October 2002. SCA member since December 2002.

Ambassadrice de France -- that means I get to be French and look annoyed at people who don’t understand what I’m telling them. Nobody in the militia can do it as well as I do it. When I get too bored about the fact that people don’t understand what I say in English, I talk in French, and Katrine Lyndesay does the translation. I also have the most authentic French accent in the militia (and in most of the SCA quite frankly).

Espionne Suisse -- you don’t think I’m going to say anything about that, do you? OK, just one thing: who has ever heard anything about Swiss spies? That’s just because we’re so damn good…

And I’m also here to look pretty, and impress people with my modesty. I do that pretty well too.

Dragonette La Rouge (also called Dragonette des mers tumultueuses). Captain of the Draconigena, she’s a French woman of unknown origins (at least she won’t tell you, or she would have to kill you). The Draconigena is a beautiful black and red ship with a red dragon as figurehead. It is known to transport fruits. At least that’s the official story. Their sailors never get the scurvy, cause they get to eat lemons and oranges, and lemon tarts and drink lemonade. On Fridays there be apple tart and hard cider, and on Sundays surprise dessert. Maybe it was a bad idea to kidnap a pastry chef to cook on the ship, but then food is tasty…

Dragonette has an interesting a very personal sense of fashion, inherited from the places she visited. The only primary colors she knows are black, blood red and bone, with a predilection for skulls in decoration. Her sense of aesthetic is pretty much summarized in one of her favorite sentences:
“You can't go wrong with skulls…”

When taking the test, got either Dread Pirate Kidd or Dread Pirate Vane, with the comment: “Like the famous Dread Pirate Roberts, you have a keen head for how to make a profit. You tend to blend into the background occasionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!”

The names obviously were not that great but that disemboweling your enemies is fun, and then hanging them with their own guts… Dragonette does like the sneaking and disemboweling thing, that’s why she likes the sharp shiny pointy swordy and daggery things… Arr!

As you see, Dragonette La Rouge is not at all crazy: she’s a perfectly reasonable human being. She just kind of likes blood baths, but what pirate... er, I mean, respectable corsaire, doesn’t?

Companion of the Laurel
Companion of the Pelican
Wreath Sovereign of Arms (Armory Submissions) Society for Creative Anachronism
Queen's Honor of Distinction, Roxanne III
Queen's Honor of Distinction, Jana IV
Queen's Honor of Distinction, Marguerite I
Companion of the Silver Crescent
Companion of the Maunche
Companion of the Order of the Burdened Tyger
Companion of the Order of the Harlequin (Bhakail)
Companion of the Order of the Salamander (Bhakail)
Former apprentice to Mistress Andrea MacIntyre
Former protegé to Mistress Alys Mackyntoich
Demon Tadpole of Fence
Feast cook
Member of the Field Research Division of East Kingdom Cooks Guild (as Lêretochter bî Juliana von Altenfeld)
Apprentice in the Keepers of Athena's Thimble and also belong to
Member of the Gilded Pearl
Bears the not-so-rare-anymore distinction of being awarded Arms twice by the same monarch, in the same reign. Just like Collin.
All of that keeps Brunissende fairly busy.

Dragonette La Rouge is a member of the Hounds of Denmark.

I am really French, born in Paris, France, and all…

I work as a postdoc in a research laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. I have a PhD in Immunology and a perverted passion for the study of the immune response to intracellular bacteria. So I actually enjoy my job (I know, it sounds weird).

I also play with the Penn Gamers and occasionally do role playing (is this still considered real life though?)

Brunissende de Brocéliande was born in Brittany, on July 2nd 1426. She was the only child of her parents. They moved to Tours when she was 13. It’s from there that she saw France being regained from the English. Yeah, that will show them!!! She however, being an outsider in the politic events, with the certitudes of a teenager, supported the Prince Louis, only 3 years her elder, in his conflict with his father. There was not really anything she could do, but getting interested in politics. She was raised gravitating around the court, and discretely made useful connections. Her parents decided that in these uncertain times her education should be complete and decided that she should know as well things that young women and men of the nobility had to learn. And she learnt everything people tried to teach her, except discipline and respect.

At the age of 20, when Louis was exiled, she had already established her reputation and clients. There is no word on how this happened but it obviously required her many friends in important positions. Brunissende established herself in a very stable profession, founding a "Salon artistique et social" where gentlemen from the nobility can meet women with similar artistic interests. Mean and bigoted people tend to call her establishment a brothel for the nobility or a house of lost girls, she, on the other hand, thinks that she helps these girls find themselves. It’s a nice place where educated people can meet other educated people and socialize. Anything else is detail not worth mentioning.

Or y pensez, belle Gautière
Qui écolière souliez être,
Et vous, Blanche la Savetière,
Or est-il temps de vous connaître :
Prenez à dêtre ou à senêtre ;
N'épargnez homme, je vous prie ;
Car vieilles n'ont ne cours ne être,
Ne que monnoie qu'on décrie.
-François VILLON (1431-?)
"Ballade de la belle Heaumière aux filles de joie"

She travels a lot, across Europe and her trips often take her to Tadcaster or other places of England. The motivations behind the trips are various. Of course there is the necessity to recruit but also install other “salons” in different cities and countries. The fact that she is the owner of the Lemon Arrky (sometimes mistaken for the Draconigena) facilitates the trips. There have been rumors that she was involved in piracy. There have been other stories that she could be a spy for the Prince Louis de France and would have played a role in his alliance with the Swiss confederates. All these are obviously unfounded gossip. She may have been delivering some letters but there is no evidence of spying, and if there’s no evidence it didn’t happen, no? The fact is, she likes to travel, has friends in many places and voyages a lot for commerce. Yep, that’s her story and she’s sticking to it.

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d'usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !
- Joachim DU BELLAY (1522-1560)