From the Spanish military genius El Cid to Owain Lawgoch, leader of the "Red hand" Free Company that fought against England in the Hundred Years War (which was actually 116 years long), mercenaries have had a profound effect on the world.   Wars have been won by mercenaries, cities and kingdoms have fallen to them and kings have been made by them. The Vatican has employed the Swiss "Helvetian" mercenaries as guards for centuries. The German landsknechts were some of the most feared mercenaries in history. They were so skilled with their pikes, swords and arquebuses, that they were paid double the going rate for most mercenaries.  There have been skilled mercenaries from almost ever continent at one time or another in history, and though the ones who have fought in major battles get most of the press, it is the silent, wandering mercenaries that attract the attention of fiction writers. From the sell-sword Bronn, of George R. R. Martin's wonderful A Song of Ice and Fire series, to Kitiara Uth Matar, hired blade and sister to Raistlin and Caramon in the famous Dragonlance stories by Margaret Weiss and Tracey Hickman, mercenaries have always tugged at our imaginations and brought wicked smiles to our lips.   Although not a true bastard sword, it does have a grip wide enough for some hand-and-a-half work. The so-called "scent-stopper" pommel (a pommel in the shape of a perfume bottle top (although, lord knows who the heck came up with that term. Who in their right minds would use a perfum bottle to describe any part of a sword?) is especially long, creating extra room and vaulting this sword into the "hybrid" bastard sword clssification.