The next day 18 new people joined my house. My wives really did take over introducing each woman to the man she was assigned. They seemed to include themselves almost seamlessly within the tapestry that was the branch house. The slaves got much better at what they were supposed to be doing with the women around. My brothers and I were able to focus more on training again. We might have been removed from the arena list but that didn't mean we couldn't end up back there any day. We still had our surplus but our lord could order fights for us. If he did we most certainly could not refuse even if it was a proposed royal. No one says no to our lord.
I picked up the three brother's training after only a week. They knew the basics and they already understood each other. I just had to show them how to make that work for them. The day after I had started taking on their training Bella and Isa had started watching us. They stayed well back and near the messenger but it still drove me to distraction sometimes, yet for some unknown reason, I never ordered them to leave.
I received a letter from the eldest about the boy's first fight. She had scheduled them a four by four in two weeks but she had no idea who to put with them. I wrote back for her to fight them short of a man, it was safer then trying to include an unknown to them. She got it cleared and the terms for being short a man were not bad. If the other team won, Estro would get no entrant fee. I wasn't worried about the brothers losing any more then I was worried about death in the arena, if it happened it happened and I would deal with it then.
The three men had been surprised when I told them of the terms for their first fight as house Estro. They had no choice but to take the terms and I wasn't sure of their emotions on the issue. I was pretty sure that was because they weren't sure how they felt. They might not make up their minds on that until they either left the arena or died there.
The brothers did more then survive that fight. Not a drop spilt on the sand and their work as a unit was unbreakable. Seb had taken the lead as he was prone to do and their work paid off. The other house had looked like a pack of house cats. As their trainer I was on the outer ring for this fight. It was much harder to stand there and just watch than I had thought it would be. The other house seemed to have not considered that I would be training since my name was off the list for the arena, and I had been acting above my station as a male by playing branch house manager.
After the last enemy fell Seb turned and bowed to our eldest. His brothers had already taken a knee but unlike when my brothers had been in the ring with me these men were not afraid of each other. They had grown and bled together, they had bonds that wouldn't shake as long as all three stayed on the right side of the law. The two men kneeling waiting for the order were sure of their brother. Seb still didn't have to wait long for the order to ring out from the eldest. The eldest didn't trust my patience when it came to the arena, and that was probably wise. I still liked her more then the matriarch but it had been almost a month, even if the matriarch came back, with my agreements doing better than I had hoped already, the matriarch will have a hard time minimizing her eldest daughter again.
That didn't mean the eldest didn't have to be careful. My actions could still bring her world crashing down. I watched as the priests collected the bodies and the other house left. The eldest was standing next to me by the time the gate closed behind the priests.
I bowed as I noticed her, "You need to talk to me sister?"
"Yes, there is no way we can support the numbers you were talking about in your last letter."
"I would not think to tell you how to organize a trade, sister, but I would think you can get quite a few before the other houses figure out what you are up to and decide the bad debt is a cheaper price to pay."
"Not that, though that is a problem as well."
"The rest takes nothing but time, and with the cut our house will get, win or lose, the time is worth it. The repercussions of this fight are more damaging."
"Since you are training them and they seem even better at your style then you are."
"They are, they are brothers, as the word was meant to be used. Get me the men and the fights and I will work just as hard as I am making you work, sister."
She tapped her foot against the stone, then turned to look out across the arena. "I will do my best brother." She bowed slightly then left. My wives' brothers had stepped out of the arena and we all started walking back to the house.
A week after that more men started arriving at the house. The dining room was getting fuller, but it was not crowded by any means. The women helped with setting the table and cooking but the slaves did all the work during our evening meals. With almost 60 people in the room it could get a little loud, but I still insisted we eat one meal together.
My brothers might not understand why I do what I do but they were good at following my orders. They were also up to the task of keeping our new brothers in line.
