A Brother's Price Part 29

"'No!" Ren caught the wheel and jerked it back. "Kij's giving us her broadside! Ram the b.i.t.c.h! End it here! Kill her now!"

The pilot threw her a panicked look, and then shouted into the tubes, "Full speed ahead! Full speed!"

The Red Dog Red Dog leaped forward, its bow arrowing through the dark waters. Ren ducked down low behind the s.h.i.+eld, bracing for the impact. They struck with a great splintering crack, the braced bow of the leaped forward, its bow arrowing through the dark waters. Ren ducked down low behind the s.h.i.+eld, bracing for the impact. They struck with a great splintering crack, the braced bow of the Red Dog Red Dog cleaving deep into the ironclad. Ren was slammed forward into the s.h.i.+elding, striking her head, eclipsing the world with a flash of dark and pain. Then the fore gun fired, more felt than heard, the muzzle apparently buried in the guts of the ironclad. The ball punctured one of the boiler engines of the ironclad, and the shriek of escaping steam and screaming women joined with the crack of rifles. cleaving deep into the ironclad. Ren was slammed forward into the s.h.i.+elding, striking her head, eclipsing the world with a flash of dark and pain. Then the fore gun fired, more felt than heard, the muzzle apparently buried in the guts of the ironclad. The ball punctured one of the boiler engines of the ironclad, and the shriek of escaping steam and screaming women joined with the crack of rifles.

Raven had her by the arm then, and was hefting her up, crying, "It's going to hit us!"

Ren turned, and saw the shattered decks of the Destiny Destiny rolling toward them, out of the night, tumbled by the fast shallow rapids. Her mind only understood flashes of what she saw: a railing here, an open doorway there, a hanging flight of stairs breaking off in mid-tumble. rolling toward them, out of the night, tumbled by the fast shallow rapids. Her mind only understood flashes of what she saw: a railing here, an open doorway there, a hanging flight of stairs breaking off in mid-tumble.

Raven dragged her backward, back along the Red Dog's Red Dog's top deck to the stern gun. There Raven pushed Ren down and caught her by the foot. "Strip! Get your boots off! We're going to have to swim for it! The nearest Queens Justice is Annaboro. When you get to sh.o.r.e, stay low. Kij might have backup troops!" top deck to the stern gun. There Raven pushed Ren down and caught her by the foot. "Strip! Get your boots off! We're going to have to swim for it! The nearest Queens Justice is Annaboro. When you get to sh.o.r.e, stay low. Kij might have backup troops!"

They went into the dark, fast water then, Ren stripped to only a s.h.i.+rt while Raven was still fully dressed.

Caught in the icy current, Ren struggled to keep afloat. She looked back. The water was littered with bodies, some thras.h.i.+ng, some still. The wreckage of the Destiny Destiny struck where the two s.h.i.+ps were joined, and the river forced it up, rearing above the gunboats. Borne down by the weight of its plating and the water filling its bowels, the ironclad sank quickly. The struck where the two s.h.i.+ps were joined, and the river forced it up, rearing above the gunboats. Borne down by the weight of its plating and the water filling its bowels, the ironclad sank quickly. The Red Dog Red Dog, still caught by its ram, rolled as the ironclad sank, the Destiny Destiny toppling over its dipping bow. toppling over its dipping bow.

Oh, Jerin, love, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I took you away from your mothers' farm where you were safe. I'm sorry I let Kij take you as bait. I'm so very sorry that I've gotten you killed.

Ren came ash.o.r.e downriver of the PortageRiver confluence, teeth chattering from the cold, bone weary and heartsick. Raven had vanished into the waters, and Ren could not remember if her captain even knew how to swim. Two guards kept faithfully to her. The sergeant, Buckley, apparently swam like a fish and had helped Ren keep her bearings as they struggled for sh.o.r.e. The other was a young private whose face Ren could not recall, and in the dark could not see, by the name of Cherry. For miles the fast current had carried them, and they could only keep their heads above water. Then the river turned, and in that bend, the water deepened and slowed and they thrashed ash.o.r.e.

The wind had kicked up, tossing the trees and cutting cold as sharp as knives through their wet clothes. Buckley knew approximately where they were, and knew too of a nearby mansion laid to ruin in the last war. It would give cover and shelter well away from the exposed river-bank. Ren wanted only to lie in the mud and grieve, but dragged herself up anyhow. She couldn't give up until she was sure Kij was as dead as her father, her elder sisters, Halley, and Jerin. She had to be sure Kij paid.

They were past the escarpment, and the land was flat here, smoothed by countless floods. They kept to the cave-black shadows of the windbreaks, hedging fields of freshly cut hay. The night was full of distant cracks of rifles, faint echoes of shouting, and the rolling thunder of racing horses. The gray of false dawn touched the sky as they reached the mansion sitting alone on a hill, the short summer night fleeing before the sun. In the silence before dawn, the dark, broken structure, surrounded by shorn fields, seemed ominous.

