A Brother's Price

to cuddle them. You try to keep your distance, but at the end of the year, when it’s going to be months before you see them again—it just breaks my heart.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not your fault,” she scolded.
    “I mean—well, I guess I mean that I feel sorry for you.”
    “Don’t. I’m getting married. We’ll have baskets and bushels of babies and get as blase about them as everyone else.”
    “Blase?” he asked, unsure what the word meant.
    “Casual. Careless.” She defined the word using ones he did know. “Ever been to a social function and watch the mothers with their babies? Oh, you can’t hold the little boys—no one but family gets to hold the boys— but they pass the baby girls off like sacks of wheat. Anyone can hold them as long as they want. And they sigh over the fact that the baby girls weren’t born boys. You want to scream at them how lucky they are, and how they shouldn’t take these healthy babies so lightly. And at least once a week you wonder if you’re still young enough to carry a healthy child to term and survive delivering it. or maybe you should avoid all the risk, even though the thought of not being pregnant at least once is like putting a gun to your head and—”
    She shuddered to a stop, and wiped tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say things like that to you. I’m happy. I truly am.”
    He reached out and covered her hand. “I’m sure things will be fine.”
    “Indeed. Holy Mothers are kind.” She sniffed, and forced herself to smile. “Well. I’ll leave this with you to study. Eldest can drop it at my cabin later.”
    With that, she withdrew.
    “She should have gone to a crib,” Raven murmured after Miss Skinner’s footsteps had faded away. “Got herself pregnant before this. It’s warped her.”
    He could not help but feel that she was right. “Are you married, Captain Tern?”
    “No. Don’t particularly want to be. I don’t get along well with my sisters, so I try to stay away from home. Not everyone fits the molds of society.”
    “Do you want children?”
    Captain Tern considered the question and finally shrugged. “I don’t like small children. Their noise—that high-pitched squealing—and energy level grate on my nerves. You can’t reason with them. If you try bribing them, then they get spoiled and throw fits. My baby sisters drove me out of my home. I couldn’t stand them. I certainly don’t have a desire to raise any of my own. Still. I can’t imagine not having a family. I send part of my paycheck home every week, and visit when I get lonely.”
     
    The first deck of the steamboat had a dining room. They had avoided it the first night, eating instead from the food hamper. For breakfast and lunch of the next day, one of his sisters carried sandwiches back to their cabins to supplement the dwindling cache. By the second night, the food was gone. Reluctantly, they went down for dinner.
    Round tables, with chairs to sit ten, crowded into the space, lit by chandeliers of oil lamps. Eldest chose a table with easy access to the doors. She and Captain Tern sat on either side of Jerin, Summer and Corelle flanking them. Jerin was the only one able to sit and eat in peace.
    Most women approaching the unoccupied chairs veered away after one hard look from Captain Tern and Eldest. When they were almost through with dinner, however, a family of four sisters sat down, ignoring the pointed stares.
    “We have a hundred crowns,” the oldest-looking of the sisters stated.
    “So?”‘ Eldest looked as mystified as Jerin felt.
    “We’re the Turners,” the oldest Turner said. “We were going to Suttons Ferry. There’s supposedly a clean-run crib there. But we heard the talk since you’ve boarded. Four boys in your family, and you’re taking this one to market.”
    Captain Tern put down her silverware and slowly slid back her chair, her hands dropping down to her gun belt.
    Eldest growled softly. “Shut your mouth! My brother isn’t livestock.”
    A younger Turner sister leaned in. “What my sister is saying is that your family throws lots of boys. We were going to spend ten crown a night for one of us, probably Jolie here, to try for a baby.” She indicated the youngest, a mere teenager. “We’re too poor to afford a husband, so we’re doing it by tens, as they say.”
    “My brother isn’t for sale,” Eldest said.
    Younger Turner said, “We’re offering twice the crib price, twenty crowns, because