Charles had a stroke of insight and waved her lack of understanding away. “Queen Ada commanded you would not be Queen if you refused this arranged marriage, yes?”
Clara nodded, that had been so.
“Then refuse the crown. You do not care for all this.” He gestured around the room with its extravagant appointments, every surface velvet, satin or silk. Precious metals gleamed in a room holding every manner of comfort.
That was true. Her richest treasures were with her now, breathing the same air she did. She looked at Olive and Charles, knowing what she would say next would upset them. “I do have that choice.” Clara swallowed. This was most difficult, “I am royal. It is more than a hollow allowance. I am the caretaker of my people, my subjects. If I am not Princess Clara for them, they will be left to the devices of the Queen. That, I cannot abide.”
“Clara,” Charles moaned in defeat, “think on it. Do not martyr yourself for us. What good can you do as Princess to his Prince if he means your death?”
Olive sucked in her breath. Charles had spoken their mutual fear out loud. It would be easy for something to befall Clara with Prince Frederic the ruler of both spheres, the failing Kingdom of Kentucky and her own. Her head ached.
Her gaze suddenly wandered to the sphere wall and she thought of the savage she had seen Outside. How she longed for a new way, a way to save her people from the hardship of this forced union.
Charles stood. Olive rested her head upon Clara's shoulder, “Let me think on it. There must be another way.”
Charles leaned forward, releasing her hands and putting one on each side of Clara's face, palming the entirety of it. He placed a gentle kiss upon her forehead.
“Are you hurt?”
“Nothing I cannot bear and bring to wellness in a fore-night or two.”
“The Queen,” he hissed.
She nodded. He closed his eyes and finally... Charles pulled away, his forehead breaking contact with Clara's.
He began to walk to the door then stopped. He pulled something out of his pocket: a small, velvet bag in deepest blue, cinched with an icy blue ribbon. He walked back over and placed it inside Clara's palm, “This is what I meant to do when I came upon... when I came upon... the circumstance.”
Clara nodded.
She slipped the ribbon open, its gauzy weight as light as a feather, and scooped out a chain of precious silver. At its end hung a large, single pearl, held in a spider web. Complicated filigree surrounded it like an embrace.
Clara's head jerked up, and she looked into Charles dark eyes. “A Samuel Pearl.” She breathed out in reverence. The rarity was beyond compare. In her water sphere fields, there was a tiny field for raising the rare Samuel's Pearls. They were named for her grandfather's grand-sire, a man who had never set foot in the sphere, but had perished in the Outside in the time when the earth was covered in ash.
Charles's beautiful smile broke across his face like the Outside sun breaking free of clouds, “I knew you would love it.”
“I love it because of who gave it.” She returned his smile with one of her own.
Charles ducked his head, pleased. “Let me place it about your neck.” She turned, and he set her heavy hair aside, securing the clasp behind her neck, rearranging the tousled hair over it.
“Oh, Princess, it is so beautiful against the creaminess of your skin, you must address the looking glass.”
None of them said anything about the bruises left by the Queen's abuse.
Clara gazed into the looking glass, staring at the large pearl, the size of her pinky nail. The deep ebony sea gem glowed softly at the hollow of her throat. Olive and Charles stood behind her. Clara noticed her disheveled hair, tendrils of deepest bronze escaping and suddenly felt older than her ten and seven years.
Clara watched Charles stroke a thumb over the grape-sized bruise at the side of her throat, his expression sad. How much longer could she bear the mistreatment... could he?
Charles gave her a gentle squeeze on her shoulders, his big, warm hands a momentary comfort, then he released her.
“I must go.” He glanced at the hanging timepiece: one half hour until midnight struck.
Charles leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Happy Day of Birth, dearest Clara.”
He straightened, a strange expression coming over his face, then he seemed to shake cobwebs away and saying a final good night, he left her chamber.
Olive followed him and shut the massive door, engaging the huge brass bolt. She turned around, leaning against the door, her relief a palpable thing.
