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gray hair and a potbelly.
Mbutu shook her head again. "No, not that one either. Do you have any others?"
The slavemaster hung his head. "I'm sorry, that is the last of them."
Mbutu sniffed. "Are you certain? I was so interested in finding a foreigner, but neither of those were
quite suitable."
Talisha smiled, showing her leopard teeth. "I am certain that you have goods you are not showing us."
The slavemaster sighed. "All, I'm afraid, that I would feel honorable selling. For foreigners, the only other
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one I have has been unconscious for weeks, victim of . . . ah . . . let us call it a regrettable accident. We
have been attempting to revive him, but I'm afraid we may soon have to call it a loss."
"Bring him forth," Mbutu ordered. "I would like to see everything."
The moment they did, Mbutu knew they had the right man. Not only did he fit the jacamal's
description pale of skin, but with hair black as Princess Mfara's and almost as long, and a nose hooked
like an eagle's beak but he also had the feel of a powerful witch. Yet one with his!num drained down to
the lowest ebb.
"He looks sickly," Talisha said. "Are you sure he's not dead?"
The slavemaster waved his hand in the negative. "No, no. He is very much alive. But barely and he has
been wasting away."
Mbutu pulled off the least of her gold rings, one without any!num , merely value. "I believe I will take
him. As a curiosity, if nothing else. Accept this trinket in payment . . ."
"Ah, sweet lady, but I paid so much more for him . . ."
And so the haggling began. In the end, they sealed the bargain, the man in exchange for two gold rings, a
glass necklace, and an ivory earplug. Mbutu sent Talisha to the King's palace to borrow Mumfaro, the
youngest and best-tempered of the jacamals, who Mbutu felt vaguely sorry for. At which point they bore
away the unconscious witchman and set off across the desert to where Mumfaro knew the treasure trove
to be.
After all, splitting the wealth with one bandit as opposed to twenty bandits was much preferable.
The bandits' lair was a ruined caravanserai at a dry oasis, and the treasure was stashed in the hollow of a
broken wall not terribly original, but effective. Talisha brought forth a leather saddlebag and revealed a
huge cache of blue beads. Mbutu quickly put her hand over Talisha's mouth before she could exclaim
something foolish, like that she'd be the mother's brother to a monkey. Mbutu only took the pouch and
laid it across the chest of the sleeping man.
At which point he woke, like a prince from one of her tales. Slowly. Weakly. With lashes aflutter like
dying butterflies, never quite opening, and Mbutu had more than ample time to propitiate the orisha of
parrots so as to understand his speech. "Welcome back to the living," Mbutu said. "Your treasure has
been returned to you. All but a handful of beads. And they've caused quite some trouble, let me tell you. .
. ."
He sat up and felt his head. "I'm glad. You southerners should learn to fear a gypsy's curse." He then
looked at her, revealing eyes a startling blue, bright as his witch beads.
Mbutu blinked and made a subtle gesture against the evil eye. "What is a gypsy? Some type of witch or
mmoatia?"
"I am a gypsy," the man replied, glaring with all the azure balefulness of a peacock's eye. "We are of the
Rom. Travelers. I came because I heard your folk valued beads."
"We do," Mbutu replied, "and evidently your people do as well."
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"Not so much as you do. And not so much as our freedom," the man said, looking away, and allowing
Mbutu to relax her hand. "Slavery is the worst thing in the world to the Rom, and the second worst is
stealing from us. To invite the curse of one is to invite the curse of the whole tribe."
Mbutu bit her lip. An entire tribe of foreign witches all fueling their malice into a single curse. Wellthat
easily explained the power they'd been dealing with. Gypsies hmph! Bad as witches and mmoatia
combined. "You are free now," she said, "and you have your beads back. At least most of them."
"Good," he said, then looked at both of them. "Not that I'm ungrateful, but may I ask why you two ladies
have rescued me? It doesn't look like you're under a curse yourselves, and I can tell that you are a
woman of power."
Mbutu bowed her head. "My name is Mbutu," she said, "but you may call me Baubles." After all, if
Talisha was going to keep using it, she might as well make her taunt-name into her pride-name, and there
was no one better to start with than a gypsy witch.
"Talisha," said the warrior woman, not understanding the language but obviously understanding it was
time for introductions, "Bangles." She chimed her bracelets as explanation.
"I am Davio, of the Rom." He grinned then. "I suppose that would make me Beads."
"Well, Beads," Mbutu said, "Bangles and I have a business proposition for you. There are a number of
curses you could end immediately if you felt like it, but there is one in particular a merchant who is now
a beautiful princess that it might be more profitable to hold off on until we could do it in person. With all
appropriate ceremonies. And extra charges. After all, he doesn'tknow it was your curse to begin with."
The gypsy man grinned. "I like the way you think, Baubles. It is good to know thedukerin is practiced
this far to the south . . ."
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