Category: Book Excerpt

A samurai may…be more simply understood by his practice of bearing arms rather than any social status or aesthetic sensibilities. The word therefore becomes a generic term for any pre-modern Japanese fighting man, and there is something to be said for such a pragmatic view, because the official definition of the word samurai changed considerably over the centuries. For much of Japanese history (if contemporary writings are to be believed) everyone with something to defend—a landowner, a villager, a priest or a pirate—was armed to the teeth and was therefore a warrior (bushi or musha) of some sort at some time. Yet back in the tenth century [C.E.] no fighter of any reputation would have wished to be called a samurai, because that expression still had connotations of menial rather than military service. By the thirteenth century the word had acquired the exclusively military meaning it enjoys today, although to be a samurai still involved the notion of subservience to someone else. The samurai’s superiors were leaders called gokenin (‘honourable houseman’), whose elite status derived not only from their skills at warfare, but also from the ownership of the patches of land from which they took their surnames. Gokenin expected loyalty from the non-landowning samurai who followed them into battle. Their samurai followers (the European notion of a squire is a good parallel) were able to rise in society because of good service and the rewards that followed.

And rise they did, until the expression ‘samurai’ acquired an elite connotation that allowed it to encompass the entirety of Japan’s military aristocracy. The samurai’s upward social mobility found its greatest expression during the Sengoku Period, Japan’s ‘Age of War’, which is conventionally dated from 1467 to 1603. The long conflicts of the Sengoku Period sucked into their whirlpool a huge number of elite mounted warriors, lowly fighting samurai, armed monks, village communities and an intermediate class of jizamurai (‘local samurai’), who owned some land and were both farmers and fighters at the same time.

— The Lost Samurai, Chapter 1

…To illustrate just how tough knights had to be in [the early 16th Century (C.E.), Blaise de Monluc‘s] memoirs record vividly how the enemy:

…peppered me in the meantime with an infinite number of arquebus shot, one of which, pierced my target [shield] and shot my arm quite through…and another battered the bone at the joint of my arm and shoulder that I lost all manner of feeling….

De Monluc was so determined to continue his military career that he refused to have his arm amputated. This was, in any case, a surgical procedure that threatened either death or lifelong poverty, so he chose instead to lie on his back for two months, experiencing a physical pain that he regarded as nothing compared to the torment he was enduring by missing the subsequent campaigns….

— The Art of Renaissance Warfare, Chapter 9

Emphasis mine.

Long ago in the land of Caith, when magic still prevailed, the evil wizard Mangar the Dark threatened a small but harmonious town called Skara Brae. Overnight, all the town’s militiamen disappeared, and Mangar froze the surrounding countryside with a spell of Eternal Ice, totally isolating it from any possible help.

As evil creatures oozed into the sewers to join Mangar’s shadow crusade, the future of Skara Brae hung in the balance. And who was left? Only a handful of unproven young Warriors, some junior Magic-users, a couple of Bards barely old enough to drink, and a few out of work Rogues.

You are the leader of this ragtag group of freedom fighters. Luckily you have a Bard with you to sing your glories—if you survive—for this is the stuff of legends.

And thus the story begins….

— Introductory lore, The Bard’s Tale: Tales of the Unknown video game

They came to the main court, which was elegantly furnished. Illustrated tapestries hung on the walls, and the floor was polished wood. Lord Bofort had excellent taste—and the ill-gotten wealth to indulge it.

“There are bowmen watching from concealed recesses,” [Jolie, the spirit of Parry’s dead wife,] said. “Crossbows.”

Parry reached into an inner pocket and took his large silver cross. He doubted that anyone would fire at him yet, but there was no sense in taking unnecessary chances. Fabiola felt the same way; she clutched her small cross tightly.

Lord Bofort awaited them at a great oaken table. He was a stout man of perhaps fifty, very well dressed with embroidered robes. “Welcome, Father Grief,” he said expansively. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit by a man of the cloth?”

“Bofort,” Parry said without preamble, “there is a warrant for your arrest for abuse of your power. I have come to take you to the magistrate.”

“Friar, you are overstepping your bounds,” Bofort said curtly. “You have no business meddling in my affairs.”

“I shall be satisfied to let the magistrate decide that,” Parry said. “I ask you to leave this castle and come with me now to the town, so that this matter may be settled.”

“Because of the reckless charge of a foolish young girl? Surely you know better than that, friar.”

“You were satisfied with her testimony when you meant to use it against your neighbor,” Parry reminded him. “Now we have ascertained that that testimony was purjured, the result of the torture and threats you made against her. She is a more credible witness against you than she was against your neighbor.”

“I think she will not be a witness at all,” Bofort said grimly. He made a gesture, and two guards stepped forward.

Fabiola straightened, and Parry recognized Jolie’s aspect [cohabitating with the girl in her body, again]. She lifted the small silver cross. “Creatures of hell, touch me not, lest you be chastened,” she said.

The guards hesitated.

“Do not be daunted by a superstition!” Bofort snapped. “Take her!”

The guards resumed their motion. Fabiola fixed her gaze on the face of the nearest and swung the cross, shoving it against his forearm.

The man screamed and fell back, holding his arm.

Parry knew that Jolie had drawn on an item of magic they had learned since her death: the mesmeric burn. The guard had not really been hurt, but he had felt the pain where the cross touched—because of the guilt on his conscience. He had known it was wrong to interfere with a witness protected by a friar. Superstition had indeed daunted him.

