Aside from the beating and rough handling of the prior evening, Clara felt robust. The new day held the promise of the fields and work ahead of her.
Working the fields made Clara feel accomplished and centered, clear headed. Most importantly, she felt closer to her father.
Clara stretched her arms above her, inhaling deeply, the rich humidity of her environment a salve on her throat. Smiling, she thought how convenient it would be that the Queen would feel ill until mid-day as a consequence of her over-consumption. That suited Clara perfectly. She would be dressed, and in the pungy before the Queen rose from her bed. Prince Frederic would also be indisposed, the sloth. He thought nothing of getting up at the noon hour. Also perfect.
First order of the day would be to open the accursed drapes. She detested having the light from the Outside dimmed even further with the heavy coverings.
Clara turned her body, using the strength of her legs for momentum, and with both hands, swept the heavy, damp drapes behind the large, brass, semicircular holder. She surveyed the Great Forest Outside.
A face loomed, and her breath caught in her throat. A small sound escaped her. Clara realized she was half-naked before a man she did not know, and he was gazing at her with curious abandon. Her arms, ankles and half her back were showing. Clara was frightened. This was clearly a different savage from the first. There had been a deep intensity with the former, but this one looked angry.
So this was the female that Bracus would take. The guard looked down at her obvious surprise and took pleasure in it. Bracus was weak, wanting this one. No female should have a hold over a male. No matter how much their captain thought he kept his feelings to himself, it was obvious to this guard what he felt. The guard looked at the fragile-looking female before him, trying to fathom what she could possibly offer the Band. She was interesting with her strange eyes and deep red hair and the pale skin like the full moon. Women were not easy to claim in his clan or anywhere. Fights would break out. The women had great power of choice over whom they would mate with. According to the captain’s reports, this strange sphere held many females. Reporting was all well and good, but he wished to see up close. He watched as she backed away, wrapping the strange garment around herself tightly in an effort to hide her body. Why did she do that? He thought that strange. She seemed frightened of him, and he touched the wall separating them.
He touched the sphere's wall from Outside, and Clara leaped back, yelping. She hated the sound but couldn't help herself. He had startled her. She could not hear him, but he felt different than the other savage. This one... she felt menace from him.
She jumped again as Olive came up behind her, “Is that he? Is that the savage?”
“No. It is another.”
“Look at how he stares.” Olive had never, in all her years, seen a male with so great expanse of skin showing. There was no kindness in his face, no softness. He was all hard angles and planes, all male. Then she saw the gills. “Your majesty...”
“Yes, he has them too. I see them.” The gills opened only slightly with his breath.
Both women were well away from the window when Olive asked, “Does he threaten you, my lady?”
“I do not know. Yet I dare say, he feels different.”
The savage stared at the two women, one a Princess. He scoffed at such leadership. She was taller and wider of hip. A good breeder, he thought absently, his gaze roving back over the small form in front of him. Her eyes blazed with heat. Yes, he would have her. He dismissed the other female, she of the dull brown hair and matching eyes.. He would have the red-haired one, the Princess. He noticed that she had marks on her throat. Someone had handled her roughly. A female abused... who could have done it? Mayhap females were not prized inside this odd structure? Possibly, she liked this interaction. He was puzzled anew.
He would take his leave, and when the time was right, he would capture her for himself. No one would be the wiser. He looked at her a final time. Yes, he supposed he could see what Captain Bracus liked. Bracus would never have her, and it pleased the guard. It would be his secret.
Clara watched him look at her again, a considering look that made her heart speed, and then he ran off. No, that was not entirely accurate. He sprinted to the Great Forest's edge. He turned to look again, as the savage from the prior day had, then melted into the woods as if he had never been.
“I do not think it wise to close the drapes from this point forward, Princess,” Olive said as they stared after the savage.
“Yes, I think the whole group of savages could make an appearance. I, for one, would like to see them advance. This one gave me quite a start. I opened the drapes, and there he stood.” Clara was disconcerted.
Olive turned to her. “Did you take in his size? The breadth of chest, the height? He is a huge male!” Olive said in a tone of reverence.
“And what of it, Olive? Let us put it in the proper context. Would you be this enthralled had there been no barrier?”
Olive quickly shook her head.
“Princess, I do apologize, but for the love of the Guardian, he does impress one!”
Clara understood that he was different enough from the men inside the sphere to be a novelty, but she could not slip the feeling of foreboding.
“I say that we exercise caution, Olive, and tell no one as yet.”
“But my lady, the Queen should be told. Or what of Charles?”
Clara deliberated, rolling her bottom lip under her teeth, biting down, nibbling to ease her tension.
“I know not, but I do not wish to have more of the Queen's speculations. With another savage seen at my bedside window, she could imprison me further. Speaking of which, I dare say it is time I dress and get to the fields.”
Olive sighed. Her lady was stubborn beyond measure. Dare she go behind her back and, at the very least, alert Charles?
The Princess's finger was suddenly under Olive's nose. “Do not think of it. Tell no one. Your face shows your feelings, Olive. You must learn to school them, especially around the Queen.”
Olive curtsied.
