clear, and then opened the carriage door.
They swept into the courthouse, flanked all around by the guards, through the foyers. Raven was at the courtroom doors, waiting. Just as Ren and Odelia reached them. Raven swung open the double doors.
Normally the room seemed to be built on too ponderous a scale, as if the plan of the architect had been to crush the handful of participants by sheer height and breadth of marble. This was the first time Ren had seen a sea of humanity reduce the room to almost claustrophobic size. Almost every noble house-Mother Elder, Eldest, elder sisters-sat in attendance, completely screening the massive marble columns and walls.
Trini sat in Elder Judge position, her mouth moving, but her voice, which barely carried to the back of the room when it was empty, couldn’t be heard. Lylia perched on the edge of her throne beside Trim’s, eyes eager. In the royal box overlooking the judges’ thrones and the speaker’s floor, their youngest sisters, Zelie, Quin, Nora, Mira, and Selina, watched over what someday would be their duty to uphold.
Trini spoke again, whatever she was saying lost in the surflike roar of voices.
Lylia nearly quivered with the tension in her, and then shouted, “Silence! The court is now in session!
Bailiff! Call the first case!”
“That’s it, Lylia,” Odelia murmured fondly as silence fell. “Give them hell.”
The bailiff came from her alcove to the center of the speaker’s floor. She cleared her throat, opened her mouth to call the first case, and then caught sight of Ren and Odelia.
“All rise for Their Royal Highnesses, Princess Renn-sellaer and Princess Odelia!”
They started forward into stunned silence. Then with a renewed roar, the observers came to their feet, clapping.
Clap, Ren thought, but some of you bitches are very unhappy to see us.
Trini and Lylia stood too, not applauding, but their relief plain to read. Trini sidestepped to her normal position and Ren took the throne of the Elder Judge. She made no signal to silence the crowd, taking the opportunity to scan the gathered nobles, wondering which of them had changed the docket and why.
There were three noble families, all baronesses with massive estates of their own, who had semivalid claims: Dunwood, Lethridge, and Stonevale. The network of marriages, however, extended those three by five- or sixfold, evidenced by the number of women crammed into the courtroom. Whichever family snared the vast estate would need trusted adults to immediately take control of the far-flung shipping fleet, manage the extensive vineyards, oversee the tenant farms, and repair the half-burnt Wakecliff Manor. The heirs would turn to their sisters-in-law, who would in turn lean on their sisters-in-law.
Most likely, every woman present had a vested interest in the outcome. Any one of them could have moved the case forward.
Slowly the cheering of Ren and Odelia’s appearance lessened and then died to a soft murmur of whispered comments between family members.
Ren nodded to the bailiff.
“This court is now in session.” In her clear, carrying alto, the bailiff announced the first case. “Now judging on the orphaned estate of family Wakecliff, all lands, furnishings, and moneys herein. All petitioned claimants, make yourself be known.”
There was a brief, undignified scramble as claimants made unseemly haste to be first to make their case.
Ren motioned the bailiff to her and set the petitions in alphabetical order. Judging by the smiles on the Dunwoods and the frowns on the Stonevales, “first” was being construed as “favored.”
“The family of Dunwood claims the orphaned estate!” Eldest Dunwood spoke for her family, even though her mother was present, most likely because their claim was through her brother. “Our beloved brother, Cedric, had been married to Eldest Wakecliff and her sisters for five months. Perhaps a short period of time, but the law does not set a time limit. We’re the only clear heirs here.”
That triggered a howl of protest from the other two families and their various sisters-in-law. Ren scanned the room quickly, trying to get a feel of who supported whom. The Dunwood sisters were the youngest claimants, but came from a vigorous line. Their mothers and aunts numbered in the sixties, with two uncles, a husband, and a younger brother to bring the number of possible families directly involved to five. Indeed, the elder Pilot sisters sat sprinkled among their Dunwood sisters-in-law, heads together in conference. Ren tried to recall the name of the family that married the Dunwood boy, then remembered he was Lylia’s age, and would be coming out this season.
