“ For your own pleasure you perverted and destroyed all I held dear. For your own amusement you denied me even death. You took away every reason I had to want to live and even the means to die, thinking that you had denied me any means of escaping your power…”

“But the Horsemen offered me escape. ”

And in that instant the Endless came like a wall of storm, and all –towers, walls, guards and Nobles—fell before them.

- A Fall of Stars, by Kieu Han

The wind blew the waves fiercely and strong onto the jumbled rocks of the campus shore, and whipped the orange-gold glow of the campfire into fiercely dancing ribbons. And admist our small knot of friends, with a twinkle in her eye Erin stood and told to all and sundry the story of how Thomas and I first met…

…

It was, Erin began, the earliest days of fall, when summer’s heat turned into the first stirrings of the new year. Two freshman women had arrived the night before in our college town, ready to begin their adventures here on Lake Michigan’s fair shores after long flight from far-away Japan. Into a local bed-and-breakfast they had piled late that prior evening, and it was thought to be the gentlemanly thing for their new dorm’s officers to ride on over and lend the newcomers a hand. And so with that resolve into a battered lime-green battlewagon of van three men of the Science and Engineering Residential College piled and squarely at 9 in the morning did they arrive.

9 was a sore early hour, especially for a man who had just returned from a medieval recreation event the night before, and indeed it was not until his compatriots pounded on his dorm-room door that poor Thomas remembered where he must be. As groggy as he was, promises were made to be kept, and so Thomas arrived right on time at the hostel dressed in the clothes he had fallen asleep in the night before –the rumpled finery of a medieval English court bucaneer, feathered hat and all. Striking Thomas was in his garb, the handsome lines of his face and body descended from African kings and Celtic bards, Mansa Musa and Taliesin all in the same young man. And then there was poor Abbie…

At the precise moment that Thomas first rounded the upstairs hallway landing and saw Abbie dragging her bags out our room door, Abbie was not precisely at her best. Erin and Abbie hadn’t woken up on time, either –jet lag will do that to a woman—and so it was into whatever was handy Abbie had thrown herself hurriedly into when the honk of the van had first arrived at the ungodly hour of nine, a rumpled Winnie the Pooh t-shirt and cut-off jean pants. Her hair hung all about Abbie in a tangled mess. And most damning of all, in the exact moment she saw Thomas for the very first time, Abbie was midway through trying to haul her things out of the room –pulling one full-sized suitcase on it’s wheels, slinging a huge carry-on over one shoulder…and a huge brown teddy bear tucked under one arm.

Poor Abbie, Erin remembered fondly, was completely mortified with embarassment. Here was the most handsome man she had ever seen, and here she was, clutching her beloved childhood stuffed animal like a girl half her age. Not precisely the best first impression a college woman could give, no? But Thomas, ever the gentleman, didn’t miss a beat.

Thomas swept his hat off his head and into a magnificent court bow, introducing himself. “Thomas Carolan, at your service, m’Lady. And you are?”

“Abbie,” she squeaked, face and ears flaming almost as red as her lips.

“A pleasure,” Thomas smiled, as he took Abbie’s free hand in his and brought them to his lips. “And his name?” indicating the bear.

“Gregor,” Abbie peeped, just about ready to fall over dead in embarassment.

“A pleasure to meet you, too, Gregor!” Thomas said sincerely, grasping the bear’s right paw and shaking it gently in welcome, as if the bear were another fellow freshman. Despite herself, Abbie giggled.

“Would the Lady desire help with her bags?” Thomas smiled, indicating the load that Abbie had hauled with her from home.

“That would be quite kind of you, Sir,” Abbie said, getting a hold of herself once again. And such began, Erin ended her tale with a smile, the start of something beautiful.
…

All around the twilight lake-shore campfire, the members of the medieval recreational household gathered there under the sunset sky made various “Awww…” sounds and appreciative clapping, as at the head of the circle, sitting together in close embrace, Abbie and Thomas shared a mutual squeeze and a quiet little kiss.

“To Abbie and Thomas!” Erin cheerfully raised her mug, and the toast was echoed around the fire with enthusiasm. “To Abbie and Thomas!”

