A Brother's Price

Chapter 1

There were a few advantages to being a boy in a society dominated by women. One. Jerin Whistler thought, was that you could throttle your older sister, and everyone would say, “She was one of twenty-eight girls-a middle sister-and a troublemaker too, and he-he’s a boy,” and that would be the end of it.

Certainly if a sister deserved to be strangled, it was Corelle. She was idly flipping through a magazine showing the latest in men’s fashions while he tried to stuff a thirty-pound goose, comfort a youngest sister with a boo-boo knee, and feed their baby brother. Since their mothers and elder sisters had left the middle sisters in charge of the farm, Corelle strutted about, with her six-guns tied low and the brim of her Stetson pulled down so far it was amazing she could see. Worse, she started to criticize everything he did, with an eye toward his coming of age-when he would be sold into a marriage of his sisters’ choosing.

She had previously complained that he chapped his hands in hot wash water, that trying to read at night would give him a squint, and that he should add scents to his bathwater. This morning it was his clothes.

“Men’s fashion magazines are a joke,” Jerin growled, trying to keep the goose from scooting across the table as he shoved sage dressing into its cavity. If he hadn’t spent years diapering his seventeen youngest sisters and three little brothers, the goose might have gotten away from him. The massive, fat-covered goose, however, was nothing compared with a determined Whistler baby. “No one but family ever sees their menfolk! How do these editors know what men are wearing?”

“Things are different with nobility,” Corelle countered, and held out the magazine. “It’s the whole point to a Season: to be seen! Here. This is the pair I want you to make for yourself.”

Instead of good honest broadcloth trousers, the fashion plate showed kid-glove-tight pants with a groin-hugging patch of bright colored fabric. Labeled underneath was Return of the codpiece: it allows the future wives to see what they are buying.

Jerin wrestled the goose into their largest roasting pan. “Don’t even think it, Corelle. I won’t wear them.”

“I’d like seeing you say that to Eldest.”

“Eldest knows better than to waste money on clothes no one will see.” Jerin worked the kitchen pump to wash the goose fat from his hands. Much as he hated to admit it, Corelle’s aim was dead-on-he wouldn’t be able to face Eldest and say no. Two could play that game, though. “Eldest is going to be pissed that you went to town and got that magazine. She told you to stay at the farm, close to the house.”

“I didn’t go to town, so there.” Corelle, nonetheless, closed the magazine up, realizing it was evidence of a crime.

So where did she get it? Jerin swung the crying little girl holding on to his knees up onto the counter beside the goose. It was Pansy, when he had thought it was Violet all this time. “Hey, hey, big girls don’t cry. Let me see the boo-boo. Corelle, at least feed Kai.”

Corelle eyed the sloppy baby playing in his oatmeal. “Why don’t you call Doric? It’s boys’ work. He should be learning all this from you before you get married. Your birthday is only a few months away-and then you’ll be gone.”

Luckily Pansy was crying too hard to notice that comment.

“Doric is churning butter and can’t stop,” Jerin lied. “If you want to spell him, I’m sure he’d rather be feeding Kai instead.”

Corelle shot him a dirty look but picked up the spoon and redirected some of the oatmeal into Kai’s mouth. “All I’m saying is that the-that certain families are making noises that they want to come courting and see you decked out in something other than a walking robe and hat. Hell, you might as well be stuffed in a gunny-sack when you’re out in public-at least as far as a woman knowing if you’re worth looking at or not.”

“That’s the point, Corelle.” Jerin had gotten the mud and crusted blood off of Pansy’s knee and discovered a nasty cut. He washed it well with hot water and soap, put three small stitches in to hold the flesh together, and then, knowing his little sisters, bandaged it heavily to keep the dirt out. He ordered firmly, “Now, don’t take it off,” and unlatched the lower half of the back door to scoot Pansy outside.

