her copy of Swanger's translation of Marozzo, and that's when it clicked.

I hadn't used my copy of that translation. I'd gone over Wilson's translation at Wiktenauer, because I'd read through Swanger's before, thought myself broadly familiar enough with the play, and I didn't have the book at hand. This was where things got funky for me. Kate said that she had looked up Wilson's version, and said that it was pretty different. 

The key part of the play as translated by Wilson reads, "In the throw you will grasp the right thigh with your right hand while thrusting your head under his right arm and you will turn your shoulders and in this manner you will take him away and throw him to the ground." I read that as turning into your opponent with your right shoulder, which was more of a shove to me. 

Swanger translates that as, "...grab his right thigh with your right hand, shooting your head under his right arm as you grab his thigh, and straighten your back. This way you'll pick him off his feet and throw him to the ground..." Further he footnotes, 'straighten your back' with "Literally, "turn your shoulders rearwards"." This completely changed how the end of the play goes for me. Would lifting your opponent's leg and shoving them with your shoulder work? Yeah, I think so. On the other hand, would a lift with your legs as you straighten your shoulders out work better? Absolutely. As soon as your opponent's feet lose contact with the ground, their options shrink by a lot. They don't necessarily go down to zero, but they get pretty close to it.

So what did I learn from this?

1) Take the time to go find my preferred translation. (Even if it was out in the car and I would have had to brave the cold and snow.) Swanger is absolutely my translation of choice because of those footnotes, the extensive introduction, and the clarity of work that he has. (Which isn't to say that the text isn't unclear at times - but it's generally going to be Marozzo's fault when it is.)

2) Swapping translations mid-effort, even between discrete chunks like the blog posts let me do, can lead to some weirdnesses.

3) Talking to other people about their takes on a play and why they are what they are is going to be enlightening. (This is something I knew, but it sure got reinforced here.)

So! Next time, I'm for sure going to be working from my book.

Marozzo's Second Presa and Fiore

So a year and change ago, I took a look at Marozzo's first knife defense and compared it to the material in Fiore. After the last series of posts I wanted to get back to something I hadn't poked at in a while and also something that would be contained to a single post - so let's look at Marozzo's second defense against getting jumped by a guy with a knife!

Here we have a response to someone coming at you with an underhanded attack with a dagger. Marozzo wants you to block down hard with your left hand, grabbing his wrist or forearm. While you're making the grab, step in with your right foot to their outside. To perform the throw from there, grab their right thigh and pull up while you shove under their arm with your shoulder, putting them into the ground. (One of the sword and buckler plays describes a very similar presa but notes that you can "carry him away" if you want, so lifting them up into a fireman's carry is a very period option as well, it looks like!)

My first thought upon working through this in my head was that unlike the first presa, there wouldn't be clear depiction of this defense in Fiore. As best I can tell, I'm not mistaken here. Of the nine dagger masters in Fiore, only the eighth and ninth discuss dealing with this kind of underhand dagger attack, and there are no plays from either of them which resemble this takedown at all. 

Very similar takedowns do appear elsewhere in earlier wrestling texts though - on page 51 in Jessica Finley's Medieval Wresting, which is a working guide to Ott Jud's German wrestling treatise from the mid-1400s, this is termed the "slipping through" and Finley states, "This throw is shown in many manuscripts including the Kal (In Service to the Duke, Tobler, page 182), Talhoffer (Medieval Combat, Rector, plate 196), and Auerswald's "Running through Under the Arm", plate 10." Germany had a very rich tradition of unarmored wrestling both for sport and earnest defense, so honestly if it was going to show up anywhere else, I'm not surprised it showed up here. 

I have a couple thoughts about why a similar style of takedown doesn't show up in Fiore though, and they all center around one thing - Fiore has an assumption of armor. It isn't that everything is illustrated with armor (it isn't), but the techniques as best I can tell are based around the worst-case assumption in terms of dealing with the additional weight, bulk, or restriction of armor.

In this case, getting under the arm as shown in Marozzo is a tight fit in many cases. I certainly wouldn't want to trust my ability to get my helmeted head and armored body into there if I'm wearing a full harness. I might also be worried about if I'd get hung up on my opponent's armor in this case as well. It's a good takedown - and Fiore loves him some takedowns - but I'm really not sure I see it being a great idea here.

Also, I'm not all that sure that it's reasonable to assume that someone in full harness can themselves pick up their similarly armored opponent and be balanced and in good control. Unless, I suppose, they're Hulk von Hogan - well known practitioner of Fiore! (I'm a very serious scholar who takes himself very seriously. Clearly.)

With that, I'm going to wrap this post. I think I'll do the next presa pretty soon though - I'm hoping to find more lines to draw between them and Fiore's plays before I'm done, and I want to get to a presa that has a solid similarity to dig into!

More Guild Ranks and Drama and Things Like That!

Well, pandemic brain, mental health, surgery, and the holidays all conspired to make this take a lot longer then I wanted to get this done. (Remember when I said a day or two? Ha ha, I'm so optimistic before the crushing reality sets in.) But here we finally are, and that's just how it is, and we're doing the research and writing as we can, as best we can.

When we left off, we'd walked through the promotions up from scholar to free scholar. Next up would be Provost, and then finally Master. (To remind folks, there were the four ancient Masters who were in charge of the whole guild. They must have changed over time, but we have no record of this specifically, let alone how the promotions were decided.) 

