A Brother's Price

by Wen Spencer

  More bread came up, and then his stomach was empty, but his body continued to heave.

  Cira rubbed his back soothingly, patiently waiting for him to recover. “Ren will believe you. If she loves you, she will trust you and believe what you tell her to be the truth, even if you were gone for years.”

  He shook his head. “Her mothers wouldn't let her offer for me for weeks—they might force her to give me back to my sisters.”

  “Jerin.” Cira straightened him up and wiped his face. “I swear to you, you will never be in a crib. I can guarantee that you're clean. I might seem like a river trash, but I come from a powerful, old family. The Queens will take my word.”

  He thought of all the fine belongings in her saddlebag, everything that indicated that she was much more than what she seemed. “Really?”

  “And I am not poor either. If need be, I have the money to pay your brother's price and marry you.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “We can start a new trend. One wife per husband.”

  He laughed at the ridiculousness of her plan.

  The loud roar of the packet's whistle came from the river.

  “Come on. Dry your tears and put on a smile. We're almost home free. Just a little more, and we'll be safe on the river.”

  It was odd to be among people and not be the center of attention. He and Cira moved through the crowd waiting on the landing without anyone noticing them. Amazingly, the flimsy disguise was working. Women would glance his direction, see the bright boa that Cira had him wave lazily about, gather in the lack of veil and the painted face, and lose interest in him.

  They almost made it.

  A few feet from the gangplank, Cira took a sudden deep breath, and hands caught Jerin tight from behind.

  “Not a word!” growled a familiar voice. “A single noise, missy, and we'll pop you where you stand.”

  “Ya should pop her anyhow, stealing 'im away like that!” Dossy whined.

  He swung about. They had a revolver tight to Cira's spine. “Don't you dare hurt her!”

  “Or what, little boy?” Bert sneered. “Ya cry?”

  “I'll tell your bosses that you raped me. Oh, it was awful! You dirty, infected crib sleaze took me again and again. They're paying for clean and untouched. I'll be sure to convince them you're pulling a double cross. Selling used goods!”

  “Shut ya mouth!” Bert jerked her gun back, swinging the butt around to strike him with it.

  “Bert!” Fen snapped, catching her hand. “Don't you dare, shithead! Unharmed and untouched, they said!”

  “So what do we do?” Bert asked.

  “Give them both to the bosses. Let them work it out,” Fen said.

  Jerin glanced around them. The other women on the landing looked on but made no move to interfere. Guns were already in the mix. From their faces, he realized that they still saw him as a whore having trouble with river trash. If he appealed to them as a man, once they rescued him, would they try to keep him?

  “Come quietly,” Fen said. “Or we will pop Miss High-and-mighty here and now.”

  He let himself be dragged to an alley where horses waited. Since none of his counteroffers had worked, he tried a new ploy. The Porters had left no witnesses behind them—surely they wouldn't allow Fen and her women to live, knowing their darkest secrets.

  “The Hats are a noble family planning to marry me to claim the throne,” he told them. “You'll know as soon as the marriage is announced which noble family is the Hats. You're the only ones that can testify they're one and the same. They've—”

  Fen cocked her hand in warning. “Hush your mouth, or I'll knock you silly enough you can't talk, and blame it on Miss High-and-mighty.”

  He wanted to stay conscious, so he kept his suspicions to himself.

  The side-wheeler Destiny sat waiting for them, tied off to massive oaks on a secluded bend in the river, its stage lowered to the desolate shore.

  Kij and her sisters came down to greet them in the woods, six-guns holstered on their hips. Kij smiled at Jerin, then noticed Cira and frowned. “So, you make an appearance, finally.”

  “Gods, your soul must be black,” Cira growled.

  Kij waved the insult away. “Faith is for the well-to-do. My grandmothers left us too destitute for that nonsense.”

  “But Keifer, and your Eldest, and your mothers?” Cira asked.