In the protected play yard between the house and the barns, the other sixteen youngest sisters were playing reconnaissance. Apparently Leia was General Wellsbury; she was shouting, “Great Hera’s teat, you Whistlers call this an intelligence report?” According to their grandmothers, this was the phrase uttered most often by the famous general after their spying missions. Accurate, it might be-but too foul to be repeated in front of the three- through ten-year-olds.

Jerin shouted, “Watch your mouth, Wellsbury!” and went back to the goose. At least the goose had nothing annoying to say.

The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Corelle. “You need some nice clothes so we can show you off and make a good match. People are saying you’re not as fetching as rumored.”

As if anyone cares what I look like, as long as I’m fertile. Jerin made a rude noise and seasoned the goose’s skin. “Who said that?”

“People.”

Then it all clicked together. The criticism, the magazine, the clothes, and a certain family annoyed that the Whistlers were landed gentry-despite their common line soldiers’ roots-making them a step above their neighbors. “You’re talking about the Brindles!”

“Am not!” she snapped, and then frowned, realizing that she had tipped her hand. “Besides, they have a right to see what they’re getting before the papers are signed. None of them has ever laid eyes on you outside of a fair or a barn raising-which is hardly seeing you at all.”

“You better not be thinking of bringing them here while Eldest is gone. She’ll have your hide tacked to the barn! She doesn’t want them past the east boundary fence unless the whole family is here.”

“Nay neighborly of ‘er,” Corelle retorted with such an up-country drawl that it could have been straight out of a Brindle mouth.

“ Not neighborly of her.” Jerin heaved the goose up into the oven and slammed shut the oven door. “You sound like a river rat, half drunk on moonshine.”

“What does it matter, how we talk?” Corelle deemed herself finished with Kai, now that his bowl was empty. She drifted away from the high chair, leaving the mess for Jerin to clean up. “The Brindles think we’re putting on airs, paying so much attention to speaking correct Queens’ diction. All we’re doing is annoying our neighbors.”

Jerin worked the kitchen pump to wet a towel to wash up Kai. “Who cares if we annoy the Brindles?

None of our other neighbors are bothered by how we talk. And you know why we speak this way, even if the Brindles don’t. Our grandmothers paid with their lives to buy us a better lot in life-for their sake, we don’t give up an inch of what they won us.”

Corelle made a great show of rolling her eyes. “No one is going to marry you for your diction. They’re going to marry you for your die-”

Jerin twirled the damp towel into a rattail and snapped it like a whip, catching her on the exposed skin of her wrist.

She yelped, more out of surprise than pain. Anger flashed across her face, and she started toward him, hands closing into fists.

He backed away from her, twirling up the towel again, heart pounding. When they were little, only Corelle would risk Eldest’s wrath to hit him. and now their older sisters were far from home. There was the sudden, tiny, fearful knowledge that Corelle was wearing her pistols. “Don’t make me get the spoon!”

She checked and they glared at one another across the cocked and ready towel.

“You be civil, Corelle,” he finally managed. “You have no need or place to talk low to me. Eldest will decide what I wear, whom I see, and whom I marry, so there’s no call for you to be fussing at me over it.”

Corelle pursed her lips together as if to keep in bitter words, her blue eyes cold as winter sky.

In the high chair behind Corelle. Kai started indignant squawking.

“Take care of the baby,” Corelle snapped, to give herself the last words of the fight, and stalked out of the kitchen.

Jerin had just put Kai down to sleep when he heard the first rifle shot. He froze beside the cradle, listening to the sharp crack echoing up the hollow.

Maybe it was just thunder, he rationalized, because he didn’t want it to be gunfire. He replayed the sound in his mind. No, the sound definitely came from a rifle.

Who would be shooting in their woods? Damn her, had Corelle gone out hunting? Eldest had told all four of the middle sisters to keep at the house, to forgo even fence mending, while their mothers and elder sisters were gone.

Another shot rang out from the creek bottom, then a third, close after the second. The back door banged open. His younger siblings spilled into the house like a covey of quail, the littlest sister running in first, the older ones doing a slower rear guard, scanning over their shoulders for lost siblings or strangers.