“So it is of this manner,” Bofort muttered. He made another gesture.

“Deflect!” Parry cried, warning Jolie.

Two crossbow shafts came down from the bowmen in the alcoves. The arrows swerved slightly and thudded into the wall on either side of the girl. Jolie had invoked the spell of deflection, causing the barbs to miss. Conjuration or levitation was difficult magic, but deflection was its simplest aspect, and they had had more than a decade to study it.

“If your guilt were in doubt,” Parry said, “that doubt has been resolved by your action. Come with me.” He strode around the table toward Bofort.

“Clear the court!” Bofort cried. “I will talk with this man alone.”

The guards and attendants hurried out, as did the bowmen. In a moment Parry and Fabiola were alone with Bofort.

“Who are you?” Bofort demanded. “I know sorcery when I see it!”

“I am sure you do,” Parry agreed. “You have practiced it for decades.”

“On behalf of the Church!”

“On behalf of Lucifer.”

“How dare you charge me with that? I gave invaluable magical aid to the [Albigensian Crusade]!”

“You systematically eliminated your competition—in the guise of that support. That was the work of Lucifer.”

“Who are you?” Bofort repeated. “I know of all competent sorcerers, and there are none among the monks!”

“I am the one that got away. You killed my father and my wife. Now I bring the power of that God you wronged, to see that justice is done.”

Bofort reflected. “There was one that escaped! A novice, a stripling, who murdered a crusader and slipped the noose. I had all but forgotten.”

“I had not forgotten,” Parry said grimly. “Now you will come with me voluntarily to the magistrate, or I shall reveal your nature to the personnel of this establishment. That will demolish your reputation as well as your estate.”

“You seek to make a deal, friar?” Bofort sneered.

“My calling requires mercy for the sinner, no matter how grievous his sins may be. Confess your sins, and accept your punishment, and I shall not add to it. Come with me now, and some part of your estate may survive.”

“I cannot come with you,” Bofort said. “You know whom I serve.”

“I serve a greater one.”

“No, you merely serve a different one.”

“Must we try our strength? My Lord supports me; does yours support you?”

Bofort thought about that a moment. It was known that Lucifer quickly lost patience with those who were clumsy in the pursuit or practice of evil. “Perhaps we can after all deal. I will give you information that is worth far more than I am, if you will depart in peace.”

“I seek no deal, merely justice. Come with me; perhaps you can make a deal with the magistrate.”

“The magistrate? He goes with the politics of the moment! You have incited the town against me; there will be no justice there.”

“It’s true, Parry,” Jolie said through Fabiola’s mouth. “The townsmen are massing now to march on this castle. It seems that quite a number of them have suffered at the hands of this man, and now they see their chance to bring him down.”

“So you are finished, sorcerer,” Parry said. “Come with me.”

“I tell you, you would be better off to make the deal,” Bofort said. “I can tell you of the greatest scourge ever to strike this fair land, now in the making. You may be intimately involved; what irony! You can save yourself and all you hold dear, if you know its nature.”

“I make no deals with your kind,” Parry said. “Now come; I will protect you from the malice of the throng.”

“Well, if I must,” Bofort said, and turned as if to walk.

Then a bolt of energy lanced at Parry.

It bathed him in fire, then died. He was untouched.

“So you are braced against physical assault,” Bofort said. “But perhaps not against this.” He made a sign.

Parry held up the cross. Something struck it, invisibly, and bounced back.

“Why you cunning—Hell and damnation! Damn, damn, damn!—rascal!” Bofort exclaimed. “You used a mirror spell to send the curse back at me! There is no cure!”

“Come with me,” Parry repeated.

“I shall not—God be cursed! Lucifer be worshipped! Damn, damn, damn!—come with you, friar! The peons would—animal fornication! Black Mass! Damn, damn, damn!—tear me apart!”

“Then I shall go without you,” Parry said. “Come, Fabiola; our business here is done.”

“For the love of—damn, damn, damn!—what do you expect me to do?” Bofort cried in desperation.

“I expect you to suffer to the precise degree of those you have afflicted with this curse in the past,” Parry said. They walked from the chamber, Lord Bofort ranting behind.

— For Love of Evil, Chapter 4

The first important break from the conventions which dominated medieval warfare was the triumph of the Swiss pike-squares over the mounted knights of Burgundy in a series of pitched battles (1475-7 [C.E.]). The lesson of Morat, Grandson, and Nancy was immediate, important and ineluctable: victory in battle could be won by infantry over cavalry. This shift in military effectiveness removed a crucial restriction on the scale of warfare in Europe. Since a warhorse was not only expensive but also a mark of social rank the size of a cavalry-based army was necessarily circumscribed by the dimensions of the social class which was entitled to go through life on horseback: the knights. There was no such bar to the number of men who could be recruited and issued with a helmet and sixteen-foot pike. Accordingly the eclipse of cavalry by infantry meant that victory in war after the 1470s came to depend not on the quality of the combatants nor on the excellence of their armament, but on their numbers. A government bent on war had now to mobilize and equip every man who could be found.

— The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567-1659, p. 5

Emphasis mine.

…Since generosity is one of the marks of true nobility, supporting a large household brings status to the lord of the household. The lord will maintain as many people as he can feed, far more than necessary to do the actual work….

