More Secret Blows of Reigning

But first, some housekeeping.

Thank you very much to everyone who has read the blog and said nice things. As you all know I am a pathetic wee beastie who thrives on people laughing at my gags. And I feel much better knowing that all that typing isn't just wasted hand actions. Because we have a word for that.

Thank you, too, to Bron and Gareth for taking such good care of us at Claire and Eric's wedding. I will upload the photos and do an entry on the wedding itself for everyone who knows them. It was a great event (admittedly we were only at the reception, we had to work through the wedding on Friday) and we had much more fun than we were expecting to, mostly thanks to Bron and Gareth, but also thanks to Holly who is lovely and hilarious. And Miles, get in touch with Anne. She's gorgeous.

I know that I said this was going to be Flametree, but I had some ideas for more secret blows of reigning. If you missed the first set, look below or in the archive. Sorry about the misdirection. It's a blog. Just be grateful that I don't fill it with everything I hate or blow-by-blow descriptions of every shag. Baron Bartholomew is to blame for that last comment and he knows why. Bad man! He's starting to remind me of Kurgan, which is just wrong. Anyway, onto the topic.

More Secret Blows of Reigning
8 Learn to step back
When you have the pointy hats on, everyone treats you as though you are the most important person in the Kingdom. Which is fair enough, because for once you actually are. But you are not the only important person in the Kingdom. When people are talking in Court, especially when Barons are coming up with Cunning Plans, stand back and listen rather than grabbing the opportunity for a good punch line or Dramatic Monologue.

Sometimes they want you to provide a dramatic monologue. You can tell those times because they turn to the Crown with a question and an expectant look. At other times, listen all the way through and then, after they have declared war on each other, proscribe their limits and remind them that their war is a diversion to try the troops of the Kingdom in a time of peace and prosperity. Because if you let them get too serious about it, it all goes rapidly downhill.

At other times they just want to be centre stage for a bit. It's not just Barons, it's some peers and some courtiers, too. When it is right and proper, give them the stage for a reasonable time and then lead the response, whether that be laughter, applause or chagrined headshaking. The one thing that sets apart good court crowns is a sense of timing. I think that this is probably the only genuine skill I brought to the role of Queen, and I found it very handy. Anyone else who spent half their childhood in dance and drama will have the same skill; remember to use it.

Lochac had two very famous Courts From Hell in the last five years where the Crowns had no sense of timing and never once stepped back from the spotlight. On the upside, they weren't Lochac Crowns. But if you do not want to have your Royal Peers doing Mexican Waves from the choir stalls during Court, this is the one piece of advice that I really recommend following.

9. Learn to jump in
This is number eight's evil twin. Sometimes you'll be sitting in the middle of a perfectly nice court and someone will come up to make an announcement. And then it will go on. And on. And on a bit more. And maybe there will be attempts at humour that make everyone pull that face that is half pity and half a pleading for a swift and merciful death.

These are bad times. You can learn to spot the culprits in advance and warn your heralds to say "Oh, I'm sorry, court time is very limited, can I add that in to my announcements so that we can get through them all in one hit? I'm afraid that the K&Q aren't accepting any other kind of announcement. I'm told she has ADD."

But sometimes it just happens there in front of you and something that you thought would take two minutes starts taking 25. A few tips. If it's an announcement, pretend that a large section of the crowd can't hear properly because it's windy, or else they're all getting sunburnt. Step up next to the announcer and say "So we should all be taking our used cans where? To the recycling area behind the showers. Right. Everyone got that? Lovely. Thanks! Great job! You have our leave to depart." The same technique works well for events where you find out the date, cost, location and bookings person that everyone can speak to later.

It's harder when people are being recognised for something. ibn Jelal will kill me for this, but Lochac's fencers have heard the word brevity and, on the whole, believe that it relates to underwear. So when they have fencing awards to give out, it often drags on and on. Ask all the awardees to stay at the front of court so that the cheers can be made for everyone at the end of the announcements. Once the dragging out has begun, subtly stand up and shake the hands of the awardees then position yourself next to the speaker and mutter "If we could just speed things along, we do have 11 other court items and people are starting to go into comas ..." This is not to say that fencers and other long-winded people shouldn't have the same court time as everyone else. They should. Just not tenfold that time.

Aside from their sesquipedalian loquaciousness, they're very nice chaps, those Lochac fencers. And Angus and Alwyn are concise.