Clara watched Olive walk toward her.
“He loves you, Princess.”
Clara loved him too. But she was not in love with him. He was her dear friend. Clara sighed. “I do not know for a certainty that he loves me any differently than I do him. We have been friends since grammar school.” She shrugged the idea away.
“No, it is different. He watches you as the sun orbits the earth. His love is total.”
Olive's words were disturbing. Clara did not wish to mean that much to anyone.
“You have not encouraged his affections, but they exist, my lady.”
Clara said nothing. Instead, moving toward the bedpost she twined nimble fingers around the narrowest part. Her eyes followed Olive as she moved to close the heavy drapes against the blackness of the Outside. They lay slightly damp against the veil of the sphere wall, the steam from the day clinging tenaciously to the fabric, adding weight. Olive used both hands to pull the two sides of the curtain together, the wooden rings sliding over the rod seamlessly but slowly. Finally, they were closed, and Olive moved up behind Clara. Olive began loosening Clara’s corset. Clara gave a grateful exhale as the stays loosened, and her ribs and breasts escaped the prison.
Olive breathed a sigh of relief, a discerning eye roving Clara’s torso. “The usual damage has been avoided, Princess.”
“Oh?”
“Yes... it was the corset, my lady. The corset bore some of it.”
Of course! The dreadful encumbrance was worth something after all. The irony was not lost on Clara.
The rest of the garment slid off easily without the resistance of the corset. Olive folded it over the back of Clara's vanity chair, the dress obscuring the ornate bones of the polished wood.
She returned with Clara's dressing gown, which Clara put on herself. How she detested being dressed. This singular step, she could do. She bestowed a grateful smile on Olive, who had been steadfast and loyal throughout, in the terrible years after her father's passing.
Clara walked to the vanity chair, sitting sideways while Olive gave her hair the habitual hundred strokes.
Olive sighed. “I am sorry, Princess, I will have to remove these ruined bindings.”
Olive carefully unwound the mess of hair and bindings. A few pearls still clung to their ruined housings. Clara's hair shone in the faded golden light of the chandelier. Its cut glass globes cast jeweled rainbows on the interior walls.
Clara, not one to talk idly, sat trancelike, as Olive brushed her hair in a ritual Olive's mother had established before Olive became her lady-in-waiting. It had never failed to calm Clara, especially after a horrible night at Ada’s hands. But this night, the normalcy of the routine seemed stolen from her.
Olive paused in her brush strokes, “What disturbs you, my lady?”
What did not disturb Clara? Her Day of Birth celebration beginning with a face-to-face engagement with a savage, the spectacle of her mother's drunken behavior, the menace in Clara's chamber with the finish of Prince Frederic and Charles almost coming to blows? Oh... nothing of consequence! She must give just due to Olive, for this was all that she knew: the Queen drank, she beat Clara, and Clara resolved to say nothing. Clara wished upon every star that lay Outside in its captured velvet... that she could do something to protect herself and her kingdom against Queen Ada. But the threats lay dormant, ready to be activated if Clara chose not to cooperate. Cooperate or the people of her
Sphere would be ruled by tyranny, not mutual respect and collaboration. She would not allow the ways of her father to be forgotten because she was incapable of preserving them. That streak of resolve that always held her in its fist grew dark in Clara's soul.
Clara thought of her father, even though it made her sad. Her memories of her girlhood in the oyster fields alongside her father were dear to her. She ruminated upon them more frequently than she cared to admit, even to herself.
*
Clara looked at the oyster King Raymond held in the palm of his hand, its wavy and hammered surface concealing the succulent sea meat inside and the pretty gem nestled in its dove gray folds. How the oysters fascinated young Clara! Each one a surprise. The pearls were their reward for diligently and studiously caring for them until their maturation reached an end.
“Clara-girl,” King Raymond pried open a too small shell, one even she knew was not yet ready for harvest, “this young is not yet ready for yield.”
“No father! Do not, I wish no harm to befall the oyster.”