Eldest Lethridge waved to be recognized, and reluctantly, Ren gave her the floor. “Your Highnesses, yes, the law states that the sisters-in-law are the favored heirs of an orphaned estate, but that favoritism is based on children. Cedric Dunwood Wakecliff fathered no living children! The child that killed Rev Wakecliff was the only throw that made it to term, and it was dead before her contractions started. The Dunwood claim is thus void.”
Eldest Dunwood frowned. “It would be void if there was anyone with a better claim, but there isn’t. It’s well known that the Wakecliffs were strongly traditionalist. In the three hundred years of its recorded line, the Wakecliff family has never split. They have no cousins.”
“Not true!” Lethridge cried. “Our mothers’ brother married Mother Elder Wakecliff and her sisters. Our uncle was producing children up to his death. We are Eldest Wakecliff and her sisters’ first cousin.”
“Our claim of sister-in-law overrides yours!” Dunwood shouted.
Eldest Stonevale waved to be recognized. Ren motioned to the bailiff to silence the others and give the floor to Stonevale. As the woman moved to the speaker floor with pointed looks at the others, Ren flipped through her case binder, studying the extensive properties listed. She wished she had been given time to research it at length. In the past hundred years, through a series of desperate measures and bad judgment, vast tracts of land originally owned by the crown had been sold, some of them belatedly proving to be vital to security. Unfortunately, the new owners were rarely interested in selling back the properties. Only orphaned estates such as this one provided a chance to recover them.
Stonevale announced her dubious claim. “The family of Stonevale claims the orphaned estate. Our grandfather was Grandmother Elder Wakecliffs brother. The blood of Wakecliff flows in our veins. We have the strongest claim here.”
“Men are property,” Dunwood snapped. “They can’t inherit an estate any more than that chair can.”
“We’re not men. We’re women!” Stonevale hissed.
Dunwood said, “The daughters of a brother cannot lay claim to aunts’ property!”
“Don’t be dense!” Stonevale snapped. “The law states that descendants through the female line inherit before sisters-in-law, but there are none in this case, and it doesn’t state which sisters-in-law inherit first.
Living blood is stronger than a dead brother, especially one who didn’t father any children! We’re comparing a living Wakecliff descendant versus a-a-a burned chair!”
“How dare you say that in our hour of grief?” Dun-wood howled in rage, and leaped at the older woman. Court guards moved in, setting up a barrier between the scuffling women and the princesses first, and then breaking up the ensuing fistfight.
Ren winced, trying to ignore the scuffle and focus on the properties at stake: One of the names suddenly leaped out at her: Tuck Landing. She’d forgotten about the notorious anchorage point located within the Elpern Bank holding. In truth, Ren didn’t care which family received the money. Tuck Landing, though, she would be loath to hand over to any of them. A hundred years before, in what was tantamount to outright theft, the ownership of Elpern Bank and its anchorage had changed from the crown to the Wakecliffs. Since that time, it had become a major weakness. Both invasion forces that landed on Queensland soil had originated at Tuck Landing. Collusion was suspected but never proved in both cases.
“We are the current sisters-in-law!” Dunwood was shouting. “Listen to the words! By law, we are Eldest Wakecliffs sisters.”
Lethridge was not to be outdone. “My family is sisters-in-law to Mother Elder, which makes us your mother, and mothers inherit before daughters.”
“We are the blood of Wakecliff!” Stonevale shouted, shedding some of that blood from a broken nose.
Even as Ren realized that this squabble over the es-tate provided the crown a chance to take back Elpern Bank, it dawned on her that she might have stumbled onto the true reason the docket had been changed. Lylia certainly wouldn’t have the experience to spot the inclusion of vital real estate. Trini might have missed it. They would have judged the case, and the chance of regaining Tuck Landing would be lost.
