The Pearl Savage (22 page)

Jack left her, looking back one last
time, as did Philip at Clara. She looked nervously away, not knowing
what to think of it all.

“Come, Princess,” Lillian said.

Clara
found her voice, “Please, call me Clara. That is what my friends
call me.”
When
the Queen is not in attendance,
she
added silently.

“
Alright
Clara,
”
Lillian said, walking away with the expectation that Clara would
follow her and she did.

They wound their way through the
small cottage, which at its back held a small kitchen overlooking a
ravine. Clara listened and thought she heard running water.

“What is that sound?” she asked
presently.

Lilian raised her eyebrows and stood
still listening. She smiled. “It is a wee creek.” She turned and
stood before an odd-looking sink with a spigot from which water
flowed. Clara looked on in fascination. All the plumbing of the
sphere clanked and hissed with the steam-driven machinery, but Lilian
turned a strange handle shaped like a “T” and out sprung a rush
of water, frosting the spigot simultaneously.

“How curious,” Clara said,
reaching a hand to touch the stream of water. Thirst immediately
boiled to the surface, her throat parched.

Lillian smiled, fetching a glass off
a low hung shelf made of roughened wood, the glass’ misshapen
thickness sparkling from the dim light that permeated the windowpane.

She gulped the water greedily and
looked about her, taking in the small house then she spied a looking
glass and slowly approached.

Clara immediately regretted it; she
looked atrocious. Her dress, once a beautiful turquoise, was a sodden
and dirty green color and her hair lay unbound and filthy. She looked
away, a high flush coloring her cheeks. She noticed with some relief
that her face did not look as terrible as one day past. That was
something at least.

Lillian saw Clara’s discomfort and
put on a kettle to heat some water. When it became hot enough, she
would stop up the sink and use soap to get the worst of the travel
grime cleaned off. Tonight, they would travel to the hot springs and
Clara could soak for an hour and finally tell all that she knew to
Lillian. Although, Lillian had the feeling that Clara was not a woman
to divulge things readily.

“How many years are you?”
Lillian asked.

“I just celebrated my Day of
Birth, ten and seven years.”

Seventeen years! Good Lord, she was
young. Lillian wondered why her eyes held such age?

She set the kettle upon the stove
top, the fire low in the summer. It might take some time and the
President would arrive shortly. It would have to be a tepid cleaning.

She turned. “Let us go to my
chamber and I will fetch you something else to wear.” Clara nodded,
weariness dragging at her marrow. She was so tired her eyes burned
but she must stay awake long enough to clean herself.

She followed Lillian into her
bedchamber and thought it lovely. Low ceilings hugged the room,
plaster a muted cream color with heavy, deep mahogany timbers
bisecting it. A lone window stood at its center, dim light softly
illuminating a four-poster bed that lay shrouded in a canopy of gauzy
ivory material.

Lillian brought out several long
skirts and blouses which billowed in soft colors.

“You are a tiny thing,” she
said, studiously holding up several different garments, finally
saying, “This should fit you, it fit me when I was ten and three
years!” she said with a laugh.

Clara asked tentatively, thinking of
Olive, “Would you assist me in the removal of my…” and she
pointed to her back.

“Certainly,” Lillian said.

She unhooked twenty hooks when she
asked, “What is this strange garment you wear under your dress?”

Clara turned, her face in profile,
seeing Lillian out of the corner of her eye. “My undergarment…
with the stays?”

Lillian nodded in wonderment at the
uncomfortable looking garment, grateful she had never had to wear
such.

“It is my corset,” Clara said,
one shoulder lifting then falling. “We all wear similar.”

Lillian did not comment further but
removed the stays until Clara could slip out of the offending thing.

Clara covered her breasts, feeling
exposed even in front of a woman.

“You cannot put the horrible thing
back on,” Lillian insisted, eying Clara critically. “Here,” she
rummaged in a simple looking dresser, the handles shone softly in the
glow from the window, the brass like worn butter, “use this.” She
held up a chemise which had built-in bosom cups. It seemed to Clara
very much like the corset but without the stays. Lillian laced it up
and Clara’s breasts spilled out the top in a most revealing way.

“Nothing we can do about your
figure, you are built like a wasp.”

“The creatures which sting?”
Clara asked.

Lillian nodded, taking her two index
fingers and drawing an imaginary hourglass in the air. Clara nodded.

“You did not need this
contraption,” she said, picking it up disdainfully with her
fingertips barely touching it. “We will burn it later.”

“Burn it?” Clara said then
surprised herself by laughing.

Lillian grinned back. “Yes, I
think that would be a good end for it, do you not?”

Clara
did
and
nodded. It felt wonderfully free to be without it. Yes, the new
garment still bound her but not uncomfortably so.

Clara put on a brown skirt made of
silk and cotton in a soft but crude weave, the waist was too large.
Lillian approached and found an interior tie and cinched it. Better.

She stood back, sorting through the
clothing she handed a pale, teal-colored blouse to Clara. It fit
perfectly.

“Evelyn’s,” she answered Clara’s
unspoken question.

Lillian’s eyes lowered, then met
Clara’s in a steady way. Clara liked this new acquaintance very much.

“She came by our home one day past
to help me with something and she spilled some juice on it. I had to
clean it right away and,” Lillian’s lip trembled and Clara saw her
use her teeth to steady it, biting slightly, “I washed the stain
out and….”

Lillian turned her back to Clara,
facing the window.

Clara’s heart went out to Lillian,
she approached her from behind. “They seem very capable… your
Band. I am confident they will return with Evelyn,” Clara said
before placing her hand on the other woman’s shoulder.

