There was laughter, but there was no hint of anything but admiration, and Aeyli, Rani, and Belle weren’t embarrassed, but honored.
I continued, “But, who came here to hear that? No! You came to hear a story! And I have a story for you. Listen and let’s see what we’ll hear. First, in case I talk so long that I get hungry, does anyone have a piece of fruit that I may have as a gift? Will anyone hold up a fruit and let me have it?”
About a hundred hands went up. I scanned the crowd and found the face of the girl who sold fruit, Sashar, holding out her offering.
I said loudly, “Ah, there, that’s the fruit that I want!” and I pointed at her and said, “You, your fruit caught my eye in the marketplace, will you come down and bring me your fruit?”
The girl gasped and stood and bounded down the steps and held her hand out to me with the fruit in her palm.
I said, “Thank you. Tell me, are you sitting with friends tonight, or would you sit over here with my family in case I find that I need other fruit before the night is over?”
The girls motioned to her and she ran to sit with them. I admitted to myself that she did run nicely.
I turned back to the crowd and held up my fruit and said, “I do love a big juicy piece of fruit. So! A story.
I was in a far country, a very long way from Tranna. Think of it as being on the very opposite side of Barsoom. It had the same problem as the village of Tranna, but exactly opposite. You see, in this village, there were five men for every one woman. The bride price for a woman was also opposite. Instead of the village giving a gift to the new couple, the man would pay a price to the girl’s family if he wanted to have her as a mate.
Now in this village, if a man saw a very beautiful girl and she was gentle and kind and well thought of by all and if she was known as a girl who would bring honor on her prince, a man would come to her family and he would lay the furs of three great apes or some other large beast before them. The family would decide if it was a good offer, and if it wasn’t enough, if they thought that another man might desire her more and bring four furs, they would reject the man and he would take his furs and find another. But, if the family was satisfied, they would accept the furs and she would be his.
In this village, Four furs was a fortune. Only one girl in 50 years drew four furs. The others were for two or sometimes three, but never four.
At the time that I passed through that part of the world, there was a family who had a daughter, and though she might have been pretty enough, she was different. She had no interest in attracting a mate. She would often run far from the village and spend time by herself. When she came back at the end of the day, her hair would be uncombed and she would look like she had been wrestling with a beast. When people sat together, she had little to say and, well, no one paid much attention to her.
The girl’s family, especially her father, were despairing of ever finding her a mate… or getting a price for her. They’d say, ‘This daughter will never find a mate. Perhaps we can find a stranger and if he doesn’t know her, and if we can get her to at least comb her hair, maybe we can get a small worn fur, but at least we’ll be free from the burden of feeding her. She has such an appetite and she eats so much!’
Now no, I’m not the stranger that they were hoping for. I can guarantee that if I were, she would be beside me today. No, and it wasn’t stranger who finally spoke for her. It was a young man of the village.
One day, the young man goes to the family and he says, ‘I will speak for this daughter of yours. I wish her for my mate.’
Now, the father wants what he can get, but he knows that it won’t be much. He asks the young man what he offers. The young man says, ‘If you will pledge her to me, I will go away and in 40 days, I will bring my offer and lay it before you. If it is acceptable, I will have her, but if it’s not acceptable, I will go away.’ And the young man left. He walked out of the village and was gone for the full 40 days.
The family thought that this was a strange way to do things and for 40 days they made up stories about what would happen if the young man came back. They often questioned if he would come back at all.
Word of the strange offer of the young man to pledge for the ‘wild girl’ spread through the village and some days it was all that was talked about, especially as the day for his return approached.
Now, on the 40th day, the young man reappeared at the village gate, pulling a small cart behind him. The children of the village chased him and soon, the entire village followed at his heels as he went along to the house of the girl’s family. When he came to the door, the father and the family came out and stood before the house.
The young man said simply, ‘I have returned as I have said. Have you kept your pledge and saved your daughter for me?’
The girl stood with her family. They had combed her hair and pleaded with her to behave as a woman should.
The young man smiled at her and said to the family, ‘I have brought my offer. If you will accept it, your daughter will be my mate, but if not, I will go away.’
With that, the young man uncovered his cart and took the fur of a Great White Ape and spread it on the ground before them. When it was done, he surprised them all by taking a second one and spreading it on top of the first.
The village thought that one fur was far too much, but two furs was unthinkable. It seemed that the young man thought otherwise. As each fur was spread before the family, he turned and took yet another and added it to the pile. Fur after fur. Four, five, six, and still he laid furs before them. In all, he laid ten furs of the Great White Ape of Barsoom at the feet of the family.
And then I saw a thing that I have never seen in all of my travels: the village, for once, was speechless! When someone finally did speak, it was the young man.
He stood before the family and the furs at their feet and said, ‘Give me your answer. Yes or no? Say one or the other.’
The father was in shock. He wanted to say many things, but it would have been babbling and the young man had demanded a simple answer, not a lot of discussion, so the father simply nodded his head dumbfounded and said that he accepted the man’s offer.
The young man asked the girl, ‘Will you come with me?’
She was as shocked as her father. No man had ever offered more than four furs for the most beautiful girl in the village, but this young man had laid ten furs at her family’s feet. Suddenly, perhaps for the first time, the girl began to consider that being a mate was possibly a thing to be desired. She went to the young man and gave him her hand.
He gathered her into his arms and placed her on a soft fur in his cart and getting behind it, he pushed it out through the city gates and disappeared.
But, this isn’t the end of the story. I stayed in the village for quite some time, and after 40 more days, the young man returned.
This time when we came through the gates, a very beautiful girl walked straight and tall beside him. She was stunning! No one in the village had ever seen such a beautiful woman! And, the way she carried herself! It was as if royalty walked among them. The couple walked through the street and the woman greeted everyone that she saw and smiled at them. The children lined up to be patted on the head by her and she blessed them.
The people of the village said, ‘Who is this woman? Surely a princess of Barsoom! Perhaps from Helium. Her prince looks familiar though, have we seen him before? I say it’s the young man who gave ten furs for the wild girl. It can’t be. Has he walked to Helium and become a prince?’