A Brother's Price

talk about that later.”
    Ren looked down at her plate to cover a bolt of jealousy. Command of a family came so easy for someone who held her position from her first breath, blessed with the name of Eldest. In their cradles, younger sisters were told, “Listen to Eldest—she’ll be Mother Elder when she’s grown.” even when the sisters were younger only by months or days. Ren wished she had that luxury in her own family, then, chiding herself for being small-hearted, wished instead that her elder sisters hadn’t been killed, making her Eldest over sisters well practiced at disagreeing with her. She had not, in fact, even been the natural leader of the middle sisters. Halley had commanded Odelia, Trini. Lylia, and herself from the time they had left their cradles until the night Ren had become the Eldest.
    Halley was younger by only six months. Six months that had never mattered before.
    “We don’t air family problems in front of strangers,” Eldest Whistler stated as one who is never argued with. She finished the last bite of her eggs and pushed away the empty plate. “So, Your Highness, what brings you upriver to Heron Landing?”
    Her eyes asked, “What troubles do you bring to my home?”
    Ren glanced about the table, at the family trained by the best spies that Queensland had ever had. and decided that perhaps it would be best to take them into her confidence. “While we didn’t engage the Imomains in full war, it has been a costly effort to keep them off our shores. Our coffers are low, and we can ill afford the drain on tax revenue that smuggling represents. Worse, smuggling on the rivers has increased tenfold in the last decade. The Queens contracted with a family of gun-makers upriver at North Branch to produce guns to be the teeth in our efforts to bear down on the smugglers. Princess Odelia and I decided to do a surprise inspection.” Actually, Ren had dragged Odelia into duty, determined the younger princess would act her age and rank. “We had interrupted a raid on the armory. While we managed to prevent the theft of six naval guns, all the small arms and a series of cast-iron cannons were taken. The cannons are our main concern now.”
    “Cast iron?” Corelle scoffed. “You can’t cast iron barrels uniformly. Under pressure they burst, killing everyone within dozens of feet. No one’s made cast-iron cannons since Deathstriker burst twenty years ago.”
    Eldest frowned at her sister’s rudeness, but added, “Bronze is the best metal for cannons.”
    Even after two generations of farming, they remained well schooled in the art of war. Until a few months ago, what they said had been true.
    “Unless you want to rifle them.” Ren pointed out the true flaw of bronze. “Bronze is too soft of a metal. The friction wears down the rifling in a short amount of time.”
    Jerin had been listening with his amazingly blue eyes open wide. He leaned to his Eldest sister and whispered, “How do you make a cannon a rifle?”
    Eldest answered, obviously aiming her answer more to the very youngest of her sisters than to Jerin. “Rifling is cutting spiral grooves down the bore of the weapon, any weapon. It makes the shot fly straighter, so your aim is truer. Smooth bores, weapons without the grooves, you might as well point in the general direction, pull the trigger, and hope.”
    Ren nodded at this patient explanation. “The Wainwrights at North Branch proved they could make a reliable, cast-iron, breech-loaded cannon.”
    “Completely reliable?” Eldest asked.
    Ren shrugged. “Extremely reliable—I would call nothing ‘completely.’ Apparently the novelty of their method isn’t in the reinforcement of the cast iron forward of the breech—others have tried that and failed—but in the method of attachment.” While his sisters listened passively, Jerin nodded slightly to indicate he followed the explanation. Ren controlled the urge to smile encouragement to him. “A wrought iron band is allowed to cool in place while the gun is rotated, which allows the reinforcement to clamp on uniformly around the circumference of the breech. We ordered eight ten-pounders. The Wainwrights called them the Prophets: Joan, Bonnye, Anna, Judith, Gregor, Larisa, Nane, and Ami.”
    “At Greenhaven,” Eldest reported, “they were saying that the Wainwright place blew up, that their ammo went up and took out the shop and the house.”
    Ren shook her head. “The thieves killed the family in their beds