The most important members of this crowd are the retainers and officials of noble rank. In medieval society, there was absolutely no shame attached to performing the most menial services for a person of higher rank—to the contrary, it was an honor to be chosen for the task. Likewise, having retainers of noble blood increases the status of the castle’s lord. It is the goal of powerful lords to have as many noble retainers as possible, even for such mundane jobs as falconmaster. Exactly how many castle officials will be noble-born depends of course, on the castle-holder’s wealth and reputation….

Among the ranks of common-born servants in the castle there is a further distinction—between servitors, who have a certain amount of respect and position, and the crowd of peasant servants who do the actual daily labor. The servitors have a craft to offer, such as blacksmithing, cookery, or hunting technique. These skilled laborers hold their positions by hereditary right, passing the job down to their sons or daughters as long as they have heirs. Servitors are generally proud of their position and very loyal to their lord if he’s any kind of a decent man at all.

The servants, recruited from the peasantry on the manor, are treated like valuable farm animals. Kicks and curses are their daily lot from those above them in the hierarchy. They sleep wherever they can find a spot usually on the floor or on a table in the lord’s hall, or out in the stables. For wages, they receive food, one suit of clothes a year, and a few small coins at Christmas. Yet, odd though it seems to modern minds, being a servant in a castle is a sought-after job. Since status demands that the lord have more servants than are necessary for the work, no single servant works more than three or four hours a day—a much better lot than breaking one’s back on the farm. Servants are also assured of getting enough to eat, which is not the case for other peasants.

— Who Lives In That Castle?, Dragon Magazine, issue 80

My first magazine excerpt, and from the first issue of Dragon Magazine I ever owned.

Now Fingolfin, King of the North, and High King of the Noldor, seeing that his people were become numerous and strong, and that the Men allied to them were many and valiant, pondered once more an assault upon Angband; for he knew that they lived in danger while the circle of the siege was incomplete, and Morgoth was free to labour in his deep mines, devising what evils none could foretell ere he should reveal them. This counsel was wise according to the measure of his knowledge; for the Noldor did not yet comprehend the fullness of the power of Morgoth, nor understand that their unaided war upon him was without final hope, whether they hasted or delayed. But because the land was fair and their kingdoms wide, most of the Noldor were content with things as they were, trusting them to last, and slow to begin an assault in which many must surely perish were it in victory or in defeat. Therefore they were little disposed to hearken to Fingolfin, and the sons of Fëanor at that time least of all. Among the chieftains of the Noldor Angrod and Aegnor alone were of like mind with the King; for they dwelt in regions whence Thangorodrim could be descried, and the threat of Morgoth was present to their thought. Thus the designs of Fingolfin came to naught, and the land had peace yet for a while.

But when the sixth generation of Men after Bëor and Marach were not yet come to full manhood, it being then four hundred years and five and fifty since the coming of Fingolfin, the evil befell that he had long dreaded, and yet more dire and sudden than his darkest fear. For Morgoth had long prepared his force in secret, while ever the malice of his heart grew greater, and his hatred of the Noldor more bitter; and he desired not only to end his foes but to destroy also and defile the lands that they had taken and made fair. And it is said that his hate overcame his counsel, so that if he had but endured to wait longer, until his designs were full, then the Noldor would have perished utterly. But on his part he esteemed too lightly the valour of the Elves, and of Men he took yet no account.

There came a time of winter, when night was dark and without moon; and the wide plain of Ard-galen stretched dim beneath the cold stars, from the hill-forts of the Noldor to the feet of Thangorodrim. The watchfires burned low, and the guards were few; on the plain few were waking in the camps of the horsemen of Hithlum. Then suddenly Morgoth sent forth great rivers of flame that ran down swifter than Balrogs from Thangorodrim, and poured over all the plain; and the Mountains of Iron belched forth fires of many poisonous hues, and the fume of them stank upon the air, and was deadly. Thus Ard-galen perished, and fire devoured its grasses; and it became a burned and desolate waste, full of a choking dust, barren and lifeless. Thereafter its name was changed, and it was called Anfauglith, the Gasping Dust. Many charred bones had there their roofless grave; for many of the Noldor perished in that burning, who were caught by the running flame and could not fly to the hills. The heights of Dorthonion and Ered Wethrin held back the fiery torrents, but their woods upon the slopes that looked towards Angband were all kindled, and the smoke wrought confusion among the defenders. Thus began the fourth of the great battles, Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame.

In the front of that fire came Glaurung the golden, father of dragons, in his full might; and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the orcs in multitudes such as the Noldor had never before seen or imagined. And they assaulted the fortresses of the Noldor, and broke the leaguer about Angband, and slew wherever they found them the Noldor and their allies, Grey-elves and Men. Many of the stoutest of the foes of Morgoth were destroyed in the first days of that war, bewildered and dispersed and unable to muster their strength. War ceased not wholly ever again in Beleriand; but the Battle of Sudden Flame is held to have ended with the coming of spring, when the onslaught of Morgoth grew less.

— The Silmarillion, Chapter 18

To modern readers of these gloriously bloody legends [told in The Tales of the Heike], a remarkable feature is the role played by women. Some of the champions in the war tales are girls, for in the early feudal age the women of Japan had not yet been reduced to the humble submissiveness that would be their posture in later centuries. They were expected to exhibit the same loyalty and bravery as the men, and occasionally a woman exceptionally endowed with these qualities won an honored place in the warrior coterie. Tomoe of the Minamoto faction must have been such a one.