“It is true, they are. But it is
you, Clara, that is the important one. You are our hope… our only
hope.”

The kettle shrilled its whistle and
with a last lingering look Lillian walked away from Clara.

Clara
said nothing but wished desperately to know why she had been taken…
why was she so important? Other questions pressed as well: why were
there so few females? What was the
fragment
that
would take a
young
girl and had half their protectors racing to reacquire her? She would
find out.

Lillian poured the warm water into a
large pottery bowl and noticed it was lukewarm when she began to wipe
the grime off Clara’s face, carefully avoiding the worst of her
injuries. Her hair, which had been carefully bound up had not
suffered as much but a few small twigs were removed and a thorough
brushing helped immeasurably. Clara felt almost human when they were
finished and a soft rap at the door led them both to answer it.

An older gentlemen (who had more
clothes on, Clara noticed with some relief) stood flanked by two of
the Band. Bracus and the guard that made her uncomfortable. She kept
her focus on the man she was sure was their President.

The guard remained outside. Bracus
and the President entered as Lillian busied herself in the kitchen.

Bracus looked down at Clara and
noticed she wore clothing that was different and looked like she had
rested. His heart sped at the sight of her and he noticed her face
was beginning to heal, her eye almost completely open.

“Greetings, Princess,” President
Bowen said inclining his head.

“I am pleased to make your
acquaintance,” Clara responded automatically.

The President turned to Bracus. “You
did not overstate her condition.”

Clara felt uncomfortable heat rise
to the surface of her skin as they referenced her beating.

President Bowen noticed her
discomfiture and said, “We made a decision to acquire you sooner,
Princess… as Bracus determined your life may be in imminent danger
if you remained in the sphere.”

She
looked at Bracus and he looked back for a moment then away.
Curious
.
He must have been on some scouting mission, seen her after what the
Prince had done and hastened this kidnapping of her.

She put her attention back on the
president. “My foremost question is this: why have I been taken?”

She held up her hand before he could
answer and said, “I must state my thanks as it appears I was
rescued from a fate far worse than this one.”

She
waited for the president to continue but instead he turned to Bracus
who expounded. “We came upon the sphere and the Princess,
Clara,”
he
corrected at her slight frown, “was being attacked, her companion
could not aid her as he was restrained.” He looked at her for
confirmation and she nodded. It was fairly accurate as retelling
went.

Bracus turned suddenly, giving his
attention to her. “Is he the one?” he asked, gesturing to her
face.

Her flush returned, her face felt on
fire. “He is.”

She watched the strange reaction
take over Bracus, his fists clenching and opening, a vein standing
out on his forehead. “We should have ended him back in the sphere
then for what he did to you before,” and he swallowed, Clara
hearing the dry click, “and for what he was attempting to do.”

The president turned his penetrating
gaze on Bracus and a look passed between them she could not decipher.

“Let us sit.” Bowen indicated
the adjoining parlor with a few simple pieces of furniture. Clara sat
in the smallest settee and Bracus in the largest, his huge frame
engulfing it, long legs flung out before him.

“Princess,” President Bowen
began.

“Clara,” she corrected quietly.

“You must call me Arthur then.”

She nodded.

“Forgive my bluntness, but in
light of the circumstances of Evelyn’s kidnapping and the death of
her father, I feel frankness is the best course.”

Clara waited.

The President shifted in his chair.
“We are losing people Clara, females in particular.”

Clara’s mind turned quickly. The
crowd as they had come upon it had seemed odd to Clara but with all
the chaos of the last day she had not struck upon what was odd. Now
she realized.

The lack of women.

He saw the look of comprehension
come over her face and continued his unflinching commentary.

What could they want with her? Then
she thought of it. Standing so suddenly she tipped the chair she had
been sitting upon, racing to the door which led to the hall, Bracus
caught her easily.

“Clara! We mean you no harm.
Please, let the president finish!”

Clara’s
heart beat like butterfly wings trapped in her throat. What was she
to them, a woman to steal. To impregnate? She shuddered thinking
about the last day in an entirely new fashion. They were going to use
her as some… some kind of elaborate breeder. Clara suddenly felt
doomed. She had escaped the sphere only to have
this
as
the alternative?

She
would formulate a plan but she must, at least on the surface
,
pretend to give them her ear. Then Clara would escape this place,
reunite with Charles. Despair welled inside her, filling her with
stagnation.

What if there was no more Charles?

She shoved that thought out of her
mind and concentrated on the present.

Forcing herself to still in the
strong arms of Bracus, who had held her gently while they rode upon
his horse, and now imprisoned her with his embrace, she said, “I
will listen.”

Bracus
set her down, warily watching for another escape, with Clara thinking
all the while that the
guard
lay in wait outside, she would not test
any
boundary with him. She needed to tell Bracus and Bowen that he had
visited the sphere before. She felt strongly that they were unaware
of his dalliance. She had sensed much from him, all of it unknown.

She righted the chair as she sat
upon it, folding her arms beneath her breasts.

Bracus noticed her posture and was
not fooled. Her eyes flashed fire while she stared at them like
enemies.

She would try to escape again.

Unfortunately, she was not
understanding their true intent. If only she would listen. Bracus was
beginning to see that beneath all the fragility, lay a woman of
fortitude.

President Bowen began again, “It
is not as it seems. For many decades our clan,” he stretched his
hand to include the immediate area, “and many of our sister clans
did not have females enough to grow in number. For every fifteen
males born, only one female comes,” he said in a helpless voice.

“We think that the Evil Ones, may
have made our ancestral pool too limited. And now, as our
grandfather’s grandfathers lay in this earth, we are in a desperate
state to mingle with different peoples.”