Thief (11 page)

Just as he’d taken over Sorcha’s dance. They’d danced as one, Gemma said.

“He’s a strange one,” Gemma remarked at Sorcha’s side. “I can’t make him out.”

“Aye.”

“But something tells me we haven’t seen the last of him.”

“Is that good or bad?” Sorcha wondered aloud.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Do you regret stealing his purse?”

Gemma looked at Sorcha as if she’d grown a third eye in the center of her brow. “Of course not! I did what I had to do. And speaking of which—” She glanced at the sun dipping toward the Cheviot Hills to the southwest. “We’d best get home. We’ve got the boy to feed and need to leave early to meet Wada at the tavern.”

Wada.
Sorcha hesitated, stunned. Stunned that she’d forgotten about the moneylender’s man. Stunned that she’d even forgotten her anxiety over going to Hussa’s keep. Instead of fretting, she’d danced
as one
with a total stranger. And she had warmed not only to the man, but also to his mission.

“You go on ahead,” Gemma told her. “I’ll fetch the lad and catch up.”

Sorcha nodded without so much as a look toward her friend. She knew Gemma sensed her inner turbulence.

It was too much to take in all at once. One foot went before the other as though they marched to someone else’s command. Yet with each step, the resentment Sorcha had built toward her parents faded like footprints in the sand. The very sand where her father had nearly died, trying to find her.

And to this day her mother still tried.

Chapter Nine

Sorcha stared into the pot of peas she stirred, trying to sort her thoughts. But if anything, they swirled like the thick soup in the pot. She’d buried her parents in her seven-year-old mind. It had been the only reason she could think of for their not coming for her. That had given Sorcha a certain peace, a freedom to love her kind, adoptive parents.

Just the thought of her father lying cold and wounded on that beach, the image of Myrna sacrificing to hold on to his land for Sorcha’s sake …

Sorcha stood and squeezed her head between her palms as if that might stop the jumble of thought and emotion waging war in her head. She’d cried herself numb, hardly remembering Gemma’s catching up with her in the alley.

“I imagine Ebyn will be here soon,” the dwarf said from where she had taken one of the new dresses to examine it in the waning light from the window. “I guess we should count on feeding Caden as well before heading to the tavern.”

When Ebyn had begged to stay on the beach with the other boys, Caden had offered to see Ebyn home before dark.

“Do you think you’re up to the tavern?” Motherly concern infected Gemma’s voice.

“Of course.” She wasn’t, but Sorcha was committed to entertain, and she kept her commitments.

Including the one to Elford?

“You know, this shouldn’t take much work at all,” Gemma said, turning the dress to see its back. “This lacing takes care of the ample girth, though you’re taller than Elford’s late wife. I’ll need you to try it on, to see if I need to add some to the hem.”

“I suppose I could visit my mother as Lady Elford,” Sorcha thought aloud.

Of course she meant to keep her commitment to Cynric. To even think otherwise was an affront to her honor and his.

“When her land is in Saxon hands, aye.” Gemma rarely approached a hard truth with gloved words. “Good-natured as Cynric is, I don’t see him approving of a trip into Lothian, unless it’s a raid.”

Gemma was right. Sorcha wasn’t thinking clearly. “That’s more Tunwulf’s bent.”

The villain had more lives than a cat, if all the raids he boasted of were true. Cynric’s having no real sway with his son should alone be enough to make Sorcha reconsider marriage to his father.

Sorcha tamped down the rebellious thought. She would not shame her father’s friend and her father’s name in the court.

A knock on the door preempted the rest of her internal debate. Sure, it was Ebyn and Caden, who had dropped this awful dilemma in her lap. “You get the door, Gemma,” Sorcha suggested. “I’ll dip up our supper.”

Gemma tossed the dress over her shoulder as she walked to the door and opened it. “Wada!”

Sorcha nearly dropped the bowl in her hand at Gemma’s exclamation. Wada was supposed to come to the tavern
tonight
. Her nerves plucked mightily by yet another surprise, Sorcha hurried to where they’d stored the payment they’d barely put together.