Blush, second oldest of the youngest sisters, stationed herself at the door, tapping shoulders to keep count. “Drill teams! Prepare for attack! Shutter the windows, bar the doors, and get down the rifles.

Fifteen! Sixteen!” Blush snapped, and tagged Jerin. “Three.” Then pointed to the cradle. “Four?”

“Four boys,” Jerin said automatically, although stunned. Sixteen? There should be seventeen youngest, and the four middle sisters.

Blush dropped the bars on the upper and lower halves of the back door. First downstairs, then upstairs, the shutters banged shut and their bars rattled into place. Little girls moved through the shutter slats of sunlight, working in teams of mixed ages to load two rifles and guard every window.

“What’s going on?” Jerin asked. “Who’s shooting? Where are Corelle and the others?”

Blush gave a look of disgust that only a twelve-year-old could manage. “Corelle, Summer, Eva, and Kira went over to the Brindles‘. courting Balin Brindle. Heria said she thought she heard riders in the woods. She took her rifle and went out to have a look-see.”

“Heria!” The fourteen-year-old oldest of his youngest sisters had more courage than sense. “Holy Mothers above!”

“Eldest is going to skin Corelle alive,” one of the youngest whispered.

There was a ripple of agreement.

“Watch the windows!” Blush barked.

Too precious to risk in a fight, the boys were left with nothing to do but whisper. Liam complained about his blocks, left outside in the sudden retreat. Doric speculated that it was only Corelle in the woods, doing a bit of hunting while coming home from courting. Jerin would have liked to believe that-but Corelle knew perfectly well there was no need for fresh meat with the elder half of the family gone and a thirty-pound goose in the oven. Most of the youngest still ate like birds.

“What do we do?” a youngest asked Blush after several minutes of silence.

Blush clutched one of the family’s carbine rifles. “We stand guard until Corelle comes back.”

A thunderous pounding at the back door stopped them cold.

Blush scurried to Jerin’s side, the soldier training that had been carrying her vanished, leaving only a frightened twelve-year-old. “Jerin?”

Jerin swallowed his fear and whispered, “Identify the enemy and establish numbers.”

Blush nodded rapidly, her eyes wide and rounded with fear. Still, she managed to shout, “Identify yourself!”

The pounding stopped. “Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!”

A sigh of relief went through the room.

“It’s Heria!” Doric cried and was immediately hushed.

“Everyone, get to posts.” Blush struggled to return to their training. “What’s the password, Heria?”

“I don’t remember!” Heria wailed beyond the door. “Lemme in!”

Blush looked at Jerin, unsure what to do.

“Use the spyhole.” Jerin gave Blush a slight push toward the kitchen door. “Make sure she’s alone. Then let her in, but only open the bottom half of the door.”

Blush had to fetch a stool to reach the spyhole. She covered the delay by calling out, “You know we can’t let you in without a password, Heria!”

There came a minute of cursing that would have made their father blush and their grandmothers proud.

Finally,

Heria remembered the week’s password. “Teacup! It’s ‘teacup’!”

“Well, the whole county knows it now!” Blush complained. “She’s alone! Let her in.”

Heria pushed her rifle and ammunition pouch in first. then scrambled in on hands and knees. Once inside, she remained crouched on the flagstones, panting, as the door was bolted shut again. The red stain of blood on her shirt made Jerin forget to stay out of the way. He dropped down beside her.

“Are you hurt?” He tried to get her up so he could see where she bled. “Did someone shoot you?”

Heria shook her head, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, and gasped. “Not my blood.” She swallowed hard. “The-they didn’t have guns, only clubs and sabers. There’s a soldier-in the creek!”

“Did you shoot her?” Jealous admiration tinted Blush’s question.

