Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the village clapped and sang a song whose pace increased, making the dancers move faster and faster and kick more and more wildly as they progressed through the evening, until the women ratcheted up their song to such a frenetic pace that the boys ended up kicking out of time and pulling one another down to the ground in a laughing, good-humored mass.
    “Now it’s our turn to show you how to do it right,” the leader of the village girls spoke up as she stooped to help one of the boys from Marco’s host family rise.  Marco started to pick himself up when a strong pair of hands grabbed him from behind and hoisted him with surprising ease.  He turned and saw a stout girl who was nearly as tall as he was, who smiled at him momentarily with a shy grin, then moved into center of the village to join the other girls in forming their own dancing circle.
    “You better watch out, Reva smiled at you,” one of the other boys laughed at him as Marco drifted out of the way of the girls and joined the boys who formed the outer circle, as they began to stand together and start their own slow rhythmic clapping pattern.
    “The girl who helped me up?” Marco asked.
    “The very same.  She’s desperate to have a boy like her, since she broke up with her boyfriend,” his neighbor answered.  “And she seems to have picked you.”
    “She was nice to help me, but I’ll only be here the one night,” Marco protested.
    “That may be, but she’s pretty lonely they say, living in her farm house all alone while her father is away selling his goods in Forcenda.  I’ll bet she comes over here and asks you to dance when the girls’ dance is done,” the boy responded.
    Reva did in fact come over after the girls’ dance.  The boys provided the same overwhelming increase in the speed of their clapping rhythm to the point that the girls became a continual explosion of high-kicking skirts for several seconds just prior to when they too wound up on the ground in a disorganized, circular heap of laughter.  Reva heaved herself up, and helped two other girls up as well before she came over to see Marco.
    A quartet of older men from the village began tuning flutes and mandolins.  “Would you like to dance?” Reva asked Marco.
    “I’m not good, but I’ll try,” Marco agreed.  He had no romantic intentions towards the girl, but he saw no reason not to join her for a friendly dance.
    They stepped out into a pair of lines facing each other, boys on one side, and girls on the other, and Marco watched as the facing pair at the end of the line started stepping towards and away from one another, before they held hands and twirled, then gave way to the next pair in the line.  When the turn came for Reva and him, they carried out the same maneuver, then returned to their spots, smiling at one another.
    The dance tune changed pace, and Marco saw that the dance partners were dancing as pairs, so he and Reva held hands as he awkwardly tried to imitate the steps he saw.
    “That’s an interesting necklace,” he commented to Reva, as he noticed that she had a string of crystals, flowers, and shells hanging about her neck.
    She blushed in reaction.  “It’s just a village tradition for girls to wear this,” she told him, and he looked to see that several other girls were wearing similar items as well.
    “Those materials could make you fertile,” he said without thinking, then immediately wondered what had made him say such a thing.
    Reva blushed even more deeply, and Marco realized he had embarrassed her.  “But they can also relieve pain and make you healthy,” he added.  He wondered where such knowledge had come from, or if it was true, but he was glad to see that the repurposed comments diminished the embarrassment Reva felt by moving the conversation to a safer topic.
    The musicians ended their music, leaving Marco and Reva standing to stare at each other for a moment.  “Thank you for the dance,” Marco said after the silence