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with diet and potions, both within the womb and without, to produce the same result.
    “As for my business,” Sorcha continued, “I and my network of associates find child-starved homes for them inland where they’ll be raised as natural-born sons and daughters, not slaves.”
    It wasn’t exactly a lie. Gleemen and bards, or scops as they were called in Bernicia, were welcome anywhere in the isles no matter their nationality, as long as they might sing their stories in multiple languages or simply entertain with their theatrics or acrobatic abilities. A few in Sorcha’s close circle had heart enough to help her return these children to their rightful homes. Any rewards were shared, with her portion used to save future captives. Sadly, gratitude was all most broken families could afford.
    “The reward must not be much, else you’d rebuild your home.” Talorc laughed at her sentimentality, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes.
    It seemed to amuse her betrothed as well, but Sorcha had been adamant that she’d remain free to help those whose position she’d once been in. Or maybe it was her way of dealing with her grief this past year. A distraction to fill the emptiness of her loss.
    “Milady’s business is none of yours, Talorc,” Gemma reminded him. “Now leave us be so we can attend to it.” The dwarf motioned Talorc along, like a queen dismissing a minion.
    “Hah,” Talorc guffawed. “If only you were big as yer mouth was.”
    Gemma cocked her head at him. “Big or nay, we’re both big enough to tell the thane of Elford all about you.”
    Talorc raised his thick hedge of brow at Sorcha. “So it’s true. You’re to be a lady of Elford Hall now.”
    Sorcha nodded. The skim of his jaundiced gaze over her body reminded her all too much that it soon would not be her own. But Elford’s wedding gift would go a long way toward her purpose, she reminded herself. And at the rate her mission to help the children had dwindled her resources, she should consider herself honored that her late father’s sword-friend would even consider her. After all, she was not truly Saxon.
    “No wonder you haven’t found another place to live,” Talorc remarked. “You’ll have the great hall at Elford as your own.” He glanced at Gemma. “And a jester besides.”
    Before Gemma could come back at him, Talorc walked away, chuckling.
    “Chuckle away, oaf,” the dwarf said under her breath. “I’ve three Byzantine gold pieces for the insults you’ve hurled.”
    Alarm struck down the sense of being soiled by Talorc’s presence. The trader’s purse hung on the verge of falling by only one of its pull strings. “Gemma! Not here where—”
    Sorcha broke off as Gemma raised a finger to her lips. “I only skimmed the top,” her companion said with the demeanor of a well-fed cat. “He’ll never know when the bag came loose or if he lost anything.”
    There was no thrill like that of a well-executed theft from someone who deserved it. Sorcha knew that firsthand. But here in the marketplace, where she and Gemma were well known and respected …
    Sorcha ushered Gemma closer to the auction block. “Let’s just do our bidding and get the urchins home, eh?”

    That evening, four bedraggled youngsters scrambled for small meat pies that Gemma had purchased for them in the marketplace, since neither Sorcha nor her companion claimed to be decent cooks. The eldest, a lad from a village in the nearby British kingdom of Elmet, gathered up his little sister and offered his pie to her. Sorcha put aside the hearth poker and left the warmth of the now-growing flames to help out.
    “You’re a good brother, Ian. But I’ll help Aine, so you can join the others.”
    Ian, black-haired as the rest of them, hesitated. Ten years if a day by Sorcha’s guess, he was clearly hungry and exhausted. And thanks to Talorc’s unwitting contribution, they were able to purchase his sibling.
    “I’ll get a knife to remove that rope off your