Just under a month after that, our lord informed the house of Estro that our matriarch had suffered complications in his care and passed. No one questioned what he meant by complications, but it did mean that the eldest was now able to take the mantle of matriarch and able to negotiate with the whole weight of the house of Estro. She had a few rivals but they weren't able to get enough support to overthrow her or separate from the house.
The weather was getting colder most days now. All of the new men had taken at least one fight for the house of Estro. A few had died but not at the rate the other houses normally lost men. Out of the last 15 fights the house of Estro had only lost 4. Only one was a member of a four man team. The other houses were starting to try and figure out what we were doing. They seemed to be thinking that I was the problem, but with me not just set for the law, but removed from the arena list they couldn't get to me.
I had set up the arrangements to start training the younger boys. One of the capital houses had written to me instead of my new mother to complain how our deal was already making food prices in the market go up. The increase in value was minor, in the market. The real problem was that the house couldn't just steal what they wanted. That house had been one of the ones that took the most from the farmers that had accepted my agreement.
I had made a few days once the harvest started to take all the men of the branch house of Estro to help bring in the harvest. The unit that had grown up in the house didn't understand why I called it intensive short training. They had laughed when I told them, but they were good at following orders. They laughed until they started doing the work that is.
The other men had grown up on the farms they knew what I was talking about for the work part, the part that bothered them was I wasn't going to let them have all their tools to do the work. The women helped as well and all 36 farms had pulled up their fields and had the harvest stored in record time. I could almost hear the men and women of the houses laughing at us every day as we walked to the farms.
The mother of Estro was inundated with requests for fights the week after. I told her to accept any that gave us a three day rest first. She did and we ended up booking almost every open arena that day. She had done the same again in two weeks and for two weeks after that. I had told her the men could fight more then that but she didn't want to push it. It would be bad enough forfeiting all those matches if she had to.
She didn't have to forfeit any, every house that had wanted a fight, got one and I lost two more brothers, but their blood stayed with the house, as their brothers had decimated the teams that had caused the loss.
The rest of the houses regrouped from Estro after that and were watching to see how we did what we did. A couple of houses had talked to the farms, but the only thing the farmers would say is that they had a deal and that if they wanted the details they would have to take it up with the priesthood, or Estro. When the priesthood had figured out what our deal with the farms meant for them they had spent days bothering our new mother before she ordered them to either produce a change in the law or get out. Our house had not overstepped its rights, it had done nothing but offer to do work and get paid for it.
The snow still was not sticking to the ground but the air was hard to breathe, I was standing in the morning air with Bella and Isa watching the sunrise before the day got too hectic. Even with everything else I had been doing, I always made time to talk with the two women, and not always only in the bedroom. I stood there counting days as the sun snuck up on the world again.
It had been almost six months since the women came to the branch house. In that time, one had bled three times and the other four. Neither were showing but I was watching them out of the corner of my eye. Isa figured out that they were under my scrutiny first, she always seemed more aware of when I was using magic, then Bella did.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
I turned and looked at her, "I started with basic timekeeping, then moved onto math and anatomy. Is there something the two of you want to tell me?"
Isa put her hands on her hips and turned to face me. "What makes you think we tell you everything?"
"You are right, it is my own fault. If I had not been so busy with the house, and so obsessed with you having privacy even around me, I would have noticed much sooner. Maybe I should take the day off and we can celebrate just the five of us. Not that two of us would really know what was going on."
Bella laughed and smiled at Isa, "Told you, it would turn him on. He is a pre-fall paternal man."
"He is a strange man, as they have all tried to warn us about, sister." They were double teaming me now, and not in the good way.
"It is more primal than that. Men have always been less valuable for reproduction except if they can offer shelter, and safety. If you find a male that has those things, you want to make sure he doesn't wander, 9 months is a long time to keep a man near if his drives drive him away. So woman carrying children are even more enticing then ones that aren't."
Isa was frowning at me, "There you go. What dumb book did you read that out of?"
The rest of the day wasn't spent with the men for a change. I couldn't put them off forever but one day, probably wouldn't get more then one or two killed. I tried not to let that thought weigh on me while I enjoyed my company