Tomoe had long black hair and a fair complexion, and her face was very lovely; moreover she was a fearless rider whom neither the fiercest horse nor the roughest ground could dismay, and so dexterously did she handle sword and bow that she was a match for a thousand warriors and fit to meet either god or devil. Many times had she taken the field, armed at all points, and won matchless renown in encounters with the bravest captains, and so in this last fight, when all the others had been slain or had fled, among the last seven there rode Tomoe.

— Early Japan, Chapter 4

What was the “system of noble combat?” It rested on a basic legal idea very alien to the modern mind: the idea that there was an intimate connection between high social status and the right to do violence. As [historian Jonathan] Dewald writes, the pre-eighteenth-century nobility had “habits of violence, public and private.” More than that, they had as a matter of law privileges of violence. Nobles were marked off from their social inferiors not just by their titles, not just by their dress, not just by their wealth, but also by their privileges, symbolic or real, of inflicting violence on others. Historically these privileges of public and private violence included “high justice” (the privilege of sentencing dependents to death), the privilege of hunting, the privilege of thrashing inferiors, and the complex privilege that goes by the name of “the right to bear arms.” The character of these privileges varied over the centuries, but from the central Middle Ages onward the symbolism of the law of noble status was consistently a symbolism of the “right of the stronger,” as the medievalist Wolfgang Schild has put it. Noble status was largely defined and displayed by the right, whether or not exercised, to commit violent acts.

[Historian Johan] Huizinga’s “noble combat” was prominent among these symbolically charged privileges. High status was partly defined by the privilege of doing violence not only to inferiors but also between equals, and aristocracy, as one medievalist has said, with a shade of exaggeration, was based “first and foremost on the capacity to assert oneself in and through combat.” In that sense, engaging in combat was closely akin to such acts as sentencing one’s dependents to death: it was a resonant marker of high status rich in the symbolism of “the right of the stronger.”

— The Verdict of Battle, pp. 141

Author’s emphasis in italic. Mine is in bold.

Romans loved spectacle. The same was true of most societies in the ancient world, and, whatever else Hollywood has got wrong, the fondness of historical epics for grand processions, parades, and casts of thousands reflects something of this reality. Important events in the life of a community or leader were marked publicly and choreographed with great care, usually following well-established traditions. Thus, when for the first time a representative of the Parthian king met a representative of the Roman Republic, the occasion had to be marked by a ceremony where discussions were held in plain view, even if some or most of the real negotiation happened behind the scenes. A willingness to bargain in public was seen as a sign of good faith.

— Rome and Persia, p. 25

The military hospital had to deal mainly with surgery cases—limbs injured by sword, pike or gunshot. Of the three, bullet-wounds were by far the most serious. On one occasion when many of his men were wounded, Don Luis de Requesens reflected that: “Most of the wounds come from pikes or blows, and they will soon heal, although there are also many with gunshot wounds…and they will die.” All the medical textbooks of the time confirm this judgement: a bullet was more likely to cause internal bleeding, induce blood-poisoning or shatter a bone—three conditions which sixteenth-century medicine was powerless to cure. Yet within these limitations, the Army’s doctors and surgeons registered some remarkable successes. Of 41 badly injured Spanish veterans in 1574, for example, 1 had lost both legs and 3 both arms, 5 more had lost the use of one leg and 13 lacked a hand or an arm (left and right limbs suffered equally); 11 more were recorded as having bad gunshot wounds (in their mouth, their eye or disabling a limb) and 4 more had lost a limb by a cannon ball. The roll-call is gruesome but it gives a remarkable testimony to the skill of the army’s surgeons: all these unfortunates had survived their injury. For such mutilated survivors a special home was established in the seventeenth century: the “Garrison of Our Lady of Hal”. In January 1640 there were 2 officers, 236 soldiers and 108 entretenidos in the garrison, all of them injured veterans too maimed for service in the field.

— The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567-1659, p. 168

If success follows a complex set of actions and you do not know which parts of the whole performance were the vital ones, it is best to repeat all of them exactly and slavishly every time because you never know what might happen if you don’t.

— Supernature, p. 178

To astrologers and other seers of the period, 1588 [C.E.] was a year of dreadful portent. All manner of omens, from an alleged rain of blood in Sweden to a series of monstrous births in France, pointed to some earth-shaking catastrophe. Much of the foreboding harked back more than a century to the German astronomer Regiomontanus, author of the star tables used by Columbus and of a horoscope for the current year. According to Regiomontanus, there would be an eclipse of the sun in February, followed by two total eclipses of the moon. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, harbingers of war and chaos, would linger in baleful conjunction in the moon’s house. “If land and sea do not collapse in total ruin,” Regiomontanus had concluded, “yet will the whole world suffer upheavals, empires will dwindle and from everywhere will be great lamentation.” Students of numerology, sifting through the Bible, found reasons for alarm in the Book of Revelations and in selected passages from Isaiah. Events since the birth of Christ appeared to have moved in complex but predictable cycles, and the last cycle would conclude, with apocalyptic finality, in 1588. Surely the fall of some great kingdom was at hand. As to the identity of the kingdom, there was lively speculation. Spain—Europe’s only true empire—was a likely candidate for toppling, and nervous mariners throughout her possessions began deserting their ships in the ports where the Armada was assembling. To counter the mounting apprehension, King Philip ordered sermons denouncing all forms of wizardry and soothsaying. In England the omens seemed particularly worrisome; the second lunar eclipse, in August, would fall on the cusp of Virgo, Queen Elizabeth’s birth sign. Like Philip, the English government tried to dispel the fears, issuing a pamphlet to refute the soothsayers. Catholics in France, presumably too full of Gallic elan to contemplate their own downfall, predicted Almighty punishment for the English Jezebel.

