The horses were cared for, the supplies carried into the house, and the presents distributed, all in record time. With the youngest shooed out into the play yard with their new treasures, Jerin, his elder sisters, and their mothers settled down to discuss who would go with Eldest to Mayfair.
“It says ‘with as many sisters you wish to also attend.” ’ Eldest tapped the Queens’ letter, folded stiff, on the table. “Harvest will start soon; we’ll need almost everyone here. With Captain Tern escorting us downriver, and then us staying at the palace proper, I can’t see needing to take more than two others. Which two?”
“I think we should take Summer,” Jerin said quietly.
“Summer?” Eldest looked and sounded surprised. “Why?”
Jerin blushed, ducking his head from his elder sisters’ confused scrutiny. “We’re not going just to get me wives, but you a husband too. It’d be a shame to pass up the chance to make an influential marriage both ways. And, well, I don’t mean to slight anyone, but Summer’s the prettiest.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Birdie asked.
“Well,” Jerin said, “if your husband has any say in who he marries, then we should take the prettiest sister with us. Right?”
There was reluctant agreement from his sisters.
“Then we’ll take Summer,” Eldest stated. “And who else?”
“Corelle,” Mother Elder stated.
“Corelle?” Jerin yelped in surprise as the others murmured their agreement with Mother Elder. “She’s been taking favors from Balin Brindle and she left the farm unprotected. Take her? After the way she’s been?”
“Especially after the way she’s been,” Mother Elder said quietly. “She hasn’t seen enough of the world, what she’s giving up if she settles for Balin Brindle.”
“But Mother Elder!” Jerin cried. “It would be like rewarding her for being bad! I don’t know why you let Corelle get away with things.”
“Jerin, we have four sons,” Mother Elder said, taking his hands. “We could easily split the family four ways, though we probably won’t, but we certainly will be splitting at least once. Either Corelle, Heria, or Blush will be Mother Elder for the younger sisters. You can’t make good decisions as an adult if you were never allowed to make any decisions while you were a child. Now is the time for Corelle to learn from her mistakes.”
“Couldn’t you split the family so Summer is Mother Elder?” Jerin grumbled.
“Summer isn’t strong enough. Where Corelle leads, the others follow. We only need to teach her to lead wisely.”
The middle sisters rode in shortly before dinner. Eldest met them at the paddock, pulled Summer and Corelle aside, and told them that they would be going to Mayfair. The others could hear Corelle scream from all the way in the kitchen, sounding like someone was murdering her with a rusty knife.
“What did Corelle do this time?” Blush asked.
“What’s Eldest doing to her?” Leia peered out the kitchen window. From there they could see Corelle, leaping up and down in the paddock, still screaming.
Heria glanced out the window and made a noise of disgust. “Corelle’s going with Jerin and Eldest to Mayfair. Eldest just told her.”
“Lucky dog,” Blush muttered.
After a sleepless night that seemed to go on forever, dawn came. Jerin dressed in his loose, dun-colored walking robe, folded up his quilt, placed it in his wedding chest, and locked it tight shut. When he came down to breakfast, Eldest and Birdie went up to carry his chest out to the buckboard. Eldest, Corelle, and Summer stacked their bags on top of it.
Breakfast was quiet and solemn. Afterward, he hugged and kissed his mothers, sisters, and brothers good-bye. He gazed one last time at the solid stone farmhouse, the well-kept barns, the sprawling fields. Then he left home, forever.
Chapter 7
They planned on being early to Heron Landing so there’d be no chance of missing the packet that arrived at noon. Three-quarters of a mile from the house, the Whistlers’ lane joined the common road; there, Eldest was able to whip the horses into a smooth trot. Captain Tern rode outrider on her big black, easily keeping pace, her eyes sharp for danger.
While they traveled, they discussed what to buy at the mercantile in town. Mother Elder started the discussion by clucking over the condition of Jerin’s traveling hat, and stated that he couldn’t board the packet without a new one. Summer had promised all those left behind to buy stick candy and send it home with the wagon. Eldest wanted ammo for their pistols, which, in Mayfair, would be their principal weapons. Jerin needed cream for his hands, as they were hopelessly callused and chapped by his chores, but he wouldn’t give Corelle the satisfaction of hearing him say it aloud. Corelle, of course, had no money, so it came as no surprise when she declared that she would stand guard on their luggage with Mother Erica.
