A Savage Place

A Savage Place

By

Robert B. Parker

(Spenser 08)

Copyright (c) 1981

For Joan, No one is as interesting, nor nearly so luminous

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, “Kubla Khan”

Chapter 1

I WAS SITTING in my office above the bank with my tie loose and my feet up, reading a book called Play of Double Senses: Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Susan Silverman had given it to me, claiming it was my biography. But it wasn’t. It turned out to be about the sixteenth century English poet who spelled his name like mine. The guy that wrote it had become the president of Yale, and I thought maybe if I read it, I could become Allan Pinkerton.

I was just starting the chapter titled “Pageant, Show, and Verse” when the phone rang. I picked it up and said