The Dragon's Son by Margaret Weis

Author:Margaret Weis [Weis, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780143002987
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Published: 2006-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

16

GLIMMERSHANKS HAD NOT BEEN BORN WITH SUCH AN outlandish name. He had bestowed it on himself, after overhearing one noble lady remark that he was so graceful a dancer that his legs seemed to “glimmer.” That same noble lady had been his patron, for a time. Her patronage meant that his troupe of traveling players could wear her livery and paint her coat of arms on their wagons and exhibit her writ of authorization when they arrived at castle or manor house or faire. Her name gained them entry when they would have otherwise been turned away.

Sadly, word of thefts occurring at castles and manor houses and faires honored by the presence of Glimmershanks’s troupe eventually reached the ears of the noble lady, causing her to withdraw her patronage in high dudgeon. Nothing daunted, Glim-mershanks conceived that this was a mistake on her part and continued to bandy about her name and wear her livery until her soldiers descended upon the troupe, ripped the livery from their backs, and set fire to the wagons. Glimmershanks was still rebuilding following that disaster.

His father and mother had been gypsies, traveling the continent with a dancing bear and a son. His parents thought far more highly of the bear than they did the boy, for the bear brought them money and the boy did little but eat. Glimmershanks was taught to dance in order to perform with the bear. He was better than the bear, but few in the crowd noticed. He ran away at fifteen to join a troupe of traveling players, perfected his skill at dancing, added rope walking and juggling to his routine, and became head of the troupe when its founder died of eating bad eels.

Glimmershanks lost several members of the troupe during the encounter with Milady’s guards, including his stilt walker and his ventriloquist. Lacking patronage, he was no longer welcomed into the noble houses; cities and faires relegated him to the fringes. Always an opportunist, he was able to capitalize on his banishment by putting it about that he could exhibit what other, more respectable troupes did not dare to. He replaced the ventriloquist with two brothers who had been born joined at the hip and the stilt walker with a full-grown man who was only two feet tall. As he came across other “freaks” he took them into his show, including a man whose body was covered with thick hair. He became the “bear man” and he wrestled all comers and ate raw meat, to the delight of the crowds. Then there was the girl who could bend her body into knots and kiss herself in places nature never intended.

Glimmershanks no longer danced. He was too busy being the troupe’s business manager and promoter. He kept himself fit, however, for had a fondness for the ladies, and his shapely legs and gypsy eyes and languid grace rarely failed to win him a fair partner to share his bed. He was doing well for himself these days.

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