“I wish to see Sarah before the fields.”
“My lady?” That was an unusual turn. The princess did not typically linger in the morning, preferring to escape the Queen's notice as early as possible.
“Yes, I wish a brief audience with her.”
“Does she not have schooling, my lady?”
“Yes.”
Olive thought this odd. However, she hoped it might ease her mistress. She went to the huge wardrobe, which held the Princessʼ articles and clothing. She chose with care. The Princess was not one to enjoy the finer clothing that the Queen did. As summer was upon them now, she felt the linen best suited to the climate with the cotton blouse. She chose low-slung heels in leather, a scarce thing nowadays. She rifled around, slinging silk stockings over her shoulder, gathering the shoes, skirt, and blouse, walking the whole of it to the bed. Her thoughts engrossed in the encounter with the savage. He was everything that the princess had said they were. He was the largest man she had ever laid eyes on. Even with as tall as Charles and the horrible Prince Frederic were, these savages were half a head taller. And the nakedness... it made Olive lust for them and the Outside. She giggled.
“What say you, Olive?” Clara smiled at Olive.
“Oh, it is nothing, my lady. I was lost in my thoughts.” She blushed.
“It is the male, yes?”
Olive nodded shyly.
Clara was not sure about all the giggling and silliness. She could not figure it. However, there were so few men that she could have considered as a royal, and now that choice had been stolen from her. What was there to suppose or, for that matter, to dream about? Better to keep her mind about her tasks and her people.
Clara sighed. “Yes, he was... definitely male enough.” Clara remembered the height, the menace, and the impressive musculature.
“Oh yes mistress, frighteningly male!” Olive laughed.
Clara turned and t
hrew a pillow at Olive, which whacked her alongside her head, and she laughed harder, unable to stand upright. Finally, she clutched the pillow and flung it back at Clara, who caught it deftly, hugging it to her chest, she laughed with Olive, just two young women, one a Princess and one her friend, forging an alliance in an uncertain time.
Clara dressed quickly, making sure that her skirt covered the ivory flesh of her ankles. It would not do to show those about. She proceeded to the kitchen to eat a small bowl of oatmeal and honey. She set her sights on a quick chat with Sarah, her only female friend aside from Olive, a school teacher, wise and true. She would have wisdom to bestow.
CHAPTER 9
The Queen was not present, so Clara took her meal perched on one of the servant's stools, her favorite place.
The cook, William, whom she called Billy, as her father had before her, appraised her with knowing eyes. “Princess Clara, are you about the fields today?”
Clara nodded. “It is best I make myself scarce.”
“How is that different than your normal duties?”
“The Queen was in ill temper last evening, and it would be well-advised that I take my leave early.” Clara dug into the oatmeal with relish. She would be hungry soon even with this porridge. Billy's eyes roamed her neckline, which, though high, showed a sliver of a bruise which marked the skin about the lace. She shifted, hoping that little bit of cotton cloth may slide into position.
“She been after you again?” His kind eyes held a long-standing compassion.
She sighed. “Yes. She was unhappy with my behavior at my Day of Birth Celebration.” Clara looked down at her oatmeal, appetite gone.
Billy put his face on his knotted hands, elbows pegged against the butcher block. “She is a disastrous monarch, Princess. Do not fret. Soon, you will be on the throne, and she will not dare injure you then.”
“This is true. As long as the wine flows.” Clara's eyebrow arched.
He looked at the bruise buried on her throat, anger darkening his expression. “If the King were here, this abuse would not happen.” He held his wooden spatula like a weapon, his knuckles whitening.
“Speak not of that, Billy. We cannot change circumstance.”
“And Prince Frederic,” he sputtered.
But before he could go on, she held up a hand. “Enough, my friend. I am honor-bound to attend my subjects. You know this.”
His sad face regarded her. “I do not have to like it, Princess.”
“Nor I.”
Clara pushed the half-eaten bowl of oatmeal away, standing and brushing off her skirts. Looking up, she saw Billy staring at her.
“I have prepared a pail for your lunch, my lady.”
“Thank you so much.”
“You are most welcome. Tell my boys hello for me.”
Clara smiled, thinking of the brothers who were the captains of her small pungy, aptly named Clara's Folly. It had been Father's. He’d named it for his small girl who loved the fields.
She scooped up the pail with her lunch laid in ice. Maybe the oysters would be fresh when she needed to eat them. She peeked inside and saw that Billy had packed her favorite, tangerines. She adored tangerines, bought at high price from the Kingdom of Michigan, which had acres of hothouses in which to grow fruit that filled one's palm. Her mouth watered thinking of it like the sweetest of candy.
Clara said her goodbye to Billy, making her way down the long hall through the middle of the Gathering Room. She glanced at the great clock, which was a whisper away from chiming eight o'clock. She was later than she had meant to be. She needed to make haste, speak with dear Sarah, then very nearly run to the fields to be at the pier in a half hour.
Clara picked up her skirts, hustling along the corridor until she came to the front door, where the butler waited at the ready.
“Princess Clara,” Peter greeted her.
“Hello, Peter. How do you do?”
