The Pearl Savage (6 page)

Her gaze suddenly wandered to the
sphere wall and she thought of the
savage
she had seen
Outside. How she longed for help for a new way, a way to save her
people from the hardship of this forced union.

Charles stood, and clasped their
hands, 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, and 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, turning, 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, it
was
difficult
to describe.

She slipped the ribbon open, its
gauzy weight as light as a feather atop a pen, and scooped out a
chain of precious silver. At its end hung a large, single pearl, held
in a spider web gallery; 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 perished in the Outside, in the time when
the earth was covered in ash.

Charles’ beautiful smile broke
across his face like the sun of the Outside breaking free of clouds,
“I knew you would love it.”

“I love it because of who gave
it,” returning his smile with one of her own.

Charles ducked his head, pleased,
“Let me place it about your neck.” She turned and he laid 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; the Queen’s careless abuse in evidence.

Clara gazed into the looking glance,
staring at the large pearl, the size of her pinky nail, a deep ebony,
shining with metallic green iridescence. The luster encompassed the
sea gem where it 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. It said, 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 time piece, 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 had 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.”

She 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, it 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 part which
narrowed. Her eyes following Olive as she moved to close the heavy
drapes that stood open to 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, hindered by the
heaviness. Finally, they were closed and Olive moved up behind Clara.
Olive began at the top stay, releasing it carefully. With the first
stay undone, it was usually a matter of synchronicity with the
rest… however, release the first in haste, and each stay needed
hand release, a bother at the very least. Clara gave a grateful
exhale as the stays loosened and her ribs and breasts escaped the
prison of the corset.

Olive breathed a sigh of relief,
“The usual damage has been avoided, Princess,” Olive said, a
discerning eye roving her torso.

“Oh?” Clara inquired. It felt
about the same as all the damage she always suffered when Ada raged
against her.

“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, like glass in repose.

She returned with Clara’s dressing
gown which Clara took to dress herself. How she detested being
dressed, this singular step she could do. As she took the gown, she
bestowed a grateful smile on Olive. She was someone that had been
steadfast and loyal throughout, in the terrible years after her
father’s passing, and before.

The dressing gown on, Clara walked
to the vanity chair, sitting sideways so as to not interfere with the
dress, while Olive gave her hair the hundred strokes.

Olive sighed, frustrated, “I am
sorry, Princess, I will have to remove these ruined bindings.”

Olive carefully unwound the mess of
the bindings, a few pearls still clinging to their careful housing,
now beyond repair. Clara’s hair shone as burnished copper in the
faded golden light cast by the overhead chandelier, its cut glass
globes piercing jeweled rainbows on the interior walls, some prisms
absorbed by the wall of the sphere.

Clara, not one to talk idly, sat
trancelike, as Olive brushed her hair, a ritual Olive’s mother had
established before Olive became her lady-in-waiting. It had never
failed to calm her, especially after a horrible night at the hands of
Ada. But this night, Clara could not calm herself, the normalcy of
this routine 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 of her later 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, Clara resolved to say
nothing. Clara wished upon every star that lay Outside in its
captured velvet…that she could do something to establish protective
measures 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. The ways of her father would not be forgotten because
she was incapable of preserving them. That streak of resolve always
held her in its fist when the days 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
belying the succulent sea meat held inside, the pretty gem nestled in
its dove gray folds. How the oysters fascinated young Clara! Each one
a surprise. The pearl their reward for diligently and studiously care
taking them until their maturation reached an end.

“Clara-girl,” King Raymond
began, prying 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 just the correct moment in an oyster’s
life span 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, even I
will be no more. It will be your job to steward over these
creatures.”

He pried the shell apart, not a
smooth practice, and 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 poking the flesh of the creature with his
prying tool so she could see the interior of its home encased in
shell. After they had examined it together, he placed the oyster in a
wooden bucket with rope for a 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.”

Prying… it sprung open, splashing
muck about the pungy, splatter falling on Clara,(she had the
disquieting thought that mother would be cross). She 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 the pearl out, 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 glimmer at her from her palm… her
first pearl.

She looked up at her father, delight
on her face and he smiled back, “I also 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 glass’ 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 much of what had been cultivated for over one
hundred years within her family. After all, Ada was not from this
Sphere originally, 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 her vehicle for their
continuation.

“I tire, Olive. I would sleep
now.”

Olive put the hairbrush down without
a word, folding the bedding back, Clara slid underneath her coverlet,
her eyes like great weights dragging her under. Struggling to stay
awake, her eyes followed Olive as she 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
which led to her much smaller chamber.

The last thing Clara heard was the
lock clicking into place as she fell into a dreamless sleep of
exhaustion.

CHAPTER 7

Charles lay in bed within his small
chamber thinking of Clara…
again
.
That 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 strumpet of a man lay in wait for Clara, whoring
himself with aplomb 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 evading 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
an outline of staggered black against a deep sky filled with stars,
the moon on the wane.

Clara had seen one of them today…
a
savage.

A new thing to worry over.

Although, curiously, she had said
she sensed no menace in the brief snippet of time they had to regard
each other.