A Brother s price

by Wen Spencer

  Slowly the cheering of Ren and Odelia’s appearance lessened and then died to a soft murmur of whispered comments between family members.

  Ren nodded to the bailiff.

  “This court is now in session.” In her clear, carrying alto, the bailiff announced the first case. “Now judging on the orphaned estate of family Wakecliff, all lands, furnishings, and moneys herein. All petitioned claimants, make yourself be known.”

  There was a brief, undignified scramble as claimants made unseemly haste to be first to make their case.

  Ren motioned the bailiff to her and set the petitions in alphabetical order. Judging by the smiles on the Dunwoods and the frowns on the Stonevales, “first” was being construed as “favored.”

  “The family of Dunwood claims the orphaned estate!” Eldest Dunwood spoke for her family, even though her mother was present, most likely because their claim was through her brother. “Our beloved brother, Cedric, had been married to Eldest Wakecliff and her sisters for five months. Perhaps a short period of time, but the law does not set a time limit. We’re the only clear heirs here.”

  That triggered a howl of protest from the other two families and their various sisters-in-law. Ren scanned the room quickly, trying to get a feel of who supported whom. The Dunwood sisters were the youngest claimants, but came from a vigorous line. Their mothers and aunts numbered in the sixties, with two uncles, a husband, and a younger brother to bring the number of possible families directly involved to five. Indeed, the elder Pilot sisters sat sprinkled among their Dunwood sisters-in-law, heads together in conference. Ren tried to recall the name of the family that married the Dunwood boy, then remembered he was Lylia’s age, and would be coming out this season.

  Eldest Lethridge waved to be recognized, and reluctantly, Ren gave her the floor. “Your Highnesses, yes, the law states that the sisters-in-law are the favored heirs of an orphaned estate, but that favoritism is based on children. Cedric Dunwood Wakecliff fathered no living children! The child that killed Rev Wakecliff was the only throw that made it to term, and it was dead before her contractions started. The Dunwood claim is thus void.”

  Eldest Dunwood frowned. “It would be void if there was anyone with a better claim, but there isn’t. It’s well known that the Wakecliffs were strongly traditionalist. In the three hundred years of its recorded line, the Wakecliff family has never split. They have no cousins.”

  “Not true!” Lethridge cried. “Our mothers’ brother married Mother Elder Wakecliff and her sisters. Our uncle was producing children up to his death. We are Eldest Wakecliff and her sisters’ first cousin.”

  “Our claim of sister-in-law overrides yours!” Dunwood shouted.

  Eldest Stonevale waved to be recognized. Ren motioned to the bailiff to silence the others and give the floor to Stonevale. As the woman moved to the speaker floor with pointed looks at the others, Ren flipped through her case binder, studying the extensive properties listed. She wished she had been given time to research it at length. In the past hundred years, through a series of desperate measures and bad judgment, vast tracts of land originally owned by the crown had been sold, some of them belatedly proving to be vital to security. Unfortunately, the new owners were rarely interested in selling back the properties. Only orphaned estates such as this one provided a chance to recover them.

  Stonevale announced her dubious claim. “The family of Stonevale claims the orphaned estate. Our grandfather was Grandmother Elder Wakecliffs brother. The blood of Wakecliff flows in our veins. We have the strongest claim here.”

  “Men are property,” Dunwood snapped. “They can’t inherit an estate any more than that chair can.”

  “We’re not men. We’re women!” Stonevale hissed.

  Dunwood said, “The daughters of a brother cannot lay claim to aunts’ property!”

  “Don’t be dense!” Stonevale snapped. “The law states that descendants through the female line inherit before sisters-in-law, but there are none in this case, and it doesn’t state which sisters-in-law inherit first.

  Living blood is stronger than a dead brother, especially one who didn’t father any children! We’re comparing a living Wakecliff descendant versus a-a-a burned chair!”

  “How dare you say that in our hour of grief?” Dun-wood howled in rage, and leaped at the older woman. Court guards moved in, setting up a barrier between the scuffling women and the princesses first, and then breaking up the ensuing fistfight.