Heria shook her head. “No. Riders chased her down out of the woods by the bend. They knocked her off her horse, into the creek. I thought they were going to kill her. and we’d get blamed, so I shot at them. The first shot just startled them.” Which meant she probably missed, and they hadn’t realized how lucky they had been. “They didn’t start to run until the second shot. 1 winged one of them.”

This got a murmur of admiration from the others.

Jerin hushed them. His youngest sisters might not see the danger remaining with the riders gone. “But they didn’t kill the soldier?”

“She’s got a big bruise on her forehead and she’s out cold in the creek.”

“In it?” Jerin cried. “Oh, Heria, you didn’t leave her to drown, did you?”

“No, of course not,” Heria said, which earned her a few dark looks from her sisters. “I got her sat up, put some rocks behind her, then laid her back down. It was the best I could do because I couldn’t move her otherwise. She’s Corelle’s size and all dead weight.” Which meant the soldier was nearly as tall as Jerin. “I didn’t know what else to do. She’s out of the water, and I’ve got her pinned so if she only half wakes, she’s not going to roll in and drown.”

“Good!” Jerin said. He was relieved that the entire younger half of the family was all accounted for, sound and secured. Now if only the older half were here, armed and ready!

“What about the riders?” Blush pressed Heria. “How many were there? Did they look like a raiding party? Are they coming back?”

“I saw five women. They didn’t look like sisters, didn’t act like sisters. They looked like river trash.

Dirty. Ragged. Poor. I winged the biggest.”

As she spoke, Jerin glanced about the kitchen at the girls clustered around him. Most barely came to his chest and only Heria weighed more than a hundred pounds. Three or four of the older girls combined could get the soldier out of the creek and to the house. But that would leave girls under ten to guard the boys.

“I’m going down to the creek and getting the soldier,” he announced, standing up.

“What?” all his little sisters shouted.

“If she’s alive, we can’t let her die on Whistler land,” he said.

“Damn right we can!” Blush snapped. There was a roar of agreement.

“We can’t!” Heria shouted. “Jerin’s right. It’s the law. We have to lend aid to travelers in distress.”

“Who would know?” Leia, the third to oldest, argued. “We just say that we never found her until after she died.”

“Her attackers would know,” Jerin pointed out. “They probably know that the soldier is alive, and that at least one of us knows it, because a Whistler shot at them.”

“Who would they tell?” Blush asked. “It would be stupid for them to tell anyone. They’ll be admitting to beating the soldier up.”

“Better than being blamed for murder,” Heria snapped. “What do you think they’ll say if the Queens Justice catches them? ‘Yes, we killed her,’ or ‘Oh, no, she was still alive when we got chased off?”

Silence fell as his sisters recognized the truth of Heria’s argument.

“The quicker we go.‘” Jerin finally broke the silence, “the quicker we get back.”

“No!” Blush cried. “We just won’t send for Queens Justice. We can bury her in the woods. No one need know.”

“Won’t wash.” Heria stood up. “There’s her horse, to start with. Do we kill it and bury it too?”

“We could drive it off,” Blush said.

“I’m eldest here,” Heria said. “Jerin and I are going down to the creek. You stand ready.”

They didn’t like it, but they had been raised as soldiers and the line of command was clear. Heria was eldest; she was to be obeyed.

“Come on,” Jerin said to Heria. “Show me where the soldier is.”

Despite everything, he was nearly too angry to be scared. “I can’t believe Corelle went off chasing after Balin’s pants. Eldest told her not to leave sight of the house while they were gone.”

“Eldest is going to kill her.” Heria trotted to keep up with his long strides. She held her carbine rifle ready, her wide-brimmed hat thumping on her back with each step.

“One can hope so.” He scanned the rolling pasture nervously. This was their main cattle field and thus, thankfully, bare of anything between the height of the short grass and the tall hickory trees. In a single glance, he could see that the pasture was clear of strangers. They would, at least, not be taken by sneak attacks. He looked back at the sprawling stone farmhouse, looking toy-sized on the hilltop.

