Eldest studied her with ice-blue calm, then nodded. "We should talk."

Good-nights were said, the younger Whistlers went off to their rooms, and Ren led Eldest to her study. Ren poured out brandy, offered good cigars, and then said, "You seem angry at me."

Eldest Whistler spoke slowly, obviously choosing her words carefully. "Shall I say that I was disappointed when I learned what liberties you had taken with my brother?"

"Corelle saw us, then," Ren guessed.

Eldest nodded. "And told the first moment it was useful to her to do so."

"I'm sorry," Ren murmured.

"This sponsoring of Jerin. It's your idea, to make amends?"

"In part." Ren considered and decided. "I love Jerin. It would make me happy to marry him. If I had been born Eldest to another family, I wouldn't have left your farm without a marriage contract."

"But we're too far beneath the princesses of the realm," Eldest said bitterly, almost spitting the word "princesses."

"Except for a quick dalliance."

"Perhaps not."

Eldest looked up sharply, and then frowned. "You toy with me."

"No. My first husband was politically a good choice. Keifer was also a spoiled, self-centered, manipulative brat. He played my sisters against one another to get his way. He threw fits, threw food, threw dishes, pouted, cried, and withheld s.e.xual services. The public appearance at the theater was typical of his refusal to listen to common sense."

"I would have spanked him," Eldest murmured.

"I wished my sister had, often. Perhaps she would be alive today." Ren sighed. "Keifer was everything that Jerin is not, including a bloodline that traced back twenty generations. I have asked my mothers to allow a marriage between our families. To be frank, without Prince Alannon's blood, they would have never agreed to consider Jerin. I don't know if it's enough, though, for them to decide in favor of a marriage."

"I see," Eldest Whistler said, face controlled against any emotion that she might have been feeling. A soldier's face. How many generations before that military stamp would breed out?

"My mothers thought it would be unfair to raise your hopes for a royal match," Ren said. "I thought you should know, so you can keep it in mind when the offers for Jerin come in."

A trace of a smile flitted across Eldest's face. "You don't want us to accept any offer before you can make yours."

"Yes."

Eldest stood swirling the brandy in her gla.s.s, considering, and finally sighed. "And how long must we wait?"

Ren hesitated before saying, truthfully, "I don't know. I know your family made a good first impression. I know that my mothers are now convinced of your royal bloodline. I know that I love Jerin and that Odelia is most likely favorable to a match. Lylia is just old enough to marry, and anxious for her wedding night. She'll be swayed by Jerin's beauty alone, I think. Trini suffered at Keifer's hands, and will probably not endorse any man, which my mothers well know. Halley-if she's to be found, if she's alive-she'll be the difficult one to sway; she was not happy with our first marriage."

"So the rumors are true; Princess Halley is missing."

"For months." Ren sighed. "She has never dealt well with the murder of my sisters. At midwinter she said not to worry about her, that she'd be gone for a while, then vanished."

"Can you make an offer without her?"

Ren shook her head. "I don't think I can. Halley is much better Eldest material than I, and so her word carries much weight with my mothers. They might decide to wait for her to reappear."

Eldest Whistler sighed, and was long silent. "We will let you know of any offers we receive, and give you a chance to counter them, but we can't wait forever. We need Jerin's brother's price a week after his birthday. We've made arrangements to buy the mercantile at Heron Landing from the Picker sisters, and they've given us only until then to buy it, else we pay a penalty."

Two months. Ren nodded, feeling sick. Halley had been gone for eight months. Sixty spare days did not seem enough time.

"Excuse me," Eldest murmured, "but I should go and tend my family. They're still unsettled, this being a new place and all."

"Of course," Ren said. "Good night, Whistler."

"Your Highness." And Eldest Whistler left with a bow that was hardly more than a nod.

"G.o.ds above, Halley." Ren murmured to the fire. "Where are you? Are you even still alive?"

Chapter 9.

It had been a night of nightmares and Ren jolted awake at dawn. A light rain during the night had dampened the fireplace ashpit, and the ghost of winter fires lingered in the room. Ren tumbled from her bed still half asleep and flung open the windows. After a couple of deep breaths of clear summer morning air, she sat on the window seat, staring as the sun turned the river molten, letting the glitter fill her eyes and blot out the night images. Her nightmare had been twisted by fears of losing Jerin. Halley was missing in a burning building, while the dwarflike shopkeepers from Heron Landing were carrying Jerin off to marry a stranger. No, it wasn't difficult to tell what had triggered her nightmare.

Where had Halley gone? More importantly, how could they get her back in time?

While Halley hadn't said where she was going, it hadn't been hard to guess why she left. More than any of them, Halley had been marked body and soul by the explosion that killed their sisters and husband.

Typical of Odelia's luck, Odelia had not gone to the theater that night. Ren could never remember why, except a hazy notion that it came as punishment for some small crime. Trini, fortunately, had not gone either-she was still recovering from Keifer's unnaturally vicious treatment of her. Lylia and the youngest sisters, of course, were too young to take to the theater. With their husband, Keifer, all ten oldest princesses, however, and two of the middle princesses made a rare appearance at a public performance.