They paused in the windbreak at the foot of the hill, s.h.i.+vering, scanning the fields.

"How close is Annaboro?" Ren asked.

"Another ten miles south. Your Highness," Buckley murmured, then c.o.c.ked her head, listening intently. "Riders are coming."

Ren swore. In their white s.h.i.+rts and red uniform pants, they stood out in the scanty cover of the windbreak. "Let's try for the mansion."

They ran. The sharp stems of the cut hay stabbed like a thousand needles in their bare feet as they raced for cover. The riders broke out of a woodlot behind them, and came sweeping toward them. A glance was enough to show the riders weren't the Queens Justice. Even as Ren and the others reached the old front yard of the mansion, the riders cut them off, looping around them in a rough circle of lathered, blowing horses.

Kij looked worse for wear, at least. Her beautiful face was cut and bruised. Part of her s.h.i.+rt had been torn off, and a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage showed beneath. But she was alive, d.a.m.n her soul, when everyone else was dead.

"Don't you know when to die?" Ren asked her.

"I could say the same for you. I've been trying to kill you for six years," Kij growled.

"So, how did you find me?" Ren asked, wondering how she had ever thought this woman to be her good friend.

"You washed up where all the dead bodies come to sh.o.r.e." Kij gave a bitter laugh. "You just don't have the decency to realize you're dead."

"Give it up, Kij. Killing me will only dig your grave deeper. My sisters know of your crimes. I've blocked all your plots in Mayfair. I've sunk your gunboat and your cannons. The Destiny Destiny is gone, and Jerin with her, d.a.m.n you. Shooting me will get you nothing." is gone, and Jerin with her, d.a.m.n you. Shooting me will get you nothing."

"It will make me feel better." Kij raised her pistol.

"Don't even think about it!" a woman shouted from high above them.

Ren glanced over her shoulder, startled.

From the mansion's second-story balcony, a shooter stood mostly hidden behind a support column, a sniper rifle aimed down at Kij. "Drop your guns!"

"Who the h.e.l.l?" Kij shouted.

"I'm Eldest Whistler!" the woman shouted back. "Unlike you n.o.bles, 'sisters-in-law' means something to us. We Whistlers have an unbreakable rule-you mess with one of us, you mess with us all!"

Like thorns growing from a rose, the long slender barrels of rifles emerged out of the broken windows of the mansion.

"Now, put down your guns!" Eldest shouted. "Or we'll be finding out who gets the orphaned estate of Avonar!"

The moment froze in time, and then Kij made a show of dropping her pistol. "Put them down," she commanded her sisters. "We'll live to fight another day."

Don't count on that , Ren thought savagely, but held her tongue. , Ren thought savagely, but held her tongue.

The other Porters threw down their weapons. A lone Whistler came out of the mansion to collect the guns while her sisters covered her. Ren recognized the black hair, and the blue-eyed, steel-jawed look of the woman, but not her individually. The reason why became apparent as the other Whistlers stalked out of the mansion once the weapons were secured. Ren picked out Eldest, Summer, and Corelle easily, then Jerin's other elder and middle sisters too, leaving a whole host of Whistlers she had never seen before. They were, she realized, Jerin's cousins, the Annaboro Whistlers.

"Your Highness." Eldest nodded to Ren as she flashed hand signals to her family. "It's mighty hard to hold a wedding when you half drown most of the wedding party."

"What?"

"We spent half the night plucking people out of the river. We would really like it if you took better care with our brother from here on in. He doesn't swim all that well."

"You've found Jerin! Alive?"

Eldest grinned. "Aye. We fished Princess Halley and Captain Tern out too."

"They all are all right?"

Eldest sobered. "We sent Jenn home with my aunts. He's chilled to the bone, addled, and took in lots of water. He should be fine, with bed rest. Captain Tern has a broken leg, else she'd be here. Your sister-we had to all but sit on her to keep her back where things are safer. A hard thing to do with a royal princess."

Ren laughed. "And how did you find me?"

"Oh, we just followed Kij."

The Whistlers secured the Porters and then escorted Ren back to the river to wait for a hastily commandeered steamer to pick them up. Halley arrived with a guard of four Whistler cousins. Despite the six months and the night of hards.h.i.+p, Halley looked younger than Ren remembered, bruised but grinning. She had stained her red hair black, but the night in the river had washed much of it out, leaving only her roots dark.

Ren hugged her hard, glad to finally see her alive and well. Releasing her younger sister, Ren swatted her on the shoulder. "Don't ever do that again!"

"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 sto-len 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 h.e.l.l 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 n.o.ble relations are going to take her? Do you think we're 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?" 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 G.o.ds, 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. s.n.a.t.c.hes of his adventure swam up through his memory, but nothing was complete or sensible. He had been kidnapped, had been on the Destiny Destiny, and had been in the river. If he had been on the Destiny 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 s.h.i.+rt. 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." . "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."