“And now my turn,” Thomas smiled as Erin conceded the story-circle with a grin. “Let me tell of how our honored guest earned his name,” indicating the gentleman at the opposite side of the circle, the visitor in whose honor the impromptu gather was held. He was curly haired and thickly bearded, short but built powerfully; his vest and cloak were worked finely with embroidery and a great gold chain of office hung around his neck. “Let me tell the story of his Majesty Hector the Boarslayer…”

Hector looked pained, and Thomas laughed good-naturedly. "Ah, yes, m'Ladies, m’Lords," Thomas began with a grin, "there is indeed a story of great valor and renown behind the name --if your Majesty would allow me to tell it?" Thomas smiled, and Hector, rolling his eyes, nodded his assent.

…

"A boar, as you know," Thomas began with gusto, clearly enjoying the tale he was going to tell, "is a large, dangerous, wild and terrible beast, and only the most bold and brave dare to seek it out. In the medieval ages men of valor would don their mail and with long spears and steel-tipped pikes they would tackle their dangerous quarry; and so it was in modern days the King of one of our southern lands and his Knights did ride forth one day to do battle with the terrible foe, Hector among them. But while in olden days it might take an entire troop of men and their spears to finally bring a boar low, these modern days have created men of legend who can but slay the mighty beasts with but a single blow. Just such a dead of renown did Hector accomplish on that day," Thomas summed up with a grin, "and so was Sir Hector accorded the appelation 'Boarslayer'."

My eyes were truly wide with respect. "Does the good sir speak true?" I asked, and Hector smiled ruefully.

"Yes, thy Trueheart speaks bloody true," Hector answered, as Thomas began to grin even wider, knowing the punchline was coming. "Yes, I did accompany His Majesty the King of Ansteorra into the woods with a brace of our brothers in arms. And yes, after a long, furking hard day, I did slay a boar--"

"--a mighty boar! One a full twenty-five stone!" Thomas interjected.

Hector grinned. "Yes, a damned large boar --and yes, I killed it with one blow."

Hector pauses for a moment to take another pull from his tankard.

"But what the good master Thomas *fails* to mention," Hector pointed out with a wry grin, "is that I killed the boar with my damned *pickup truck.* "

Thomas, unable to hold it in any longer, began to laugh uproariously. I tried, but I couldn't help but giggle uncontrollably. The rest of our household roared. Hector, with mock annoyance, went on, saying, "Eight accursed hours we were out there in the rain and the wind and the mist, and the twelve of us don't even as much as *see* a damned boar, or anything else for that matter! Not even a turkey or deer or anything else. Eight long hours we wait in wet bushes, or slowly freeze in ditches, or stalk uselessly through woods --nothing. Tired, wet, and hungry, we finally decide all is not to be and we trudge back to the parking lot, whereupon I start the battlewagon, round the first dirt bend and *bamno*!" Hector says, punching his fist into his other hand for emphasis. "His Majesty and my household brothers come running to see if I'm alright, and there they find a shaken me before my severely battered Ford F-150 and a stone cold dead boar right smack at my feet..."

"Hector the Boarslayer?" I said, amidst giggles.

"Killer of the mighty beast with but a single blow!" Thomas laughed.

"Oh, there's a story or two I could tell about *you*, my friend," Hector grinned with a gleam in his eye. "For example --you remember the party after Crown Tourney, don't you, Thomas?"

…

And so it went on, for hour after hour, tale after magnificent tale of the Dream that Thomas had brought Erin and I into, of modern knights and ladies, tournaments and chivalry, of Moonwulf’s Charge and the Blow that Did not Fall. In those tales was, for me, the first time the truest meaning of the Dream revealed to me, the kindness, generosity and nobility that is the ideal above all ideals that was the heart of the best of the SCA…

And somewhere in that long evening, when the fire burned low to embers and the stars blazed high overhead, when the rest of our companions had gone home and there was only Thomas and his old friend Hector and I still there by the shore, I sleepily leaning into Thomas’s shoulder, his cloak over the the both of us, it was then that Hector, mellow from many hours of fine ale and finer companionship, began to speak directly from his heart. Thomas and Hector shared tales of all that they had gone through together, good and bad; both loves and losses, and toasts odes to friends departed, stories close and personal, just between them, and shared and entrusted to me. It had been many years and many stories from Hector’s own first adeventures to his tenure now upon the southern throne he held, and of all the things I remember from that special evening, it was Hector’s thought on being a King, that touched me the most.

