“What, go over Hera’s Step? I won’t, I promise! Once was enough!”
Ren blinked at the answer. This was the Halley she remembered from years ago, not the solemn woman who’d haunted the palace for the last six years and stolen away eight months ago. “I meant disappearing. You’re more important to me than petty revenge.”
“It wasn’t just revenge, Ren. It was the fact that everyone kept looking to me to be the Eldest when I wasn’t. Six years, and Barnes would still come to me five times out of ten. I thought if I disappeared for a while, people would look to you like they should.”
Ren felt a flare of anger at all the worry and trouble she had dealt with since Halley had vanished. “Don’t you think, as Eldest, I should have decided how to handle it?”
It was Halley’s turn to look startled, and then she grinned. “Well, I don’t think eight months ago you would have thought it was your due.”
Perhaps.
By unspoken agreement, they turned away from their escort and walked along the river.
“I’ve been worried sick about you,” Ren said. “You could have written more often. My nightmares started back up after you vanished.”
“Ah! Sorry.” Halley stooped to pick up a handful of stones, then hurled one into the river, grunting. “I suspected someone close to us, even the Barneses. I wasn’t thinking high enough. I didn’t dare write.”
“They fooled us all.”
Halley flung another stone and, while watching it skip away, asked, “So, what do we do about Eldie?”
In all the confusion, Ren had forgotten about her niece. “What do you mean?”
“We can’t let her live.” Halley flung another stone, but it sank on the first skip.
“What?” Ren felt like she’d been punched.
“Holy Mothers, Ren.” Halley picked up another handful of stones, avoiding her startled gaze. “We’re going to execute her mothers and grandmothers. They killed our father, our sisters, and stole our husband. We can’t let them walk away from this.”
“What the hell does that have to do with killing Eldie?”
“Face the truth, Ren. She’s the incestuous fruit of the man who poisoned the prince consort and the woman who blew up half the royal princesses! Do you think any of even her most remote noble relations are going to take her? Do you think we’re going to take her? You would ask our youngest to be raised with her? Her father murdered ours. Do you think our babies would be safe around her once she realized that we executed her mothers and grandmothers?”
Ren shuddered at the image of a smothered infant, a baby “accidentally” dropped, a killer lurking amid all the dangers a young child narrowly missed, from the fireplace to the fishpond. Still, she recoiled at the thought of executing the golden-haired five-year-old so proud of her missing front teeth. “She’s just a child.”
“Now she’s a child. In eleven short years, she’ll be the age Keifer was when he killed Papa. Kij and Keifer had no good reason to hate you and me, except for deeds of our grandmothers. Do you really want their child, with better reasons for hating us, anywhere near our children?”
“Stop it, Halley! This is our niece. This is Eldie!”
“She isn’t our niece,” Halley said coldly. “Keifer didn’t father any children on us, thank the gods, and he died before she was born—severing any connection between our families.”
“I have spent five years thinking of her as my niece, Halley. I can’t think of her in any other manner.”
“If we don’t take her, she’ll have nowhere to go. She’ll have to make her way like the river trash. Do you think that’s kinder to a child her age?”
“We could take her,” someone said behind them.
Ren and Halley turned, surprised, as Eldest Whistler came out of the darkness.
“We could take Eldie,” Eldest said. “Our great-grandmother Elder was executed for treason. The judges, though, were merciful. They let the rest of the family live. Our grandmothers could have been bitter, but they had been raised knowing you made your choices and paid for them when you were wrong. Twenty of my thirty grandmothers gave their lives in the War of the False Eldest, fighting for the very people who put their Mother Elder to death. There is redemption for the innocent.”
“I don’t understand why you’d offer,” Ren said, though she was glad for it.
Eldest shrugged. “You’re marrying my brother. That makes us sisters. It sort of makes her our niece. She’s not yet six, and since your youngest were her only playmates, the Porters couldn’t leak any poison into her heart. She’s not even really incestuous fruit—Kij and Keifer had different fathers and mothers, which normally would have made them cousins at most. It would be a shame to shoulder her with her parents’ blame.”
