New skill: court heraldry

[msmemory_archive]

I didn't formally sign up for this challenge: http://nithaus.org/LA/scaChallenge
but had kind of mentally noted that the skill I wanted to dare was court heraldry. As of Siobhan's passing, I had tried reading scrolls in court just two or three times, despite having been a senior Herald (that's with a capital H) for more than a decade.

This past week, the usual royal court herald, mrgrumpybear, posted looking for people who wanted to lend a hand with Saturday's royal court at the Great Northeastern War. I raised my hand, saying I'd be interested in "a small handful of scrolls" figuring he'd assign me three if I were lucky, and I'd get some more practice in. By return mail I get "Would you like to be in charge, and spare me the 8-hour drive each way?" Urp. OK.

So I started gathering my plans, and my people. mrgrumpybear sent me an excellent list of tips to work from, and the advance docket. Several people volunteered to read scrolls - I ended up with a staff of six plus me (jducoeur, citrine_moon a former Principal Herald, mylisant, Brita, Cassandra, and Boden), plus my protegee tpau for backstage assistance. I identified myself to the Crown so they would know who was working. I beseeched ladymacgregor to lend me her royal tabard, since I don't have one of my own.

The drive up to Maine went remarkably smoothly, a surprise since for a change we were travelling during rush hour on a Friday. Saturday morning we got on site promptly, and had not settled in yet when I spotted His RM trotting down the road with a retainer, Clarice, in tow. And we're off! HRM was stopped a couple of times en route to his encampment, but when we got there he began to load me down with scrolls and pen and so forth. I continued to collect scrolls from various scribes the rest of the day (eventually, all 31 scrolls and scroll-like objects were present). There was some sitting-around time in the afternoon, for which I was lucky to be able to borrow a table and chair from Mistress Carolyne, so neither I nor the scrolls had to sit on the ground.

In between the Castle battle and the Wall battle, TRM sent Edward MacGuyver dos Scorpos to his vigil for the Laurel, and I discovered how hard it is to call court on the field where I can't be heard (Thanks, Duke R for the supplemental Oyez.). But we survived, and Edward looked beautifully poleaxed.

While sitting around, tpau and I went through the scrolls, unpacked those that needed it, checked them off against the master docket. Uh-oh, we're missing three. Special effort to track those down, ok. (One of the things I am still worried about is that my records of the craftsmen on the scrolls will be incomplete - we'll see tonight/tomorrow when I finish the court report.) One scroll needs white ink and a fountain pen for the signatures, OK, AEtheric has ink, Carolyne has an extra pen.

Late afternoon, we attempted to rendezvous all my people at Lochleven, but were redirected to the Barn, which turned out perfect: lots of chairs and tables to spread out on, for TRM to do signatures, get the docket approved, the scrolls sorted into presentation order, get everyone a water/privy break. D. Sebastianus turned up at the last minute, after I had the docket together, wanting to help, so I had him herald-in the procession, "All rise and make way," etc., one of my favorite things to hear (he's beautifully loud and theatric, in a very warriorlike way, and his deep voice ever so much more audible over voices than mine).

Then court was upon us. Everything went really really smoothly if I do say so myself. tpau had the next scroll or pair of scrolls ready just before it was needed, and provided water to everyone. Each person was ready and standing behind the current herald ready to step in. citrine_moon took a couple of big blocks of awards off my hands with her expected easy capability. Brita and mylisant did well, and of course jducoeur did too. Cassandra and Boden, the local groups' heralds, both acquitted themselves just fine, and I was very impressed with Cassandra especially. Having composed the docket myself, I was able to get dibs on both the Queen's Order of Courtesy for dervishspin and the peerage ceremony.

We moved that court along pretty lickety-split, in fact. So fast I was feeling bad because His RM kept prompting me "vivats now please" to the point where I really wondered if I were screwing up and making him angry. (harpduchess reassured me later that he's just the exacting type, and I had not offended, he was just trying to keep a fast pace.) We did 31 awards and 10 other items of business in 2 hours 5 minutes, when we'd expected it might take 3 hours. Go us!

Mercifully, new_man and mermaidlady had dinner ready as soon as I managed to get back to the sunshade. And industrialblues and rufinia poured me some sangria and port, bless 'em, since I had neglected to pack any booze of my own.

I'm really quite satisfied with it all. It was tiring, but satisfying; I have some notions of ways I'll modify the process if I ever get the chance to do it again, but the whole day went really really well.

Comments

[wingblaze.livejournal.com]

You go girl!