By Eldest’s pocket watch, they arrived in town a good two hours before the packet was due. She pulled the wagon up to the mercantile’s hitching post and swung down to tie the horses off. Captain Tern tied her black alongside, then came to give Jerin a hand down. Eldest frowned but said nothing; she was used to him scrambling up and down on his own, but then normally he wore trousers.
The mercantile was the largest building in town, with twin mullioned bay windows bracing the door. A wooden sidewalk ran the length of the front, and the hitching posts were cast iron. The Picker sisters had run the store for as long as anyone could remember. The tiny old women had frightened Jerin when he was small; compared to his tall, lean grandmothers and mothers, the merchant sisters seemed like something out of a fairy tale.
The bell over the door announced the Whistlers’ entrance. They scattered among the bins and tall shelving: Captain Tern followed Jerin to the hand creams near the back counter, and watched without comment as he studied the selection. Apparently only men used hand cream. The bottles showed simplified pictures of hands, flowers or fruit, and perfect little mounds of cream; one chose by scent. Lilac. Rose. Jasmine. Apple. Peach. Vanilla. Jerin wondered which scent Rennsellaer liked the most; he wished he had the nerve to ask Captain Tern. Then again, would the captain of the guard even know?
He chose vanilla and took it to Eldest so she could buy it for him. She stood at the back counter, box of ammo in hand, watching with interest as one of the Picker sisters painted a sign. Jerin couldn’t tell the sisters, with their faces wrinkled up like dried-apple dolls, apart; Eldest, who did most of the family purchasing, could.
“What’s this, Meg?” Eldest tapped the painted sign. “You’re selling the place?”
“Yup,” the wizened old woman said. “The store, the outbuildings, and all of the goods. We’re getting too old to run the place. Haddie fell and broke her hip last night; she’s the youngest of us Picker girls and we depended on her to do all the heavy work. We’ve talked for years about putting this place on the market. Last night just decided it for us.”
“Your family has been here for ages,” Eldest said.
“One hundred and thirty-three years,” Meg said proudly. “Mothers to daughters for”—the old woman paused to count on her fingers—“five generations. My great-great-grandmothers came upriver with a boatload of goods in 1534 and bought two acres of land from the crown. But we’ve always had bad luck with the menfolk. Not like you Whistlers.”
Another Picker sister had come up the aisle to brush past Jerin. She came only to his chest and stood child-sized next to his sister. She gazed toward Mother Elder with sharp, envious eyes. “Rumor has it that you’ve got another on the way.”
“Don’t jinx us, Wilma Picker,” Eldest growled. “It’s unlucky to talk about a child still in the womb.”
“Gods love the boy children—that’s why they call so many back before they can be born.” Meg used the most popular belief for the cause of miscarriages.
“Our mothers had twenty-six miscarriages,” Wilma sighed. “And Mother Ami had one little boy stillborn, perfect down to his fingernails yet blue and cold
as the sky. The grief of it nearly killed her.”
“Hush, you ninnies.” Eldest Picker hobbled out of the back room, hunched nearly double with a widow’s hump, leaning heavily on a cane. She paused to poke threateningly at her younger sisters. “Decent women don’t talk that way in front of menfolk, especially the young 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 crowns.”
“I thought you wanted a husband.” He tried not to whine. What he left unsaid was I thought you were going to swap me. Swapped families were always closer because cousins sharing both bloodlines were more like sisters than true cousins.
“I do.” Eldest shook her head. “But this is a shining coin, Jerin, and it’s up for grabs now. If we don’t snatch it up, it’s going to be gone.”
“What if I don’t bring two thousand crowns?”
“Don’t underrate yourself, Jerin.” Mother Elder came up holding a wide-brimmed straw hat. She put the hat firmly on his head, then studied him, head cocked in speculation. “Remember who your grandfather was. I think we might be able to do both: buy the shop and afford a husband of good breeding.”
“You’re giving yourself airs, Elder,” Picker said. “I could see two thousand with your family’s breeding record for boys—but three or four?”
