A Brother's Price

quickly back up the bank.
    Heria had tied the mare to a sapling, leaving her hands free to shoot. She crouched in the weeds, scanning the woods as Jerin juggled himself and the soldier up into the saddle.
    “Get on behind me,” he ordered Heria.
    “I can walk.” She untied the mare and handed him the reins. “It would be easier.”
    “Not quicker. Get on.”
    She scrambled up. “When we get to the house. I’ll ride out for the Queens Justice,” Heria said as he kicked the mare into a smooth canter for home. “I’ll tell them that Blush and Leia are here alone with you and the boys. That will bring them quick. Then I’ll go out to the Brindles’ for Corelle.”
    A slight stirring made him look down at the woman in his arms. She opened her eyes and looked up at him in surprise, apparently confused by her wounds. Memory seeped in, tainting her look with fear, stiffening her in his hold.
    “Hush, you’re fine, you’re safe,” he crooned softly in his best fatherly-comfort voice.
    Her eyes closed, a smile slipped onto her lips, and she relaxed against his chest.
     
    At the house, he got his youngest sisters to unlock and open the kitchen door for him to carry in the woman.
    “Blush, have someone go help Heria saddle up one of the horses. Have them stable the red mare, but don’t take time to unsaddle it or anything. Kettie, lock the door behind them, and stay here to let them back in. We didn’t see any raiders, but they might still be close by.”
    Out of spite, he carried the soldier up to the middle sisters’ room, to put her in Corelle’s bed. Chaperoned by a dozen curious children, he stripped off the woman’s wet clothing.
    “Emma and Celain,” Jerin said to the ten-year-olds, oldest of the girls around him, “bring up tea and whatever sugar biscuits are left over from yesterday. You will have some when you get back, so please, don’t eat any beforehand. Ask Kettie to help you while you’re down there. Have Blush or Leia carry up the teapot when the water is hot.”
    So it became a tea party after he dried the soldier’s hair, bandaged two of the wounds that bled still, and slipped one of Corelle’s sleeping shirts on her. She opened her eyes from time to time, to watch him groggily, still apparently unable to move. When the tea arrived, he made hers heavy with honey and cream, coaxing the warm drink into her. His baby sisters gathered around the bed, wide-eyed, sipping tea and munching on sugar biscuits, watching every move the soldier made.
    “Jerin! Jerin! Corelle and the others are home!”
     
    Somehow his middle sisters had missed the soldier’s horse in the barn. They didn’t notice that the youngest weren’t out to play. They hadn’t seen that the windows were shuttered and the doors were locked. They couldn’t have—because they strolled lazily across the barnyard toward the kitchen door, arguing again about Balin Brindle and whether to take him as a husband or not.
    Neither family had the cash to buy a husband; both could afford a husband only by selling or swapping their brothers. Where the Whistler family had the wealth of four sons, Balin Brindle was an only boy. If Jerin’s sisters took Balin as a husband, Jerin would most likely marry the Brindle sisters as payment. Thirty Brindles— with no hope of a second husband to lessen the number! True, many of them were younger than Heria, so it would be years before he needed to service them all, but still! Worse yet, they were all ugly to him—with horsey faces, horsey laughs, and heavy hands. At a barn raising, he’d seen two Brindle sisters brawl with one another, a furious fight in which he thought they would kill each other. The other Brindle women had stood around, shaking their heads, as if it were normal, as if it were common. A Brindle mother finally stopped the fight with kicks, punches, and curses more fearsome than the sisters‘.
    No, he didn’t want to be wed to the Brindles. Just the thought of it usually made him sick. Today, though, his middle sisters’ continued consideration of the union infuriated him. They knew how he felt—and the fact they left the farm unguarded to continue the courtship made him rage.
    Arms crossed, he waited at the kitchen door, seething as they strolled toward him.
    “He has beautiful eyes.” Corelle was in favor of the match, of course, else she would not have allowed a trip to the Brindle farm.
    “He has a temper with the babies,” Summer snapped, never happy with