One loose pin and ...

"I'll read your future for a silver tarsk?"
"And how much.. for a particularly good reading?"
"Four."

Cana and Tarra both had said we needed to learn how to haggle. We, meaning Yamka and I. None of us were particularly happy that a merchant had refused to trade her some beads she wanted for a very nice hide, not even for two. He had insisted that she give him a silver coin. Coins have no value among the Wagon People. You can't eat it, wear it, ride it or ... you get the idea. I grabbed my brother and we off for the market set up outside the Love Wars to practice a few of the things the women had taught me.

I was distracted for a while watching a troupe of half sized men do somersaults and stand on their heads on top of other half sized men's heads. There was redemption in watching the antics in that I made friends with a man with black skin and black eyes that was from a place called Anango. He shared a few tricks and illusions with me in exchange for a few I had learned from Enosh. Pacu was distracted by the dancing slaves that was part of the entertainment. Can't say as I blame him there .. but back to what we came there for in the first place? Oh yes now I remembered.

First thing I needed was to get some of those silver things so I could go get Yamka those beads. I was contemplating how to go about that when a woman grabbed my arm and suddenly stood back as if she had seen a spirit and the words rushed from her .. you ... you .. are one of those witches .. you can tell fortunes .. futures!

Well the sky loves me doesn't she? As a matter of fact I am and I can I shot Pacu a look that said be quiet or he would face that warrior and a whole bunch of misplaced scars. No, I had not let him off the hook yet. For a ... oh yes .. for a silver, I will tell your future and for hmmm ... three I will tell your fortune. She plunked one of those bright shiny disks in my hand and looked at me with all the childish expectancy that I was about to reveal something amasing and startling. So I shrugged and palmed th piece then leaned in to whisper against her ear so no one could hear this sensational secret .. Today .. I looked around to make sure no one else was close ... Silver for silver. Nodding there, I continued ... you will part with your coin but it will come back to you by way of ahhh love. Yes, yes .. a warrior. Run to the next one you see and show him your face and he will fall instantly in love with you. As we walked away Pacu told me that was not nice. I told him it served her right, silly dweller woman. I flipped the coin in my hand.

The next was a man that was yelling at this poor little old woman pushing a cart of root vegetables. Now we don't like roots but there was no need to treat her the way he was. He threw several coppers into the middle of the lane and told her that her wares were not worth even that and he would as soon throw them away as to give them to her. I walked right up to him and touched his arm. "I am a Haruspex of the Wagons People. Just for you ... for three of those coins in silver I can tell your fortune."

He had this scowled look that I thought at first was directed at me. It wasn't really. It was the expression on his face from so many envars of doing it that it had frozen that way. "You can?"

"Of course I can, let me see the three coins and they will tell the tale." He fished them from his pouch and held them out. The first one I touched and looked up.

"This one tells me you are a man of the world .. a learned man that has seen many things, been many places." You could see him puffing up and finding all kinds of pride in there. "Yes, yes I am. Go on .... go on." I touched the next coin and once more looked up at him.

"This one tells me that many women have yearned for you but you have never found one worthy of taking one as your own. You are not mated." He looked incredulous there and agreed. He was a single man to be sure. I smiled as I gathered all three of the coins in my hand this time and they disappeared as if by magic.

"What does the third one say?" He was eager now and his face seemed almost ready to crack beneath the strain of such a strange thing as a grin. He thought he was ready to hear all that I had to say now. There was just a lock of my gaze to his as I handed two of the silver coins to the old woman with the cart and smiled my most charming of smile.

"The third coin tells me that your parents were never mated either" Pacu dragged me away about as fast he could, making sure we both disappeared into the crowd. And all the while the man stood there staring and blinking, still not entirely registering in his teeny little brain that I had insulted his birth. My brother was growling beneath his breath, "You are going to get us into trouble." I just looked over my shoulder at him to reply, "That is what you are here for isn't it? To keep us out of trouble?" We obviously had different interpretations of how this was supposed to work.

We ended up working things out, I would tell fortunes as people passed by and he got to ogle slave girls.The same phrase repeated over and over .. "You will lose coin to a mysterious woman." Those silver things were beginning to fill my pouch. Everyting was going quite well until I noticed cages lined along a lane of vendors. Cages of jits .. dozens of sweet adorable little jits like my Imke .. all walled in and confined. I set off running and snatching open the locks and standing there with my skirt shooing them to freedom before I opened another.

The market came alive with the screeching of jits and of free women and the sounds of yelling and the barking of sleens and guards as well as the squawk of exotic birds from far away places that were lined up next to the jits. I had just opened the third cage when I felt a hand grasp my arm harshly and I was about to spin around on Pacu and give him a what for, for hurting me that way. It wasn't Pacu. It was a uniformed scribe from inside the walls, a magistrate from what he was telling me and he was taking me inside ... The Walls.

I tried calling for Pacu but he was entranced by this wisp of a thing clad in diaphonous materials that left little to the imagination. She had almond shaped eyes from what I could see of her, all draped up on his chest and beginning to slither her way down.

I was on my own. I cried out .." Wait .. wait my skirt is stuck!" I got a good handful of my hem and started backing up until I leaned against the wheel of a cart. I bent down and used my skirt to cover the pin on the wheel axle and began tugging hard. Every time the magistrate said I had to come with him, I worked at the pin a bit more furiously.

"I can't! I am caught on the cart." When it finally popped loose, my elbow rose high enough to hit the brake bar. I hobbled along next to the man feigning a hurt ankle, at least as far as the back of the cart before I leaned against it. Dweller men are so weak willed and considerate. He let me have that ehn. It was all I needed. My weight on the small cart set it to rolling down the rows of merchants until the wheel finally gave and it toppled over into the midst of by-standers, jits and still screeching robed free women.

By now all this had gotten Pacu's attention. So magnanimous of him to drag himself away from the sultry luxuries of the slave to save me. He forged our way through the crowds but insisted this time that it was time to go back to camp. He wasn't listening when I told him there were still two more cages of Imkes back there.

"Come on Pacu, you can look at dancing slaves some more."

"NO!"

My only compensation was the last glimpse back the way we had came and see the area covered with the furry little loved ones, all happy as can be ... and free.