“‘I was thinking, Jerin, maybe we should just kill this soldier. Hold her under, let her drown, then take her up onto the bank. We’ll tell the Queens Justice that we did all we could, but she died anyway.”

“Heria!”

“We don’t know anything about this woman. She might be a murderer or a husband raider. We can’t just take her into the house, give her access to our men!”

“No! You know what Grandmothers always said; the best way not to get caught for a crime is simply not to commit it. Besides, she probably has sisters, maybe close by. What if they found out we didn’t help her, that we hurt her? They could take us to the Queens Justice and strip the family of all possessions.”

And legally, as a boy, he was a possession. “After we get her to the house,” he said, “you should ride quick to fetch the Queens Justice. Then go on to Brindles’ farm and tell Corelle what’s happened.”

“I should go for Corelle first.”

“There are only four of our sisters at the Brindles’ farm. You saw five riders. We don’t know how many more might be in the woods yet. I’d rather have a troop of Queens Justice here instead of our sisters.”

“Don’t worry. If anyone tries for you, I’ll shoot them.” Heria put her rifle to her shoulder and pretended to shoot it. “Bang!”

Jerin shook his head, wishing their mothers were home, or at least their elder sisters were nearer at hand.

Corelle, and the sisters that looked to her, were all going to be in big trouble for leaving the farm unguarded.

A woman in her early twenties lay faceup in the wide, shallow creek, red hair rippling in the water like flowing blood. A purple knot marked her forehead. The soldier wore a black leather vest over a green silk shirt and black leather pants. Rings graced every finger of her left hand, with the exception of the wedding finger, and a diamond-studded bracelet looped her left wrist. Her right hand remained soldier-clear of clutter.

Jerin glanced about the creek bottom. The marsh grass, cattails, and ditch weed on the far bank had been trampled as if a great number of horses had ridden down into the creek, then back out again. A thick screen of brush cloaked the woods beyond the pasture’s stone wall, and jackdaws and chickadees darted through the branches, apparently undisturbed by humans too near their nests.

Why had the riders tried to kill this woman? Were their reasons desperate enough for them to return?

“Did the riders see you?” he whispered to Heria over the gurgle of water. “Do they know you were alone?”

“I don’t know. I hid myself like Grandmas taught me.”

Their grandmothers had been spies for the Queens. They had taught all their grandchildren, regardless of sex. how to be clever in war. Jerin wished they were alive and with him now; maybe they could decipher the dangers.

Standing around guessing wasn’t solving anything. He pointed to the woman’s horse, a fine roan mare, eating grass along their side of the creek, saddle polished glossy and decorated with bits of silver. “Can you catch her horse, Heria?”

“Easy as mud: dirt and water.” Heria moved off toward the horse, talking softly to it.

Jerin scrambled down the steep bank into the water beside the soldier. He disarmed her first, undoing her sword belt buckle to tug free the belt and scabbard. He tossed it to Heria’s feet as she brought back the horse. Jerin found the woman’s fluttering pulse, then stooped lower to examine her forehead. Marked clear on her skin was evidence of what had struck her-a steel-shod truncheon. On her wrists, forearms, and shoulders were marks of other blows.

Faced with the clear proof of attempted murder, fear became a cold, sharp-clawed beast skittering frantic inside of him. Jerin looked up, eyes to the woods again, ears straining.

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee, called the little birds, flirting in the brush. Deeper into the woods, something unseen crashed in the bracken and then went still. Jerin bit down on a yelp of fear and levered the soldier over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He scrambled quickly back up the bank.

Heria had tied the mare to a sapling, leaving her hands free to shoot. She crouched in the weeds, scanning the woods as Jerin juggled himself and the soldier up into the saddle.

“Get on behind me,” he ordered Heria.

“I can walk.” She untied the mare and handed him the reins. “It would be easier.”

“Not quicker. Get on.”

She scrambled up. “When we get to the house. I’ll ride out for the Queens Justice,” Heria said as he kicked the mare into a smooth canter for home. “I’ll tell them that Blush and Leia are here alone with you and the boys. That will bring them quick. Then I’ll go out to the Brindles’ for Corelle.”

