A Brother's Price

father was alive?” Jerin asked.
    “It was my favorite part of the palace.”
    “I’ll have to work on making it so again.”
     
    The husbands’ quarters were very much a place of history. The rooms had been cleaned and aired, but layers and layers of the generations remained. A cabinet of board games. A jeweled collection of kaleidoscopes. A sewing stand filled with musty supplies. A knitting basket with a half-finished baby blanket. A collection of music boxes. Even the massive wardrobes in the dressing room brimmed with clothes.
    “After our husband was killed,” Queen Mother Elder said with slight bitterness, “Keifer wanted some of his nicer clothes. Then, after the explosion, none of us could stand the thought of dealing with them. We should have removed them before today.”
    Jerin lifted down one floral dressing gown, the silk floating in his hands. “It seems a shame. They’re beautiful.”
    “Many of them have memories attached,”‘ Ren said, taking the gown from him. “Not all of them good.”
    Even the good ones, Jerin reflected, could be painful. “What will you do with them?”
    “Sell them to a ragpicker,” Odelia said.
    “I’d rather see them burned,” Ren said, “than to have strangers going over Papa’s things.”
    An idea occurred to Jerin, and he started to speak without thinking it through. “We could—” And then the thought reached its logical end. He was about to suggest sending the clothes to Cullen; his sisters could never provide such a rich wardrobe. Then he remembered the fate of the fine clothes the Queens had provided to his sisters; they were to be sold on the racks of his sisters’ new store. He winced at the realization that his sisters would be equal to ragpickers.
    “We could what?” Ren asked.
    He considered saying, “Nothing,” but in truth, he couldn’t be sure that his sisters would sell them at the store. “We could send them to Cullen. My sisters could never afford the type of clothes he is used to.”
    Odelia laughed. “Cullen is probably withholding sexual services until he’s allowed to ride horses. These are barely clothes you could wear outside.”
    “You could make holiday shirts for the little ones out of these,” Jerin pointed out. “Or curtains, or slipcovers for chairs.”
    Odelia and Lylia laughed.
    Trini frowned at them. “Jerin’s right. It would be a horrible waste to burn them. There’s hundreds of crowns here in silk. The cost of one outfit probably could feed a poor family for a month.”
    More likely a year, but Jerin didn’t correct her. He smiled instead at the stray thought that one obscure corner of Queensland was going to be suddenly much more gaily dressed.
    “We’ll pack them up and send them,” Ren said.
    “Really?” Jerin asked.
    Ren touched his face softly. “For another smile like that last one, I’d send my clothes too.”
    He could do naught but kiss her. Odelia and Lylia then claimed their share of his affection, so it was quite a while before they moved on. The bed, dressed in goose down and layers of softest linen, proved to be able to hold them all at once—blushing husband, affectionate wives, and giggling child brides. The Queen Mothers looked on, smiling indulgently, while the youngest princesses romped innocently on the bed. Jerin wondered what the Queens were thinking. Did they recall a similar moment from their marriage on the same bed? Or were they remembering how these laughing girls were conceived between these sheets? Or were they looking forward to grandchildren yet to be born?
    The dinner gong tumbled them out of the bed. The youngest claimed him first, all but dragging him away, until Trini rescued him. She freed him, shooed the girls on, then shyly took his hand.
    “Betrothed.”
    The single word shot a bolt of happiness through him. He smiled, giving her hand a squeeze. “Betrothed,” he said.
     
    He’s charmed Trini . Ren nearly cheered. She put a hand over her mouth to cover the huge grin on her face. Her mothers had noticed the exchange; Mother Elder waited to walk with her down to dinner.
    “What do you say now?” Ren struggled not to be smug.
    Mother Elder tilted her head, considering. “He’ll be good for this family. Eldest.”
    Eldest. The title sobered Ren. There seemed to be something implied in the straightforward comment. “But?”
    “The common people barely grasp how this family suffered since your father died; Keifer wreaked such damage, alive and