  “Our family doesn't age well,” Kij said lightly, as if she were talking about spilling cheap wine and not her family's blood. “Our mothers had long slipped into senility, and babbled family secrets right and left. They made a useful sacrifice—one last service to the family. Keifer, dearly as I loved him, was an idiot. He was to get himself to the first-floor bathroom. We picked that theater primarily for a place he could survive the blast. The walls reinforced by the plumbing would have protected him. He never showed. Eldest went to fetch him, but then—they weren't supposed to be killed.”

  “Ahhh, too bad. So now a husband raid?” Cira asked.

  “Oh, we didn't raid for a husband,” Kij cried, pressing her left hand to her chest, looking wounded. “The royal guard can testify without influence from us that not a single Porter sister took Jerin from the palace.”

  Kij's right hand flashed downward, drawing her pistol.

  Jerin had been watching for the move; he stepped in front of Cira, shielding her. “Kij, no!”

  The Porters' revolvers fired in thunderous rounds. Fen, Bert, little Dossy, and the others went down in a hail of bullets, the Porter sisters emptying their six-guns into the hapless river trash.

  Birds startled up out of the trees and winged away as the echoes returned from the far shore. Gun smoke wreathed them. The smell of blood grew as the river trash's lives poured out into the dirt around them.

  “There's an interesting law that applies here,” Kij calmly explained as she reloaded her pistol. “It's similar to war plunder. It says that if an unmarried man is kidnapped by party A and rescued by party B, then he belongs to party B. Losers weepers, finders keepers.” She spun the chamber on her pistol. “Step out of the way, Jerin.”

  “No.” Jerin was pleased that he sounded more firm than he felt.

  “Sisters, please, get our new husband out of harm's way.”

  “If I were you,” Cira called out to Kij from behind him, “I'd think long and hard before you walk down that road.”

  “It's a road we've walked before.” Kij raised her revolver. “A few more miles, and Queensland is ours.”

  “Kill her and I will never be your husband!” Jerin growled. “You'll have to keep me chained to a wall, because I'll escape you every chance I get. I'll tell anyone I see of the crimes you committed. You'll have to rape me for my seed! You'll have to raise our children alone.”

  “Jerin, hush.” Cira caught his shoulders and started to push him aside. “Don't give them cause to hurt you.”

  Jerin dug in his heels, refusing to move out of the way. “Let her live, and I marry you willingly. I'll stay by your side. I'll pleasure you in bed, and I'll take joy in our children. My word of honor.”

  “She knows too much,” Kij explained to him gently, then made a shooing motion with her gun. “Move aside, Jerin.”

  “Kij!” Kij's sister Meza hissed. “Not in front of him. Frankly, I want a husband with a tongue.”

  “Let's keep our options open,” their sister Alissa added.

  Kij stared at him and then lowered her pistol. “You win for now, beloved.” She turned away. “I don't want him haring off over the countryside again. Search them both, Alissa, and handcuff them in my cabin. We'll do a rotating guard on them.”

  “Search them both?” Alissa quirked up an eyebrow.

  Kij holstered her pistol. “He may be gently born, but his family were knights of valor. Unless I miss my guess, they'll arm anything that can hold a gun.”

  They found his derringer and knife, which made them search up under his robe, teasing and touching him rudely. He covered his face, a
nd hid his fierce attention to which pocket Alissa dropped his stuff into. When Meza found his stash pouch, Cira winced. Obviously she had hoped he would free himself a second time.

  “I can't believe you're turning against the Queens,” Jerin said to cover his turning, watching Meza as she frowned at the jumble of items in his pouch and then slipped it into her own pocket.

  “You can't?'” Kij took his hand, pleading understanding with her eyes. “Did you think we gave a fuck which princess was Eldest? Either one would have been the same to us! So an idiotic war we cared nothing about was waged, and our entire livelihood was blown away!”

  “That doesn't give you the right to murder the royal family!” Jerin cried.

  “They destroyed our family!”

  Cira gave a bitter laugh. “How do you figure that? No Porter was killed in the war, and you received reparations for the damage to the locks!”

  “We received chicken feed! We could only rebuild half the system on what we received, and half is worthless! We had to mortgage everything to scrape up the money, and still it wasn't enough! So we started smuggling and stealing and murdering to make ends meet. We lost our honor. We lost mothers and sisters overseeing the dangerous construction and smuggling ring. I had to shoot my own sister in the face so she couldn't be identified! The indignities we've suffered—all because the royal family couldn't settle who would be Eldest. Well, never again. We're taking the thrones.”