  Ren winced, trying to ignore the scuffle and focus on the properties at stake: One of the names suddenly leaped out at her: Tuck Landing. She’d forgotten about the notorious anchorage point located within the Elpern Bank holding. In truth, Ren didn’t care which family received the money. Tuck Landing, though, she would be loath to hand over to any of them. A hundred years before, in what was tantamount to outright theft, the ownership of Elpern Bank and its anchorage had changed from the crown to the Wakecliffs. Since that time, it had become a major weakness. Both invasion forces that landed on Queensland soil had originated at Tuck Landing. Collusion was suspected but never proved in both cases.

  “We are the current sisters-in-law!” Dunwood was shouting. “Listen to the words! By law, we are Eldest Wakecliffs sisters.”

  Lethridge was not to be outdone. “My family is sisters-in-law to Mother Elder, which makes us your mother, and mothers inherit before daughters.”

  “We are the blood of Wakecliff!” Stonevale shouted, shedding some of that blood from a broken nose.

  Even as Ren realized that this squabble over the es-tate provided the crown a chance to take back Elpern Bank, it dawned on her that she might have stumbled onto the true reason the docket had been changed. Lylia certainly wouldn’t have the experience to spot the inclusion of vital real estate. Trini might have missed it. They would have judged the case, and the chance of regaining Tuck Landing would be lost.

  Still, she couldn’t act without her sisters’ agreement, and she didn’t want to discuss it in front of the assembled nobles. “Have we heard enough?”

  Her sisters nodded.

  “Well, I haven’t had breakfast.” Ren announced to the courtroom. “Bailiff, recess the court for an early lunch. We’ll announce our decision after lunch.”

  “All rise!” the bailiff shouted.

  The crowd came to their feet, respectfully silent. Ren led the way to the judges’ chambers. As the door closed behind Lylia, she heard the bailiff shout, “This court is in recess! Court will adjourn in one hour!”

  Out of the public eye, Trini and Lylia greeted their sisters with hugs along with cheeky remarks on Lylia’s part. The far hallway door opened, and Raven entered the chambers, escorting the lunch servers.

  “I thought you might want to discuss this in private.” The lunch table was wheeled in, and then the servers bowed out. “I hurried the kitchen for you.”

  “You’re a true gem,” Ren said, the smell of food making her suddenly ravenous. “Did you find out who tampered with the docket?”

  Raven shook her head. “In a few more days, I might be able to question the clerk staff closely enough to crack it, but not in this short time. There are several families serving as clerks, and quite a bit of bickering between them. I’ve got a surplus of suspects.”

  “I want whoever took the bribe and made the changes found,” Ren said. “I want them out. I will not have my court manipulated like this.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Raven bowed and left them to deliberate.

  “Wow, Ren, that was so queenly,” Lylia breathed.

  Odelia grunted, settling down to lunch. “Why is that when I talk like that, people call me bitchy?”

  “Because you only talk about your supper and baths in that tone,” Trini chided quietly. “Ren is demanding respect for higher causes.”

  Odelia stuck out her tongue, ate a bite of lunch, and then asked, “So, what made you go to point like a bird dog?”

  Ren opened her binder and tapped at the property list. “Tuck Landing. It�
��s part and parcel of Elpern Bank. Wakecliff tore down the watchtower and built their manor with the stone. This is the crown’s chance to get the landing back. Once we recover it, we can build a garrison and a war harbor, and we protect the whole southeast as it was protected for a thousand years.”

  They nodded in understanding, and ate in silence, each to her own thoughts.

  “How do we do it?” Lylia pushed her empty plate away and leaned against the table.

  “The combined inheritance taxes of all the estates are quite sizable.” Trini murmured, eyeing her binder.

  “The moneys in escrow will not cover it all. We can declare that the crown has chosen to handle the reckoning. We seize the entire estate, do an accounting of debts and taxes, and deduct Elpern Bank as payment, then release the rest of the estate to the heirs.”

  Ren winced. It seemed like a perfect plan, except the numbers would not balance. “I doubt if the taxes are that sizable.”

