***
Ran-Del didn’t speak until he and Francesca were alone in Mina’s great room. Ran-Del breathed in the familiar scent of herbs and dried vegetables. Soon they would be part of his past, but for now, they held comfort. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help me, Francesca,” he said, turning to face her, “but there’s nothing you can do. Great-grandfather has made up his mind.”
Francesca glared at him, as angry at him as she had been at the shaman. “How can you let him tell you what to do, Ran-Del? How could you let him burn you like that?”
“He didn’t burn me,” Ran-Del said, patient with her ignorance. She was, after all, trying to help him. “Great-grandfather held the rod, but I took it in my hand. Punishment is always self-inflicted.”
“That only makes it worse.” Francesca sounded disgusted. She glanced at his arm and opened her eyes wide in amazement. “How did it heal so much? It looked terrible last night.”
“Grandmother treated me for hours,” Ran-Del said. “She has a great gift for healing.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“A little. We’re not here to speak of my hurts, Francesca. We must speak of marriage.”
She raised her face to his and met his eyes. “You don’t want to marry me. You want to marry Bettine.”
Ran-Del looked away and then made himself look back at her. He might as well tell her now. She would find out eventually. “Not anymore. Bettine is going to marry Grandfather.”
Francesca’s eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open in total surprise. “Marry—but—but Ran-Del, your grandfather is already married.”
Ran-Del nodded. “In some cases, a shaman gives permission for a man or a woman to take a second spouse. In this case, Great-grandfather has told my grandfather he has to marry again because I’m leaving the clan. My children won’t be Sansoussy, and the line mustn’t die out.”
Francesca still looked shocked. “Does Bettine know about this?”
“Yes. She agreed as soon as Great-grandfather asked her.”
Francesca let a curse word slip out. “Sorry,” she said apologetically. “But she really is a little bitch, isn’t she?”
Ran-Del couldn’t, with good manners, agree and he didn’t want to lie, so he didn’t answer.
“So what happens to your grandmother?” Francesca demanded.
“Grandmother?” Ran-Del asked, puzzled. “Nothing happens to Grandmother. Why should it?”
“You mean your grandfather will have two wives living here together with him?”
Ran-Del nodded. “Of course. Grandmother will be his first wife, and Bettine will have to defer to her in all things, even the care of the children.”
Francesca shook her head as if she despaired of ever understanding. “Well, it sounds like a strange set-up to me.”
Ran-Del was getting impatient. They had discussed nothing of importance. “How does our marriage sound to you, Francesca?”
She turned away from him suddenly, and took a deep breath. “I’d like the sound of it better if I didn’t know that it took torture to make you agree to it.”
Ran-Del took a step closer to her. “It wasn’t this that made me agree,” he said, holding out his scarred arm.
“Then what was it? Tell me and maybe I’ll consider marriage.”
Ran-Del mulled over the words in his mind before he began. “I’m a Sansoussy. It’s who I am as much as what I am. Great-grandfather said if I didn’t go away to the city with you, he’d cast me out of the clan. Every clan would shun me—and no Sansoussy would ever speak my name again. This way, I have to leave the forest, but I remain a Sansoussy.”
Francesca turned around to face him almost radiating repulsion. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? That sounds worse than torture.”
“It was. I begged Great-grandfather not to do it. I never begged for leniency before, but he wouldn’t yield. The only way I could keep him from casting me out was to agree to go live in the city.”
“And marry me?” Francesca asked.
Ran-Del needed to make her see his reasoning or she would never agree, and he would be worse off than ever. “It was the city that made me refuse to obey, Francesca, not you. If Great-grandfather had told me that I might marry Bettine but only if we lived in the city, I would have refused.”
She blinked in surprise. “Really?”
“Really.”
She hesitated, and suddenly stepped closer. “Kiss me, Ran-Del.”
The demand took him aback. “What?”
“Kiss me!” she said again. “You did it before, when we were alone on the plains. I want you to do it again.”
A little unsure of himself, Ran-Del took her in his arms. As soon as he touched her, he could feel her desire. It kindled a similar ache in him and he pulled her closer. Francesca lifted her face, and Ran-Del bent down and kissed her fiercely.
Francesca was just as eager in her response and the kiss lasted for quite a while. When she finally pulled away from Ran-Del, Francesca was almost breathless.
“Umm,” she said. “I think that told me what I want to know. If you find me repellent, you’re hiding it very well.”
“Of course I don’t.” Ran-Del had to take a quick breath to be able to answer her. “Why would you think so?”
Francesca touched the scar tissue on his arm. “Most men wouldn’t face that kind of pain if they had a way out of it.”
Ran-Del looked solemn. “That may be true in the city, but it’s not true here.”
“Maybe not. So what happens if I say yes, Ran-Del? Your great-grandfather seems in an all-fired hurry.”
“He is. He wants us to be betrothed tonight.”
Francesca tilted her head to look up at him. She was still quite close. “Does that mean we’d spend the night in the betrothal lodge?”
“Yes.” Ran-Del knew his face reflected his embarrassment, but he didn’t look away.
“And then what?”
“We’d share the same bed for as many as thirty days, and then we’d either be married or the betrothal would come to an end.”
“What decides it? What determines whether we marry or break it off?”
“You do. A woman can end the betrothal any time she chooses. When a couple is betrothed, each of them has a small lock of the other’s hair braided into his or her own hair. To break the betrothal, the woman simply unbraids her hair.”
“Can’t the man end it?”
Ran-Del flushed, mortified to have to explain such an intimate principle. “No. People say if he could, some men would be betrothed to every girl in the village and never marry any of them.”
“Oh,” Francesca said. “What if the woman decides she wants to go ahead with it?”
“She pins up her hair. Only married women can wear their hair up.”
“And that’s it? Just by putting in a few hairpins, a woman is married?”
“The man cuts his hair next,” Ran-Del continued. “If one of them is changing clans, he or she changes his clan marker on his caste bracelet. After that, they show themselves, and everyone sees that they’re married.”
Francesca looked pensive. “So even if I agree to do this, I still have thirty days to decide if I want to actually get married?”
Ran-Del nodded. Did he want her to back out of it? Would Great-grandfather let him return if she ended their betrothal? Ran-Del didn’t think so. He cleared his throat and explained the custom as best he could. “People say—” He stammered and started over. “People say a man has thirty days to—to make a woman happy, or she’ll never agree to be his wife.”
This made Francesca smile. “What about the woman? I mean, what’s to stop a woman who wants to play around a little from becoming betrothed several times and always breaking off the engagement?”
“No woman would do that,” Ran-Del said, horrified at the way her mind worked. “After three betrothals, men figure a woman is just too difficult to please.”
Francesca laughed. “Only three? I’d n
ever have made it in a Sansoussy village.”
Ran-Del thought it best not to comment.
“All right,” Francesca said resolutely. “Let’s go back and tell them we’ve talked it over.”
Ran-Del didn’t move. “And what is your answer, Francesca?”
She tilted her head again. “My answer is yes. I’m rather looking forward to tonight.”
Ran-Del didn’t comment on this statement, either. He was trying to decide if he were glad or sorry that she was saying yes.