“You’ll raise her like a sister?” Halley asked, obviously surprised.
“I’ve got fourteen youngest sisters under the age of ten; what’s one more?”
“What happens when they marry?” Halley pushed. “How could you expect them to share their husband with her?”
“It will be up to them to decide. After looking at my family records, I suspect that my family started when a group of women banded together and called themselves sisters. We’re not ones to worry about bloodlines. If you’re willing to run the risk, we’d be willing to raise her.”
Ren glanced to Halley, saw her willing, and nodded. “Have someone go now, though, and get her away from the Porters. I don’t want them to have a chance to plant any murderous thoughts in her before we execute them.”
Jerin woke in a strange bed, in a strange room, wearing a strange nightgown. He sat upright, panicked. Someone had taken off all his clothes to put new ones on him! Who? What else had they done to him? His head ached; there was a bandage on his head and the flesh underneath felt tender. Snatches of his adventure swam up through his memory, but nothing was complete or sensible. He had been kidnapped, had been on the Destiny, and had been in the river. If he had been on the Destiny, why had he been in the river? Had Kij thrown him overboard? Where was he now?
He threw back the sheets and swung his bare feet out of the bed. A quick check showed his stash pouch was missing, and so was his derringer. There was a wardrobe beside the bed. He opened it to find men’s clothing, good in quality, in his size, and vaguely familiar. He fingered them, then looked about the room again. He knew this place. Relief poured in as he realized where he was. Annaboro. His aunts’ house. His cousin Dail’s room.
The door swung open; almost as if summoned by his name, Dail came in, a slightly younger reflection of Jerin, carrying a load of folded towels. “Oh, good, you’re up!”
“Dail!” Jerin caught his cousin in a hard hug. “Oh, merciful Mothers! I didn’t know where I was!”
Dail laughed, patting him on the back. “You’re safe! Mothers brought you home last night, looking like a drowned cat. Eeeew, you still stink like river water. I’ll have to change my sheets before tonight.”
“What happened? How did I get here?”
Dail shrugged, nonchalant. “I don’t know. No one tells me anything. Aunt Erica, Cousin Eldest, and the others showed up on lathered horses yesterday just as a royal messenger did too. There was a big war council, without us men, and then everyone but Lissia and Kaylie and my youngest saddled up on fresh horses and rode out. A few hours before dawn, some of my mothers showed up with you, looking like they’d fished you out of the river. I was told to keep an eye on you since Papa’s busy with the babies and see that you had a bath once you woke up, if you felt up to it.”
“I feel up to it,” Jerin said, while his mind raced. Eldest had written that they were coming. Apparently a messenger from Ren had reached Annaboro at the same time his family did. They had come looking for him, and found him in the river.
His aunts had a bathhouse much the same as his mothers’. Dail led him down to it, chattering on about meeting Cullen. Jerin’s sisters had stopped on their way home in order to lay plans for their wedding. With only eight
months before his sixteenth birthday, Dail was starting to consider wives. Apparently Cullen thought a Whistler cousin married to his sisters was as good as a Whistler brother.
“It would be a step up. Cullen says they have servants and he’s never had to cook before.” Dail rolled his eyes. “Cullen’s looking forward to cooking—can you imagine? He says having servants do everything is boring. I think once he has to wash diapers for seven babies at once, he’ll be wanting a servant! You’re so lucky to be marrying into a wealthy family. Here are towels—I’ve got to go help with dinner. We eat in a hour.”
With that, Dail left him to ponder his missing memories and his future. Would he actually be able to marry Ren and the others? Disturbing memories were starting to rise. Cira holding him close. Cira kissing him. Cira taking off her shirt. Cira lying on top of him, grinding against him. What had happened? Had Cira taken him? If she had, how could he return to his wives?
He bathed in agony over the lost memories, trying to scrub away the feeling of being used and ruined. If he had been ruined, though, he couldn’t return to his wives. He had no way of knowing what diseases Cira might carry; he couldn’t subject them to those risks.
