Clara was not prone to violence but her mother coaxed it out of her with regularity, as now. Ada swayed, putting a hand on Clara to remain steady, her full glass of wine gripped in her other hand.
Her drunken gaze found Clara, and she hissed quietly, “Do your duty brat-of-my-loins.”
Clara stared at her with thinly veiled disgust. Ada embarrassed her terribly but it would make things worse if she reacted, experience whispered in the crevices of her mind. Charles had been close enough to hear the interchange and glared at Queen Ada, who calmly stared back; she cared not what Charles thought, his loyalty was to Clara.
Clara turned and elaborately gestured toward the drunken Queen. “Please, see that you take first plate at my Day of Birth Celebration, my Queen.” Clara curtsied, the corset not allowing full movement, but she was an expert at fooling the eye as if it did.
“You may rise, Princess Clara,” Ada said, staring at Clara as if she were a bug.
Elvira hovered near the Queen’s elbow (a constant thing), and piled her plate with every variety of oyster, lathering the whole thing with white sauce, specially prepared for her. Clara knew the wine was the only thing that held interest, the food wasted, but the Queen was entirely about the show. Did she even eat food? Clara doubted it, Ada was little more than a skeleton with skin. Clara gazed at the Queen, her hawk-like features framing eyes that were a deep brown, almost black, her hair being her best feature, Clara admitted reluctantly. A true black, it shone in the low light of the steam-chandeliers, a burnished inky thing that moved like black smoke while she struggled to control her staggering (Elvira gripping the plate she would not eat from). Ada towered over Clara, often telling Clara she was a runt and unattractive. Clara had never been one to admire her form in the looking glass like so many of the giggling girls her age. She did not take the time, the fields needed her attention, and Ada was enough of a mirror-lover for them both.
Olive stood at the ready as it was unseemly for royalty to dish themselves, but Clara would dish herself on her Day of Birth. She chose the almost foot-long oyster. These were her favorite, mild in flavor, with a pink undertone, the looks of it on the plate filled her with pride. They were most difficult to cultivate to that size, their girth covering the pressed glass plate in a satisfying way. Clara dipped a small amount of red sauce and covered the open meat with a fine dribble. Olive gathered a small salad plate and filled it with greens, adding a dressing that smelled like cheese, imported from the Kingdom of Indiana.
Clara sat at the Royal table, placed on a small dais, with King Otto, Prince Frederic and Queen Ada seated at a large, rectangular table with the Queen at the head. All other tables in the Gathering Room were round; not the Queen’s, she demanded the head.
A carafe of wine sat at her elbow, King Otto simpering beside her, laughing at the foolish comments she made. Clara knew that he should have a care, as Ada was alarmingly lucid, especially when she was deep in her cup. This should not be, but it was so. She had seen other royals misunderstand and underestimate her, at their peril. This sphere, with its pearls, commonly used as a money; trading was heavy with the pearls. For all Queen Ada’s drunkenness, there was motivation to stay within her good graces.
Clara played with the succulent meat of her oyster, finally cutting her first bite, placing it in her mouth, savoring the flavor while she held it on her tongue. Prince Frederic stared at her, his own oysters gone. They were an expensive thing and he had not taken the time to do them justice, a vision of gluttony, scooping and slurping them down in haste.
“Why do you eat them slowly?” Frederic asked.
“They are meant to be savored,” Clara stated, shrugging a bare shoulder.
His eyes traveled from her face then to her bosom, which made a delicate flush rise, like all true redheads, not an easy thing to mask. She hated how he looked at her. Somehow, this made her think of the savage, although she knew not why. His gaze had been penetrating but not intrusive.
When Prince Frederic looked at her she felt violated.
She glanced to the round table a few feet behind her and saw Charles watching Frederic and knew that he had seen the look, his expression dark. She dreaded what he might do; compromise himself to save her honor. She had Charles to thank for assuaging her royal loneliness. The son of King Raymond’s dear friend, they had been friends since toddler-hood and she cherished his wisdom and friendship.
Prince Frederic laughed, “So easily flustered, Princess. You will be very… entertaining when we are joined.”
Clara looked down to hide her expression. She would have rather vomited on his shoes and feared that her face would show it. He was considered handsome, with his height and Nordic good looks. Broad through the shoulder, and trim at the waist, he was the epitome of what the Queen would name good breeding. But handsome is as handsome does and his heart was stained, stained with blackness. She lifted her chin and met Charles’ stare.
Frederic gave them a considering look, putting each finger in his mouth to suck the oyster juices off.
CHAPTER 5
Bracus jogged through the familiar path, vines twisting up trees grown tall over time, the canopy offering filtered shade. Its lazy light speckling the bare flesh of Bracus’ legs as they flowed, smooth and steady over gnarled tree roots.
He navigated the path without looking.
His lungs burning, Bracus felt his throat slits open fully to bring rich oxygen to his lungs. He climbed higher, heading for the caves where he would report to their president, Arthur Bowen. As Bracus neared the cave’s entrance he whistled, high and piercing. To the uninitiated, it would sound like a bird’s call of distress. To Bracus’ comrades, it would alert them it was he, and not an enemy.
