A Brother's Price

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, dropped the matchbox back into her pocket. “Later,” she murmured around the cigar, not adding that the smell would make their pregnant mother nauseous. “Two thousand.” Eldest studied the store with narrowed eyes. “It’s worth it.”
    “You thinking of buying?” Jerin asked her, surprised. He didn’t think his family had that much cash.
    “Your brother’s price, even without going to Mayfair, could reach two thousand