  Trini shrugged. “We can figure a reasonable price for the sale of Elpern to the crown. Deduct the taxes from the sale price, and add the difference to the estate.”

  “They’re not going to like it,” Odelia half sang. “El-pern’s yearly income, in the long run, would outstrip any price you set on it. They’d probably rather pay the tax from their pocket than have it taken out beforehand in the form of prime land.”

  “None of them have clear right to the land,” Ren growled. “Holy Mothers, the Wakecliffs didn’t have clear right to it if you look closely. Ezra Wakecliff was supposed to deliver the title deeds of twelve crown properties to the church during the Prinmae War for safekeeping, and she delivered eleven. The bitch stole it. and because her brother was married to our great-great-grandmothers, she was never called on it. We have as much a right to it as any of those women out there.”

  “She stole it?” Lylia asked.

  Odelia nodded. “That’s what the whole children’s rhyme is about, the ‘Wakecliff in the corner, eyeing queenly pies.’ The title deeds were inside pies, to disguise them in case Wakecliff was stopped by the enemy.” Odelia made a rolling motion with her hand, indicating that the rhyme continued to be quite literal. “The ‘plum’ was a plum piece of property.”

  “ ‘You know in whose bed her brother lies,’ ” Lylia finished. “Oh, I see. Her brother was prince consort.”

  “Well, it’s time for us to take back what is ours.” Ren rapped for a vote. “Agree.”

  “Agree,” Lylia said, eyes glowing.

  “Agree,” Trini murmured.

  “Agree,” Odelia said.

  “Once we separate Elpern Bank from the rest of the estate, we’ll decide who gets the rest.”

  “I have found a young man who delights me.” Ren had rehearsed the speech for hours and days. She now faced her Mother Elder, alone at last, in the privacy of the queen’s wing-weak-kneed for the first time in years. “He is warm, loving, intelligent, strong of character yet biddable, chaste, and very beautiful.

  I wish to marry him.”

  After a moment of pleased surprise, the Queen

  Mother Elder put aside the book she had been reading with a slight, worried frown. “Yet you say nothing of breeding. After the adventure you’ve told us, I doubt you’ve met anyone of acceptable breeding.”

  “His breeding is odd.” Ren wished she could leave the whole of it out, but knew eventually her mother would dig out the truth, then hold it against her for omitting it. “His grandmothers were conceived in the Order of the Sword’s cribs. Blacklisted from the army due to their Mother Elder’s crimes, they joined the Sisterhood of the Night. Wellsbury employed them in the war as spies. They won the Queen Elder Cross of Victory, were knighted, and retired to a land grant.”

  “That would make him the very lowest of landed gentry I’ve heard tale of, Rennsellaer.”

  “During the siege of Tastledae, his grandmothers kidnapped Prince Alannon, and after they were knighted, they married him.”

  The clock ticked off the silence between them. In one of the many specimen jars that lined her mother’s desk, a cotton weevil scratched on the glass wall of its prison. Ren felt a sudden sympathy with it.

  “Yes, odd breeding,” Queen Elder finally murmured. “Are you sure of their claims?”

  “He wears the Emerald Hart.”

  “Which has been faked in the past.”

  “I believe their claim.” Ren handed her mother the copy of Wellsbury’s memoirs. “Wellsbury herself reports sending the Whistlers into Castle Tastledae during the time that Prince Alannon vanished. Trained thieves, desperate for a husband, and a missing prince-I don’t know why no one has ever connected the two before now.”

  Her mother opened the book where Ren had placed a marker, scanned the page, and caught where Ren had underlined the name of Whistler, then skipped on to a passage Ren had purposely not underlined. “

  ‘As I hoped,’ ” she read, “ ‘the Whistlers have found ways to come and go unobserved into the castle.

  Their intelligence indicates that we will not be able to take the castle by honorable siege, but will have to resort to mayhem. Fortunately, the Whistlers excel at mayhem.’ ”

  Ren had chosen to ignore the passage. Acknowledging it could only make things worse. “I visited the wall of sorrow this morning. The Whistlers all bear a striking resemblance to Prince Alannon.”

