Husk: A Maresman Tale (7 page)

Parting shot like that wasn’t hard to miss, and so Jeb untethered Tubal and led him farther along the high street, hoping to find someplace else to stay, somewhere he’d not chance running into Sweet or Maisie, and somewhere with stabling close by.

He slung the coffee in the gutter when Tizzy Graybank was out of sight, and he was about to ditch the pastry and pie in a side alley when he glimpsed Davy Fana trying to scrounge from the passing fisherfolk and getting nowhere. Hurriedly situating his tin mug back in the saddlebag, Jeb walked Tubal across the street toward him.

“Davy,” he called. “Davy Fana.”

Dozens of wary eyes turned his direction, and people muttered and shook their heads. Davy, though, ambled over, brow creased in confusion.

“Don’t you go using my name, Mister; not when you don’t know me.”

Jeb held out the food he’d bought from Tizzy Graybank’s. “We met the other day, on my way into town. I gave you a copper, remember?”

Davy chewed his lip and closed one eye, scrutinizing Jeb with the other.

“I remember, hmm,” he said, though there was no recognition in his face. “Gave me a copper, you did. Copper for some broth.” He looked at the food for a moment then snatched the sweet pastry and started cramming it into his mouth.

“You can have the pie, too,” Jeb said.

Davy paused in his chewing long enough to take the pie and thrust it in his coat pocket.

“I’m looking for somewhere to stay,” Jeb said. “Somewhere other than the Crawfish, that is.”

Davy pointed to a lane across the way. “Carey’s Hostelry, if you don’t mind whores and drunks. Other than that, there’s just them fancy hotels top of the high street.”

“They got stabling?”

Davy shook his head, crumbs spraying from his mouth as he spoke. “Not Carey’s, no, sir. It’s got loose women, but not much else. Can’t speak for the others; they don’t like me hanging round that part of town.”

Jeb cast a long look toward the lane but decided against it. It was a rare thing, but he was in no mood for whores, especially the scabby kind that no doubt serviced the needs of the fishermen. He didn’t like parting with money unless he had to, but he’d take his chances with one of the highfalutin hotels, if they’d admit him in his condition.

“Listen,” he said, fixing Davy with a serious look. “Your sister—”

“Thanks for the food, Mister.” And with that, Davy turned his back and shuffled in among the crowd.

12

T
HE SEA BED
was a looming three-story hotel overlooking the cove that sheltered the better part of Portis’s fishing fleet. Someone obviously found the name amusing when the place was built, but to Jeb it was the sort of lame pun his Uncle Joe would have made, had he still been alive; if Mortis hadn’t slaughtered him at the foot of the stairs.

No need for it, Jeb thought, for the thousandth time. His aunt and uncle had been common folk, as much of a threat to the masked hunter as newborn lambs; yet he’d killed them just the same. What was it, a lesson? Or was it something more innate, some personality trait? From what he’d seen and heard over the years, it’s just what Mortis did: killed as indiscriminately as a plague, which was funny in a way—funny, ironic, rather than the kind of funny that would make you laugh—because that’s what they called him, the other Maresmen: Mortis the Plague, or more often than not, when he was out of earshot, the Plague Demon.

You had to wonder about the even distribution of husk and human in a Maresman. Most reckoned it to be about fifty-fifty, but in Mortis’s case, the impression was more like eighty-twenty, with the husk side coming out on top. Jeb knew a number of Maresmen who’d have liked to put Mortis back to the mud because of it, only no one seemed to have the balls to try.

The boats on the shore were abuzz with activity as sailors came off the high street and set about coiling ropes and stowing nets. A few early birds were already out to sea, voices carrying over the gently lapping waves as they shared jokes you’d have to be a seaman to understand.

A red-liveried valet took Tubal’s reins and led him off to the stables round the side of the hotel even before Jeb checked in. He guessed they had vacancies, then, and that he wasn’t dressed any more shabbily than the regular clientele.

He made his way stiffly up the steps of the porch and into the lobby. The dining room off to one side was a hubbub of chatter, clatter, and the chinking of metal on porcelain. Certainly had the look of snobbery about it, but the punters—because that’s how he’d describe them—didn’t look like they had more than a couple of brass dupondii to rub together, and someone else’s at that. Told him one of two things: either they were keeping their wealth hidden and had good reason to, or they were on business, and not the honest kind, either. He’d seen enough roguery in Malfen to recognize it with a practiced eye; knew enough about the reputed goings on in New Jerusalem, too, what with the perpetual guild wars since their onetime unifier, Shadrak the Unseen, had up and left. That would have been just before the dwarves laid siege to the city, what, seven, eight years back. Kind of trade he’d witnessed the other night, when he’d seen the stygian and the wagonload of what was likely somnificus, you had to wonder if the Sea Bed was a hangout for thieves and assassins getting a foothold in the provinces.

