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compared to Heria? Boys are cuddled by everyone from the day they are born.
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Heria, we discipline sternly. We ve taught her how to protect what belongs to
us. Doric would think nothing of a stranger wanting to cuddle with him. Heria
would look for knives.
Sell one, swap the other.
Jerin s last words rolled about in Ren s head during the ride to Heron
Landing. Strange how two days could change one s perspective. She had presided
over countless marriage cases all those bitter battles over money and men as
if one were interchangeable with the other. Every season for the last six
years, she had attended the society functions designed to bring prospective
wives and the sisters of unmarried brothers together buyers and sellers. When
she was sixteen, she had even married a man her older sisters had bought.
It seemed as if she had stood on the moon and watched the process from that
emotional distance. Now, gods have mercy on her, she saw with her heart
engaged.
Sell one, swap the other.
Gods, how cold, like they were horses or pieces of furniture. But the man in
question wasn t either. The man was Jerin. Beautiful, sweet Jerin, who had
asked for nothing but her own safekeeping.
Sold to strangers. Given to strangers.
She tried not to think of horror stories she had judged. True, humans could
inflict terrible cruelty upon one another, regardless of sex. Men, though, had
no legal protection or recourse. They were their wives
property. She could not even count the times she had heard of men committing
suicide to escape impossible situations.
Surely Jerin had the right of it with four brothers his sisters could refuse
offers. Eldest Whistler impressed her as an intelligent, reasonable woman. Ren
trusted that Eldest would choose good wives for her brother.
I ll probably be swapped for a husband& maybe with the neighbors.
Ren remembered with a start that Corelle and the younger sisters had been off
courting the neighbor boy. She wondered what kind of women these neighbors
were.
Queens Justice met the royal party at Heron Landing. Ren greeted Lieutenant
Bounder with a nod. The officer had been out to the campsite to ensure that
the river trash received proper burial and that the body of Egan Wainwright
was sent north to be buried with his wives.
Raven took out her portable desk and scratched out orders onto a piece of
stationery.  If you find anything else out, report to me.
 Keep an eye on the Whistlers, Ren commanded.  It s unlikely they ll be
bothered for their part in this but one can t be sure.
 The Whistlers can probably fend for themselves better than I can look out for
them, Bounder said.
 Perhaps, Ren allowed, then pressed on.  I don t want a repeat of last time,
the menfolk and the youngest alone, the older sisters out courting the
neighbor, and death nearly at the doorstep. Ren tried to remain ca-sual as
she finally asked,  What do you know about these neighbors?
Bounder snorted.  Not as much as I would like.
 Meaning?
 The Brindle women are lazy brutes that like to pick fights. They re horrible
farmers, but they still manage to build new barns and outbuildings. I suspect
they might be one of the families that smuggle in my area, but so far I
haven t caught them at anything. Just a matter of time.
Ren felt like she had been struck. If the Whistlers swapped brothers with
their neighbors, and the
Brindles were then arrested for smuggling, the weight of the law would fall on
Jerin. Since men were considered property, they could be taken as part of the
heavy fines against smuggling. Such men usually went to cribs belonging to the
Order of the Sword, which serviced the army, or were sold to private cribs.
Her Jerin in a crib
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?
Her Jerin, indeed! She scoffed at herself. As if she could marry mere landed
gentry.
Yet yet was he not the grandson of royalty? And was she not to be the Queen
Mother Elder?
She found herself smiling. Her Jerin, indeed.
The Bright River lazed through the rolling hills of upland country, down to
the great falls at Hera s Step.
Each bend was the same as the last high banks scoured by the winter ice and
spring flooding, a fringe of trees lacing the uncertain flood zone, and,
beyond, fields and sprawling farmhouses. Women and children in the fields
would unbend from their work to wave at the passing paddle wheel. The pilot
followed river traditions and blasted the great, ear-deafening steam whistle
to each group of wavers.
Rennsellaer paced the decks, watching fields, workers, and countless little
towns appear before them and slip along their sides to vanish behind the ship.
It grated that someone had killed her people, taken her weapons, attacked her
sister, and vanished without a trace. She wanted to hound the thieves to their
lair and see them punished.
Leave the tilling of the fields to the farmer s mule
, as her Mother Elder would say. As future Queen Mother Elder, she should be
dealing with the entire army and not just eight missing cannons. Stopping at
every town to personally conduct the search would be pointless. Raven had
already sent orders to every garrison downriver, and the Queens Justice was
scouring the countryside for the cannons.
The plain truth would be easier to cope with if she weren t stuck with nothing
to do but watch changeless scenery glide past.
Besides, she and Odelia needed to attend Summer Court. If Halley did not
reappear, only Trini and
Lylia remained at Mayfair. Ren had no fears that Trini could act as Elder
Judge; her sister was quietly stubborn no one would be able to bully Trini
into a decision. Lylia? Lylia had turned sixteen at the beginning of the year
and was eager to speak her mind. Unfortunately, her mind was filled with odd
notions and sweeping reforms, some of them far from practical. It would be
best if Ren and Odelia were
on hand to dilute Lylia s presence.
Denied the release of seeking out the cannons, Ren struggled instead with the
perfect set of arguments to convince her mothers to allow a marriage with the
Whistlers. She well remembered the declaration of undying love her older
sisters gave for their first husband, Keifer. As disappointing as that
marriage was, no passionate pleas would work for her. Her only hope, it
seemed, lay with establishing that the
Whistlers grandmothers had, beyond a doubt, kidnapped and married Prince
Alannon after they had been knighted. The date of their knighting would be a
simple matter of checking the Book of Knights.
Hopefully they had properly recorded the marriage, although she couldn t see
how they had managed to keep it quiet when the prince s disappearance had been
so widely publicized. Then again, if their claim was valid, they had managed
to spirit him out of a castle under siege by the entire royal army, through
half of Tastledae, and then across the channel.
Their success at secrecy could be the undoing of her hopes.
Still, if she could show they had reasonable access to the castle on the date
of the prince s disappearance, it would be a start. Wellsbury s memoir
recorded the war in minute detail, so getting a copy of her book would be the
place to begin.
At Hera s Step, a queue formed of boats waiting to pass through the lock,
bypassing the massive waterfalls. The royal stern-wheeler docked to wait their
turn through the locks and take on coal.
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Normally Ren would ride out to perform devotions at the temple wreathed by the
omnipresent spray, overlooking the mile-wide curve of the falls. This time
Odelia, with a contingent of their guard, would have to uphold the family
obligations. Ren went with her own guard to a small bookstore located at the
heart of town. If she found a copy of Wellsbury s memoir, she could use the
rest of the trip scanning it for references to the Whistlers.
Raven accompanied neither princess, going instead with their pilot to the lock [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]