DVR Alerts - Yes, Plural

Clear some space on the DVR - it's a good week for swashbucklers!

On Tuesday, 9 July, TCM airs The Spanish Main, starring Paul Henreid, Maureen O'Hara, and Walter Selzak. Binnie Barnes, as Anne Bonney, steals every scene she's in.

On Wednesday, 10 July, TCM follows up with King Vidor's Bardelys the Magnificent, based on the Rafael Sabatini novel of the same name. It's funny, chastely erotic, and swashbuckling by turns - not to be missed.

Thursday, 11 July, features no less than three swashbucklers: Return to Treasure Island, with Tab Hunter, and two great Ray Harryhausen (RIP) Sinbad movies, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, with John Phillip Law and the incredibly sexy Caroline Munro, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, with Patrick Wayne and the stunning Jane Seymour.

Finally, Friday, 12 July, TCM shows The Warriors, with Errol Flynn as the Black Prince and Joanne Dru as the damsel in distress - not strictly a swashbuckler, it's good inspiration for gamers running swashbuckling campaigns nonetheless.

Check local listings for times.

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The Pen and the Sword: The Justice of the Duke

"The Lord of Camerino's fortunes do not wear so prosperous a look, eh?"

Malipiero's glance shunned the Duke's; his fingers toyed nervously with his grey beard.

"It was I," he said, "who made Gian Paolo afraid to come, to the end that he might send me. I did this that I might lay my services at your disposal, for at heart I have ever been your Excellency's most devoted. My only son is in your service."

"A traitor who yesterday sought to compass my assassination," Cesare informed him coldly. "It is well I wear a shirt of mail. This precious son of thine lies in my dungeons awaiting my pleasure."

"My God!" gasped Malipiero. His face was turned ashen, his limbs trembled under him.

"Hadst not heard of it? How poor are the Lord of Camerino's spies! It is the common talk of Fabriano. But thou knewest it was to be attempted, and what the price the Lord of Milan—yet another master of thine—was to have paid him. Thou damned, infernal traitor, darest so boldly bear me messages from Gian Paolo? Aye, that thou darest, knowing that as an ambassador thou'rt safe."

"My lord!" cried Malipiero in an anguish of terror, "I knew naught of such a plot."

"I think," said Cesare, "that I hate a liar almost more than an assassin; certainly as much." And he cracked the coriander-seed between his strong, white teeth.

"Highness," exclaimed the other, eagerly, "I have it in my power to make amends for what my son has done. I can rid you of this Lord of Camerino. Shall it be a deal between us? My son's life against the raising of this siege?"

Cesare shut his box with a snap and dropped it into his pocket.

"It was to make me some such proposal, I think, that thou didst request to speak with me alone. Possibly there was some other bargain in thy mind, some other price to ask for the treachery thou'rt proposing?"

Malipiero flung dissimulation to the winds. His avarice, which had made him a constant traitor to his every master had been his only stimulus to offer his foul services to Cesare Borgia. But now that he heard of the failure of that plot which he had hatched for gold, and which his only son seemed likely to pay for with his neck, the life of his boy was the only recompense he asked. He frankly said as much.

"I will not bargain with thee," was Cesare's contemptuous answer.

The distraught man dropped on his knees. With tears in his eyes he implored clemency and urged upon Cesare how much it imported that he should rejoin his army in the North.

"There is not in all Italy a knave with whom I would so scorn to deal as thou, Malipiero. Man, thou art so steeped in the mire of treachery that the very sight of thee offends me, and I think I have endured it long enough." "My lord," the other clamoured, "I can find you a way out of this as could no other man. Give me my son's life, and it shall be done—to-morrow. I will draw Gian Paolo away—back to Camerino. What are his men without him? Hirelings all, mercenaries every man of them. They would never stay to oppose your sally and deliver battle if Gian Paolo were not by to urge them."

Cesare was tempted. At all costs he must get out of Fabriano, and that soon, or he would suffer direly. Mistrust of Malipiero prompted his next question.

"What means hast thou to perform so much?"