Her father gave her a look of soft compassion. “You must learn the correct moment in an oyster's life for harvest. One day, I will not be here, and who will make certain that our way of life continues?”
“You will always be here, Father!” Clara cried, smoothing her yellow skirt over her knees anxiously, the hem grazing the floorboards of the pungy.
The king gazed across the water, looking at the small spheres scattered about the Great Lake, as it had been called in his father's father's time. “One day, I will be no more. It will be your job to watch over these creatures.”
He pried the shell apart—not a smooth practice. Inside, the creature was undersized, and the gem was but a sparkling speck, the color not yet true.
“Pay attention Clara.”
She leaned forward. Her father poked the creature’s flesh with his prying tool so she could see the interior. After they had examined it together, he placed the oyster in a wooden bucket with rope handle.
He gathered another oyster, this one of proper girth and length, stretching past his palm, almost to the tips of his fingers. “This is ready.”
As he pried, it sprung open, splashing muck about the pungy. Splatters fell on Clara, and she had the disquieting thought that mother would be cross. Ada was often cross with Clara, especially when she rode the pungy with father.
The creature was full to bursting its house—as Clara thought of the shell—a glimmering gem cloistered inside the folds, its luster in stark relief against the dull-colored creature within. It was beautiful. The pearl was beautiful.
Father plucked out the pearl with the juices of the creature still covering it and gave it to Clara. She immediately dunked it in the fresh water bucket, getting some of the grime off. It seemed to wink and shimmer at her from her palm... her first pearl.
She looked up at her father, delight on her face, and he smiled back. “I loved the fields and what they held when I was a lad.”
*
“Princess?” Olive held the brush in her hand, staring at Clara in the looking glassʼ reflection. Clara had been ten spheres away, in the depths of her memory.
“Yes, Olive?”
“I asked what disturbs you?”
So much to speak of, but she did not wish to go through it all again. Once in her mind was enough for tonight. “My thoughts lay heavy on me. Tomorrow, I will escape some of the Prince's attention by checking the fields.”
“Queen Ada will not be pleased.”
“I know.” Her mother wished to have others fulfill the oyster supervision duties, but Clara felt compelled to oversee what had been cultivated for over one hundred years by her family. After all, Ada was not originally from this Sphere, but the Kingdom of West Virginia, where there were no fields. What did she really care what happened to any of it with her precious grapes in sight? Clara was merely her vehicle for their continuation.
“I would sleep now.”
Olive put the hairbrush down without a word and folded the bedding back. Clara slid underneath her coverlet, her eyes like great weights dragging her under. Olive dimmed the sconces and the chandelier from a central switch located just inside the chamber door. With one last look at Clara, she retreated to a smaller door that led to her much smaller chamber.
The last thing Clara heard was the lock clicking into place as she fell into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 7
Charles lay in bed within his small chamber thinking of Clara again. She was usually where his thoughts lay. Aside from her being the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld, she was a most excellent friend. He rolled over on his stomach, his chin resting on his fist instead of a pillow. A heavy sigh escaped him. What to do? That spintry of a man lay in wait for Clara, whoring himself for the wine-pearl treaty while Clara was held like a fragile tether between the two factions. If only King Raymond were still alive, he thought for the thousandth time. Good Guardian, life was a wreck at present.
Sleep evaded Charles entirely. He ripped the bedding away from himself and sat up, his naked form pale against the darkness of the bed linen. He padded over to the wall of the sphere, its clarity allowing the blackness of the Outside to permeate his chamber. His eyes roamed the Outside. The Great Forest was an outline of staggered black against a deep sky filled with stars and the moon on the wane.
Clara had seen one of them today: a savage.
A new thing to worry over.
Curiously, Clara had said she sensed no menace in the brief snippet of time they’d had to regard each other.
