They planned on being early to Heron Landing so there’d be no chance of missing the packet that arrived at noon. Three-quarters of a mile from the house, the Whistlers’ lane joined the common road; there, Eldest was able to whip the horses into a smooth trot. Captain Tern rode outrider on her big black, easily keeping pace, her eyes sharp for danger.
While they traveled, they discussed what to buy at the mercantile in town. Mother Elder started the discussion by clucking over the condition of Jerin’s traveling hat, and stated that he couldn’t board the packet without a new one. Summer had promised all those left behind to buy stick candy and send it home with the wagon. Eldest wanted ammo for their pistols, which, in Mayfair, would be their principal weapons. Jerin needed cream for his hands, as they were hopelessly callused and chapped by his chores, but he wouldn’t give Corelle the satisfaction of hearing him say it aloud. Corelle, of course, had no money, so it came as no surprise when she declared that she would stand guard on their luggage with Mother Erica.
By Eldest’s pocket watch, they arrived in town a good two hours before the packet was due. She pulled the wagon up to the mercantile’s hitching post and swung down to tie the horses off. Captain Tern tied her black alongside, then came to give Jerin a hand down. Eldest frowned but said nothing; she was used to him scram-bling up and down on his own, but then normally he wore trousers.
The mercantile was the largest building in town, with twin mullioned bay windows bracing the door. A wooden sidewalk ran the length of the front, and the hitching posts were cast iron. The Picker sisters had run the store for as long as anyone could remember. The tiny old women had frightened Jerin when he was small; compared to his tall, lean grandmothers and mothers, the merchant sisters seemed like something out of a fairy tale.
The bell over the door announced the Whistlers’ entrance. They scattered among the bins and tall shelving: Captain Tern followed Jerin to the hand creams near the back counter, and watched without comment as he studied the selection. Apparently only men used hand cream. The bottles showed simplified pictures of hands, flowers or fruit, and perfect little mounds of cream; one chose by scent.
Lilac. Rose. Jasmine. Apple. Peach. Vanilla. Jerin wondered which scent Rennsellaer liked the most; he wished he had the nerve to ask Captain Tern. Then again, would the captain of the guard even know?
He chose vanilla and took it to Eldest so she could buy it for him. She stood at the back counter, box of ammo in hand, watching with interest as one of the Picker sisters painted a sign. Jerin couldn’t tell the sisters, with their faces wrinkled up like dried-apple dolls, apart; Eldest, who did most of the family purchasing, could.
“What’s this, Meg?” Eldest tapped the painted sign. •‘You’re selling the place?“
“Yup,” the wizened old woman said. “The store, the outbuildings, and all of the goods. We’re getting too old to run the place. Haddie fell and broke her hip last night; she’s the youngest of us Picker girls and we depended on her to do all the heavy work. We’ve talked for years about putting this place on the market. Last night just decided it for us.”
“Your family has been here for ages,” Eldest said.
“One hundred and thirty-three years,” Meg said proudly. “Mothers to daughters for”-the old woman paused to count on her fingers-“five generations. My great-great-grandmothers came upriver with a boatload of goods in 1534 and bought two acres of land from the crown. But we’ve always had bad luck with the menfolk. Not like you Whistlers.”
Another Picker sister had come up the aisle to brush past Jerin. She came only to his chest and stood child- sized next to his sister. She gazed toward Mother Elder with sharp, envious eyes. “Rumor has it that you’ve got another on the way.”
“Don’t jinx us, Wilma Picker,” Eldest growled. “It’s unlucky to talk about a child still in the womb.”
“Gods love the boy children-that’s why they call so many back before they can be born.” Meg used the most popular belief for the cause of miscarriages.
“Our mothers had twenty-six miscarriages,” Wilma sighed. “And Mother Ami had one little boy stillborn, perfect down to his fingernails yet blue and cold as the sky. The grief of it nearly killed her.”
“Hush, you ninnies.” Eldest Picker hobbled out of the back room, hunched nearly double with a widow’s hump, leaning heavily on a cane. She paused to poke threateningly at her younger sisters.
“Decent women don’t talk that way in front of menfolk, especially the young ones.”
The younger Picker sisters skittered away, leaving Eldest Picker frowning in their wake. “Can’t whack them like I used to.”
“I’m sure you can still deliver a good thumping, Picker.” Jerin’s sister nodded in greeting, Eldest to Eldest.
“I can hit just as hard as I used to, Whistler!” Eldest Picker snapped. “It’s them! They break too easy now. I got to pull my hits!”
Eldest Whistler ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, trying not to grin. “Well, now, that’s a problem.”
“I’m too old to be learning how to curb my temper.” the old woman snapped. “Especially with this pack of ninnies! I swear they’re all getting senile.”
“How much you asking?” Eldest Whistler tapped the For Sale sign again.
“Two thousand crowns,” Picker stated firmly.
Eldest whistled at the price.
“It’s worth it,” Picker snapped, then added softer, “We’re willing to listen to offers, though. We need enough to live on until the last of us die.”
“A shame you don’t have children to take it on,” Eldest said.
“It’s a tasteless stew, but it’s all we have to eat.” The old woman shrugged. “Our mothers mortgaged everything to buy Papa, and he died without giving us a brother. We could have paid the mortgages, or paid for visits to a crib. If we hadn’t paid the mortgages, we’d be out on the street now, so old the first winter storm would put a period to us all.”
Meg returned to fetch wet paintbrushes. “We should have took in a stray or two, adopted them as our own.”
“And broken the laws of gods, Queens, and good common sense?” Picker snapped. “It’s been thirty years, for gods’ sake. Can’t you shut up about that?”
Meg wrinkled up her face more. “We wouldn’t be selling this business to strangers if we had.”
“No, we’d be giving it to them instead!” Picker said. “The prophets say adoption is a hidden evil. It only encourages the idiots to overproduce in vain hopes of a boy. Look at those Brindles. They got the boy sleeping with his mothers in search of another son to sell off. Like someone would buy the inbred monster. Idiots! They’re struggling to feed thirty children and all the while producing more that no one would want their brother to marry. I’m sure, if they thought they could get away with it, they would be littering the countryside with dead girl babies.”
“You shouldn’t slander the customers,” Meg muttered.
“They won’t be mine for much longer!” Picker snapped. “If I could have gotten my hands on good solid stock like the Whistlers here, I would have said yes to you thirty years ago-but people like them don’t give up their little ones. It’s the lazy ones that overbreed because it’s easy to do, pleasant to do. Breed with a man, eat like a pig while increasing, and if the baby is born the wrong sex, just toss it away to start again. I tell you, if we’d adopted your ‘strays,’ we’d be up to our armpits in lazy children. Breeding tells, I say. It tells every time.”
The old woman had wound down as she talked till this last was a slow, soft mutter. She took a deep breath, glanced at Jerin, and frowned fiercely at her sister. “Now, look what you’ve made me do. Talk coarse in front of this pretty little thing. My pardon, Eldest Whistler.”
“No harm done.” Eldest grinned. “I’m pleased to know our neighbors think of us as good solid stock.”
“Aye, we do,” Picker said. “You’re not drunks, wastrels, smugglers, thieves, or idiots. You’re honest in your business, and no one begrudges you thirty-two children when four of them are boys. People wonder that you didn’t try for more.”
Eldest threw a look where Mother Elder was still looking at the hats. “Now is not the time for counting children.”
“Sorry. I forgot.” Eldest Picker reached back without looking and selected a thin cigar and offered it as an apology.
“Thank you.” Eldest put it in her mouth, reached for her matches, and then, glancing to Mother Elder,