— The Armada, p. 63

[In 1587 C.E., English Captain Francis] Drake had captured the single richest prize of his swashbuckling career, one of the grandest hauls of the century. The [Spanish galleon] San Felipe carried an imperial fortune in pepper, cloves, cinnamon and other spices, in silks and calico, in indigo and ivory, in gold, silver and caskets of gem stones. The total worth came to £114,000, more than three times the value of all the goods and shipping captured or destroyed at Cadiz. The Queen took £40,000 as her share, Drake £17,000, and the rest was split among officers, crew members and other shareholders. At a time when the Navy Board under Hawkins’ direction spent £6,000 a year, Drake had brought home more than enough money to underwrite England’s defense against any impending invasion. The capture also gave another hard knock to [King] Philip’s credit rating, further delaying his preparations for the Armada.

— The Armada, pp. 60

But there were other men, too, men of a kind Walsingham had already begun cultivating during his time in France, men who lived deeper in the shadows, men who could be bought and sold and flattered into betrayal, men who, out of desperation or vanity or a longing to believe in their own importance—or, the cooler ones, out of simple businesslike calculation of what they possessed and what someone else would be willing to pay for—were prepared to undertake more shadowy tasks.

Some of these were simple enough transactions for a neophyte spymaster. Ambassador Walsingham once sought to bribe one of the French Ambassador’s men for news from Spain, a commonplace enough transaction: a good many hangers-on about the courts of Europe were the beneficiaries of such “pensions” from foreign princes. But even in those early days, Walsingham set afoot some more elaborate and dangerous games. There was a charade aimed at neutralizing the intrigues in France of a worrisome Irishman, Maurice Fitzgibbon, the former Archbishop of Casel; Walsingham sought out for the job a certain Captain Thomas, a mercenary who had fought for the King of France in the civil wars, an Irish émigré himself, a man presumed to be a good Catholic, and known to be well connected in the French Court. The deposed Archbishop was plainly seeking the help of the Guises for an Irish rebellion against their Protestant English rulers; Thomas offered his services to Casel in the convincing role of supportive fellow countryman. He then brilliantly poisoned the well, arranging an audience for Casel with the Cardinal of Lorraine, to which he ostentatiously accompanied the Archbishop. “Two days after,” Walsingham reported, recounting the tale with obvious satisfaction to Burghley, “the Captain was sent for by the Cardinal; and being demanded, what manner of man the Archbishop was, of what estimation in his country, answered to every point as I required him. Since that time, I learn, that the Cardinal maketh not that account of the Archbishop that he looked for at his hands.” So much for the Archbishop and his dreams of glory.

These kinds of services did not come for free; this was new territory, and it was a fight to get the Captain the reward Walsingham had promised him….

Sometimes Walsingham probably paid such men out of his own pocket and hoped to be reimbursed later, or not even that; any great gentleman maintained a household establishment of servants and messengers and secretaries and clerks, and the line between private and public duties was ever blurred. In France he had had an Italian servant, Jacobo Manucci, who kept working for him for years afterward, doing curious little jobs, keeping in touch with other Italians in Paris, and Milan, and the Azores, traveling to odd places—once to Constantinople, even….

But for the rougher and darker stuff there was no substitute for cash on the barrelhead, and men hungry enough or low enough to do what the more genteel neither would nor could. It was all well and good to rely on merchants and travelers for casual news, but when he wanted specific information about an Irish adventurer seeking Spanish help for an invasion and rebellion, Walsingham sought out a man to pose as a merchant, provided him with a ship and a cargo of corn, and dispatched him to Portugal: not a cheap enterprise. When it came to a scheme to kidnap the papal legate as he traveled to France by sea and interrogate him about papal plots, Walsingham thought that Huguenot pirates might do; in the end, he dropped that idea, but his reading of the men required for the task was right enough.

And though any Englishman abroad might pose as a malcontent Catholic refugee, an easy enough disguise, and thereby hope to work his way into the confidences of the Spanish and French and Italian and English-émigré circles, it was also easy enough to get killed in the process, and in ignoble enough ways that appealed to few idealists or well-born. A man named Best, in Walsingham’s service, befriended the Spanish Ambassador’s secretary in Paris under such a pretense; one night a suspiciously staged fracas erupted outside the embassy, and when the man went out into the street to investigate he was killed, the perpetrators vanishing into the night.

— Her Majesty’s Spymaster, Chapter 6

Emphases mine.

In a fantasy roleplay campaign world, most people are rogues. 😀

Equating the value of money between two very different eras is strictly speaking impossible, since along with overall inflation the relative worth of different items alters considerably from one era to another: In sixteenth-century England, for example, a printed book like Foxe’s Acts and Monuments could cost as much as a good horse. But as a very rough guide, an Elizabethan pound can be taken to be the equivalent of £250 or $400 in modern terms.

Perhaps a better sense of how the Elizabethans themselves gauged the value of money may be had by reference to a few contemporary benchmarks. A farm laborer earned £5 a year; a school headmaster or a shipmaster £20; a large landholding lord, or a lawyer at the pinnacle of his profession, £1,000. A pound would buy a cow, a plain cloth coat, or a gun; £150 kept the young Earl of Oxford, an extravagant fop, supplied with clothing for a year; £10,000 bought a great London mansion.

A crown was an English silver coin worth a quarter of a pound; more loosely, the term could refer to any of a number of similar continental coins, such as the French écu, that all had about the same value as an English crown.

