A Brother's Price

her role of younger sister and follower; yet she could never stand up to Corelle. “You could almost see him cringe every time the littlest one cried, and he never once tended to her. His father, bless his feeble body, looked to her every time.”
    “His father wasn’t too feeble to father the baby,” Corelle quipped.
    “I’ve heard that Balin did, not his father. He’s tumbling with his own mothers.”
    “Summer!”
    “Oh, come on, admit it—there’s a twelve-year gap in the babies and then they start back up. His father is so feeble he couldn’t work from the top. and so brittle he couldn’t endure the bottom.”
    “Well, then we know the boy’s fertile.”
    “And throwing only girls.”
    “We can pick up other husbands. We have four brothers.”
    “I don’t want him as a—” Summer noticed Jerin at the door, the angry look, and then the empty play yard, the barred shuttered windows, and his damp clothing. “Oh, sweet Mothers, Jerin, what happened?”
    “Thank you. Summer, for noticing that something is wrong. I can’t believe you. Corelle, going off and leaving the farm unguarded!”
    “What happened?” Corelle asked, guilt flashing across her features, then passing, as it always did. Corelle never believed what she did was wrong—she was as good at lying to herself as she was to anyone else.
    “Heria heard riders in the woods. Poachers or raiders. She went down to the creek—”
    “Heria heard something,” Corelle snickered. “She heard the wind, or a herd of deer, or nothing.”
    “Well, then you won’t mind that ‘nothing’ is taking up your bed, Corelle. The Queens Justice should be here soon to deal with that ‘nothing.’ They might escort the ”nothing‘ back to the garrison, or perhaps, ’nothing‘ will stay in your bed, being that she hasn’t spoken since I carried her home half dead from the creek where her attackers left her to drown.“
    They gaped at him. Then Corelle reached in the opening to unlatch the bottom half of the door, pulled it open, and pushed past him to rush upstairs. Kira and Eva followed her without a word to him, as rudely intent as Corelle.
    “I’m sorry, Jerin,” Summer said before hurrying after them, tagging along as usual, unable to find the will to break free to stand on her own. “I should have stayed.”
    But still she followed to leave him alone in the kitchen.
    Jerin checked to make sure the goose wasn’t burning, then went up to the man’s wing of the house. He sat on his wedding chest to take off his damp boots, and stripped out of his wet, muddy clothes.
    There! His middle sisters were home, and Queens Justice would arrive soon, settling everything for good. All that remained was the possibility of marriage to the Brindles.
    Oh. he hated the thought of marrying the Brindles! He hated everything about them, even their farm. Poorly made with no future expansion in mind, their farmhouse was already crowded and in desperate need of repair and additions. The Brindles proudly pointed out new barns and outbuildings, but no thought had gone into their locations. None of the barns sat west of the house, to act as a windbreak to driving snow and freezing wind. None of the outbuildings abutted; thus there was no enclosed and sheltered play yard. The pigpens sat upwind and close to the house. Sturdy oaks that would have shaded off the summer sun had been cut down to make room for rickety chicken coops. Softwood maples and poplars now grew too close to the house, threatening to take out part of the roof with every storm.
    And everything, everywhere, from the weed-choked garden to the sticky kitchen floor, showed signs that the Brindles had a tendency toward sloth. The problems with the farm could be solved—maybe. He might be able to push them into changing their farm to suit him.
    But the fact would remain that the Brindles themselves were ugly, brutish, and three times more in number than he ever wanted to marry.
    He didn’t know where his seven elder sisters stood in the matter; they had stayed closemouthed on the subject, which he took as a sign of disapproval. Had he read them wrong? Did Corelle stand as a weathercock for their older sisters’ minds? Certainly the swap of brothers would tie them close to their next-door neighbors, putting cousins on their doorstep instead of strangers.
    Jerin shuddered and clung to the knowledge that at least Summer opposed the marriage with good, solid points. If Summer did, then perhaps also