  “I see.” Her mother set the memoirs down beside her own book. It was titled, Ren noticed now, Breeding for the Success of Pest Resistance – a Study in Genetics. Had her mother picked up this passion for breeding before or after the princesses’ marriage to Keifer? Most likely before-whatever her mother thought of Keifer, she couldn’t fault his breeding. “I suppose one could argue that knighthood and a royal husband eliminate all black marks against a family.”

  Ren struggled to find the thread of the argument she had hammered out over the last five days. “His family has maintained the status of landed gentry since the war. Their farm is well ordered and bountiful.”

  “No crimes, lapses into thievery, or joining the army?”

  Ren was not sure if this was a truthful question or a sarcastic comment on the Whistlers’ background.

  “No.” She returned to her planned discussion. “He is one of four sons, and has three uncles.”

  “Seven males in two generations?” her mother asked with sudden, sharp attention.

  “I’ve checked the best one can, and his three uncles and one set of split-off aunts all have sons, somewhere between a confirmed two and a rumored five.”

  “You argue your case well.”

  “He has thirty-one sisters and brothers, all healthy as horses, sharp-eyed, quick-witted-sound teeth-pretty enough to put most of the peers to shame, hardworking, polite-”

  “Enough, enough.” Queen Elder held up her hand. “You said ‘chaste’ earlier. Are you sure?”

  “‘Perhaps it is my vanity speaking, Mother, but I cannot imagine him refusing me after accepting another woman.” She caught her mother’s look, and found herself blushing hotly. “I wanted him, and pressed him close. He allowed kisses-no-he delighted in kisses, but for his family’s sake held the line on further pursuits.”

  “Dear, how many times have I told you? Don’t dabble before marriage, or you’ll be blinded by your heart. As Eldest, you have to be the clear thinker now.”

  “He was very sweet. With his father gone, he tends the babies as if they were his own, and he is gentle, firm, and loving with them. He understands honor, pride, and loyalty. He can withstand the pressure of a wanton princess when he is but poor landed gentry.” She found herself scrambling for more, for her mother’s look was hardening. “He is the one that went down to the creek and carried Odelia home because his younger sisters left him and his baby sisters alone.”

  “And you’re already in love with him.” The look was stone-cold now.

  Ren closed her eyes, hoping her mother would not deny the suit based on that alone. “Yes, I believe so.”

  �
��And what does Odelia think of this wonderment? Did she meet him? Kiss him?”

  “She lay in bed an extra day in hopes he would come nurse her through. I don’t think she managed to obtain a kiss; I think she would have gone on at great length if she had.”

  “I see.”

  “Please, Mother, let us consider him. He is almost sure to throw healthy children with good chances for a boy or two. He would certainly be a good father. His royal blood balances the thieving soldiers turned landed gentry. He seems to have the strength of will to be the royal husband-he can resist temptation and do the right thing. He is beautiful-very, very beautiful.”

  “Let me consider.”

  With the statement. Ren fell silent. Any further ar-guing would only damage her cause. After that royal decree, one could only retreat, wait, and hope.

  Queen Mother Elder gave her verdict later that night. “If your sisters agree, you can marry him. I will send for him, on pretense of a reward for saving your sister. There is no need to taunt his family with hopes of a match that might not come about.”

  “Thank you. Mother.”

  Chapter 6

  “Rider! There’s a rider coming in!”

  The call echoed over the farm. Jerin came to the kitchen door to see the solitary rider coming up the lane. His youngest sisters and little brothers stopped their game of “recon” to stare out toward the road.

  Middle and elder sisters came drifting out of the barns and outbuildings. Before the rider had reached the bottom of the hill, Heria picked up Kai, took Liam by the hand, and started toward Jerin. Doric followed reluctantly, throwing curious glances over his shoulder. Eldest went into the house via the front door and came back out wearing her pistols.

  Princess Ren’s captain of the guard. Raven Tern, cantered her horse up to the beaten dirt of the barnyard. She pulled her horse to a halt before Eldest. “Eldest Whistler, greetings to you.”

  “Greetings to you. Captain.”

  “I carry a message to you and your sisters from the Queens.”