He was toweling his hair dry when Dail came running down the hall.
“Jerin! Your wives are here! Princesses Rennsellaer, Halley, and Odelia! Three of the royal princesses, here!”
His heart sank. From what he could remember, there was little chance that he was still fit to marry. He would have to tell Ren the truth, and worse, tell her in front of a stranger, Halley. He dressed slowly, and went down to the parlor, shaking. He cracked the door and peered inside. Odelia sat in a chair, leaned over her knees, worrying at her thumbnail. Ren absently turned her hat in her hands. Halley, the missing princess, stood looking out the window, her back to the door, the sun in her royal red hair.
Ren noticed the opened door and went still. Soundlessly, she lifted her hand to him, entreating him with her eyes. There was such pain in them that Jerin couldn’t deny her. He slipped quietly inside, for it seemed making a sound would trigger words, and with words, he would have to confess, and it would all come to an end.
He clung to her, reveling in her softness one last time.
“I’m so sorry,” Ren whispered finally. “I never wanted for you to be a target.”
So it ends. “I’m the one that’s sorry, Ren. I don’t think I’m clean anymore. I think I slept with another woman. She helped me get away from the river rats, and we were alone in a barn together—I—I—don’t remember what happened. I’m so sorry. I failed you.”
“If that was your idea of sleeping with a woman,” a familiar alto voice drawled, “then we’re going to have problems coming up with babies.”
He jerked out of Ren’s arms to stare at the familiar scarred face, surrounded by a nimbus of flame red hair. “Cira?”
“Halley, actually.” She grinned as she came to join Ren and him. “Your wife. Cira was just a name I used to get close to those river trash, so I could get my pretty new husband back.”
Jerin could only stare as the events of the last few days turned themselves onto their heads. All at once he recognized the Moorland stamp on Cira’s—Halley’s—features; no one had ever told him that Halley alone took after their father.
“Personally, I would hit her,” Odelia said, “but then I’m not a boy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jerin asked.
Halley spread her hands. “I tried at first, but you didn’t believe anything I said. Later, I thought you knew. I guess, looking back, Kij and the others never did actually name me in front of you.”
“You’ve done nothing but make us proud of you,” Ren said quietly, clasping his hand. “You’ve been brave, clever, and selfless.”
“Kij would have won the day without you.” Odelia covered Ren’s hand with her own.
“We love you.” Halley cupped his hand and her sisters’ hands between her two. “And we’re not going to lose you again.”
Chapter 16
Ren was jolted awake by someone leaping onto her bed. All annoyance vanished as Jerin squirmed into her arms.
“Get up! Get up!” He left her breathless with kisses between his demands. “Their ship is at the landing! They’re here!”
“I’m awake!” She managed another kiss before he slipped away. He dashed across the room to peer out her window, kneeling on the window seat.
“I can’t wait to see everyone, especially my new brother!” He looked adorable in his plum silk tunic and flowing trousers, his long black braid dangling between the bare soles of his feet.
“It will take them at least an hour to cross town and climb the hill. Come here, and give me a proper good-morning.”
Nights, Jerin insisted on keeping order, Eldest to youngest, and last night had been Odelia’s turn. Days, though, he was deliciously spontaneous.
There were wagons and wagons filled with Whistlers.
Wedding Keifer had been a solemn occasion, with all the pomp and joy of a state funeral. The day had been hot, the clothes uncomfortable, and the need for respectful silence reinforced with Eldest’s riding crop. The Porters had stayed cool, quiet, and watchful as sharks. Much as Ren loved Jerin, she spent the first month of her betrothal dreading their actual marriage ceremony.
Cullen’s wedding cured that dread. After that extended country frolic, it was a family decision to include the Annaboro Whistlers and make drastic changes to the royal traditions. So it was over a hundred of the Whistlers that tumbled out of the wagons into an extended, loud greeting: twenty-four mothers and aunts, sisters and female cousins numbering more than seventy (Jerin couldn’t remember exactly how many cousins he had), and eight—eight—brothers and male cousins.
