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
