Read Online Thornlost (Book 3) by Melanie Rawn - Free Book Online Page A

mam, though, she was brought a few for testing in her time. Told me what to look for in a Caitiff, and how to clean up after one.” She nodded to the counterpane spread across chairs. “Mayhap she glossed over a mark now and then, because she knew the woman and knew her not to be what she was accused of being—it’s a rare skin without a blotch or blemish someplace. But—”
    “The Princess!” he blurted. “Lady Vren—someone told me that her mother came from a distant land to the east, and when she arrived for the wedding, they stripped her starkers and
inspected
her! Was that what they were looking for?”
    “It’s been so long a while that I doubt they knew the why of it, but by the sound of it… yes.”
    “How does it show? I mean, is there a specific—?”
    “That’s Troll-lore, boy.”
    “Umm… all right,” he mumbled, chastened. “Was the Caitiff allowed to drown?”
    “Fished out, dried off, and sent to the Durkah Isle with the rest of her kin. We’re not barbarians. And before you ask, iron and steel have no effect on them.”
    “How many of them were here?”
    “A few hundreds.” Her muscular shoulders twitched. “Best to be rid of them. They look like anyone else, but they bring a taint to a bloodline.”
    Instantly indignant, thinking of innocent little Jindra in her painted cradle, he said, “There are people who say that about Gnomes and Goblins, too.
And
Trolls.”
    She nodded, unoffended. “About
everyone
, at some time or another.” Once more she pointed to the counterpane. “Stitching is their specialty. A harmless, womanly occupation, anyone would say—”
    Feeling contrary, and wondering why once again he was defending a woman he loathed, he said, “I trust that you know what you’re about, but I’ve seen no proof.”
    “If it’s your thinking that I ought to’ve waited and let you come out all over in hives, or lose the use of your fingers, or—”
    “Would I?” he challenged. “Is that what was becast into that cloth? I touched it last night, when I unwrapped it. I didn’t sense anything.”
    “Wizard,” she repeated.
    “You knew it was from them and yet you let Dery sleep all wrapped up in it.”
    “Gracious Gods, boy, what a thorough-thinking brain you’vegot between your ears! The thing was made for
you
. To sleep beneath. Huddled around you for hours at a time. Seeping into your dreams, mayhap. Who could know what was intended?”
    “So you don’t really know, either.”
    “Would you rather I’d waited to make sure?” she snarled. “Three more things I’ll tell you, and then we’ll talk of it no more. Clothwork is their specialty on the Durkah Isle. Trolls inspect
everything
, and the slightest breath of magic means the whole shipment is destroyed.”
    “Why is it that Trolls have so much to do with keeping watch over Caitiffs?”
    Her only answer was a shrug. “The second thing is this. There’s one sort of magical folk on the Durkah Isle, and one only. When enough of them had been exiled to the island, they set themselves to ridding the place of all other races except Human. Wizards, Goblins, Elves, Gnomes—though not Pikseys or Sprites. They stick to their forests in Albeyn and have never been seen on the Durkah Isle.”
    “What of the Fae?”
    “I can’t see even a White Winterchill Fae liking a life in almost year-round snow, can you?”
    He had no way of knowing. His own heritage was, apparently, Green Summer Fae; his many-times-great-grandmother had said so.
    “Everyone else disappeared.” She growled softly. “Illness or accident, that’s what they said for years, a climate and a land no one but the toughest Humans and the exiled Caitiffs could tolerate, until no one went there anymore except for the cloth trade. There’s but the one port, free of ice only one month a year. And on that island are Caitiff and Human, and during that month the few Trolls who inspect the cloth. And thus it’s been for hundreds upon hundreds upon