A Brother's Price

together—buyers and sellers. When she was sixteen, she had even married a man her older sisters had bought.
    It seemed as if she had stood on the moon and watched the process from that emotional distance. Now, gods have mercy on her, she saw with her heart engaged.
    Sell one, swap the other.
    Gods, how cold, like they were horses or pieces of furniture. But the man in question wasn’t either. The man was Jerin. Beautiful, sweet Jerin, who had asked for nothing but her own safekeeping.
    Sold to strangers. Given to strangers.
    She tried not to think of horror stories she had judged. True, humans could inflict terrible cruelty upon one another, regardless of sex. Men, though, had no legal protection or recourse. They were their wives’ property. She could not even count the times she had heard of men committing suicide to escape impossible situations.
    Surely Jerin had the right of it—with four brothers his sisters could refuse offers. Eldest Whistler impressed her as an intelligent, reasonable woman. Ren trusted that Eldest would choose good wives for her brother.
    I’ll probably be swapped for a husband… maybe with the neighbors.
    Ren remembered with a start that Corelle and the younger sisters had been off courting the neighbor boy. She wondered what kind of women these neighbors were.
    Queens Justice met the royal party at Heron Landing. Ren greeted Lieutenant Bounder with a nod. The officer had been out to the campsite to ensure that the river trash received proper burial and that the body of Egan Wainwright was sent north to be buried with his wives.
    Raven took out her portable desk and scratched out orders onto a piece of stationery. “If you find anything else out, report to me.”
    “Keep an eye on the Whistlers,” Ren commanded. “It’s unlikely they’ll be bothered for their part in this— but one can’t be sure.”
    “The Whistlers can probably fend for themselves better than I can look out for them,” Bounder said.
    “Perhaps,” Ren allowed, then pressed on. “I don’t want a repeat of last time, the menfolk and the youngest alone, the older sisters out courting the neighbor, and death nearly at the doorstep.” Ren tried to remain ca-sual as she finally asked, “What do you know about these neighbors?”
    Bounder snorted. “Not as much as I would like.”
    “Meaning?”
    “The Brindle women are lazy brutes that like to pick fights. They’re horrible farmers, but they still manage to build new barns and outbuildings. I suspect they might be one of the families that smuggle in my area, but so far I haven’t caught them at anything. Just a matter of time.”
    Ren felt like she had been struck. If the Whistlers swapped brothers with their neighbors, and the Brindles were then arrested for smuggling, the weight of the law would fall on Jerin. Since men were considered property, they could be taken as part of the heavy fines against smuggling. Such men usually went to cribs belonging to the Order of the Sword, which serviced the army, or were sold to private cribs. Her Jerin in a crib ?
    Her Jerin, indeed! She scoffed at herself. As if she could marry mere landed gentry.
    Yet—yet—was he not the grandson of royalty? And was she not to be the Queen Mother Elder?
    She found herself smiling. Her Jerin, indeed.
     
    The Bright River lazed through the rolling hills of upland country, down to the great falls at Hera’s Step. Each bend was the same as the last—high banks scoured by the winter ice and spring flooding, a fringe of trees lacing the uncertain flood zone, and, beyond, fields and sprawling farmhouses. Women and children in the fields would unbend from their work to wave at the passing paddle wheel. The pilot followed river traditions and blasted the great, ear-deafening steam whistle to each group of wavers.
    Rennsellaer paced the decks, watching fields, workers, and countless little towns appear before them and slip along their sides to vanish behind the ship. It grated that someone had killed her people, taken her weapons, attacked her sister, and vanished without a trace. She wanted to hound the thieves to their lair and see them punished. Leave the tilling of the fields to the farmer’s mule , as her Mother Elder would say. As future Queen Mother Elder, she should be dealing with the entire army and not just eight missing cannons. Stopping at every town to personally conduct the search would be pointless. Raven had already sent orders to every garrison downriver, and