But they did.
Rowenna knew that it was no use. The threat of the Travelers funneling more of the criminals from the world whence they came frightened her, the clan's very survival would lay in the balance. For she was the daughter of the sovereign leaders of the Clan of Cape Cod. Her father, Ronan, and her mother, Adair, would not see fit to ignore the obligations of the clan. Their daughter would be a sacrifice for the many.
Rowenna had never been more afraid.
Or more brave.
*
“I will not speak of this again, Adair.” Ronan's eyes pierced hers and Adair put her face in her hands.
“She is but ten and five... Ronan, we cannot. Rowenna is right, she is meant to be with Rolland, not with some...” Adair could not bring herself to say it, speaking between her fingers.
Ronan did, “Sphere-dweller.” His deep cerulean eyes followed his mate and he offered the conciliatory observation, “He is a prince amongst their people.”
He palmed his chin, to withhold his regular comfort from his mate was killing him. Yet, it must be done. If Adair witnessed or intuited how much it grieved him to hand over Rowenna for the purposes of viability of the clans...? She would never let it go. Adair alone was able to wheedle him into submission.
He could stand it no more. Her silent sobbing felt like ground glass in his brain; Ronan bled inside for her. He strode to Adair and wrapped her against him. “She will not be treated badly or abused, my heart.” Ronan tipped Adair's face back, cupping the soft triangle of her chin, brushing the tears from eyes so startling a blue they rivaled the ocean at their feet. “He is a fair leader of their sphere.”
“It does not matter what the character of the man may be. Aye,” she pressed her cheek more deeply into his palm, “it matters not for he will simply lay with her and leave her with the babe. There will be no love.”
They did not speak of what might occur after the event. Yet, they both thought it: would Rolland still mate with Rowenna? When she carried the babe of another deeply within her?
The answer was Nay, they thought not.
It was not the life they would have chosen for their child.
*
Rolland was quiet, as was his way, while he and Rowenna made their way back to the clan, she upon the steed that he guided. He would look back occasionally as her tall and elegant body undulated with the gait of the horse underneath and wondered upon her state of mind.
When they rode over the last hill that was part sand dune, the ocean greeted them with her azure brilliance, the sun a great ball of heat at the apex of the sky. Rolland shielded his eyes and determining that the evening meal would be five hours hence he made a plan to take Rowenna's mind off the happenings of one day past. A faint whistle sung as the seagrass mingled together in the breeze coming off the whitecaps of the ocean.
“Let us swim,” he said suddenly and Rowenna gave the first smile he had seen this day. The slits at her throat expanded as she breathed deeply in preparation. Her melancholy mood would not leave her, the talons of her future sprung and deeply piercing the armor of her heart.
“Come, forget all this for a time and swim with me,” he said, waving his palm toward the vastness of the water.
Rowenna slid from her mount and Rolland caught her, swinging her to a gentle landing upon the white sugar-like sand underneath their feet.
They shucked their outer tunics and leather, calf-length laced shoes before wading into the sea. Though summer was at its height the water remained nearly icy on the eastern seaboard..
Rolland took Rowenna's hand and they swam deeply. They swam so far beneath the cool blanket of the ocean that when they swirled in the water to look back at the surface, their backs to the ocean floor, the sun was but a dim ball of opaque fire, viewed as through a glass, darkly.
As they floated beneath the waves, Rolland thought of another man touching Rowenna, his promised, and the need for violence rose up inside him like it did for all Band. They were fiercely protective of the small female population they had, and would kill for their mate.
Rolland circled Rowenna's waist and sucked her against him as his powerful legs kicked in a steady flutter until they burst the surface where they floated, neither speaking.
There was nothing to say.
And everything.
*
King Raymond
“Your majesty,” King Raymond's manservant called to him.
Raymond raised his head, sighing. Another duty awaited him and he had been about attending the fields. He so wished to even now be rolling up his sleeves and dirtying himself with the harvesting of oysters. He felt certain that he was not meant to be King.
Of course, he was not yet King. The coronation was one month hence.
“Yes, Peter, do come in,” Raymond invited.
He put the note from the Kingdom of Virginia under the glass weight. It was deeply convex and magnified everything due to its shape. He glanced at it and saw the most troubling word of all that lay on the stiff parchment: Wedded.
He would be crowned King of the sphere on his day of birth. He would be ten and eight. He dreaded it, he welcomed it. Raymond had many ideas of leadership that were different than those of his great uncle, who had been ruling monarch these forty seasons past. He now grew frail with age and the royal blood stopped with his own.
“King Ferrell awaits you, my Lord,” Peter announced.
Raymond turned at the waist, his long arm fully wrapping the back of the ornately carved chair, a holdover from the Rococo era, a time from Before the Rocks Fell. Or as they thought of it here in the Kingdom of Ohio, just before. Raymond had often pored over the volume of: Asteroids, Before the Rocks Fell. He had been frustrated by the study of it. It manufactured more questions than it answered.
He tore his thoughts away from those of introspection and back to the question at hand. “How does he fare this day?”
