The Pearl Savage (4 page)

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.”