A mark was a unit of account equal to two-thirds of a pound.

— Her Majesty’s Spymaster, Preface

[…The three women who coexisted as the Incarnation of Fate] had lunch and adjusted a few threads, preoccupied. Then Clotho donned slacks, low-heeled shoes, and a businesslike shirt, and rode a thread back down to the dojo.

Mars appeared as she landed before it. He was garbed in a white gi. Niobe had never been certain how Mars traveled, but it seemed to be related to his sword. Each Incarnation had a symbol of office that was imbued with much of the magic, and the red sword was obviously Mars’ symbol.

“Follow me,” Mars said, handing her his sword.

Clotho looked at it. The thing was unsheathed—a massive instrument, with a handle almost too big for her small hand to hold, and a gleaming double-edged blade that glowed red from some deep layer. The whole thing had a magical aura of menace; it made her nervous. She held it awkwardly by two hands, the blade pointing straight down.

Even Niobe was astonished. What’s he up to? He never sets aside his red sword!

We’ll find out soon enough, Atropos thought.

The girl at the desk recognized Clotho. “Please leave,” she said. “You are not welcome here.”

Mars leaned over the desk. “I am her champion. Signal your hirelings.”

Two men appeared at the inner doorway. Both were in gi‘s and wore black belts. “The lady has asked you to leave, mister,” one said, stepping forward.

I think we’re going to see some man-style foolishness, Atropos thought with a certain relish. When they don’t have sex on their minds, they do like to fight.

“I have an appointment,” Mars said. He stepped into the man, caught his outstretched arm, spun about, and sent him rolling across the floor.

The other man turned—and Mars’ leg shot out and swept the other man’s foot from under him, so that he landed on the floor with a resounding slap.

“Now go in and announce me,” Mars said. “I expect a full turnout, and the courtesy of the dojo.”

Without further word, the two men hurried away.

“But you could have hurt them!” Clotho protested.

Mars walked back to Clotho and proffered his arm. “Not with a simple hand throw and a foot-sweep; they know how to take falls. I merely showed them a hint of my competence.”

She held his sword out to him, but he demurred. “I shall not be using that here, but cannot trust it to the hand of a mortal. Hold it until we are done.”

Clotho managed to hold the dread sword by one hand, and took his arm with the other. She walked with him through the bamboo curtain and down the hall toward the main chamber of the dojo. “Are you planning to fight all of them?”

“Certainly,” Mars replied.

“But—”

“I will run the line. Then it will be your turn.”

“But—”

“Do not be concerned, cutes. It will be all right.”

I hope so, Clotho thought nervously.

He knows what he’s doing, Niobe thought reassuringly. The three of us may not know what he’s doing, but he knows.

They reached the second curtain. “Take off your shoes,” Mars told her. He was already barefoot.

She took them off. They stepped through.

About forty students were lined along the far wall, standing barefooted on the edge of the big mat. They seemed to be arranged roughly in order of rank, with the white-belts at one end and the black-belts at the other. There were, she noted, several women among them.

In the center of the mat stood Samurai. He turned to face them.

Mars stretched out his right arm. A red cloth appeared in his hand. Slowly, deliberately, he wound this belt about his middle and tied it in place with the odd knot that martial artists used. There was a murmur of amazement from the line of students. It was as if they had never seen a red belt before.

Is something significant happening? Niobe thought.

Mars stepped up to the mat, and halted, and bent forward at the waist. He’s bowing to the mat! Atropos thought, finding it funny.

But Clotho had heard of this. “It’s the ritual,” she murmured. “Always bow when joining or leaving the tatami, the mat, for it breaks your fall and spares your bones. Always step on it barefooted.”

Now Mars stepped onto the mat. “You assume the belt of a Master Dan,” Samurai said, as if in challenge.

“You are observant,” Mars replied.

Samurai turned and walked to the black end of the line of students. He dropped into a cross-legged seated position.

Mars faced the class, and bowed to the line. The line bowed back.

Then Mars strode forward and took hold of the student at the white end of the line. This was a young woman, so small and light that her bare feet left the mat when he brought her forward. He can’t attack her! Niobe thought with horror.

Yet no one else protested, or even seemed dismayed. They merely watched.

Mars brought her to the center of the mat and held her by the right lapel and left sleeve of her gi. “Try a throw,” he told her.

The girl turned and hauled on his jacket. She got nowhere. Then Mars stepped back, drawing her along with him so that she had to step quickly forward to avoid losing her balance. At the moment her right foot touched the mat, his left foot swept against it. Her foot went up and she fell backward. She landed on the mat, her left arm outstretched, slapping the mat resoundingly, her right arm captive to his grip.

“De-ashi harai,” Mars said. “The Advanced-Foot Sweep. Remember it.” Then he let her go, and she scrambled up, bowed hastily, and returned to the line.

Mars nodded to the next student, a boy in white belt. The boy came out, took hold, and tried a throw of his own. It also got nowhere.

Mars drew him forward, as before, but this time set his left foot against the boy’s kneecap and hauled him into a tumble on the mat. “Hiza-guruma,” Mars said. “The Knee-Wheel. Practice your falls, son, or you’ll get hurt.”

“Yessir!” the boy exclaimed, scrambling up, bowing, and running back to his place in the line.