“Might I speak freely, my Lord?” Peter asked, his expressive eyes holding the sadness that spoke more plainly than the stilted conversation of their disparate stations ever could.
Raymond inclined his head in encouragement and Peter answered, “He but awaits your coronation to pass into the next realm, my Lord.”
Raymond palmed his chin, glancing at the letter that had held wax just moments before Peter's entry into his chamber.
He stood, buttoning his light summer weight coat with tails at the back, his manservant rushing forward to grab his hat and ornately carved cane, the head shaped into the likeness of the oysters the sphere cultivated.
Raymond held his palm up. “Please, Peter, you know how I feel about my clothing.”
Peter nodded. “Aye, I do know the spirit of you, my Lord. Yet, I respectfully add that I will be out on mine ear if King Ferrell discovers me loafing at the execution of my duties.”
“Blame me, then,” Raymond said dryly.
Peter got a twinkle in his eye at Raymond's words. “Aye, that I will.” He caught his master's gaze, a fair and just man, far too serious for Peter's taste and repeated, “That I will.”
Peter followed the future King of Ohio out of his chamber, the sconces against the faux walls of the sphere hissing as they released their steam and heat. The gaslight provided a glaring but low-burning light which illuminated their slow progression to the sick bed of the current King.
Who lay dying. Waiting only for his great-nephew's coronation. And the fulfillment of a promise uttered by the Guardians themselves.
*
King Ferrell watched Raymond enter his dwelling, the door a solid two feet above him, framing him as he paused through the threshold. All doors inside the royal manse were eight feet and King Ferrell thought perhaps Raymond was not yet done gaining his adult height.
He abstained from dwelling on what would happen to Raymond when he did as the Guardians instructed.
They both knew that it would abbreviate his life. Yet, if a child came from the immoral union with the Savage, then all was not lost. Fe
rrell knew the dangers of the inbreeding that was becoming pervasive in the neighboring spheres. The Kingdom of Kentucky was a prime example. His lips puckered, making a strange popping sound of distaste as he thought on it.
Ferrell was parched. The disease that no doctor could cure had taken him, the very spit in his mouth lay like dirt that had never seen rain.
Age was the enemy.
After all, his father had been the first generation of those within the sphere.
Ferrell was one hundred years old. There were many of the sphere that had outlived him. Aging had been greatly slowed by life inside the sphere, though they knew not why. Ferrell heard the timed release of steam and welcomed the heat, it was comforting as his circulation was so depleted of late that it was sometimes the only thing which allowed him to feel at all.
“Come in, young Raymond.” Soon to be king, he added to himself.
Raymond walked to his bedside and Ferrell thought how much he seemed to resemble his long-dead ancestor, Stella. She had looked as he did, with gray eyes and dark hair. Eyes like a storm. Those eyes gave him away. Stormy in anger and light whilst happy. Yes, he would be an excellent leader... for his short life.
“What say you?” Raymond asked softly as he sat on the edge of the large bed, filled with feathers from the geese that were kept for their down in a pen halfway across the sphere.
“I am the same, as you see.”
Raymond looked over the slack and ashen skin of his uncle and felt a pang of sadness. Yet, he was one hundred years, an excellent and long life lived in stewardship over his people, a man that actually heard firsthand stories of what it had been like Outside from before. A life of such length would never be Raymond's future because of his coming sacrifice.
There was no wallowing allowed and Raymond cut the feeling even as it rose inside him, causing an unrealized ache in his breastbone at the squashing of it.
“Did you receive the announcement?” Ferrell asked quietly, then a kerchief rose like a poisonous flag as he had a coughing fit that lasted a full minute. Raymond waited through it, knowing that there would soon be less breathing and more coughing as the time of his passing drew nearer.
Peter came forward and Ferrell's eyes flicked to the royal manservant. “I am fine, it is but a spell, dear Peter.” Peter's eyes clouded. His love for his King standing like a fine and true fire which lay banked by force.
Raymond waited until Ferrell came to himself, the coughing under control and lifted the creamy parchment envelope, a remnant of blood-red wax clinging stubbornly to the lip at its back.
Their eyes met and King Ferrell's slid to Peter's. “Peter, if you would give Prince Raymond and I a moment.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Peter said, leaving in a graceful backward walk to the entrance then swinging the great thick door, closing it almost soundlessly.
King Ferrell began the business at hand without preamble. “You will meet Princess Ada at the coronation and the Wedded Joining shall be three months hence.”
Raymond attempted to school his face but failed.
“I know it is not of your choosing.” Ferrell looked into his great-nephew's eyes. “None of these circumstances are ideal. However,” he pointed a gnarled finger at Raymond, “the Guardians' prophecy has come full circle. There will be redemption. You will couple with this Savage, she will bear your heir and Ada will be the pseudo mother of the babe.” Ferrell's eyes became fevered, bordering on the narrow fence of zealotry. “The heir shall save the sphere... all spheres,” Ferrell sputtered, the next coughing fit making the first look like a wild animal tamed.