“I should make you wait to be paid as agreed upon, but since you’re here—”

“Well, what is this?” Wada fingered the rich silk of Sorcha’s new dress.

Gemma clutched it all the more tightly. “It’s a dress. Have you taken an interest in dressing like a woman?”

Sorcha tossed the bag of coin and valuables at him. “It’s here—all of what I borrowed
and
the toll.”

“Ye must have had good
collection
last night,
”
he derided, “seein’ how you was so short this time yesterday. Whose purse did you lift?”

Sorcha inserted herself between Gemma and Wada. “The prince’s wedding put the patrons in a generous humor. You have your money, now off with you. I must get ready to go to the tavern soon.”

Wada stared greedily at the garment. “I might be tempted to leave sooner if I had somethin’ to make it worth me while.
I’ve
no use for such a fine dress, but I know a wench who’d warm me many a night for such as that ’un.”

“Then buy one from your extorted profit, but you’ll not have this one.” And even if Sorcha did give it up, no wench would see it unless she paid the oaf a sum only a noblewoman could afford. Nay, Sorcha would not line his ratty pockets with gold.

She stepped to the side, as though to lean wearily on the doorjamb. Just inside it hung Wulfram’s short sword, hidden beneath her hanging cloak. “
This
one is a gift from Thane Elford for his bride-to-be. He’d not take kindly to anyone taking it from me.”

Wada’s weasel-like gaze shifted from Sorcha to the dress. “Now, Sorcha …” he said, bullying her backward until his bulk filled the entrance. He reached for her cheek as though to caress it, but instead he clamped her face between his thumb and fingers, digging them into the knot of her jaw muscles.

The pain hurled Sorcha back to another time. A slaver twisted her face one way, then the other. Just a child, she couldn’t back away from him. His arm was like a bar of steel crushing her toward him. She couldn’t flee….

“I’m sure ye can come up with some story—”

Her fingers locked on the hilt of the sword.

“—as to how it was lost, to please his lordship,” Wada cajoled.

But this time she could fight. The old fear curdling in her throat gave way to a roaring rage. Sorcha pricked Wada’s thick neck with the point of her father’s blade before the bully even reacted to her outburst.

“’Tis not his lordship you need fear,” she growled between clenched teeth, “you foul-minded son of a slop bucket.”

“You crazy wench, I’ll have ye arrested—”

Wada backed out of the house and into the street, Sorcha ushering him with her blade.

This time of day, laborers and fishermen found their way home along Water Street. Sorcha made certain they all heard her. “Touch me again, Wada,” she shouted, “and you’ll find yourself food for the fish.”

“Ye’ve drawn blood!” In his haste to escape the press of the sword, one foot tangled with the other. Wada flailed backward, landing like a sack of grain flat on his back.

Sorcha pressed the sword against the fleshy part of the chest just below the heart. “I’ve a witness to what you’ve just tried with me”—let the folk think what they would—“and
more
now,” she bellowed for their sake. “People who have no love of you, you thieving bully.”

His face beetled a mix of anger and humiliation, Wada flung a curse at her and lowered his voice for her ears only. “Ye’ve not seen the last o’ me, wench. Yer father learned the hard way about pushin’ Wada about.”

The hard way.
A vision of fire devouring the only home she knew flashed in Sorcha’s brain. “
You!”

Sorcha had never dealt more than a scratch to dissuade any who threatened her or Gemma. But at that moment, she could already savor the plunge of her father’s sword through the heart of his murderer. All she had to do was lean into it. Just lean …

Her hesitation was a mistake.

Wada hurled himself to the side, knocking the sword away with his arm before she could put her weight behind it. As it thudded to the ground, both she and Wada scrambled to retrieve it—

When a heavy, booted foot pinned it to the dirt.

“I’ve heard and seen enough to put a rope around your neck, villain.” Caden of Lothian stood upon it, so not even Wada could wrench the weapon free.

“Stay out o’ this, Cymri,” Wada snarled. “You don’t know
what
you heard.”

“Ah, but I do,” Caden said. “I heard you threaten to burn this young lady’s home to the ground, the same as you did to her parents’ … with them in it.”