“Nobility, they say, pays dearly for good breeding.”
“Mama!” Jerin blushed hotly, partly for their discussing him like a prize stallion, partly for the idea that he could command two or three times the normal amount of a brother’s price.
“Bah!” Picker scoffed.
“The Queens are sponsoring Jerin’s coming out,” Summer said quietly as she came up with the front of her shirt filled with stick candy. She counted the sticks out onto the battered wood counter into two uneven piles. “Thirty-six pieces.” A silver gil joined the candy on the counter.
“The Queens?” Picker humphed, taking the gil and counting Summer her three quince change. With the ease of lifetime practice, she tore a perfect length of brown paper from a bolt, wrapped the larger pile of candy into a neat package, and tied it off with cord. “You want the rest wrapped?”
“Nope,” Summer said, picking up the seven remaining sticks. She held them out to Jerin. “Pick two.”
He took a black anise and a brown maple. Summer offered one each to Mother Elder and Eldest, then, shyly, one to Captain Tern.
“You think the Queens’ goodwill is worth two thousand crowns?” Picker asked.
“Not so much the Queens’ goodwill as the peers’ opinion of their own worth,” Mother Elder explained. “Downriver, they say if you want a noblewoman to pay for a drink of river water, you say it’s a medical tonic brewed for the Queens and charge her a gil.”
“So,” Picker said dryly, “that’s what your sisters sell in that fancy Annaboro store of theirs? River water?”
Mother Elder scowled at the barb, then controlled her irritation. “We’ll need a length of veiling to go with the hat. White lace, I would think.” She took the hat off of Jerin and measured a length of blue ribbon around the rim. “What a bind. If we wait for Jerin to marry, we have the money without worries. But by waiting, someone might beat us to the purchase.”
“We’re willing to work with you,” Picker said. “Agree to meet our price and sign a contract, help us run the store until you have the full purchase amount, and we’ll hold the store off the market until your boy’s birthday. If you get your fancy price in Mayfair, then use it to buy the store. If not, you back out of the deal, paying a penalty.”
“We’re leaving within an hour,” Jerin protested, aghast that his family future suddenly hung on the moment.
“Wh
at penalty?” Eldest asked.
“Ten percent,” Picker stated.
Jerin gasped. Two hundred crowns just to back out of the deal!
“One percent,” Mother Elder countered.
“Five,” Picker said. “No less.”
“One hundred crowns?” Mother Elder glanced at Eldest Whistler and Summer. “It’s your brother’s price.”
“It’s a shining coin,” Eldest murmured to Summer.
Summer glanced about the store, considering, then nodded. “A wonderful golden shining coin.”
“Deal,” Eldest Whistler said, and shook hands with the old woman. “Let’s go to the Queens’ Witness and have the papers drawn up.”
Mother Elder gave a silver gil to Summer with instructions to buy the hat, the ribbon, and the lace. Eldest added her ammo, Jerin’s cream, and coin for both. With a stern reminder for Summer to guard Jerin, they went off to make the deal permanently legal. Jerin stared after them, slightly stunned. He was not sure how many Picker sisters tended the store, but forty-four Whistlers just had their lives utterly changed. When his sisters split the family, only half would stay on the farm. He would definitely wed on his birthday. If he fetched only two thousand crowns, Eldest and the others would have to wait until Doric was of age to get a husband. Six years would put Eldest into her thirties. If he didn’t fetch two thousand crowns, his family would have to pay one hundred crowns to back out of the deal. A heinous amount of money to throw away, but a small price to pay if the worst happened.
Jerin added extra of the blue ribbon to their purchases; it would be pretty braided in his hair. He would need to look his best at Mayfair to fetch a high brother’s price; his family was counting on him.
At least an hour remained before the packet arrived. Summer, Captain Tern, and Jerin went out to join Mother Erica and Corelle. They moved the wagon down to the village green and set out a light picnic lunch. Jerin got out his sewing kit and tacked the veil to his new hat between bites of his sandwich.
Corelle and Summer were both pleased with the idea of becoming shopkeepers. The older sisters would take the store, they reasoned, because it would need minding right away.