Raymond did not see how his great-uncle could extend his life until the coronation. He would never see him in the Wedded Farce, as Raymond liked to think of it. Arranged marriages were not uncommon but when he became King, it would be the first thing he did away with. Raymond was a strong believer in liberty. And forcing a person into a union that was not sought for love was some form of coercion, their freedom now gone. It was not the way the whole of the other nineteen spheres saw it, yet Raymond did.
He said none of these things. For Raymond believed his freedom, and ultimately, his life, were the price he would pay to save his people and the unborn child he would have with the savage who lived Outside. Raymond wondered how his female counterpart felt about their forced union?
He had often wondered if she wished it. Or... if she felt as he did: that they must.
Raymond looked at Ferrell, a sick old man, steeped in the culture the sphere had become and spoke his mind, “Does Princess Ada accept this union?”
Ferrell gave a low cackle. “Oh my yes! She be from the Kingdom of West Virginia.” His eyes glittered with the knowledge of the happenings of that sphere. “You remember trade days?”
Raymond did. That kingdom was known for their greed.
Ferrell sniffed a trifle contemptuously, his eyes narrowing. “They have the worst for trade while our sphere holds the meat of the waters and the gems therein.” He made a loose fist with his arthritic hands. “They need the proposed alliance, my nephew. Badly,” he said in emphasis.
His eyes took on a faraway look. “Have you readied your preparations for travel?”
Raymond nodded, a knot in his stomach.
“I am sorry, dear nephew, that the very thing the Guardians use to press us into service will sicken you.”
“Yet not for years, dear uncle.”
“No... that I could have...”
Raymond squeezed his last living relative's hand, quelling his apology neatly, “Nay, do not, uncle.” Raymond looked at King Ferrell, dying, in grief about something that had taken the pair by surprise. “It is by destiny's hand. How long did we believe that we would live in the insulation of this marvel?” Raymond said, swinging a large palm at the soft walls of the sphere, the steam-powered heat and function of their home a technology that was not fully understood. Manufactured by strangers from an even stranger place. They had thought the Guardians were their saviors. However, in retrospect, Raymond knew there had been a cost to be paid.
There always was.
He would marry a young princess he did not love so she might raise the babe that would be the product of a secret and immoral liaison between him and a female who lived Outside in the wild. From all accounts, the people of outside were barely more than animals. It would be some kind of rut. Not for love, but for genetics.
Yes, it had been very precisely and explicitly explained to Raymond: the mix of the two peoples would be the only thing that would save both groups. The genes had become thin. Without the Savage introduction to the pool of people in the spheres, they would be driven mad. It had only taken a few well-placed comments from the pair of Guardians, relaying the state of the Kingdom of Kentucky as an example for both King Ferrell and Prince Raymond to concede their point. Then the outlining of their plan began.
Raymond was their patsy, and so was the unknown Savage.
They would lay together, she would have his child, then give it to him to raise. The future monarch would be the key to the sustainability when the eventual demise of the spheres occurred. The Guardians assured them that would happen and when it did this descendant of Raymond and the female Savage would save all.
Raymond would die within the confines of a loveless marriage, sickened by the use of the evil contraption that folded distance.
And time.
Raymond stood and kissed the cool cheek of his uncle, wondering as he departed if the female felt the helplessness that he did? Did she mourn the loss of her choices? Her freedom?
Mayhap her life?
Chapter 2
Clan of Cape Cod
Rolland hung to the treeline and waited, his presence an abiding comfort to Rowenna, who, though she claimed bravery and had such, did not like to roam across borders that brought her within proximity of the Fragment.
As they moved together they slowed, an iridescent tear pierced the sky, the middle of the pastureland just beginning to bleach with the p
romise of autumn one month hence.
“I am scared,” Rowenna whispered and Rolland clenched his fists, closing his eyes.
He showed none of his anger, though it boiled underneath his skin, poking holes in his marrow.
Instead he answered, “I am here.”
“I know,” she answered and then slipped away.
The Guardians had assured them that she would not be harmed. Rolland could not bring himself to think of her with the false prince of the sphere. Did they have real males of honor within the senseless contraption? Did they even understand what it was to be male?
He stewed as her nutmeg-colored tunic became small in his vision and she slowed in front of the yawning mouth of the Pathway.
A male dropped out of it like spewed garbage and Rolland grunted in satisfaction, hoping he had landed on his thick head.
*
Prince Raymond had never felt so ill in his life nor so embarrassed. He had hoped to be well-met with the Savage, for though she was undoubtedly heathen, she was female and was afforded his deference as all females were.
Instead, his forearms lay planted in a stiff grass that speared his bare skin wherever it touched, his nethers kissing the sky as he poured out his breakfast into the land beneath him. He sucked in a great lungful of air and was assaulted with a dry heat that seared his lungs and caused him to roll on his side and spew more of his guts into the waiting pasture.
“Dear Lord, man!” Rowenna said, her hands on her hips, “What say you?”
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 56