They moved as one in front of the cave’s entrance, bows strung tight, arrows poised; the whistle had not softened their response; Bracus was pleased, putting on a burst of speed.
Their arrows were trained on Bracus until he revealed himself with his salute.
“Sir, what did you see?” Kingsley asked, lowering his bow.
The other sentry, part of the Band, was Matthew Charier. He would not relax his stance, his arrow pointed above and behind Bracus’ shoulder from his higher vantage point. He literally had Bracus’ back. He was a good man, too serious by far, but a warrior unlike any Bracus had ever seen. Not a tremor, Charier’s shaft as steady as the trees which towered above them.
“Much. I saw much.”
Charier’s eyes flicked to Bracus then back to their former position. He spoke tersely, but with feeling, “Did you reconnoiter our position from yesterday?”
“Let me debrief with President Bowen. Then when you set your bow upon the earth, we will meet at the fire and discuss the future here…our mutual future.”
Stephen Kingsley made a disgusted sound and stomped back over to position.
“No effort at stealth, Kingsley?” Charier asked without turning.
“You know that I tire of the endless reconnaissance, I wish to develop a way for our people,” Kingsley said, kicking a small rock into the woods below them.
Charier lowered his bow. “Do not let your temper overwhelm your intellect, stay vigilant.”
It was Bracus that turned to stare behind him, while his two finest guards argued amongst themselves, leaving the cave’s most vulnerable point unattended. Bracus knew why he was in command, he would not be distracted. He was not easily distracted.
Or he had not been before the female.
Her face filled his vision, the soft creamy triangle, with eyes which glowed like the shimmering marbles he played with as a boy. They took up her face, a window to her soul. He wished to know that soul… linger in it like a scented bath on his skin.
Bracus shook himself, his iron-clad control reasserting itself.
“Quiet,” he hissed at the two warriors, almost nose to nose.
They looked at their leader, shame riding their faces.
“Charier, get that bow where it belongs.” Charier lifted his
bow and nocked the arrow.
“That’s better,” Bracus said, clapping him on the shoulder. He turned to Kingsley. “You are not one ruled by your temper, what say you?”
Charier gave a rare smile. “I too, tire of the incessant scouting ventures. We need to move now, before it is too late to save ourselves. You know that our females are fragile, and too few.”
Yes… Bracus knew. He never forgot it.
“Carry on men, we will discuss this more upon my return.” Both men saluted him and he inclined his head in a half bow, his body already turning to enter the cave. To debrief the president.
Bracus stepped forward, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the cave. This small, little known crevice in the woods had been a clandestine meeting area for every president with the Band since the time of the Evil Ones and the days when the earth breathed ash.
“Bracus,” President Bowen said, his face in shadows.
“It is I… with news.” Bracus came forward, dwarfing the president with his height. All the Band members were huge men, it was a large part of the defense. With their superior strength, physical acuity and throat slits, they were the perfect protectors. But without more people, there would be nothing to protect.
President Bowen, a man of few words arched heavy brows above deep eyes, waiting for his report.
“I have located the lead female. The one you say is a Princess.”
The sphere-dwellers had a strange hierarchy of leadership. Instead of presidents and advisers, they had kings, queens, princes and… princesses.
“You have been scouting this location for months, we must take her soon. Contact is critical.”
“She does not frighten easily,” Bracus said, thinking of her standing her ground as he rushed the sphere.
“Good, this is exactly what we need. A high-ranking female, one who can be reasoned with. She must hear what we say, deliver this message to her people, then there may be negotiation. Surely they wish to meld our two cultures, experience the Outside once more.”
Bracus would be driven mad to exist in a place that was nothing more than a gilded cage. But the female had always been there.
“I do not know that it is so. I have watched now these past four months. They labor in those fields for the shellfish.”
“Oysters?”
“Yes. These… oysters. They harvest them for food and the small gems which are found inside,” Bracus said, thinking of how different the female looked while surrounded entirely by men, her dress and composure utterly different. Bracus had watched her tending these strange watery fields from a boat of pink and green, its weather-beaten surface pushed forward by two men with long poles. Interesting work. The female was always intense, inspecting the strange shell creatures, returning some, collecting many. Her hair up off her neck, a slim column of white with the deepest color of burnished copper on top of her head like a dying flame, a lone flower.
She held his thoughts prisoner.
“Bracus?”
“Yes, President Bowen?”
“I asked you a question.”
Prisoner: a deaf one, Bracus thought.
“I apologize, I was lost in my own thoughts.”
“I see that.” Bowen started round the table, a circular one which had stood in that spot for one hundred years, papers sealed under glass in the center, under a sphere of their own.
His fingers trailed the edge of the table as he walked, standing uncomfortably close to Bracus.
Bracus stood still.
“Do you know why you were chosen for this assignment, Bracus?”
Not at all. “No.”
“Objectivity.”
Oh. Bracus was sure that he was not as objective as he had been upon the inception of this assignment.
“You are not…developing feelings for the subject.”
