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The Dry Vine, a True History |
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Set down by Hector the Flute Man, chef de guilde, who witnessed all of it and exaggerates none of it |
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We came to the Duché with instruments where our swords should have been. I arrived a flute man with one compatriot in all things un-austere, a juggling man, the two of us utterly lost and immediately busy: shield walls by day, shows by night, double lives of music and whistling arrows. In that first year I collected a passport, built a band, survived that band's mutiny (they learned, as most do, that they were nothing without the flute man), played for vampires who turned out to be quite nice, outran a mob that believed otherwise, and finished alone, rich, and certain of exactly one thing: these fickle lands were where I would make my legend. |
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When the Grande Bataille of 1025 ended, the lords of Sang Sombre, who had watched us play and fight and survive our own band, offered us patronage. Mentorship in the ways of the Duché, a banner to shelter under while we grew, and the belief that we could become something worth naming. I say it plainly, because it is the truest thing about us: we have a guild because our patrons believed in us. We left our old banner, took the lesson to heart, and set out to earn it. |
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Through the winter we gathered our people: fighters and fools, archers and readers of cards, carpenters and jesters. Laird laid our commercial foundations with the patience of a man who has watched me spend money. We built a stockpile of solars, took a share in the Lys Noir trading desk, and put on plays and performances wherever a stage or a table could hold us. The name began traveling without us. |
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The vine is dry. The cup still pours. That is the whole creed. Nothing was handed to us in good soil; whatever we have, we squeezed from a hard land, and the last drop is the one we share. Our arms show it: on a field of aubergine, a golden cup hanging from a winding vine, one red drop falling. Any traveler who reaches our fire will be poured a cup from it. |
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At the Bal Pourpre of 1026, our first outing under our own colors, we stood witness at the birth of the nation of Kalthera and count ourselves among its friends. We took the bardic prize with borrowed drums and unborrowed confidence. Three of ours opened a tarot enterprise and secured a vast clientele; I invested a hundred solars in their fledgling business, which tells you what I thought of it. And at midnight we bound our members by blood, a ritual we intend to keep for as long as there is blood to spare. |
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At the Tournament of Nations we were nearly champions of Troll Ball, and I say nearly through no fault of our own: we were called to the finals as substitutes for Terra de Sud, the papers were never filed, and the championship escaped on a technicality. I did what any businessman-bard would do: I struck a deal to perform during Terra de Sud's games instead, recruited Lee of the Cultivators to drum, and wrote new sporting songs through an afternoon of pouring rain. It paid better than winning. Some five hundred solars came home with us, along with an old Irish tune played with the Lys Noir, a magic tutor secured from Kalthera for one of our own (I negotiated half pay to get it, and I am still proud of the arithmetic), and my finest performance to date, for the diplomats at the Conclave of Kalthera, where the guards kept hands on hilts and I kept the room from boiling with nothing but a flute. Hibou Buho became my sworn bodyguard that night and has regretted it publicly ever since. We carried a stranded member of the Nameless Circus safely home, drank with Le Mop and his crew, and left the Minerva camp at dawn with Bardilaw calling me brother. |
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We come now to the Grande Bataille of 1026 to make it official. We will raise a decorum camp on site, fight and play where our patrons and our friends call us, and be recognized as a guild of the Duché. The Dry Vine intends to be found where the music is loudest and the cups are least empty. I ask the Duché to write our name in its registers in good ink, and save the scribes a second trip, because we do not plan on leaving. |
| 1026 |
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La guilde Dry Vine est parrainée par les Sang Sombres.
1026: La guilde s'affilie au Territoire de l'Oubli. |