You should also be willing to throw yourself bodily in front of a situation that is turning ugly, especially if you're the Queen. Because SCAers will posture (wank on) and subtleties of meaning can be lost (they do their nanas), and situations can escalate (come to blows) if there is no-one being the voice of reason. You can be the biggest bitch in the Kingdom (hey! that's me!) or else as tough-minded as Mathilde, as coolly cutting as Morwynna with a migraine or as physically able to break their nose as Asa and yet all SCAdians will look at you with the Queen hat on and see a sweet, loving, kind person who is like a Princess Diana without all the shagging and whining. And you should use that power for good.

10. For some people, you will never lose your King or Queen hat
And this is not a wholly bad thing, some of those people are very very sweet about it all. J and I went to a wedding that was mostly SCA on the weekend and one lovely woman was sat next to us and described her terror at realising she would be sitting beside the King and Queen. "But," I said, "That's Draco and Asa now, we're just J&D. We're normal!"

We had a great time hanging out with her and chatting and developed a real sense that she was a PLU*. At the end of the night, she turned to another friend and said "And the King and Queen were so friendly!"

I have been thinking about a card with a photo of Queen Elizabeth II on one side that says QUEEN, and me on the other side that says LUNATIC. Or possibly Not Queen. But despite the fact that I find such situations very odd, they make sense in that the person has learned to read us within the context of the SCA at a specific time. Until we replace the court image with a new and updated image, that's all they have. And I must say that I still think of my friend Steve with a whole lot of King of the West attached to him. And that's only partly because he was filling that role so often in the first years of me getting to know him. That persona is a large part of who he is in the SCA, and explains elements of his behaviour such as nearly killing himself training newbies at the list field when he was developing pneumonia. Well, that and he's a bit thick (I say that with love!)

Of course, it can be a bad thing for you. Once having reigned, you will always be in the loop for crises. You will always be frowned at by the people who think you done them wrong and you will always have to live with the guilt of too much credit for things that went well but which others had a large involvement in. The only alternative is to reign so badly that people avoid you forever after. If you choose to take this path, might I beg that you do it with style and class? Go completely berko, not just a bit wacky. Although you should definitely draw the line at Royal Porn tapes, it's been done to death.

* Person Like Us

11. Craft can be frightening
People will make you things. Some of them will be wonderful and amazing. I have a beautiful piece of reticella, a photo album, a poem and an illumination among other gifts that I would risk burnt arms to rescue if the house was on fire. These are great things.

Some of them will be a bit … odd … Like the drawings that you look at for a bit and realise are meant to be you. Or the subtlety that you look at long and hard and finally twig what it is (when one of the locals takes pity on you and whispers it under a cough). Or the jewellery made of something that smells like Perkins Paste.

Do not show your fear! Most of these people will never come to your house and will never know that their treasure is buried deep in a box or was possibly sent to a local school fete for the kiddies. Those who are regular visitors can be treated in the same way as in-laws: stash it somewhere accessible and pop it on the mantel when they ring to say they're on their way over.

Remember the kindness of the thought and the generosity of time that went into the effort. And pray that none of the people you visit are as bitchy as certain people who have horrid gifts that they keep for those who have behaved appallingly, knowing that they will feel obliged to wear the world's ugliest brooch because I, er, those people gave it to them. Because if they are that bitchy and they're giving you crap gifts, you've done something awful.

A quick word here, think through your gift comments. When we were at the Polit Baronial for Edmund and Leta, we were accompanied by Alaric and Nerissa, our gorgeous and brilliant predecessors in our first K&Q reign. The Worshipful Company of Broiderers gave Alaric a gift, a magnificent shirt with a blackworked sleeve.

J looked at it admiringly, and said to the representatives "This tradition of giving gifts was instigated to encourage your members to develop their skills, was it not?" oh yes, they replied. "So," he went on, "Our gift will be better."

Into the horrified silence that followed, I injected the essential word that his brain had supplied but his mouth had omitted: "He means, our gift will be even better? One can scarcely credit it, this is so good."

J, appalled, realised what he had done. He pointed at me. "Yes! That! That's what I meant to say! Oh god …"

I am so grateful that all my verbal faux pas involve accidental smut, which people take so much better than accidental snubs.

Anyway, make sure you practice your "Oh! How lovely!" facial expressions for the times that you need them. It's Lochac, those times should be very infrequent, we're talented bastards.

12. Organisation is your saviour
My darling Apprentice Number One came to me a year or so ago laughing like a hyena. When I could finally get some sense out of her, she told me that she had been chatting with a friend of hers who had said "You are so lucky that Dame Y is your Laurel, she's so organised!"