After six years, odd memories remained crystal clear. A virgin layer of snow had covered the city, not yet touched by the omnipresent soot of deep winter. They arrived late, delayed by another fit of anger from Keifer, and the great arching windows sent pillars of light into the night. Ren and Halley came through the doors a step behind Lieutenant Raven, and the music struck them all of a sudden, as if they had been deaf up to that moment. Behind them. Eldest ignored Raven's older sister Hawk as she explained that they hadn't vetted the building yet due to the sudden plans and pleaded for the royal family to wait in the coaches. They swept up the stairs to the Porters' private box, where a handful of ancient Porter mothers already waited. In the next box over, their middle Moorland cousins acknowledged the princesses with slightly cool nods-they were still angry with Keifer for slapping Cullen.

The opera was Barren Winter Barren Winter, which had been banned for two generations. The princesses settled into the Porters' box as the opera's opening lines reminded the audience that Ren's great-grandmothers had split their royal daughters into two families. Ren's grandmothers married Michael and took rule of Queensland. The younger sisters took Rafael as a husband and were given the newly annexed island of Southland to rule.

Ren started out bored. She knew the story well, the events having triggered the War of the False Eldest, and the repet.i.tive nature of the lyrics annoyed her. Ann Kinsen, however, gave a brilliant performance as Michael, her powerful alto sweeping Ren up in the story of a man's sterility destroying his family and country. As the younger sisters grew more strident in their demands that their children be considered heirs of the childless elder sisters, the more tortured Michael became by his affliction.

It was Queen t.i.tia, however, who made the opera painfully real and personal. Nana t.i.tia had been a woman forever undecided. To wear the red shawl or the blue one. To sit next to the fire, or near the lamp. To take the fish, or eat the lamb. She wavered on the smallest of details, always with a twittering laugh to cover her awareness of her own weakness.

There on the stage, with her embarra.s.sed polite laugh, t.i.tia dithered about delivering a secret offer to share a n.o.ble husband, an option that would have saved Eldest from visiting the disease-ridden cribs in a desperate attempt to produce an heir. t.i.tia hesitated when action would have prevented pregnant Beatrice's murder and thus the entire war. She wavered as Michael begged for divorce, which would have allowed him to escape the sense of responsibility for the growing tragedy that ultimately led to his suicide. She vacillated instead of stopping Cida's b.l.o.o.d.y revenge at the war's end, letting their imprisoned youngest sisters and nieces-including the infants-to be beheaded in one gory afternoon. With a downcast look and a soft laugh, she refused to make any decision that would have saved her sisters, her husband, and a full score of innocent children-girls that could have been Ren's mothers if they had lived.

In a stunned moment, Ren realized that the true source of tragedy hadn't been Michael's sterility, but t.i.tia's indecision. Ren thought of her nana, how rarely she smiled, how she often stared out the windows of the palace crying, how she lived into her nineties knowing she destroyed almost everything she loved. For her poor heartbroken nana, for the grandmothers she never knew, for her might-have-been mothers that had been killed in anger, Ren wept.

Ren's elder sisters and husband heard her crying. They shot cold looks at her-silent orders for her to cease her sobbing. Finally, Keifer leaned against Eldest and whispered his displeasure. A hard look, a flick of his fingers, and she was bundled up to be taken home.

Oh, she hated them so that night, for not weeping, for not being touched by this horrible tragedy that happened to their their family, for scolding her with their silent disapproval, for sending her home like a screaming infant. She stood on the front steps, weeping openly now, waiting with a guard for the royal coach to be brought around. family, for scolding her with their silent disapproval, for sending her home like a screaming infant. She stood on the front steps, weeping openly now, waiting with a guard for the royal coach to be brought around.

She would get back at them somehow. She would make them pay. Only Halley would she spare, for Halley followed her outside to find out why she was crying.

"They should have spared the children," Ren said as she took the handkerchief that Halley offered. "If they hadn't split the family, those would have been their own children that they killed. The children would have been our mothers."

"Their mothers and father had been executed." Halley scowled at her. "Do you think you could take that hatred to suckle at your breast?"

"They had done nothing wrong!"

"If we had aunts that executed our mothers for fighting over a just cause, would we calmly accept them as our new mothers, or would we rebel?"

"Merrilee was just seven months old."

"And Livi was seven, and Wren was seventeen. Which ones do you spare? Where do you draw the line?"

"It wasn't right," Ren insisted, hunching her shoulders.

They fell into silence, recognizing that they couldn't agree on this issue. It snowed in huge, slowly drifting clumps, like goose down falling to earth. The coach appeared at the corner. Halley nodded to her and started back up the stairs.

At the theater door Halley stopped, and bluntly announced, "I hate him."

"So do I." Ren knew she meant Keifer.

"I don't want to be married to him."

Ren scoffed, "We don't have a choice. The royal family is never going to split, not after last time."

Halley glared at her.

In the silence between them rose Michael's poignant aria lamenting the death of innocent children.

There was a m.u.f.fled noise, like a distant cannon being fired. Then a roar of noise and light whiting out her senses as the explosion smashed Ren down the steps. She landed in slush, bitter cold on her face and hands, flames already furnace-hot across her back.