  Jerin exaggerated his limp, and as he came off the stage, stumbled against Alissa. She caught him out of reflex, and as she righted him, he dipped his hand down into her coat pocket. His fingers closed on the cold, welcome grip of his derringer. Lightly, he lifted the small pistol out, his heart hammering fit to break, and slipped it into his robe pocket. There was no outcry from her sisters and Alissa smiled as she took the opportunity to grope him. Even Cira, who was watching him with concern, seemed unaware. He limped forward, faked another stumble into Meza Porter, and retrieved his stash pouch. He didn't even want to try for his knife—it was so awkward a shape he was sure to be caught. Instead he meekly allowed himself to be led to Kij's cabin.

  Kij's cabin was on the second deck, in the corner farthest from the great churning paddle wheel. Jerin balked at the door, for here was surely a den of seduction. A huge bed dominated the room, covered with a thick feather mattress, sheets of silk, and drapes of brocades and dark green velvets. Cherry paneling and stained glass on the portholes darkened the room. Alissa, entering before him, took a match to the oil lamps, and the warm glow of their flames reflected on gold leaf and brass.

  Alissa looked at the bed and then at him, nostrils flaring. “On the bed, love.”

  Conscious of the four armed Porter sisters behind him, Jerin limped to the bed and sat on the very edge.

  “Chain her to the foot like a dog,” Alissa said, eyes locked on him. “She can watch while I tumble him.”

  With a great deal of laughing, they handcuffed Cira to the foot of the bed. Jerin braced himself. Against the five of them, there was nothing he could do except act as if he would honor his vow. Thankfully Alissa made no attempt to undress him. She merely pushed him back onto the bed. He twisted his robe as he fell so his pistol and stash were under him as Alissa sprawled on top of him. She writhed against him as she raped his mouth.

  “Really, Alissa,” Cira said in a tone near boredom. “Taking Diva from me hurt me more than anything you can do with him.”

  Alissa laughed, tossing her head to flip her gold hair out of her eyes, and slunk up, catlike, until she sat astride Jerin. “She was a delightful little bitch. You had her trained well. Tell me,” she said as she ran her finger over Jerin's painted lips, “is he as talented with his mouth?”

  “Why would you think I would know?” Cira drawled. “You know my tastes. You've eaten my leftovers.”

  Alissa glared at Cira, eyes narrowing, Jerin all but forgotten below her. “If you are so disinterested, why are you riding herd on him?”

  “What better bait for wolves than the sacrificial lamb?”

  Alissa made a sound of disgust and climbed off of Jerin. “Leave you to take the fun out of it. Meza, gag the bitch.” She handcuffed Jerin firmly to the headboard. “You'll have first watch, Meza.”

  Meza gagged Cira tightly, settled at the paper-strewn desk, and reached for a pen. “Good, I can get caught up with these invoices.”

  I made the right decision. I made the right decision.

  Ren clung to the mantra, though as the sun moved across the sky, she sank into utter misery. Runners bringing her updates from her sisters did nothing to shake the soundness of her decision, or give hope that Jerin would be restored to them. The ever-so-polite raid on the Herald ferreted out the Porter mole and a wealth of information. Recent deliveries of cooking goods to the barracks turned up enough poison to lay waste to the Fifth Battalion. Incensed by their close call, the troops marched the street, arresting all loiterers, turning up scores of heavily armed river trash.

  The Red Dog steamed into port, low and sleek as a hunter, the late afternoon sun glinting off the crimson-painted wood shields enclosing her decks. As women and supplies were loaded at frantic speed. Raven reported that orders had been sent downriver as far as the mouth for the Red Dog's sister ships to join in the hunt.

  Wait, was Raven's unvoiced appeal.

  Ren shook her head. All afternoon, the image of raped, mutilated, and murdered Egan Wainwright seared through her memory. Gods have mercy, her sweet beautiful Jerin was in the hands of women that had done that to a man! If the Porters meant to marry Jerin for his royal bloodline, then he would be spared that fate. But what if she had been wrong about the Porters? What if they had taken Jerin as disposable bait?