A slight stirring made him look down at the woman in his arms. She opened her eyes and looked up at him in surprise, apparently confused by her wounds. Memory seeped in, tainting her look with fear, stiffening her in his hold.

“Hush, you’re fine, you’re safe,” he crooned softly in his best fatherly-comfort voice.

Her eyes closed, a smile slipped onto her lips, and she relaxed against his chest.

At the house, he got his youngest sisters to unlock and open the kitchen door for him to carry in the woman.

“Blush, have someone go help Heria saddle up one of the horses. Have them stable the red mare, but don’t take time to unsaddle it or anything. Kettie, lock the door behind them, and stay here to let them back in. We didn’t see any raiders, but they might still be close by.”

Out of spite, he carried the soldier up to the middle sisters’ room, to put her in Corelle’s bed.

Chaperoned by a dozen curious children, he stripped off the woman’s wet clothing.

“Emma and Celain,” Jerin said to the ten-year-olds, oldest of the girls around him, “bring up tea and whatever sugar biscuits are left over from yesterday. You will have some when you get back, so please, don’t eat any beforehand. Ask Kettie to help you while you’re down there. Have Blush or Leia carry up the teapot when the water is hot.”

So it became a tea party after he dried the soldier’s hair, bandaged two of the wounds that bled still, and slipped one of Corelle’s sleeping shirts on her. She opened her eyes from time to time, to watch him groggily, still apparently unable to move. When the tea arrived, he made hers heavy with honey and cream, coaxing the warm drink into her. His baby sisters gathered around the bed, wide-eyed, sipping tea and munching on sugar biscuits, watching every move the soldier made.

“Jerin! Jerin! Corelle and the others are home!”

Somehow his middle sisters had missed the soldier’s horse in the barn. They didn’t notice that the youngest weren’t out to play. They hadn’t seen that the windows were shuttered and the doors were locked. They couldn’t have-because they strolled lazily across the barnyard toward the kitchen door, arguing again about Balin Brindle and whether to take him as a husband or not.

Neither family had the cash to buy a husband; both could afford a husband only by selling or swapping their brothers. Where the Whistler family had the wealth of four sons, Balin Brindle was an only boy. If Jerin’s sisters took Balin as a husband, Jerin would most likely marry the Brindle sisters as payment.

Thirty Brindles- with no hope of a second husband to lessen the number! True, many of them were younger than Heria, so it would be years before he needed to service them all, but still! Worse yet, they were all ugly to him-with horsey faces, horsey laughs, and heavy hands. At a barn raising, he’d seen two Brindle sisters brawl with one another, a furious fight in which he thought they would kill each other.

The other Brindle women had stood around, shaking their heads, as if it were normal, as if it were common. A Brindle mother finally stopped the fight with kicks, punches, and curses more fearsome than the sisters‘.

No, he didn’t want to be wed to the Brindles. Just the thought of it usually made him sick. Today, though, his middle sisters’ continued consideration of the union infuriated him. They knew how he felt-and the fact they left the farm unguarded to continue the courtship made him rage.

Arms crossed, he waited at the kitchen door, seething as they strolled toward him.

“He has beautiful eyes.” Corelle was in favor of the match, of course, else she would not have allowed a trip to the Brindle farm.

“He has a temper with the babies,” Summer snapped, never happy with her role of younger sister and follower; yet she could never stand up to Corelle. “You could almost see him cringe every time the littlest one cried, and he never once tended to her. His father, bless his feeble body, looked to her every time.”

“His father wasn’t too feeble to father the baby,” Corelle quipped.

“I’ve heard that Balin did, not his father. He’s tumbling with his own mothers.”

“Summer!”

“Oh, come on, admit it-there’s a twelve-year gap in the babies and then they start back up. His father is so feeble he couldn’t work from the top. and so brittle he couldn’t endure the bottom.”