History warned clearly that they needed to be ever vigilant with the savages. The Time Keeper had made it known that they were a people apart, possibly not even the same species. Charles doubted that. Early sketches showed them looking very human but larger, fiercer. As a boy, Charles had looked at many hand-written accounts and sketches of the savages. They were large men—a female had never been witnessed—with unkempt hair and clothing and from what Clara had conveyed, a shocking lack thereof. Weaponry had been noted as well: spears, knives and most prominently, bows and arrows. Charles thought of his own sword practice. It was not something that was required in his occupation, but it was of keen interest to him. There was also the matter of the airways on the throat Clara claimed to have seen: gills like a sea creature possessed. Charles could only surmise that this was in some way an environmental response to the air quality of the Outside. He longed to explore Outside, but it also filled him with a nervous dread. Would he survive? Charles understood Clara had been safe behind the security of the sphere, but he had a disquieting portent of the proximity of the savage. What could have been the reason for his close approach? Were they being watched?
He did not like it.
And what if they possessed salt? What if they knew the weakness of the sphere's defenses? He paced the room.
Charles went over the night’s events. The abhorrent Queen wielded her tyranny over Clara with a singular focus that drove him mad. Where was her compassion for her own offspring? Charles dreamed of dispatching her... permanently. The idea swelled in his head, especially acute after witnessing Clara's stiff posture. Seeing Olive's expression, Charles knew what had occurred. Clara dismissed his concern, accepting the rages as part of her duties. However, what if, deep in her cup, Queen Ada lost control? Clara was a small female. Her mother was not. Charles shuddered.
Clara said that it was better that Charles had some contact with he, rather than none. “Do nothing,” she had said, “so that we may have a friendship. Do not defend me, or she will never let us consort.” That was all well and good in theory, but Charles brooded, remembering the bruise blossoming on the whiteness of her throat. His fists flexed. He had never wished to harm a female, but the Queen made him rethink himself.
And Prince Frederic was a male with the same disposition as the Queen, a terrible future reality for Clara.
Putting a forearm against the sphere wall, Charles leaned his head on it, gaze fixed on
the Outside, his flesh sinking into its permeability. He wondered what it would be like to breathe fresh air of the Outside, to have answers to the questions ricocheting around his skull, to not be surrounded by heat and steam. He and Clara often spoke in hushed tones of escape and exploration. She as interested as he. With a curse, Charles swung around, heading back toward bed. He needed rest. Tomorrow was a full day in the fields with Trading Day one day hence. And a plan must be devised to save Clara, his Clara—before he could stop the interior sentiment from forming.
He sat back on the bed, rubbing his eyes, grainy from the lateness of the hour, his eyes locked onto the small photograph of Clara on his night table. A stiff pose could not counteract the vulnerable eyes that filled her face, the black and white colors emphasizing their lightness, showing them as the palest gray. Her personality could not be denied in that face.
He loved her.
Charles flopped back against his pillow, hoping sleep would come. He thought of the long days in the field, wishing a portion might be spent with Clara. Afterward, a small joy would take place as he sparred with Clarence, his steadfast opponent in sword fighting. He dreamed of being a guard at the sphere intersects.
As sleep claimed Charles, his mind filled with the dangers of saltwater, and what it would mean to the sphere, to all of them, if that safety was breached.
CHAPTER 8
Clara's eyes opened, and she stared at the apex of the sphere, there to greet her as it had each day she could remember. She listened for Olive stirring in the adjacent chamber of their Royal Manse. Modeled after row houses similar to the ones she had heard tales of from Before, every house was connected to conserve space, theirs the most grand and centrally located. The sphere absorbed sound, and noises from other dwellings were not easily heard.
She shifted to her side, automatically looking at the drapes, which Olive had closed last night. Her side ached dully. The corset had not buffered all of the damage. As if off their own volition, her feet swung free of the bed linen, and she hopped off the bed, blood rushing to her extremities. She used a hand on the bedpost to steady herself then slowly walked toward the drapes. Interesting... now that the savage had been spotted, the drapes were closed. After all, who concerned themselves over privacy when no soul left the sphere? However, with a savage coming inches away from the sphere's barrier, there was new concern over... whatever it was the savages sought.
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