The prize for Provost is where some of the really entertaining stuff starts to appear. When a free scholar decided to play for Provost, both he and his Master went to the four ancient Masters to discuss it. (The manuscript specifically notes that if the student's master were dead, they could choose one of the four ancient masters to fight under, so that's nice.) The four ancient Masters set the day of the prize, where the free scholar was supposed to fight at the longsword, backsword, and staff (though in reality these were somewhat flexible). At this point, the free scholar had to, at his own expense, give four weeks notice to all Provosts of the guild who lived within 60 miles of the location where the prize was to be fought that it was happening. For any Provost inside that radius who was not informed, the free scholar had to pay the ancient Masters a penalty of five shillings. According to the currency converter from my previous post, that comes out to $44.40 in today's dollars. Additionally, any Provost who lived more than 20 miles from the prize fight would have half of their travel expenses paid by the free scholar. (As an aside, Lilias pointed out to me the possibility of doing some fun math here as a free scholar - is it more expensive to pay half of someone's travel expenses or to pay the penalty for not inviting them?) Finally, assuming they pass their prize fight, to receive their Provost's Letter they must pay "to the four ancient Masters for the sealing thereof after the rate which is set amongst them with all manner of other duties belonging to them."

It all keeps coming back to those promotion fees and belt tests, right?

Once the free scholar fights his prize and becomes a Provost of the guild, some new rights and responsibilities are theirs. First, they may not keep a school within seven miles of any Master's school unless they receive permission from the four ancient Masters. They may not teach any scholar unless that scholar is sworn to the Provost's own Master; if done, the Provost must then pay the Master a fee of two pence for each scholar and another two pence to the "most ancient Master of the four" as well as showing his account books every quarter. If they happen to live within the 60 mile radius of a Provost's prize and they know about it, they must appear and fight (unless they are ill or "busied in the Queen's affairs") or pay a penalty of six shillings eightpence to the four ancient Masters. Finally, they are not supposed to play their Master's prize for another seven years - which again, seemed in practice to be a guideline more than a rule.

Now, the prize fight for Master. The Provost who wishes to become a Master does this through the Master under which he fought his prize for Provost (or again, under one of the four ancient Masters if necessary). Assuming they all approve, the four ancient Masters choose the day for the prize, and the Provost will have to fight at the two handed sword, the "Basterd sword", the pike, backsword, and (finally!) the rapier and dagger. The Provost was required to inform all Masters that lived within 40 miles eight weeks in advance of the day. Unlike the Provost, there's no mention of penalties for either the Provost for not informing anyone nor to the Master who doesn't attend. 

Assuming the student does well, he pays for his Master's letter and the sealing of it and all the duties that he might owe (which again, are unspecified), he's given his Master's oath and boom! A new Master! At this point, according to the Master's oath, the newly promoted fencer should not set forth any prize (which I take to mean bring up a student for a prize fight, but I could be wrong) or keep more than one school in London. Other items of the oath include stating that they also shouldn't poach students from another Master, set up a prize fight for a hopeful free scholar or Provost without going through the proper channels, and so on in that vein. 

Interestingly, there are a small number of instances where there did not seem to be a prize fight at all. Four times in the Sloane manuscript we see, instead of the usual prize fight information, "Master's agreement" which seems to indicate a handwaved promotion to Master. This also happened six times with a promotion to Provost, three times for free scholar, and in one Provost's prize it let the candidate skip the back sword fights, though not long sword. Naturally, there aren't any notes describing why this happened, only that it did.

Aylward has some notes as to how the prize fights themselves were conducted, which are pretty interesting. He notes that in each weapon, the prizor would be fighting two bouts with each person answering the prize - so if there were four weapons and six answerers that would mean the prizor would be fighting forty-eight bouts in that day. Naturally, many of those bouts would be one right after the other as well, although Aylward describes how the Masters running the show would call "this weapon is now done" with a fanfare of drums and would then confer with themselves upon it, giving the prizor a chance to sit and rest. They would then call "The first bout at such-and-such weapon" to more drums, and the bouts would continue.

There were definitely rules of engagement in the fights, too. Per Aylward, in 1599 George Silver (we had to bring him up eventually!) bemoaned that "there are now in these days no grips, wrestling, closes, striking with the hilts, daggers, or bucklers used in our fence-schools." I can almost hear him shaking his fists at the sky while screaming, "Back in my day!"

Interesting fact about Silver, though? He was not remotely associated with the London Masters of Defense. They were a trade guild, and Silver was a gentleman - certainly not someone who would join a common corporation! That said, he did write that he had nothing bad to say about the Masters, and he accounted them quite skilled.

I know, I said I'd yell more about Silver. I'll yell about him in another post, because we need to wrap this up sometime. But I did promise some drama, so here we are:

The Company of the Masters of the Science of Defense was not, as far as we can tell, actually an officially chartered guild. I mentioned this in a previous post. Henry VIII signed letters patent in 1540 to charter the guild. Henry died in 1547, and papers like the one he signed typically lapse upon the monarch's death and as Aylward puts it, "it depended largely upon the capacity of the grantees to satisfy the claims of officials paid only by their fees as to whether a revival was obtained from his successor." We had been wondering how the guild funded itself, and it seemed pretty slim - and this may well be proof of that. The Masters sure kept acting like they had a patent and they said they had one, but there's no record of it existing during Edward VI's, Mary's, or Elizabeth's reigns. In fact, they had been ordered to produce it in 1545 so they could set up schools in London, and the paperwork did not appear in court.

No, I don't know how they were able to open up schools anyway.

The Sloane manuscript purports that Elizabeth renewed the patent and added to it the right "to play openly within the City of London." (Which is just really stylish.) But no, there's no record of this existing anywhere else. They did fight a number of prizes before royalty, so they seemed to have some favor there, but not enough to get the paperwork from them.

With that, I'm going to wrap it here because otherwise I'll never post it. Next time, maybe Fabris. Or yelling about Silver and his shenanigans. Maybe Marozzo for variety. Who can say what'll happen around here?