Ren’s little sisters and both sets of the Whistler youngest thundered off like a pack of puppies, tumbling and yelping and squealing. It wasn’t until they vanished, off to explore the palace, that Ren realized she hadn’t seen Eldie Porter among them. All the little ones had been red- or black-haired.
“Where’s Eldie?”
“She went with the others,” Eldest reported, greeting Ren with a rough embrace. “We’ve dyed her hair. She felt out of place, being the only towhead. With her blue eyes, you’d nearly take her for one of us now. Oh, yes, we’ve had her pick a new name, Neddie Whistler.”
“Gave her a tattoo, too.” Corelle indicated her own Order of the Sword tattoo. “Since Kij told her that she’d been fathered out of a crib.”
They had agreed that she wouldn’t be told the truth about her parentage, nor what had happened between her mothers and aunts, until she was an adult. The Whistlers had whisked Eldie out of Avonar the very night her fate was decided, telling her nothing but that she was now one of them. Their letters reported that between Cullen’s familiar presence and a child’s acceptance of new situations, Eldie settled in quickly. Apparently she had been painfully lonely, and thrived on being one of twenty Whistler children.
Cullen folded Ren into a hug, and she laughed in surprise at how much taller he was since the last time she saw him.
“Look at you! What have they been feeding you?”
“Just all that exercise he gets, riding,” Corelle said with a wink, obviously meaning more than horses, which earned her a cuff from Eldest.
“He’s just hit his growth spurt.” Eldest gave a slight, satisfied smile. Cullen echoed it, abandoning Ren to embrace his wife from behind, his large hands resting gently on her stomach.
Hoy! What’s this? Ren eyed Eldest Whistler closer and found barely noticeable signs of a pregnancy. Two months? Early in the third month? Luckily it obviously wasn’t into the second trimester—for then it would be proof that Ren and her sisters had been less than careful in chaperoning their cousin.
Ren glanced to Halley then, who was in the same state. Actually, comparing the two, Halley outstripped Eldest. Ren was going to be wearing her new title of Queen Mother Elder a week or two before Eldest became Mother Elder Whistler.
Ren found the fact surprisingly pleasing.
Queen Mother Elder. Ren had been saying it often in attempt to get used to it.
The Whistler women brought fiddles, banjos, fifes, drums, and dulcimers, aged corn whiskey, fine cigars, and a determination to have a good time.
A royal circus, Ren had named their wedding, and Jerin marveled at how right a name it was. Admittedly, he had seen only one circus, when he was quite young, but certainly most of the elements he remembered appeared on his wedding day.
There was the brisk music—trumpets, drums, and bagpipes—playing thundering songs. The royal family had their own melody, and apparently all the noble houses had a song too. It had stumped them for a while what to play for the Whistlers, and finally the fighting song of his grandmothers’ regiment was selected.
There were the bright coaches—the royal carriages—gilded instead of painted yellow, but just as colorful as circus wagons. Ten in all, and then ten more of the Moorland carriages close behind, carrying the overflow.
There were the matching horses—the princesses, his elder sisters, and his middle sisters all rode glossy black horses in two lines, one on either side of him. His mount was a fiery red stallion, its symbolism not lost to him.
There were the colorful costumes—his wives-to-be in the dress red of the royal marines, his sisters in a balancing dark blue with gold waistcoats, he in a walking robe of white silk and seed pearls that gleamed in the morning light, with a cloak so long it nearly brushed the ground.
And there were the crowds, an endless flood of women, their voices a constant roar of approval. Apparently everyone thought the crush too dangerous to bring out their own menfolk; the only men Jerin saw appeared in the upper windows of the buildings lining the parade route.
“I wish we could have been married at the palace temple,” he told Ren.
“The point of the day is for you to be seen,” Ren said. “When our daughter is born, we’ll become the Queen Mothers, mothers of the country. On a basic level, these are our children. We protect them, we settle their disputes, and we guide them as they grow. They have a right to know their father.”