From SidneyR: Troubadours from "The Pit of the Pendulum" (30 points)

 

"One, two...ah, one-two-three... No, no.  We go on 'four', not three.  Always four, never three.  It's been that way since Valencia in '84.  Let's go again.   ...  Ah, one, two... one-two-three... NO, WE GO ON FOUR, never 'three'... Let's take it from the top...again..."

Fernando Cantante, Frustrated "musician", 1688

***

When Curt suggested a Chamber for Challenge XI based on torture, my mind stumbled towards the everyday horror of playing the violin as a young boy, and the terrors that created in my family.  Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, lingering in the family home for hours would suddenly leave, making their excuses quickly.  The world has few horrors to match a young, enthusiastic, yet hopeless, musician armed with a cheap violin.  And so this Challenge submission was born.

Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed Challengers, if you ever visit an army camp in late seventeenth century Flanders, and these two travelling musicians appear, prepare to flee - quickly.  Regiments which are steadfast under the heaviest fire dissolve in chaos before the musical repertoire of Señors Fernando and Antonio Cantante. 

From Cadiz to Milan, from Antwerp to Naples, the brothers Cantante have plied their musical 'gifts' for many diverse audiences.  The takings in their battered hat, proffered enthusiastically, are rarely high enough to bring an early end to the evening's 'entertainment', at least until the brothers start singing.  At which time, enough florins and guilders usually trickle into the hat to persuade them to move on. 

War may be terrible, but if you are faced with an enthusiastic but hopeless pair of musicians, even the hottest of cannon fire is perhaps preferable.

I've had these two figures hanging around the painting table for years.  They started life as a Games Workshop C46 Villager (with the viol) and another figure from, I think, a medieval tavern set. I swapped one of the heads for a Redoubt seventeenth century head, and added a lot of green stuff to turn the medieval outfits into something perhaps 'more 1688'.  The drum is from Redoubt, and the collection of discarded uniforms (clearly from a soldier hurrying away from the terrifying noise) is from Dixon Miniatures.

I've added another of the Laarden 'Character Cards' for the tuneless Troubadours - keep collecting folks, many more to come this Challenge!

As regards points, Fernando and Antonio are in 28mm, so 5 points for each brother and 20 for completing 'The Pit of the Pendulum', in truly terrifying fashion.

*****