Jeb thought he recognized one or two faces from Malfen, but when he looked again, he wasn’t so sure. Problem was, when you’d lived among scum as long as he had, they all started to look the same.

“Can I help you, sir?”—A lilting voice, too full of the joys of spring for this early in the day. Too darned fake, too. Least you never got that in Malfen. Folk there called a spade a spade, and a whole lot more besides.

He turned to the reception counter, ambled over and leaned his elbows on it so he could take a closer look at the beauty behind. Well, beauty was stretching it, but she had shape, and youth, and they could be mighty forgiving of the peasant stock that gave her face its blockiness.

“Need a room for a night or two, possibly more,” Jeb said.

She leaned back slightly in her chair, ran a hand through her curls. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and her pupils swelled to twice their size. Yep, she’d picked up on his husk blood. If he hadn’t still ached so much, he’d have taken her right there and then; well, not there, perhaps, with the eyes of the world watching, but he’d have beckoned, and she’d have followed.

She ran her eyes over a ledger on the counter, nodded to herself a few times.

“Think I have just the room for you, sir.” She lifted a key from a hook. “Nice sea view, and recently refurbished. The bed—”

Jeb closed his hand over hers, took the key. “That’ll do fine.” He spared her the wink he’d have usually given and cocked a questioning look toward the stairs.

“Top floor,” she said. “Take a left, and it’s two doors down.”

“Much obliged,” Jeb said, not sure whether to feel satisfied or weary at the flush that spread across her plumpish cheeks.

Climbing 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 receptionist she would be breaking her fast on the patio.

Jeb was partially inclined to do the same himself, only he had no idea what the heck a patio was.

13

T
HE ROOM WAS
in better taste than the one at the Crawfish, and there was quality to the furnishings. It didn’t matter squat to Jeb; way he looked at things, it was somewhere to sleep when the need took him, and if his aches died down enough to let his natural inclinations assert themselves, it would be more than serviceable for a spot of entertaining.

He didn’t linger there long; he needed to make his move soon, otherwise the husk would be gone, if it wasn’t already. With an amulet hiding the blood trail, it would take mundane tracking skills to find it again, and Jeb doubted he had the time for that. Already, he was running it a bit close. The other Maresmen would expect a result soon, else they’d come looking. If Jeb was a corpse, if the husk had gotten the better of him, well, they’d bury him and go after it themselves; but if it wasn’t dead, and Jeb still drew breath, questions would have to be answered, most likely at the tip of a blade.

Problem was, it wasn’t just the husk he had to worry about: there was Boss and all those guards around his house. That’s why he needed help, and his best bet right then seemed the sheriff. News of what looked like somnificus being shipped out from Boss’s land ought to get his interest.

He left Tubal in the care of the stablehand, a chubby lad who showed a care for his charges. Time Jeb set off down the high street, the colt was thoroughly groomed and had his nose buried in a bag of oats.

Sheriff’s office was back a couple of streets, overlooking a public square the seagulls used as a toilet. The benches round the sides were caked with white and gray, and if anyone chanced sitting there, they’d most likely end up the same way. Even the painted signs that said “Don’t Feed the Birds” were covered in it. Made Jeb think putting them up was a bit like locking the front door after the burglar was inside.

Beyond the ragged bushes that defined the square, rundown hovels spread out toward a broad cove in one direction, boats that were more holes than wood littering overgrown yards, like no one had time to fix them, or no one could be bothered. The other way, the homes were even worse, little more than tents surrounded by drystone walls. Children ran wild between the dwellings, and women were hanging washing out on strings tied between the tent poles. It was a contrast to the high street, and it even made parts of Malfen look salubrious.

The sheriff’s office was locked up, and all Jeb’s banging and hollering aroused was a bunch of cursing from the cell round the back. He was halfway to the barred window to try his luck asking the prisoners what was up, when he caught sight of Davy Fana finishing his business against a tree, then shuffling back to an upturned hull and crawling in through a sizeable gap in the planks.

Jeb went to call out but then remembered the response he’d gotten earlier.

Struck him the old wreck must’ve been what Davy called home, right on the fringes of the shanty town, and a stone’s throw from the hub of security the sheriff’s office represented.

It was more effort than Jeb anticipated to walk over there, what with his aching limbs, and so he guessed his rap on the wood of the hull was harsher than it needed to be.