“Well, then we know the boy’s fertile.”

“And throwing only girls.”

“We can pick up other husbands. We have four brothers.”

“I don’t want him as a-” Summer noticed Jerin at the door, the angry look, and then the empty play yard, the barred shuttered windows, and his damp clothing. “Oh, sweet Mothers, Jerin, what happened?”

“Thank you. Summer, for noticing that something is wrong. I can’t believe you. Corelle, going off and leaving the farm unguarded!”

“What happened?” Corelle asked, guilt flashing across her features, then passing, as it always did.

Corelle never believed what she did was wrong-she was as good at lying to herself as she was to anyone else.

“Heria heard riders in the woods. Poachers or raiders. She went down to the creek-”

“Heria heard something,” Corelle snickered. “She heard the wind, or a herd of deer, or nothing.”

“Well, then you won’t mind that ‘nothing’ is taking up your bed, Corelle. The Queens Justice should be here soon to deal with that ‘nothing.’ They might escort the ”nothing‘ back to the garrison, or perhaps,

’nothing‘ will stay in your bed, being that she hasn’t spoken since I carried her home half dead from the creek where her attackers left her to drown.“

They gaped at him. Then Corelle reached in the opening to unlatch the bottom half of the door, pulled it open, and pushed past him to rush upstairs. Kira and Eva followed her without a word to him, as rudely intent as Corelle.

“I’m sorry, Jerin,” Summer said before hurrying after them, tagging along as usual, unable to find the will to break free to stand on her own. “I should have stayed.”

But still she followed to leave him alone in the kitchen.

Jerin checked to make sure the goose wasn’t burning, then went up to the man’s wing of the house. He sat on his wedding chest to take off his damp boots, and stripped out of his wet, muddy clothes.

There! His middle sisters were home, and Queens Justice would arrive soon, settling everything for good. All that remained was the possibility of marriage to the Brindles.

Oh. he hated the thought of marrying the Brindles! He hated everything about them, even their farm.

Poorly made with no future expansion in mind, their farmhouse was already crowded and in desperate need of repair and additions. The Brindles proudly pointed out new barns and outbuildings, but no thought had gone into their locations. None of the barns sat west of the house, to act as a windbreak to driving snow and freezing wind. None of the outbuildings abutted; thus there was no enclosed and sheltered play yard. The pigpens sat upwind and close to the house. Sturdy oaks that would have shaded off the summer sun had been cut down to make room for rickety chicken coops. Softwood maples and poplars now grew too close to the house, threatening to take out part of the roof with every storm.

And everything, everywhere, from the weed-choked garden to the sticky kitchen floor, showed signs that the Brindles had a tendency toward sloth. The problems with the farm could be solved-maybe. He might be able to push them into changing their farm to suit him.

But the fact would remain that the Brindles themselves were ugly, brutish, and three times more in number than he ever wanted to marry.

He didn’t know where his seven elder sisters stood in the matter; they had stayed closemouthed on the subject, which he took as a sign of disapproval. Had he read them wrong? Did Corelle stand as a weathercock for their older sisters’ minds? Certainly the swap of brothers would tie them close to their next-door neighbors, putting cousins on their doorstep instead of strangers.

Jerin shuddered and clung to the knowledge that at least Summer opposed the marriage with good, solid points. If Summer did, then perhaps also Eva, who usually echoed Summer’s desire-but also her inability to stand against Corelle’s will. Likewise, though, Kira followed Corelle’s lead almost blindly.

Two for, two against, if Summer and Eva had the courage to stand against Corelle. Too bad Heria would not be old enough for a say in the marriage; she disliked the Brindles.

If the seven elder sisters all opposed the swap, they outweighed the middle sisters completely. If they too were in disagreement, he didn’t want to even consider the way the vote might fall.

He didn’t want to marry the Brindles! If such things were strictly up to his mothers, then he knew his desire would be considered first. In the matter of husbands, though, their mothers bowed to the women who would actually bed the man.

