A Brother's Price

down there?” Raven asked.
    “They took our two-year-old fillies down for market,” Eldest said.
    “They go the extra distance to visit their sisters and brothers,” Jerin added.
    “Sisters and brothers?” Ren asked, clearly startled by their rare proliferation.
    “Our grandmothers had twenty-four daughters and three sons,” Eldest explained. “They split the family in half. The elder twelve sisters stayed here at the farm, and swapped the oldest brother for a husband. The youngest twelve swapped the middle brother, and got the brother’s price from selling their youngest brother. They started a trading house in Annaboro with the money.”
    A call took Eldest away. Jerin continued since the subject seemed safe.
    “Our mothers take our bloodstock down every summer to sell. Sometimes they take us along, so we stay close to our cousins. In the winter, when trading is slow, our aunts, uncles, and cousins come to visit us.”
    “I see,” Ren murmured. “What do your sisters plan with their wealth of brothers?”
    The question made his stomach drop. “We might split the family again: eleven older sisters, seventeen younger. With the four of us boys, my sisters could swap two brothers for husbands, and sell the other two. Eldest is already twenty-eight; she and the others want a husband soon. I’ll—I’ll probably be swapped for a husband.” He closed his eyes to force himself to say in a neutral voice, “Maybe with the neighbors. Doric will be of age in six years, but none of the youngest sisters will be quite old enough then, so they might sell him. Liam and Kai—sell one, swap the other.”
    “It sounds so cold.”
    “Actually it isn’t that bad. With four boys, there is no pressure to accept the first offer.”
    Ren reached out to clasp his hands. “Keep safe.”
     
    With the royal party departed, the farm seemed emptier than two days previous when Eldest and the others were still gone. This being a laundry day. Jerin washed out the trousers he’d rescued Odelia in, and the sheets soiled by dreams of Ren. Her perfume clung to his nightshirt and he stood smelling it, wishing now that they had finished the deed. Finally, he added it to the soapy water, saying to himself, “Silly, silly boy.”
    When Corelle appeared, wanting to make sure he wasn’t ruining his hands with the hot wash water, he threw a bucket of dirty soap water at her. Corelle leaped at him, fist upraised, and vanished under a pile of screaming, flailing girls. The youngest dragged Corelle down by sheer volume as she punched and kicked. Jerin cursed and started snatching the littlest ones out of the fight before they could get seriously hurt.
    “Stop it! Stop it!” he yelled, plucking Violet out of the fray. The four-year-old had a bloody nose already. “Damn it. Corelle, you’re going to hurt someone!”
    “Good!” she roared.
    Heria appeared suddenly, summoned by the fighting. “Corelle, do you want to be thrown out of the family? Stop it now, or I’ll see it done!”
    It shocked all the girls into stillness.
    “Who do you think you are?” Corelle growled, wiping blood from a split lip.
    “Eldest is pissed enough for you going off and leaving the boys unguarded, Corelle. You shouldn’t be fighting with the little ones, and if you hit Jerin, I’ll tell. Eldest will throw you out for sure.”
    “I’ll tell! I’ll tell!” Corelle whined and shoved Heria hard, knocking her to the ground. “Oh, shut up!”
    Corelle stormed away, leaving behind little girls too angry to cry. Worse, they still had to carry the heavy baskets of wet linens down to the clotheslines and hang up the sheets. In the end, they pinned up only forty of the sixty sheets, creating walls of white that rippled in the wind. Blood from dripping noses, cut hands, and bloody lips splattered the rest of the sheets and they needed to be rewashed.
     
    At dinnertime Eldest announced Corelle’s punishment for leaving the farm unguarded: her personal items, with the exception of weapons and work clothes, would be divided out to the youngest sisters and she would be given no more pocket money for the rest of the year. Hinting at a day spent inventorying Corelle’s belongings. Eldest read the list to be parceled out: Corelle’s flashy buckskin mare, her fine-tooled saddle bought at last year’s fair, her gold money clip, her two silk shirts, her tooled leather belts with silver buckles, her silver currycomb, and even her coveted keepsake box inlaid