Thief Read Online Free PDF Page B

staining the clothing and blades of her straw-haired captors that of her loved ones?
    With each day that passed in the new land, her mother’s last words, a promise called out to Sorcha as she was dragged away from her homeland—that God would bring her home again—turned a child’s hope into contempt. If her parents’ Christian God was so good, was even real, this would not have happened.
    Sorcha shook off the flashback. “I count four.”
    At least she’d been one of the lucky ones. Wulfram and Aelwyn had purchased her and adopted her as the daughter of their hearts. Aelwyn had been barren, and Sorcha might have been her own, given her mane of fiery red hair. But where Aelwyn’s eyes were summer blue, Sorcha’s were a winter green—the soft color of pine needles, so Wulfram often teased, or a gemstone fire when she was angry.
    “Three,” Gemma disagreed with a stubbornness twice her size. “We can only afford three.”
    Scorcha knew her friend was right. Having spent what little coin they had after her parents’ deaths on building a room in the warehouse for a home, they’d had to borrow from the moneylender to purchase the spring supplies this year. And the betrothal gift that Cynric had given her had gone toward previous auctions. If she asked for more, the thane might think her dowry—the business—was not worthy of marriage.
    “The littlest one won’t remember. A child-starved mother will give her all her own mother would, same as Aelwyn did you,” Gemma reminded her.
    Sorcha couldn’t deny that Aelwyn and Wulfram loved her with all their hearts. But that didn’t erase the memory of Sorcha’s birth mother. Myrna’s loving face was forever etched on Sorcha’s heart.
    “So, Sorcha, I see you’ve come for more children to while away.”
    Talorc, the Frisian slave trader whose goods were on the auction block, ambled over to Sorcha. Giving Gemma a less than dismissive glance, he set himself between the two of them for Sorcha’s undivided attention.
    Gemma jumped down from the cask before she was knocked over. “Watch yourself, trader, or you might awaken tomorrow as the swine you are.”
    “Ach, you’ve no more magic than me.” The Frisian scoffed at the threat as Gemma gave his tunic a hard tug of indignation. “Careful, little woman, or I’ll sell you!”
    With a sniff, Gemma hustled to Sorcha’s other side, but something told Sorcha it was not because of fear. Gemma was too quick for all that excess flesh and bone to catch her.
    “Talorc, I am a person of business like my father before me,” Sorcha said. “These children will fetch me a profit as well as you.” Sorcha’s smile was as empty as her growling stomach. In their haste to make it to the market in time for the auction, she and Gemma had failed to break the fast.
    “Exactly what is it you do with the urchins?” the man asked, fingering his necklace of gold coins and buttons, a financial reserve, as well as a boastful sign of his wealth. “I hear you keep them about from time to time, and then they are gone. Does she turn them into toads?”
    “You said you don’t believe in the magic of little people,” Sorcha replied.
    Although a good many did, something Gemma used to her advantage when it suited her purpose.
    Talorc peered around Sorcha. “No, but I do believe someone would pay dearly to have her as a pet.”
    Sorcha sank her fingers into Gemma’s shoulders in time to stay her friend’s impulse to respond, although she could well imagine what was going on in Gemma’s quick mind. Something about a knife and rendering Talorc so he would never sire children.
    “Gemma is a free woman,” Sorcha reminded him sweetly.
    The sad thing, though, was that what Talorc said was true. The wealthy had kept dwarves as pets since the pharaohs, although most were pampered to the utmost in exchange for their unique presence and entertainment. Sorcha had even heard it said that parents tried to arrest their babes’ normal growth