Mars nodded to the third student, another woman in a white belt. Again he gave her the chance to try to throw him, and she failed; then he threw her spinning to the mat with a hand-and-foot motion that seemed to be in between that of the prior two throws. “Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi,” he said. “The Propping-Drawing-Ankle Throw.”

There was a murmur along the line. “He’s doing the First Course of Instruction!” someone said behind Clotho. She turned to look. A brown-belt had come in behind her, off the mat. It was the instructor of the morning beginners’ class; evidently he had returned too late to join this one, so was watching from the side.

“Is that significant?” Clotho asked.

Now he recognized her. “You’re the—”

“The same,” she agreed. “I brought my champion to meet Samurai.”

“In a red belt!” he murmured, amazed. “That’s ninth or tenth Dan!”

“Is that good?”

“Oh—you don’t know judo?”

“Nothing,” she confessed. “I just came to talk to Samurai, and then things went wrong.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Just so,” he said after a moment. “Very well, I’ll be glad to explain. The master grades of judo are the Dan, as opposed to the student grades, the kyu. The Dan are black belt. But the very highest grades may wear the red belt. Normally such grades are only achieved as honors for service to the art, by masters who no longer compete. A competitor with a red belt should be the finest judoka in the world.”

“Oh, that explains why the class was so surprised.”

“It certainly does. As far as I know, there is no living, competing red belt today. So this man is bound to be an impostor.”

“He is Mars, the Incarnation of War.”

“Oh? Then maybe he—” The brown-belt shrugged. He returned to her prior question. “There’s nothing wrong with the First Course,” he explained. “They’re all good throws. But once people catch on to the order, they’ll know exactly which throw he’s going to do next. That makes it much harder. It doesn’t matter for the white-belts, but he’d have trouble throwing me with a throw I expected, and it would probably be impossible with a black-belt.”

Mars threw the next student over his right hip. “There’s the fourth—Uki-goshi, the Floating Hip Throw,” the brown-belt said. “I’ve never seen it done better. But I wonder where he could have gotten his training?”

Mars threw the next backward. “O-soto-gari,” the brown-belt murmured. “He certainly knows the basics.”

The next student fell. “And O-goshi,” the brown-belt said.

“Didn’t he just do that one?”

“No, that was Uki-goshi, a different throw. It looks similar and the footwork is similar, but the feel is quite different. Uke takes a much harder fall.”

“But I thought Uki was the throw, not the faller.”

The brown-belt smiled. “You really don’t know, do you? The one who does the throwing is always called Tori, the taker, and the one who gets thrown is Uke, the receiver. Anyway, the Uki-goshi is done stiff-kneed, while O-goshi flexes the knees, and—oh, there’s O-uchi-gari, the Major Inner Reaping! Beautiful!”

Clotho—and Niobe—were having trouble distinguishing the throws. They were ready to take the brown-belt’s word that they were being properly done. Clotho took advantage of his presence to ask another question. “What is this—this running the line?”

“Well, a challenger shows his superiority by defeating a number of others in rapid order,” the brown-belt said. “For example, a black-belt should be able to run a line of five brown-belts and throw them all, because his skill is greater. When the line is mixed, they do the lowest grades first, the Kyus, and work up to the Dans. Of course, by the time someone has thrown twenty or thirty people, he’s apt to be getting tired, so it gets harder both ways. No one has ever run our full line victoriously; if your friend makes it, he will have proved his rank. Some of ours are Sandans, and one’s a Yodan, and of course Samurai is Rokudan, the sixth level, and the champion of the eastern states. He’ll be world champion one day, if he decides to go for it.”

“He might not go for it?”

“Well, he’s getting old for competition, and judo is only part of his interest. He’s a master in karate, too, and aikido, and his specialty is the sword; no one can touch him there. He’s been searching for this mythical finger-strike, too— Say! Look at that Tsuri-komi-goshi! I’ve never seen a prettier throw! Did you see how he got full extension? I’ve never been able to do that on an Uke my own weight!”

The throw had looked just like all the others to Clotho and the other Aspects, but evidently there was a difference.

“But now he’s into the yellow-belts, and when he hits the green-belts he’ll have to work a little for it. Oh, nice Okuri-ashi-harai! That’s not as easy as it looks.”

Clotho was willing to take his word for it.

“God, I wish I was in that line!” the brown-belt said after the next throw. “It’s a privilege to be thrown by a master like that! Is he really the Incarnation of War?”

“Yes, he—”

“Oh, there’s the Uchi-mata! Samurai himself couldn’t have done it better!”

They watched while Mars moved into the green-belts. They were trying to throw him and failing as dismally as the white-belts had, and had no better success in resisting the return throws.

“That’s amazing!” the brown-belt commented. “I’ve never seen someone give them a chance like that; usually they put them away as fast as they can. He’s got a lot of confidence.”

“He should,” Clotho said, though she was amazed herself.

Then she saw Mars drop down. Someone had thrown him! But immediately the brown-belt opponent fell too. Both of them were lying on the mat.

“Yoko-otoshi! The Side Drop!” the brown-belt exclaimed. “Beautiful!”

“You mean it’s supposed to look like that?” Clotho asked.

“Of course. It’s a sacrifice throw.”

“Oh.”

They watched several more standing throws. Then Mars went down again. He had his foot in the other’s belly, and lifted him over so that he did a roll and landed on his back. “Tomoe-nage, the Stomach Throw,” the brown-belt said.

The throws continued as Mars progressed three-quarters of the way down the line. There seemed to be no end to them. But obviously the class was highly impressed.

