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Every once in a while, you say the right thing. Judy, as you will have
gathered, is a steady, serious person more so than I am, and I lean in that
direction myself. Making her face light up as if the sun had just risen behind
her eyes isn't easy. Watching it happen made me light up, too.
Then I got hugged, and then I got kissed, and all the while Tamarisk was just
standing there, patient as the Sphinx, and I figure every smooch I got upped
the asking price of that ring about another fifteen crowns, but so it
goes some things are more important than money. That's what I told myself,
anyhow.
We haggled for a while; considering that Tamarisk knew she had me where she
wanted me, she was more merciful than she might have been but not much. When
we finally agreed on a price, she said, "And how will you pay? Cash?"
"No; I don't like to carry mat much on me. Do you take Masterimp?"
"Certainly, sir. I'd lose half my business if I didn't."
I dug into my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet and from it the card. Tamarisk
took a receiver plate out from under her display table. When I was a kid,
credit was a complicated business, full of solemn oaths and threats of
vengeance from the Other Side on renegers and much default anyhow because so
many people find gold and God easy words to confuse.
It's not that way any more. A lot of the mystique is gone, but so is a lot of
the risk. Modem technology
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again: as with the burgeoning phone system, ectoplasmic cloning has made all
the difference. I put my thumb on the card to show I was its rightful
possessor. Tamarisk did the same with the receiver plate.
Together we declared how many crowns we'd agreed to transfer from my account
to hers.
The conjoined microimps in the card and the plate completed the circuit by
etherically contacting the accounting spirits at my bank, which confirmed that
I did have the crowns to transfer. As soon as the transaction was complete,
the card started sliding around on the plate as if it were on a ouija board. I
picked it up and stuck it back in my wallet.
Then, with Tamarisk smiling the smile of a business-person who's just had a
good day, I picked up the ring and set it on Judy s finger. Because I'd found
the style a little masculine, I was afraid it would be big.
Tamarisk said, TD size that for you if you need me to."
But Judy held up her hand and showed both of us that it fit well. She and I
grinned, liking the omen. "It's wonderful," she said. Thank you, David." I got
kissed again, which couldn't help but improve things.
"I'm always glad to see my customers happy," Tamarisk said, beaming, "and I
hope you won't take it amiss if I tell you I also do wedding rings."
"I think we may just make a note of that," I said in my most solemn voice as I
pocketed one of her cartes de visite
. Judy nodded. With a last backward look at the other lovelies on display, we
wandered off to have a look at the rest of the swap meet."
Judy kept murmuring, "It's wonderful," over and over. She'd hold up her hand
so the ring would sparkle in the sun and the little emerald catch fire as if
it were the eye of a living bird.
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I said "First chance you get maybe tomorrow evening you ought to take it to a
jeweler you trust I
know it looks good and I know Tamarisk seems fine, but I want to make sure you
only have the best."
"I'll do that" she said and then, a moment later, "or maybe I won't have to.
We've got a constabulary-quality spellchecker sitting in the office waiting
for us. If it won't tell us whether we've just bought fairy gold what good is
it?"
True enough," I admitted "And if anything is wrong not that I think there will
be Mistress Tamarisk will have a visit from Pete and Luke when she sets up
here next week."
"Which one of them is which?" Judy asked.
"Oh, good!" I exclaimed. Tin not the only one who couldn't tell, then." And
when somebody like Judy has trouble telling two people apart, you know then?
Isn't much to choose between them.
Before long, we went back to the dealers' gate: after Tamarisk's stall, the
rest of the meet was strictly a downhill slide. I manhandled the spellchecker
out of Iosef s office, poured out a little wine to enspirit the microimps, and
touched the probe to Judy's ring.
Physically it was gold and copper in a ration of three one: it had an
18-karat stamp, and lived up to it.
to
The little emerald was a real little emerald. That was plenty to satisfy me,
but as long as the microimps were looking at the ring, I let them examine its
magical component as well.
I wouldn't have been surprised if they d drawn a blank: jewelry is a trade you
can, if you so choose, carry on largely without sorcerous aid. But no Tamarisk
had worked a small spell of fidelity on it, by
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analogy with the legionary's faithfulness to his Eagle as a symbol of Rome.
That just made me happier what better enchantment to find on an engagement
ring?
Judy was reading the ground glass upside down. When she saw that, she squeezed
my hand, hard I shut down the spellchecker, hauled it to my carpet, and took
it back to the constabulary station. I got a round of applause when I brought
it in. "Sign him up!" somebody shouted, which made me grin like a fool.
We flew back to my block of flats after mat. When we got back up to my place&
well, I won't say I
got molested, because I didn't feel in the least that it was a molestation,
but it was something on that order. Judy and I liked pleasing each other in
lots of different ways, which also augured well for the days that would come
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