While Art is a cruel, cruel woman, she's also very accurate. I can be the organisational goddess who controls 57 things at once and they are all done in a perfecly timely manner. But I mostly save that skill for the real world where it is one of my editorial superpowers. At home, I'm a bit of a sloth. In the SCA, I'm in between. Because if you are perfect all the time, your brain never has any time off and you turn into a crazy person.

But you do need rigorous organisation to run a reign. Or else you turn up in Aneala when you are meant to be in Ynys Fawr. Which would be great from the perspective of catching up with Bec and Carlie, but very very bad from the perspective of Arnfinr will kill you.

We outsourced our organisation. Dame Joan was the Court Dragon from God. And I'm talking a big Judeo-Christian-type god here. Or maybe Zeus. She plotted, she planned, she started up a second courtiers email list so that she could give lots of orders without us being the loonie hippies that we are (Guys, chill, court will happen, it will all just come together …) and while she may have had some of the court hiding from her at various times, she made this the easiest reign ever by a huge factor.

To give you an idea of the difference Joan made, last reign when we stepped down I caught every single disease going around for about five months afterwards, had no energy to start anything new, didn't travel for about six months afterwards and still didn't get all the paperwork up to date.

This time, despite having caught bird flu in the last weeks of the reign, I was almost wholly up to date with the paperwork when we stepped down, had enough energy to stay on in New Zealand for a little break and then come back and start a many-thousand word blog, not only got over the bad case of flu reasonably swiftly but have not come down with any of the other viruses going around, such as Alfar disease, and was in Adelaide last weekend and should be travelling two out of the next three.

So, despite the fact that Joan was 'demanding and scary' for some of the court with her timetables and lists of duties, she was a saviour for us. And she spread the work around as evenly as she could, so no-one had to suffer too much. And when people grinched at her, she just adopted the same look of saintly patience that she pulls out when the girls are grizzly, or made those quiet but hilarious comments that you have to remember to keep an ear out for lest you miss her sotto voce. Which is why she will always be able to count on us for babysitting and chocolate provisions.

Our other regular angels were Marie and Manfred, who, every week, would ring and say: "Have you done all the things you were meant to do?" They also fed us a lot, which was a pleasant excuse to sit around the table being nutters. The level of comedy at their house is rather high, and very welcome.

And then there were the transient angels of organisation: Hagen's magical breakfasts; Isabeal's C&I; Katie with her boiling water at tea time; Laetitia and Lilith with tissues handy as the dust hit the eyeballs; Andre, Christian, Rioghan and Dragen who were always appearing just as things needed to be lugged; Maeve with her jokes and cheeriness when all was grim; Spyd with her ability to put things into perspective (consciousness organisation!); Deense and Finn with their appearing at the right momentness ... it's a long list.

If your find yourself running an imaginary Kingdom and don't have the world's best peer group to turn to, then turn to your actual Peers. Royal Peers, Pels, Laurels, even Knights are all damned useful people and will be there for you. Just ask. I know that it can be very hard to ask, but you will be thankful you did.

13. Things are not always as they seem
Now this is a bit of a Miss D axiom. I'm reminded of a faux pas I once made when I mentioned to a girlfriend that I was sharing my bed with Daz the World's Loveliest Musician. This was about a year after I started seeing J. She looked at me in a rather appalled way. What I meant was that I was time-sharing for a few weeks. Daz was in Sydney through the week to work on his latest album, I was in Newcastle with J. On the weekends J and I would be in Sydney and Daz would be off touring or up in the mountains with his girlfriend.

We'd leave each other notes on how things were going and the sheets would be washed, bed made, and usually a nice pressie of some flowers or chocolate lurking on top of the reading stack. Sometimes I'd leave Daz a book that I thought he'd like, he left me music suggestions. After a fortnight of this, one of the other people living in my co-op congratulated me on having organised to be seeing two of the cutest and nicest men in the world at the same time, because she hadn't noticed that, at most, Daz and I would have a half-hour crossover when we were both there at once. And while I love Daz dearly, he's not J.

Last weekend Bron and Gareth were telling us how funny some of their pre-conceptions of us had been. For instance, they thought that J was a drinker and a scientist. He's quite sober and an accountant. We could see how they jumped to each of these conclusions (and J would make an excellent mad scientist!), but were amused at them nonetheless.

This is a pretty regular part of life and, in examples like those above, the truth comes out eventually and there's no harm done. But in the SCA, where there thousands of people, some of whom you might see once a year, you need to be more careful.

A few years ago we had real issues with one of the Royalty. I talked with this person over the course of a year and, in the end, we made a very tough call on the situation. It was a call where we sought to limit the amount of damage done to that person, and the amount they could do to themselves. We told the individual concerned that we would not publicise the sanction and that we would limit ourselves to answering people honestly when they came up and asked us what was going on.

