Mercenary

Historically, a mercenary is a professional soldier for hire, serving whatever lord or army decides to pay them. Many examples existed in period - The Free Companies, the Italian condottieri, John Hawkwood and the White Company, Roger de Flo and the Catalan Grand Company, the Swiss Guard, the Varangian Guard - and these are but a few examples.

In the SCA, a mercenary is a person or group that offers themselves out as fighters for pay, and typically don't have allegiance to a particular barony/local group - possibly even hiring out to other kingdoms. Rather than hiring out for money, the typical pay for a mercenary household may vary. Meals, dance performances, coin of the realm (cookies), beer or other drink, baubles, and even poems have all been used to hire SCA mercenaries. Like most other fighters, their main desire is to fight in wars for the joy of it - the pay is a bonus, and is not necessarily required.