Six years later, a memory, broken free by her nightmares, suddenly surfaced. The moment before the explosion, Halley broke the silence and said with heartfelt spite, "I wish Keifer was dead."

The murder of their sisters held them all prisoner. Trini wore the scars of Keifer's cruelty as if they were still fresh. Lylia rushed to be an adult, to fill the void that their sisters' deaths created. Odelia retreated in the opposite direction, trying to dodge the responsibility that made them targets. Ren resisted all suggestions of marriage-until she met Jerin.

Halley, though, had been consumed. She abandoned everything to find their sisters' killers. It had mystified them all, the way she devoted herself to the search.

Sitting on the window seat, trying to forget her nightmare. Ren remembered Halley's last words, and realized the truth. Halley'd wished Keifer dead, and in that instant, he died-and with him, all their sisters.

Halley was searching for someone other than herself to blame.

"You're thinking of the bombing." Raven had knocked, and entered at Ren's call, finding her on the window seat, still stunned by the insight to Halley's soul.

"Yes. I think I finally realized why Halley vanished."

"Any idea as to where where?"

Ren shook her head. "No, and if I'm going to offer for Jerin, I need to find her soon."

Raven looked pessimistic. "I have been searching for her, discreetly, not that any of my people could bring her home against her will if they found her."

Ren snarled a curse, getting up to cross the room to the washbasin. "I can't offer for Jerin without Halley. I can't put word out to Halley that I need her back to make an offer; if I did, the world would know."

"It might be the only thing to make her surface."

The newspaper story of the attack on Odelia should have brought her running . Ren could think of only one reason why Halley hadn't reappeared when Odelia was wounded. . Ren could think of only one reason why Halley hadn't reappeared when Odelia was wounded.

"It would add fuel to fire the rumors about her." Ren splashed cold water onto her face; it dampened old tears that burned anew. She leaned over the bowl, water dripping from her face, blinking away the salt fire in her eyes. "Plus our enemies will then know that she is traveling without royal guard."

Raven held out the hand towel. "I'll set more people on finding her. Quietly."

Ren scrubbed dry her face. "Would it put you short on finding the Prophets?"

"Oh, yes, the cannons. We found the ship they used to transport them from Heron Landing. The Onward Onward. The cannons were unloaded, here in Mayfair, the night before we arrived."

Ren started to smile, then remembered Raven's theory on how they could find the ship. "The crew is dead?"

"The thieves included two kegs of ale, heavily laced with a.r.s.enic, with their payment. The captain and eight of her sisters are dead. Six more are not expected to live."

Ren jolted at the name of the poison. "Did any survive to talk?"

"None that interacted with the thieves directly," Raven said. "Those who did survive told us the captain was hired in Heron Landing to pick up ten heavy crates downriver, and give pa.s.sage to the gentry family riding herd on the cargo."

"What made them think the women were gentry?"

"Cut of the clothes they wore, the way they talked. There were eight to ten of them in their late teens and twenties, fair of coloring, average height and weight."

So the cannons were here nearly ten days ago. Most of the witnesses were dead. Dozens of ships had come and gone during that time.

"So our haystack grows again."

"They only had a few hours to hide the cannons before my orders to check all incoming and outgoing cargo arrived in Mayfair. There's hope we can run them to ground. We also have a lead."

Raven reached into her vest pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was a leaf of common foolscap, cheap in quality, the fool grinning at her in the watermark. With a light hand, someone had covered one side of the paper with pencil shading, revealing a series of crude pictures marching across the paper like letters.

"What's this?"

"A trick I picked up. If someone has written on the top sheet of a pile of papers, the next sheet down retains an impression of the writing. You can capture the impression by shading the page with a graphite pencil." Raven grinned smugly. "The drawings are written thieves' cant. Apparently the thieves wanted the cannons elsewhere. During the trip, they tried to talk the captain into changing the scheduled stops and couldn't. They also tried to hire the ship out once they arrived at May-fair, but didn't want to wait for the two-day layover that the Onward Onward had planned. They borrowed paper to write out this note and sent it by runner. A short time later a woman showed up with some roustabouts and wagons to unload the cannons. Lucky for us, the gentry returned the unused paper." had planned. They borrowed paper to write out this note and sent it by runner. A short time later a woman showed up with some roustabouts and wagons to unload the cannons. Lucky for us, the gentry returned the unused paper."

Ren gazed at the crude drawings. "Can you read it?"

Raven's mouth gathered into a chagrined smile. "No.

I'm trying to track down someone who can read it and yet would be unlikely to be involved in this case. I don't want to tip off our thieves."

Ren stripped out of her sleeping shirt and started to dress in the clothes laid out for her. The idea of waiting chafed. The longer they waited, the less chance they had of finding these murderers. She was b.u.t.toning her slacks when an idea came to her. "I wonder-do you think the Whistlers still know their thieves' cant?"

Raven shrugged. "Can't hurt to ask."

Eldest Whistler nodded through their explanation as she wordlessly studied the paper. When it was clear that they had no more to say, she shook her head. "It isn't cant. It looks like cant, but it isn't."