“I could have killed him.” Hoarse fury lodged in Sorcha’s throat.

“Not in front of a street full of witnesses,” Caden reminded her lowly.

It was true. A dozen or so people drew closer, once they saw the big blond stranger was in control of the situation.

“I’ll not forget this, missy.” Wada struggled to his feet and knocked the dirt off his clothing with his big hands.

“Neither will I,” Sorcha promised. Never while she drew breath. She’d always wondered, suspected. Wada’s presence often left her parents’ faces marked with concern and anger. Then came the fire—

Caden drew her from the suffocating vision. “In the meanwhile, sir, you’d best hope a fire doesn’t start in this warehouse, for three of us heard your threat, and every man and woman here will now know the source.”

“Arson is a hangin’ offense,” a woman cried out.

The ruckus had brought Tilda out of her house, armed with a broom and mad as a hornet.

“Arson ain’t got nothin’ to do with this,” Wada averred. “I said yer father learned his lesson the hard way
’cause ’e got in debt over ’is head,
” he mocked, smug with his quick answer. “I don’t know nothin’ about no fire.”

But he did. Sorcha knew exactly what he’d meant.

Caden stood on her sword, but the dagger she kept lashed to her thigh could be just as deadly. Although the witnesses who held her back from a murderous offense would serve her purpose just as well.

“Take up your money bag and bear witness before all standing here that my debt to Athelstan is paid in full, including the toll,” she demanded.

Wada reached down and hefted the bag in his hand. “Feels about right.”

“Count it, Wada!” Her voice wavered along the line she walked between rage and nervous collapse. “Gemma, fetch our scale please. He’ll count it now in front of witnesses.”

As Caden watched the moneylender’s thug pour a mixed bag of coins and rings onto a barrel top, his disgust with the man grew. Caden had seen his type before, the bully preying on the helpless … though Sorcha had proven she was not as helpless as one would think. She’d even drawn a trickle of blood.

Impressed, he reached down and picked up the weapon. It was well balanced. Too short to Caden’s notion of a sword, and too long to count as a knife, but deadly either way.

And it was clear Wada knew just how close he’d come to journeying to the Other Side. He was so rattled that the simple task of separating the gold from the silver and copper to weigh on the small scale Gemma had placed on a nearby barrel top proved cumbersome for his shaking hands.

“I’ll be needin’ a knife.” Wada lifted a string of mixed precious metal coins and medallions held together by a thin leather thong.

Recognition punched Caden in the stomach. He’d won that money over the throwboard from a spice merchant in Din Edyn—one of those men who didn’t trust a purse for their treasure but wore it around their neck. Outrage charged in like a bull, trampling Caden’s incredulity. He’d throttle the wench—nay,
both
of them!

Instead he slapped the flat of the sword down on the barrelhead, stopping Wada from reaching for the dagger tucked in his boot. “Use this.”

Wada cut the thong easily on the sharp blade. As the coins slid off, clinking into a pile, Caden shot a festering gaze at Sorcha. Too caught up in her own emotions, she didn’t notice. But her dwarf companion did. And the look Gemma returned was a silent plea.

A plea! By all that was holy, Caden had been robbed by two wenches. Not even two full-grown ones. Worse, Sorcha had set him up so that the others in the tavern had thought he had made ungentlemanly advances toward her, earning him a knot on the back of the head as well. Her timing had been perfect. But then the singer, dancer, swordsman, and thief was a consummate actress as well.

Hadn’t she frolicked on the beach as if learning a simple dance was her greatest worry … without so much as a pang of guilt? And he’d thought it was
his
charm breaking through her stiff resistance to her mother’s wishes. The same charm he intended to use to find out more about Rhianon.

You’ve met your match.

The dawning staggered Caden for a moment. Until the dwarf woman clasped her hands, reaching for him with desperate dark eyes. As if the pagan mite even knew there was a God.

The last of the coins separated, Wada piled the copper on the scale and announced the weight, standing back for the man closest to him to verify. While Sorcha returned it to the pouch, the observer verified the weighing of the silver and the small bit of gold as well.