  She wouldn't delay any longer. She signaled that they were to steam out immediately. “What armaments do we have?”

  The corner of Raven's mouth dipped in worried disapproval. “The Red Dog is only lightly armed. Two eight-inch guns, one forward, the other aft, behind iron shutters. True, their twenty-pound balls will put a hole in just about anything, but you've got to be pointed in the right direction first. The bow is reinforced as a ram. And we've got the marines—a hundred rifles is nothing to sneer at.”

  “Hopefully more than what Kij has.”

  “One hopes.”

  Chapter 15

  Jerin never considered he'd fall asleep, not with the stress and fear of his situation. If he had thought it possible, he would have guarded against it. The day's rigors, however, combined with the warm, soft bed, put him fully asleep before he realized the danger.

  He woke to Kij's voice, coming from across the room, asking softly, '“Is he still sleeping?”

  “Like a babe,” Meza whispered in reply. There was a rustle of paper. “Sign here, and here.”

  “We're through the last lock. We're going ashore here. See that he gets well cared for—something to eat, a chance to relieve himself. You'll reach home within a few hours. Install him in the husband quarters—quietly. No one but family is to see him. We'll have to handle this carefully for it to work.”

  “And if it doesn't?” Meza asked.

  “The last fifty years have proved us cleverer than all. We'll weasel out and land on our feet. Have we not time and time again?”

  “We've never pushed our luck this close before.”

  “This will work. It goes faster than I planned, but a nudge here, a nudge there, and everything will fall right. Trust me. Meza.”

  There was a slight, tired sound from Meza. “I do. Please, be careful. I'd rather not have Alissa as Eldest.”

  With a laugh, Kij said her good-bye and went out the door. Jerin lay with his eyes closed and forced his breathing to stay deep.

  The duchy of Avonar lay upriver of Hera's Step. Kij said they were through the last lock, so they were now above the great waterfall. He recalled the small town that supplied boats with coal, food, and entertainment while they waited their turn to move through the locks. The town was crowded with
ship crews and passengers, people he could hide among and perhaps find aid from. While there were towns north of the falls, he would be a lone stranger in a place loyal to the Porters.

  Now was the ideal time to escape. If he was to free himself, though, he needed to get rid of Meza. Considering Kij's orders, asking for food and water might force Meza to fetch it herself. If not, she'd at least undo his hands so he could eat.

  He stirred then, making a show of waking and stretching, blinking with sleep befuddlement. Did Meza believe his act? She glanced up from her paperwork, fingers ink-stained, looking more an accountant than a murderous smuggler. Cira, on the other hand, glancing over the rim of the footboard, had murder in her eyes. Was that look of anger for him, for falling asleep, or just anger at the situation?

  Trying to ignore the hate on Cira's face, he whined, “I'm hungry, and thirsty, and I have to wee-wee.”

  “I'm not surprised,” Meza said, methodically cleaning her pens and putting the desk aright before standing. “You've been asleep for hours.”

  He felt a flare of guilt at her words. He should have tried to escape hours ago, gotten free and back to his wives. Every minute he spent away from them, the less likely he could ever return to them.

  Meza came and unshackled his wrists. Holding firmly to his elbow, she steered him to the corner where there was a chamber pot built into a dresser to make an indoor privy. She kept hold of him while he relieved himself though she averted her eyes. He chanced much, moving his stash pouch from his pocket to his loosely gathered sleeve.

  Afterward, Meza led him back and handcuffed him to the bed again. “I'll go get you something to eat.”

  Even as she shut the door behind her, he slipped the pouch out, fingered through it, and pulled the lockpick free. From the foot of the bed, Cira's eyes went large.

  Minutes later, when he undid her gag, she whispered fiercely, “You have to be the slipperiest prince consort in history! I saw them take that from you. How did you get it back?”

  “I picked Meza's pocket,” he whispered, tempted to gag her again. “I wanted to be free of them before they decided that they wanted to be serviced.”