“Soto-makikomi,” the brown-belt remarked as both men went down again. “I hate to take falls on that one! Of course it’s a power-throw; there’s not much stopping it once it starts. If he can do the next one, the Uki-otoshi—”

It seemed to Niobe that the brown-belt who was Uke at the moment simply threw himself on the mat, but the one beside her whistled softly. “Perfect!”

A black-belt came out of the line. Mars waited while the man tried a foot-sweep without success, then said, “Try another.” There was a chuckle along the line.

“What’s so funny?” Clotho asked.

“The situation. He’s up to the thirty-seventh throw in the Basic Forty. That’s Ushiro-goshi, the Rear Loin. It’s a counterthrow following an attempted hip-throw. Clyde didn’t try a hip-throw.”

Clyde tried a sacrifice throw, without effect; it was as if Mars were an immovable wall. There was another chuckle.

Then, moving like lightning, Clyde tried a hip-throw—and Mars picked him up and threw him to the mat. Clyde had gambled and lost. He got up, bowed, and smiled; he didn’t mind losing to an artist of that skill. “And he did it left-side,” the brown-belt murmured in awe. “Clyde tried to fool him, left-side, and he was ready.”

“Left-side is different?”

“And how! I really sweat on them!”

The last man in the line approached and took hold, but declined to try a throw. “Randori,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Clotho asked.

“That’s our Yodan,” the brown-belt said. “He’s a top competitor; he doesn’t like to do stationary throws. He prefers to counter, or to seize his opportunity. He knows your man will try the Yoko-gake, the Side Body Drop; he wants to make him do it in a moving situation.”

“Interesting,” Clotho said, unenlightened.

The two men moved about the mat, almost as if dancing together. Suddenly the black-belt screamed piercingly, his foot moving like lightning. But Mars’ foot moved too, just as fast—and they both fell to the mat.

The brown-belt shook his head. “Beautiful! He did it!”

“But how do you know who threw whom? And why the scream?”

The brown-belt smiled. “The scream was a kiai yell, to facilitate the throw. Didn’t work, this time. And sometimes it can be hard to tell, on a throw. I saw a match once where the award was given to the wrong judoka, before the judges corrected it. But this one was a perfect Yoko-gake, no question.”

Indeed, the class seemed to know it. Mars returned to the center of the mat, and exchanged bows with the class. It seemed he had successfully run the line.

“And he’s not even tired!” the brown-belt murmured.

Then Mars walked to the edge of the mat, stepped off, turned about, and bowed to it. “All right, girl,” he said gruffly. “He has to meet you now.”

“He what?”

“As your champion I conquered his class. I did not challenge Samurai himself. It is you who must meet him.” He took her by the elbow, urging her forward. “Honor the tatami.”

Bemused, Clotho bowed and stepped onto the mat….

— With a Tangled Skein, Chapter 12

Author’s emphases in italic. Mine are in bold.

“So,” Tomita said calmly as he kneeled again, “to the task at hand.” He sat up a bit straighter and said, “I am Tomita…”

“Formerly of the Kunaicho,” I interrupted, just to rattle him a bit. Some of the true danger in him shot out briefly from his eyes, escaping from behind the barrier he had placed there.

“I am a student of the Morita-ha Tengu-shin ryu. I am menkyo-kaiden there and a yudansha in Yanagi-ryu jujutsu and kendo. I have killed four men in duels. I request a lesson.”

It told me nothing, other than that there were more victims than we were aware of. I had never heard of the Tengu-shin ryu. Tengu are the winged mountain goblins of Japanese legend. Master swordsmen, in the old stories they sometimes teach mortals their art. Depending on how “shin” was written, it could refer to some sort of divine revelation, the heart, or a deity of some sort. All I really could tell was that the man before me had had a variety of training. And he killed people.

He bowed toward me at the conclusion of his recital. It was my turn.

“I am Burke,” I began. The Japanese tend not to use the given name in situations like this. “I am a student of Yamashita-ha Itto ryu. I am yudansha in Shotokan karatedo and Kodokan judo. I have killed no man in a duel.”

Tomita grinned ferally at me.

“Until tonight,” I concluded. His grin just got harder looking.

— Sensei, Chapter 18

For the children of the samurai, training for their martial way of life began early…. Particularly between the ages of seven and eight they were encouraged to be sociable and cooperative with their playmates, and discouraged from being confrontational or overly self-absorbed. At nine and ten, they concentrated on more academic subjects like reading and writing, although from the age of seven they were likely to be studying regularly at temple school.

The serious work took place between the ages of ten and twelve, when the child’s day could include as many as twelve hours of work in subjects ranging from abstract academics to learning musical instruments or undergoing physical training.

By the time he was thirteen, he was ready to fight: more than one famous daimyō fought in his first engagement at this age….

— Samurai 1550-1600, p. 10

While discussing this excerpt last week with my brother, a comment of his gave me a crystal-clear mental image. He said, “remember our [American high school] freshmen football team.”

[In Japan, the] last half of the sixteenth century [C.E.] was a period of almost constant warfare; weapons training was more often than not done ‘on the job’. It was a sink or swim mentality, where warriors fought their first battles at a youthful age, and if they lived, they had learnt something for the next time. Tokugawa Ieyasu was a general at sixteen years of age.

Most who fought in the campaigns were in their late teens or twenties. Save the generals and the lords, samurai armies were very young in makeup. Few from the ranks attained a venerable age.

— Samurai 1550-1600, p. 15

Xenograg was also a general at age 16. 🙂