by Wen Spencer
“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—s
houlders 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.”
Chapter 2
Princess Rennsellaer, current Eldest of the Queens' daughters, sat in the shade of the apple orchard, secretly glad for the chance to relax her nerves. She had been growing more and more sure that she'd find her sister Odelia dead, and that she would have to return home and tell her mothers that not only had the long-awaited cast-iron cannons been stolen, but another of their daughters had been killed.
The worst came when the peaceful-looking farmhouse suddenly bristled with rifle barrels, and it seemed that she and her guard had ridden into a trap. Their fears had quickly been allayed by the shouted challenge—the house held nothing more than frightened farmers defending their own—but the close call rattled her.