“Very well, Princess. Off to the fields?”
Queen Ada never spoke to the servants. She commanded them. Clara loved her people. They gave her purpose within the madness.
“Yes, but not straightaway. First, I must chat with Sarah.”
“Yes, mum. Perfect, then the fields.”
He knew her too well. “Yes, then the fields.”
She smiled. Peter, like Billy, had been here in the royal family home before she was born. They treated her well. Peter's eyes flicked to the mar on her skin, but he said nothing. His eyes spoke for him, glinting with hard anger. Ada was not popular, and the few who were wise to Clara's abuse hated her all the more.
She gave Peter a frightened look.
“Do not worry, mum. No word will be uttered.”
She let her relief show on her face. “Thank you.”
He nodded and held the door open.
Clara stepped outside. The concrete stairs, six in all, deep and wide, stretched before her, curving around both sides of the staircase. Walking to the end of the cobblestone path and opening the iron gate, she turned, latching it behind her. She glanced up at the Royal Manse, loving the look of it, as ostentatious as it was. The stained glass artisans had outdone themselves with scrolling flowers and animals gracing all the tops of the windows, offering jeweled light inside every nook. As a child, Clara had enjoyed playing on the stairwell. The stained glass panel at the turn still enraptured Clara. The scene was one of a fantastical mermaid, a woman captured in a net with the riotous sea all about her. She had asked her father about it.
*
“There is a sea Clara, far beyond here.”
“Outside, Father?”
“Yes, far beyond the spheres, as seawater can damage the spheres.”
“What must it be like, Father?”
“You remember the field of Samuel's Pearls?”
“Yes, the field under guard?”
Her father nodded. It was the singular saltwater field, where special protections were in place because of the dangers of saltwater. The rare Samuel's Pearls were cultivated there in a engineered saltwater pond, kept separate from the others.
“That was named for my father's father, Samuel.” He saw her expression and laughed. “Yes, there was an actual Samuel. He had a daughter, Stella. When she was a girl, they would visit in a place named Cape Cod. This place stood on a great sea, called the Atlantic Ocean. In this place were cold waters, which tasted of salt. There is a ground there of small, crushed shells. The water moves back and forth ceaselessly. Samuel said that his daughter made castles of sand at the edge of this sea.”
Clara stood silently, thinking of a girl her age, at the edge of a great water where the real sun shone, and the wind moved the waters. She sighed with pleasure. “Are there mermaids?”
Father laughed from his belly, “No, those are myth. But I will tell you that your eyes remind me of the sea. Those waters look like your eyes, Clara. A part of the sea remains with you. You have only to peer into the looking glass to know those waters.”
Clara stared at the mermaid suspended in raging waters with pearls glistening in hair the color of butter, her eyes a pale lavender. The weak light from the sphere pierced the glass, and she seemed to float on a mist of emerald waters washed by brilliant blue.
She turned to her father. “Tell me more of the sea, Father.”
*
Clara turned away from the Royal Manse, and with it, the happy memory. She walked down the sidewalk, avoiding the unevenness of the wider street, leaving that for horses and carts, although there were not many. She rounded the corner, leaving that for the occasional horses and carts. She rounded the corner, leaving the park to the east of her home and saw the sign hanging off a scrolling iron bracket. School for Children: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
She glanced at the sphere wall, distracting herself by looking at the Great Forest. Perhaps she was hoping to catch sight of the savages again. Stumbling, she righted herself. She needed to watch her footing. In the transition between the sidewalk and boardwalk to the wider str
eet with uneven cobblestone, it was easy to lose one’s footing. She hopped up the steps, her light beige linen skirt weighing her legs down as she moved. At least it was not the season for wool. That weighed a hideous amount.
She peered in the window anchored at eye level in a massive oak door and used the bell. It chimed shrilly, and she saw a smart-looking girl, two years her senior stroll to the door. Faces appeared behind her, curious to see who was visiting. When they saw that it was the Princess, hands were raised.
Sarah's face appeared in the glass, slightly distorted by the waviness of the pane. Her pale blonde hair was plaited in a severe braid at the back of her head. Sarah believed in each hair in its place, but she could not contain her impish manner. She was lively with a friendly countenance, a perfect disposition for a teacher.
“Come in, Clara.” She spoke Clara's name low, for it would be unseemly for anyone to address Clara thus, and as Clara stepped inside the foyer, Sarah asked, “What brings you?”
“I wish to visit but must attend the fields. Mayhap later this evening, you can call?”
“Does this have anything to do with your pronouncement last eve?”
Clara smiled. Sarah was anything but stupid. “Yes, and there are other... more sensitive matters I wish to discuss.”
Sarah laughed, clapping her hands together. “Brilliant! Just name your time, Princess.”
Clara grinned. Sarah was just the balm Clara needed. She quickly calculated the safest time. “What of half past seven o'clock?”
“That is perfect. I will see you then.”
Clara gave a quick look down the corridor and saw a paper glider fly through the air, meeting its mark in the pigtail of a stout girl with deep chestnut hair who squawked, “Thomas Harding, I am telling Miss Sarah.”
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