Several people did this, and we gave them answers to the best of our ability. We were not always calm through this period, but we tried to restrict our "Oh for fuck's sake if you want to be treated like a grown-up then act like a grown-up!" comments to senior peers who were close to the situation and in this, at least, we succeeded.

However, the story was put about, or at least a few interesting versions of the story were put about, and we had some people coming up to us and saying "Yay! You nailed that bastard!" And we said "Whoa! Stop right there." Because the truth of the matter was that the individual was not a bastard, literally or metaphorically. We thought (and still do) that the person had made grave and significant errors of judgement on a number of occasions. But those did not annul the many other brilliant things that this person had done before and has done since. In fact, we ended up spending most of the next six months telling people about the really really good things that this person had done to remind them that the actions that had led to the sanction were out of character.

The problem, of course, is that the people who met this person during the days of acting like a twonk are convinced that the twonk is the actual person.

And, on the other hand, we also received a fair deal of hate mail from people who had only ever seen this person in their usual inspirational and good mode and who couldn't comprehend that they were capable of evil.

The fact is that we're all capable of evil. We're all able to be utter bastards who make newbies cry and screw over groups because we feel like it and who stand there and expect everything to be done for us because we're the centre of the goddamn universe, thank you very much. We were all five once.

But we put a lid on the ego, we reign in the campaigns of terror and we sit back and see how we can work with the group as a whole, because we're all older now.

It's just that every now and then, a bit of our inner five year old comes creeping out and says "That person voted against me at the meeting, so I won't be their friend anymore." And unless we're vigilant about why we think things, kindergarten reasoning can start to come into play.

So when you go to a group and you hear how there are terrible factions and person A is evil and person B is insufferable, listen carefully and hand out the cups of tea, but be well aware that it's never that easy. Person A usually believes that they are doing the right thing, and person B honestly feels that they need to act that way in order to preserve their dignity. They are rarely bad people.

Of course, if they are genuinely bad people, they've usually done something genuinely bad, in which case it's easy. Call the police and banish them. Problem sorted.

14. You can't screw it up in six months
This is the reassuring thing you learn about reigning. You cannot screw up the whole Kingdom in six months. You can piss of all the fencers or the archers or the Pelicans or Ynys Fawr or Southron Gaard or Rowany or all the non-Vikings or all the Norse, but they'll get over it immediately you're gone. Because it's six months. That's less time than I had my foot in plaster after I shattered it. Less time than a baby. Less time than it takes Miles to call a girl who's charming and interested in him.

And in some kingdoms it's only four months.

Even if you go utterly mad, or indeed start from the point of being a raving loon, you cannot destroy your kingdom in the course of one reign.

So, knowing that you cannot do it, it's probably best not to try. In my nearly 12 years every single Disaster Reign has come about through impositions of will rather than listening to people. This never really works, even when you think it does. Ask a Lochac Fencer.

Dodgy Crowns can certainly impact on a Kingdom, sometimes for good. They can piss people off so much that they get organised and fix problems, whether those be low membership numbers or a need for fencing rules. They can bond together people who previously did not like each other, but who are willing to unite in their greater hatred of the Crown. They can provide an excellent example of what not to do in any given circumstance.

But to impact for significant bad, they usually have to be repeat offenders. My friends in the West only start to grumble after a few too many turn and turn-about reigns from the SuperDukes. Over here we are still too new to have that problem. And there is a simple solution. Train a lot and kill the buggers. Goodness knows that I have picked up a sword so that I can one day work out my issues on the Chiv who irritate me by hitting them in the head. Or the bum if I can't reach.

But even if you have two bad Kings in a row, they cannot be everywhere screwing up everything at once. You will still have sane Officers, sane B&Bs and some sane Peers. Support them when they need to be supported. Develop a very private comedy routine about the dumb royalty that never ever leaves the room but which keeps your local Seneschal sustained when they have to deal with the 47th piece of crap that week. Mark the date of step-down in your diary. And, above all, go to Crown and cheer for the people who you know will be less deranged next reign. Because no matter how painful, crazed, self-centred or delusional your royalty may be, they just don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.

In 20 years, bad Crowns will have entered the mythology as 'that painful git', while good Crowns will still be bought beers at the tavern. Remember, you want to be the sort of person who has youngish people clap their hands together and say: "You're William the Lucky*! Oh I'm so happy to meet you and talk to you!" And at that moment, the not giving way to all those daft selfish interests will seem wholly worth it.

* Or John Theophilus, or Radnor, or those legends from other Kingdoms including Caid's Ivan.