“Of course not. This is about establishing a rapport between our peoples. I have not lost sight of our objective,” Bracus lied smoothly. There was nothing that would stop him from initiating this. The thought of another male with the same objective… carrying it out instead of him.
It would be himself or no one.
“Excellent, I wish to make sure that we remain of one mind; the propagation of the species.”
Bracus backed away, circling the table in the opposite direction, grabbing the paper which lay under the glass weight with a pencil at the ready.
“Let me sketch the primary area of acquisition.” Bracus briefly laid the groundwork for the sphere, showing with fair accuracy its placement in front of the great forest which sheltered his people. To the east lay their sphere’s traveling pathway, a small sphere which served as a tunnel of sorts. This sphere tunnel, as Bracus thought of it, seemed to be a vital method of trading with the other spheres. There were also several intersecting tunnels which traversed over the great lake ending in much smaller spheres, a place where many workers lived who tended the oyster fields, all under the great umbrella of the main sphere. Those workers would be picked up in the strange pink and green boats which filled the fields. Searching, rendering and gathering the shell creatures, with the female their unlikely leader. If she were so vital in their leadership, why was she not under guard? Why were their females not better secured? So many questions to which Bracus wished answers.
Bowen leaned over the paper, indicating the point where the main body of the sphere, bisected the sphere tunnel. “This is the point of acquisition we discussed. It is the most vulnerable area.”
“Yes. Kingsley and I feel that their unusual ventilation system needs to release at this area. Also, and this is most interesting, the outside air is drawn in.”
“Fascinating. Myself and the Advisers surmise it is some kind of elaborate cycle of air cleansing. We do not know how this is achieved.”
“Steam,” Bracus said, remembering the heat which escaped the pin-sized holes in the seam that connected the sphere with the tunnel.
“Indeed. The Evil Ones were quite advanced.” The president pressed his fingers to the throat slits on both sides of Bracus’ neck, closed at present. He let the uncomfortable intimacy pass without rebuff, but not without effort. It was part of their history. As yet, no one knew why some had the slits and others did not. Females did not have them. Slit breathing was a sign that they would become part of the Band. If you were born with the slits, you would be a part of the protection of his people. No matter, slit-breathers were instinctively protective, it was part of the fiber of their being.
“We will plan for three weeks hence. There will be a new moon that night, with little light, it should be ideal to retrieve the female.”
Today’s mission had been the last before acquisition. All the practice and planning were finally behind him. Bracus prepared to leave, the interior guards silently coming forward from walls illuminated by candles, preparing to escort the president to the first rendezvous point.
“Wait.”
Bracus turned.
“What do they look like? Up close.”
Bracus stood thinking.
“They dress strangely…”
“We know it was the Princess’s birthday. Perhaps that is traditional attire.”
Bracus shrugged, he was not sure if this was so. However, it made some sense as she normally wore plain garments, which covered her whole body. But not this day. Today she had worn ribbons of gems in her hair, winking at him as he had gazed upon her.
“She is a tiny female, fragile. But fierce in expression. The males seem of adequate constitution.”
“Similar to our males?”
“Yes, but none that compare with the Band.”
“It is possible there is no environmental need for a Band inside the cocoon of their sphere.”
Bracus shrugged.
President Bowen pressed his fist to his heart. “Godspeed to a Goodman.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Until then.”
“Yes.”
Bracus strode out. Leaving the
president in the care of the central Band, he swept by Matthew and Stephen, the two other parts to their trio, his balance.
They jogged off into the night, melting into the border of the forest, moonlight shone on their backs as the quivers beat lightly with their pace.
Bracus’ mind was heavy with his duties. A terrible portent rode his consciousness. With the date in the palm of his hand, he should have felt reassured, but did not. He felt the promise of this meeting with the female lay under some vague threat he could not name. A shadow of disquiet laced it. He would come back to this spot, when it was not required to do so and watch her. Somehow he felt she was in danger and could not make the feeling leave him.
The three of them accelerated, the throat slits fully open, ragged tears catching the oxygen as they ran through the woods, swiftly moving towards home, towards their clan.
CHAPTER 6
Clara put her hands across her face, prepared to take a blow even knowing that Ada never beat her where it showed. The Queen prowled closer. In her left hand swung an emerald green decanter which glistened wetly, bumping her hip on her approach.
Clara thought it made a fine weapon for bludgeoning.
When she neared Clara, she shoved her right hand upon Clara’s stomach, pushing with drunken might, Clara fell on the wood floor. She looked up at Olive, who winced as she landed, trembling and angry in equal parts. But Olive knew her role, had always known her role.
“Insolent girl,” Queen Ada roared, “how like your father you’ve become. You must work the oyster fields, you must show your gratitude for the masses.” She swaggered away, steadying herself as she walked by Clara’s bedpost. The same one she used to brace for the lacing of stays.
Clara stood, gingerly and covertly feeling her ribs, which she had landed on, feeling grateful she had not been abused further. Olive and she exchanged a look. Better that Ada not set her attention on Clara again.
The Pearl Savage Page 3