“You ask me, Abbie,” Hector began after long quiet thought, “what it is like to be King. To have absolute power over a Kingdom. And I think, perhaps, that question is not precisely accurate. Oh,” he said, forestalling my questioning, “it is true that by right of Arms I can name or remove any officer; I can raise to any award or banish from my Kingdom any soul; that all decisions, high or low, are within my desmense. Yes, all those things are true, Abbie.”

“But I have no power that my people do not grant me. I only rule because my people let me. A King whom noone follows has no power at all. And noone can compel obedience to me. It can only be given. It is a gift that can only be earned.”

“There are good things and bad things about the way we make Kings –and Queens, for my Kingdom has raised a Queen too by right of arms, a lady sovereign who was the last Knight standing when the dust of Tourney had settled— in the SCA,” Hector mused. “We do avoid the politicking and all of the vileness that entails that an election would require, in favor of the clean results of trial by arms. But there is, after all, no guarantee that the Knight most skilled in combat will have equal talent in inspiring men. By in large, we do get good kings. Or we get sincere Kings who learn to become good. A few times we get an arrogant or tyrannical King, but he swiftly learns the error of his ways or the populace simply packs up and goes home for the rest of his short reign, awaiting the turn of another season and the new Crown who inevitably follows. And in there lies the most important lesson, m’Lady, one I hope you remember when you yourself serve on a throne…”

“Nothing created solely by fear can last, m’Lady. Nothing held together by threat or coersion can long endure. It is not just in the SCA where a people frustrated and unhappy can pack up and leave. Many a volunteer organization or group has dissolved or collapsed when its members no longer feel a reason to believe. Even corporations too rot and decay when its members are there only for a paycheck, and care nothing for the mission, soon swept aside by an organization whose members truly believe. You cannot cut your way to growth; you cannot threaten your way to enthusiasm –“

“The beatings will continue until morale improves,” Thomas interjects, helpfully.

“Precisely!” Hector agreed. “Unless you give people a reason to care, a reason to believe, they will not help you advance or grow –or survive.”

“Threats depend on your power over something the threatened *do* care about. Fear has no power when the threatened feel they no longer have anything worth losing, or have no hope that the things they love will survive even if they do cooperate. ‘Hell would have no power if the damned could not dream of heaven,’ as one of my favorite writers would say. Don’t get me wrong –there is a place at times for the blade, for the sword, a time for justice, properly applied. There are cancers that must be cut out and sores that must be purged. But you cannot make a tree bloom entirely by pruning it. You must help it grow. “

“A King cannot long survive the death of his Kingdom. If he is to endure, he cannot merely cleave and threaten. He must inspire. He must nurture. For a Kingdom that does not grow is a Kingdom that dies, and a corpse cares not what threats you wield or titles you wear. You will not long be a Queen when all who serve you quit and leave.”

…

I think of Hector now, now in the aftermath of my own enNoblement; think of Hector’s wisdom in light of all that I have seen. Of creation and its Powers, we who rule the masses who teem on the World Ash. All of the suffering and terror and misery that those billions suffer –and how so very much of it is at our own hands, either by neglect or malice. Perhaps we Powers of the Ash are so much like the foolish Kings, who beat and bludgeon and threaten and then wonder that those we scorn and scourage hate us for it. When we make the lives of those under us into a living hell even death offers no escape from, why are we so surprised that the Excrucian’s offer of oblivion beyond death is so eagerly accepted?

Perhaps it is my intimacy with Fear that lets me see it’s limitations. We cannot survive merely by pruning, by cutting, by threatening. We sovereign powers of the World Ash cannot possibly survive beyond the withered end of Creation; if we do not learn to make Creation grow and bloom, we will die with it.

If we continue to make Oblivion more attractive than survival, our people will continue to quit the game and our Kingdom will not long survive. And no King long survives his fallen Kingdom.