One for the Morning Glory by John Barnes Read Free Book Online Page B

John Slitgizzard, third son of the Earl of the Iron Lake Marches and as dissipated a young man as one could hope to find, yet a deadly shot with the pismire and faster than lightning with the escree, said to have killed a dozen men in duels and rumored to have ridden with Deacon Dick Thunder and robbed a wealthy traveler or two in his time.
    There was Pell Grant, a wench who had modeled for the illustration of "buxom" in the Royal Dictionary in her younger days, rumored to have taught the young Prince several of the arts of love. Next to her sat Duke Wassant, corpulent and with a pouty look to his red lips, yet known for speed and savagery with both his wit and his pongee, a man who had eviscerated thousands figuratively and just possibly a few literally.
    Across from him, dressed in boy's clothing and armed to the teeth (and a bit beyond if one counted a small pongee concealed in the long tresses tucked under her hat) and looking far more the thug than any man present, sat Calliope, youngest daughter of one of the southern counts, with whom Wassant had had a brief and operatic affair when she was young enough to make it a matter for scandal. Not yet of marriageable age, if anyone had been so foolhardy, she was a focus of rumors far beyond unsavory, but Golias, who had carefully edited the Prince's social circle in general to surround him with people whose ways were worse than their hearts, had never done anything about her.
    Those who were particularly honest had long ago conceded that Calliope had a streak of passionate generosity and kindness in her, leading her often to rush to the defense of the defenseless, and that many of her anonymous verses—most especially the erotic ones—had a tender beauty to them that could melt the heart. They would then, however, having bought credibility with the cheap coin of balance, regale everyone present with more interesting stories of violence inflicted on other young ladies, pranks and japes of a peculiarly sadistic nature on the better young men of the Court who sometimes tried to court her admitted beauty, and commoner lovers (or alternately married aristocratic lovers) in extraordinary profusion, some of whom were said to have killed themselves.
    It was widely believed—and whispered as an open secret— that she and Amatus were lovers.
    Of those present, it was known only to Amatus and Golias that she was not the daughter of that southern Count, but sole survivor of the royal line of the neighboring monarchy of Overhill, smuggled away as an infant by a faithful nurse when her family was massacred by Waldo the Usurper.
    It was also known only to herself, Wassant, and Amatus (and perhaps to others who were perceptive enough) that despite her temper and language she was actually rather a prude. Amatus forgave her this on account of her crimson hair, and her poetry, and because when he had attempted to have his way with her, she had told him that he was a very rude young man and that he ought to learn to behave himself. Since no one had bothered to tell him that in some time, he was charmed by the novelty.
    The song Golias was singing, thumping the triple bass string hard and plucking at the three doubled treble strings as if he were trying to tear his palanquin in half, was a roistering old thing called "Penna Pike," though no one knew anymore where or who Penna Pike was, despite many who had gone in quest for it down quaint and curious roads. The song was called Penna Pike because its chorus ran:
    Penna Pike, Penna Pike, Penna Pike Pike Pike
    Penna Pike, Penna Pike, Penna-Penna Pike
    Penna Pike, Penna Pike, Penna Pike Pike Pike
    Pen — na Pike! — Penna Pike Pike Pike!
    The ballad itself told of a mortal woman stolen away by goblins and carried into the dark tunnels under the city, whose lover had come to claim her and had woefully returned to the surface, all too aware that a bigger soul than his would be needed to rescue her and to love her afterwards, and having realized his