Jerin dressed and picked up his muddy clothes to rinse them clean before the dirt could set. He would have to keep hoping things would work out the way he wished. To be disheartened-when his older sisters might all agree with him-was silly.

Blush’s voice suddenly rose from the front door in shrill panic.

“Riders coming in!” Blush screamed. “Corelle! Summer! Eva! Riders are coming!”

Jerin ran to his dormer window and looked out. A dozen of riders, maybe more, were coming across the pasture from the creek bottom. The Queens Justice would come from the other direction, from out across the grain fields.

The riders stopped in the apple orchard, out of volley range. Some of the riders split off from the main group and circled the house, checking the barns and outbuildings.

Their horses were fine, showy specimens, well cared for but ridden hard. Like that of the wounded soldier’s, their saddles and bridles gleamed with polish and bits of silver. Blonde-, black-, brown-, and red-haired, the riders lacked the unity of sisters. Somewhat comforting was the fact that half of them wore uniforms of the Queens Army-but then again, Jerin’s grandmas had been soldiers when they kidnapped his grandfather.

The riders converged under the apple trees again, discussed what they found and started for the house.

When they reached optimal volley range, there was a clatter of rifles being slid through the slits in the shutters.

“That’s far enough!” Corelle’s voice shouted from the dining room window. “We’ve summoned Queens Justice and they will be arriving soon. We suggest you move on.”

A black-haired woman on a huge black horse shouted back. “In the name of the Queens, we ask for a parley like civilized women, not this screaming at one another through walls.”

There was a whispered discussion in the dining room as the middle sisters conferred. Corelle suddenly ran back into the kitchen, unlatched the bottom half of the back door, and ducked out, snapping, “Lock it behind me” to Kettie. A moment later Corelle trotted around the corner of the house, rifle in hand, looking tall, cool, and unafraid.

For the first time in months, Jerin loved her and almost wept at the sight of her outside, alone, in front of the armed soldiers.

“So we talk,” Corelle stated.

“I’m Captain Raven Tern,” said the black-haired woman.

“Corelle Whistler. This is the Whistlers’ farm. You’re trespassing. We will defend our property and the lives of our younger sisters.”

“You have a roan mare in your stables that doesn’t belong to you.” Captain Tern motioned to the horse barn. Heria must have put the roan in the first stall, making the mare visible from the barnyard. “It belonged to a red-haired woman. Where is she?”

Corelle gave them a cold stare, then finally admitted,

“We found the woman down in the creek, beaten and nearly drowned. We brought her home, as the law states we should, and gave her comfort. We’ve sent for Queens Justice. They will deal with the matter.”

There was a shift in the group-shoulders straightening, heads lifting, flashes of smiles-as if the news was good, as if they had expected the soldier to be dead and didn’t want to hear that unpleasant report.

“She’s alive?” Captain Tern asked, her voice less harsh.

Corelle considered for a moment, then nodded slowly. “She is alive and, from time to time, awake, but has taken a blow to the head that has left her disoriented. We don’t know who attacked her. We don’t want trouble. We have children here to protect.”

Tern gave a slight laugh. “You’re not much more than a child yourself. Where are your mothers? Don’t you have any elder sisters?”

Corelle clenched her jaw, not wanting to answer, but the truth was too obvious to deny. If there were any older women in the house, they would be out talking to the strangers. “Our mothers and elder sisters are not here. They will be back shortly.”

One of the riders in the back, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, pushed forward. The young woman stopped even with the captain, and swept off her hat. The setting sun glittered on her flame red hair, red as the soldier’s hair.

“Do you know who you’ve saved today?” the woman asked.

Corelle shook her head. “The woman hasn’t spoken yet, hasn’t given her name.”

“She is Princess Odelia, third oldest daughter of the Queens.”

Corelle took a step back. “I suppose,” she said faintly, “that makes you a princess?”

“Yes. it does. I’m Princess Rennsellaer.”