Tales from the Genetic Memory - A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH!!

Takes from the Genetic Memory are those stories that somehow outlive their orginators and get told for years after they leave the society I was in (The Lion Rampant). I've skipped ahead a bit but I liked this story amd I was reminded of it earlier so I'm telling it first. The Flowerbed Story, which by the way I still need therapy for,  I will take to my grave but this Tale from the Genetic Memory is from I believe August of 1988, where we had finally just about got round the 'everyone having a sword' problem, but when English Heritage and its wonderful venues were still an unrealised dream and we were still working very hard towards getting there. I guess this is not so much a tale from the genetic memory as a tale about Gurnsy and I. You’re getting it anyway! It was a lovely day. We were performing at Arbury Hall, the melee was  storming around us, and I was dead.

Being dead was not such a bad thing. I was getting a nice rest from my usual place on the ground, and I could practiced my fixed zombie-like stare and see see what was going on around me. But fate was to play a few nasty cards which I'll get round to in a minute because actually, before I move on to the main body of the tale,  I feel a need to talk a little more about Arbury Hall. 

We had performed there the previous year in the most appalling torrential rain I had ever seen. It took me weeks to get the rust out of my lovely new mail shirt and that brass cross (which is a whole other story) had come damn close to nutting me when we did La Volta. But there were a few people there and we put on what I felt was a damned good show, even if we did do the Farandole to the most excellent and authentic medieval tune 'Black Adder'. Inconceivable!

I remember being amazed that anyone would come to a place so far out  in the sticks as Arbury in such conditions, but they did and of course the cliche says 'the show must go on'. It was only later, when we were being served a most excellent (and needed) cooked dinner in the hall, that we found out that there were in fact at most two visitors to the hall that day and the vast majority of people we had been performing for were in fact the staff! Well they'd had fun and I guess so had we, in a strange, soaked-to-the-skin-but-loving-it kind of way.

Arbury Hall in the Glorious Sun

Well that was what had happened last year and there I was lying on the ground very much dead as the melee raged around me. I'd had a pretty good day so far. It hadn't rained for one, and we'd even seen some sun and had a solid, appreciative crowd. Lord Arbury was watching us, which was a nice fillip, and I'd just had an excellent single with Animal, where I had got to play with Gurnsy's flat milled sword with the lovely forged crosspiece I admired so much.  You see, while by that time I'd made a load of swords for other people, the pommel had fallen off MY sword and I'd not had time to put it back on.

So, to get back to the story proper, we'd had a fun ting tang earlier but it didn't get around the fact that there I was, deader than the average Blackadder character at the end of the series.  You see, the thing was... I'd fallen over in the wrong position. Instead of falling over on my side (because its safer and its harder for the audience to see you breathing) or my front (because the turn and fall thing looks good and its easier and safer to control) as I had taught innumerable people to do, I had fallen on my back. There was a reason for this which escapes me, but I think it was because I had fallen over someone's feet. I had briefly considered having a sudden death spasm, but that would have looked rubbish, and at least I had a good view of the melee from where I was.

What that all actually meant was I had a really good view of my good friend Gurnsy's looming shadow as he backed rapidly away from whoever was pursuing him. I was OK.. really I was.. the  worst that would happen was that he would trip over my feet. Only... he didn't.

At the last second my good and dear friend Gurnsy swerved to avoid something, stepped adroitly back to avoid a swift strike and put his great big foot in exactly the WRONG place. 

Excruciating, red hot agony shot up from my nether regions, consuming my consciousness as that o-so-gigantic foot descended on a place no o-so-gigantic foot should EVER descend upon, because believe me when a man in armour treads on your balls, it really, really hurts even if you are wearing a box. Thank goodness I was, or I might be singing falsetto for the Bee-Gees today.

Well I was of course unable to remain dead. I reared up, making some inarticulate 'AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!' noise while poor Gurnsy backed off, as did his opponent, who was trying not to laugh and failing. I  stood up ever so slowly (I could not have stood up quickly at that moment) our eyes met across the field, and I gave poor Gurnsy this look, this ever-so-special look (which he still remembers if you ask him) and managed to croak out the immortal phrase 'NO-ONE TREADS ON MY BALLS AND LIVES!'

You know, one of the things about having friends who are far cooler than you is that they usually get the best one liners. I am sure they would have done much better but I think that, under the circumstances, I put in a virtuoso one liner worthy of the Mighty Schwarzernegger himself. Of course while I'm sure he's an avid fan of my blog, I doubt he'll comment on this, but at that moment I was the Terminator, and bruised balls or not I was going to utterly annihilate this upstart Gurnsy guy who'd put me in this humiliating position.

So. I sped lightly across the field and completely overcame the mighty Gurnsy with a few well-placed blows and Terminated his arse like the remorseless, unstoppable killing machine I was. 

Well maybe is wasn't quite like that. Perhaps it was ever-so-slightly more like this....I lurched across the field like a Thunderbirds puppet with half its strings cut and poor stricken Gurnsy, overcome by guilt, far more than any skill I was able to muster at that point, obligingly fell over. 

Personally I think the first version was more accurate, but I think I need to do my best to give all my avid readers sufficient information to make their own judgement. I do remember sinking to my knees and falling over (in the correct position this time) as the remainder of the melee raged around me, trying not to laugh, because any kind of movement hurt, and giving enormous thanks for the 'let the dead arise' routine, which gave the pain just a bit more time to subside. Somehow I got off the field and into a nice dark, warm, safe place, where I could lie down and cry. 

A lot.

So you see, there is absolutely a fate worse than death.

Gurnsy (right) and myself (left in Englands Royal Arms)  in a later encounter
Not that I was bitter or anything.