least with my little brothers, except everyone’s more careful with them. I loved it when my father was alive. He had to shave his face with a razor every day, or he would grow whiskers. His voice was deep: when he was in another room, he rumbled like a distant storm. He was always patient, but he never talked to me like I was a child, like my elder sisters do. He would say, ‘You’re almost a full-grown man.
You need to act like it.’ He told me all sorts of stuff about being married, like how to make sure your wives aren’t jealous of each other.”
“How?” Cullen asked, his eyes bright with curiosity.
“Well, you never tell any of them that they’re your favorite, even if they are. He said you should always try to act equally happy to be with any one of them, and to always stick to a service schedule, Eldest to youngest, without skipping anyone for any reason.”
“Ugh. That doesn’t sound like fun. What if that night’s wife is sick?”
“Wait a day and sleep alone,” Jerin said after a moment of recalling his father’s advice. “Father was a youngest child, and his elder sisters married a man who was obvious in which wives he liked the most. It caused all sorts of fighting between the sisters. One sister even left to join the Sisters of Hera.”
“Sounds like Keifer, only Keifer kept changing his mind.”
Jerin’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of Ren’s dead husband. “What was he like?”
“Keifer? Oh, I hated him. He used to lie to me and make me cry. I was only nine or ten at the time. He told me that my you-know-what would fall off because I ate too many cookies. Then one day he smacked me, I forget why-actually, I’m not sure there was even a reason why-but we didn’t come back to the palace again until after he was killed.”
“Oh.” Jerin fiddled with a raspberry tart, saddened that Ren had had such a terrible marriage. At least she was out of it, able to marry someone better for her and Odelia and the others.
Cullen chattered on. “I suppose, though, he wasn’t any older than we are now. You know, I don’t feel old enough to get married and father children.”
“My father said you never feel old enough.”
“Oh, rats.”
The conversation drifted off onto other subjects. Neither one of them liked to sew, or had any interest in clothes. However, they shared a love of horses. Jerin made the mistake of complaining that his sister would let him ride only the older, gentler mares who rarely would do anything more than a easy canter.
“They let you ride! Good gods, Jerin, I would kill to be able to ride! My family won’t let me near horses.
I had some great-great-grandfart that got kicked in the head and died. Lylia will sneak me out to the stable, but even she won’t let me do more than pet them over the stable wall.”
There was a bang at the door, followed by Eldest calling, “Jerin? Jerin? Come open the door!”
Jerin jerked up in surprise, and then all the worry he felt earlier came flooding back, chased by guilt that he’d forgotten about his fears. He rushed the door, unbolted it, and flung it open without a thought about Cullen. His sisters stood waiting in the hall-Eldest and Corelle in strange ill-fitting clothes for some reason-safe and sound. With a cry of happiness, he hugged Eldest.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened,” Eldest laughed, lifting him up in a bear hug and walking him back through the doors.
“Then what happened to your clothes?”
He had never seen Eldest blush before.
“You’ve been pinched!” Summer grinned at Eldest, using the cant word for “discovered” or
“apprehended.” Jerin wondered what he’d caught Eldest doing, and why it had been necessary for her and Corelle to change their clothes. Summer’s smile faded as she spotted the table set with four cups and a host of dirty plates. “Jerin, who did you have tea with?”
Eldest came to attention, moving Jerin behind her as she put him down. “You’re not alone?”
“Ummm.” Jerin peered over Eldest’s shoulder to discover the parlor was empty. “Cullen?”
For a moment, he thought maybe Cullen had climbed back out the window. Then Cullen peeked around the doorway of Jerin’s bedroom. He had taken out the horse-blanket pin so his kilt fell to its proper length.
“This is Cullen Moorland,” Jerin said.
“My cousin Cullen, who shouldn’t be in guest quarters by himself,” a female voice behind Eldest clarified. The voice belonged to a girl in her mid-teens, with hair the color of a new copper coin and a rash of sun-darkened freckles. “And I’m Princess Lylia.” Lylia, the supplier of wine, cigars, and naughty pictures. She held out her hand to Eldest and they shook like equals. “I’m Cullen’s escort, when I can catch up with him. I was hoping to find him here.”
“I’m a boy, not a baby.” Cullen pouted.
Eldest ignored the comment. She introduced herself, Corelle and Summer, and Jerin.
Lylia gave Jerin a long measuring look and smiled at what she saw. “A pleasure.”
Cullen tsked as Jerin blushed. “No, no, you tilt up your chin, raise one eyebrow calmly, and state, i know.‘”
“Oh, but I like the blush,” Lylia said.
“If he keeps blushing like that, you’ll have to use a pry bar to get the women off him,” Cullen said.
“Arrogance. It’s the only way to have a moment’s peace.”
“As if you had practice,” Lylia said, tugging on Cul-len’s braid.
Cullen tweaked her cheek. “I’ll have you know that there are families out there that are willing to overlook a small streak of headstrongness.”
“Small? Ha!” Lylia rolled her eyes. “I was going to suggest a walk in the gardens.” She tilted her head in the direction of the door. “Just the six of us.”
“A pleasure,” Eldest murmured.
Lylia did not take Cullen’s arm, as Jerin expected her to do, but let her cousin lead the way. Summer and Eldest fell into step with Cullen, flanking him. On a hand signal from Eldest, Corelle took Jerin’s arm with a sigh of the long-suffering, and Lylia walked beside them.
“There are actually several gardens inside the palace walls,” Lylia explained as they strolled down a flight of stairs and several hallways to the porch where the Queen Mother Elder had first met with them. “The family is mad about puttering about in the muck, bending nature to their will. I don’t have the madness, so I don’t quite understand it, but Trini and, strangely enough, Odelia are both crazy about it.”
The gardens were a riot of color, in full bloom with early-summer flowers. Paths of pea gravel meandered through drifts of peonies to archways leading to other gardens.
“The back wall is sixteen feet tall and is patrolled night and day. The gardens are as safe as the house.”
Lylia pointed out the wall a few hundred feet away. “We can walk around without fear in here.”
“My favorite area is down here.” Cullen led the way to a well-shaded grotto, where water spilled over a water-fall into a deep, rock-lined pool. “The cliff was built here for my uncle. If you look carefully, you can see the individual slabs of stone they fitted together to make it.”
Jerin studied the wall several minutes before finding the finger-wide joints of the very natural-looking cliff face.
“The water is pumped by that windmill.” Lylia pointed to a picturesque structure, its sailcloth arms creaking in the stiff wind.
“Oh.” Pieces of Jerin’s education came together in his mind. “We’re at the top of a sandstone cliff. The ground is probably too porous to keep water up here.”
His reasoning seemed to please the princess for some reason. Lylia grinned widely at him. “Exactly!”
Beyond the grotto, there were lily pools and a hedge maze. They strolled on, he and Lylia falling behind the others, frightening hidden frogs into the water with a soft plop, plop.
“Does the windmill pump all the water for everything, or just the gardens?”
“There are several water supplies. Specially lined cisterns collect the rainwater; plus there are several wells. If you look up there, on the roof, there are tanks that the windmill fills. In the family wing, there are indoor privies with running water. Mothers had them installed when I was little.”
“My aunts needed to build a new wing to their home, so they designed their house to have a indoor privy,” Jerin said. “It’s very clever.”