At this suggestion that the Duke was inclined to treat with him, Malipiero rose. He shuffled a step nearer, licking his lips, his eyes screwed cunningly.

"Gian Paolo loves his throne of Camerino dearly — so dearly that he has risked all upon his throw against your Highness. But there is one thing he loves still more — his honour. Let it be whispered to him that the lady his wife —" He leered horribly. "You understand, Magnificent. He would leave his camp out yonder, and dash back to Camerino, where she bides in the palace your Excellency has left her, as fast as horse could bear him."

Cesare felt his soul revolt. The thing was vile, the fruit of a vile mind uttered by a vile mouth, and as he looked at the leering creature before him a sense of nausea took him. But his calm, inscrutable face showed naught of this; his beautiful, passionless eyes betrayed none of the repulsion with which they looked on the creature before him. Presently his lips parted in a smile, but what that smile portended Malipiero could not guess until he spoke.

"Possibly there is in Italy a viler thing than you. Probably there is not. Still, it is for me to use thee, not convert thee. Accomplish me this thing, since thou'rt sure 'tis to be done."

Malipiero drew a deep breath of relief. Insults were of no account to him so that he gained his end.

"Grant me my son's life, and I undertake that by to-night Gian Paolo shall be in the saddle."

"I make no bargain with thee," Cesare answered. "I'll not so smirch my hands. Do thou this thing, then look to me for payment."

"You will be merciful, Magnificent?"

"It is said by the few who do not malign me that I am ever just. Rest content; thou shalt find me so."

- "The Justice of the Duke," Rafael Sabatini

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Captain Blood Introspective

Jeff Black at Dark Dimension has a review and reaction to Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood: His Odyssey. I particularly appreciated his closing paragraph.

The book alternates between lighteartedness and some rather grim events, giving it a jarring, dichotomous feel. Also, major characters die "offstage" at times, making the demise of some of Blood's most persistent antagonists and faithful companions frustratingly anticlimactic. The ending of the book itself is oddly, and ambiguously, ominous, casting a shadow on what might have been a happy resolution. All of these things sound like I found them to be detriments, but I ended up finding them adding to the mystique of the book. There was something realistic about it all, with no character safe and some plot points left dangling, as often happens in real life. Sometimes life is messy and unresolved, and even Captain Blood cannot swashbuckle his way out of every grim situation...even ones he'd hoped for and found not as satisfying when he finally got his wish.

These qualities of a narrative are far too rare for my tastes. I like messy stories replete with ambiguity, rather than tidy conclusions, which, perversely enough, is a too-frequent characteristic of many of Mr Sabatini's other tales. I like stories which stand conventions about who lives and who dies on their head. In short, I like stories that don't feel like most stories.

It's also at the core of what I enjoy so much about sandbox campaigns and why I have so little interest in linear adventures. As Jeff notes, the events of Captain Blood resemble what "often happens in real life," and that's what I want out of my roleplaying game experiences. Indeed, I believe that this is one of the greatest strengths of roleplaying games.

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The Pen and the Sword: The Sea-Hawk

"What have you to say, you renegade dog?" Sir John demanded.

"This, Sir John, that unless you order your men back aboard your ship, and make oath to desist from this encounter, I'll take you straight down to hell with us at once. I'll heave this lantern into the powder here, and we sink and you come down with us held by your own grappling hooks. Obey me and you shall have all that you have come to seek aboard this vessel. Mistress Rosamund will be delivered up to you."

Sir John glowered upon him for a moment from the poop. Then -

"Though not prepared to make terms with you," he announced, "yet I will accept the conditions you impose, but only provided I have all indeed that I am come to seek. There is aboard this galley an infamous renegade hound whom I am bound by my knightly oath to take and hang. He, too, must be delivered up to me. His name was Oliver Tressilian.

Instantly, unhesitatingly, came the answer -

"Him, too, will I surrender to you on your sworn oath that you will then depart and do here no further hurt."

Rosamund caught her breath, and clutched Sakr-el-Bahr's arm, the arm that held the lantern.

"Have a care, mistress," he bade her sharply, "or you will destroy us all."

- The Sea-Hawk, Raphael Sabatini

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