Read Online Husk: A Maresman Tale by D.P. Prior - Free Book Online Page A

the stairs was a slow agony. He got only halfway to the top when a woman in red swirled onto the landing and flounced down, an odd couple of men in tow. Both were bald, and both were draped in lilac togas that had Jeb raise his eyebrows, half in shock, half in ridicule. The only difference was that one was short and fat, the other tall and skinny. They each held a corner of the woman’s ostentatious train, tripping lightly down the stairs in her wake.
    She was another thing altogether. Exotic was the word that sprang to mind. Stunning, even. Her platinum hair was piled atop her head in elaborate twists and braids, looking like a palace for bees or hornets. The skin of her face was as smooth and white as the porcelain the rogues below were eating off of, and her lithe figure was accentuated by the scarlet dress cinched at her waist with a loop of gold.
    She brushed straight past him, forcing him to back against the banister. Rather than apologize, she let out an exaggerated sigh and said, more to herself than anyone else, “No manners. No manners at all. How terribly uncouth.”
    The short fat man glared at Jeb, and his skinny counterpart shook his head and lifted his chin. The woman craned her neck to deliver Jeb a withering look, but one of her eyebrows twitched a fraction, and she gave him the quickest and most clandestine of appraisals. She was good, but he was better, and he noticed. It was an effort to keep his lips from curling into a smug smile.
    Making a show of inspecting her beringed fingers, she fixed her gaze on the foot of the stairs and said, “Introduce me, Malvin.”
    “Milady?”—It was the fat one that spoke. He was staring at Jeb as if he hadn’t seen a busted up face before. Way Jeb saw it, he couldn’t have looked any worse than he felt.
    Another sigh, and a slight tilt of her head.
    “I’ll do it,” said the thin one in a voice full of world-weariness.
    “Very well,” the woman said.
    Passing his corner of the satin train to the fat one, the thin one came down a couple more steps and stood before Jeb, hand over his heart.
    “Dame Consilia, the Silken Voice, the Graceful Goddess, Queen of the New Jerusalem stage—”
    “Former,” Dame Consilia interrupted. “Former queen of the stage. Apparently, there’s not much call for my talent these days.”
    She turned to look Jeb in the eye, and he noticed she wasn’t as young and smooth-skinned as he’d first thought. Her eyebrows had been drawn on, a little too thick, a little too slanted; her complexion was the result of powder and thick makeup, and her eyelids were painted a tawdry shade of green. It was her neck that gave her away, though, no matter how much she tried to hide it with a black and gold choker. It was creased like a turkey’s. If she noticed him noticing, she didn’t show it; she faced off across the stairs with all the brazen confidence of a coquettish noble in her sexual prime. Still, with what Jeb knew from experience, a woman’s prime could span a wide gulf.
    She backed up a step and held out a hand to him. It was then he noticed the rings adorning every finger had left a sooty-looking film on her skin, like they were made of cheap metal and only for show.
    He took the proffered hand anyway, and touched his lips to it. “Jebediah Skayne.”
    She smiled at that, but in her eyes he saw only sadness and a hint of moisture.
    “See,” she said to her retainers. “A gentleman, after all. I knew there was more than just fishermen and thieves in this provincial little dump. I tell you, Garth,”—she shot a penetrating look at the thin man—“there’s room for a theater in Portis, you mark my words.”
    With that, she gave Jeb a curt nod and descended the rest of the stairs with her nose so far in the air it was a wonder she didn’t trip and fall. Her retainers scurried behind, fighting over who was going to hold which corner of her train. The trio swept over to the counter, where Dame Consilia informed the