The Pearl Savage (8 page)

“What say you, Olive?” Clara
smiled at Olive; who was prone to be silly.

“Oh, it is nothing, my lady, I was
lost in my thoughts,” she looked down, blushing.

“It is the male, yes?”

Olive nodded.

Clara was not sure about all the
giggling and silliness that accompanied the supposition of the
opposite sex, it was bewildering. 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… her people.

Clara sighed, “Yes, he was…
definitely male enough.” Clara said, remembering the height, the
menace, the impressive musculature.

“Oh yes mistress, frighteningly
male!” she laughed.

Clara turned and threw a pillow at
Olive, which winged 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, and gathering herself, 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 about at 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 before her. Billy’s eyes roamed her neckline,
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 elbows,
two hand’s breadths away from Clara’s, “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.”

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 turning white from the grip.

“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.”

Clara inclined her head in thanks,
“Thank you so much.”

“You are most welcome. Tell my
boys ‘hello’ for me.”

Clara smiled, thinking of the
brothers which were the captains of her small pungy, aptly named,
Clara’s Folly.
It had been Father’s, who named it for his
small girl that loved the fields and the pearls that lay within.

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, who 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 which would take her through the
middle of the Gathering Room. Upon entering, 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
one half hour hence.

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 being the Princess to her people, they gave her purpose
in 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 in existence. They treated her well.
Peter’s eyes flicked to the mar on her skin, but said nothing. His
eyes spoke for him, where hard anger glinted. Ada was not popular and
the few that were wise to Clara’s abuse made her even less so.

She gave Peter a frightened look,
“Do not worry, mum, a word will not be uttered,” he said it
tightly, costing him something not to defend her.

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, they stretched before her, curving
around both sides of the staircase. Walking to the end of the
cobblestone path, opening the iron gate, she turned, latching it
behind her. Her hand still resting on the black iron she glanced up
at the Royal Manse, loving the look of it, as ostentatious as it was.
The stained glass artisans, having outdone themselves with scrolling
flowers and animals gracing all the tops of the windows, offering
jeweled light inside every nook, albeit interior sphere light. As a
child, she had enjoyed playing on the stairwell, the stained glass
panel at the turn, one that still enraptured Clara. The scene was one
of a fantastical mermaid, a woman captured in a net, the sea all
about her in a riot. She had asked her father of it.

*

“There is a sea Clara, far beyond
here.”

“Outside, Father?”

“Yes, far beyond the spheres, as
the 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.

“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. And when she was a
girl, they would holiday 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, which lay at
its feet, of small shells that are crushed, the water moves back and
forth on this carpet of sand. 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
engage the looking
glass to know those waters.”

Clara stared at the mermaid,
suspended in raging waters, pearls glistening in hair the color of
butter, her eyes a pale lavender blue, the glass increasing the
intensity. The pale light from the sphere piercing the glass, 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 the treed park to the east of her home and saw the sign
hanging off a scrolling iron bracket, which read,
School for
Children, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

She glanced at the sphere wall,
distracting herself by looking at the Great Forest Outside.
Subconsciously, 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 a boardwalk made of wood to the
wider street with uneven cobblestone, it was easy to lose ones
footing. Careless of her. 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 an hideous amount.

She peered in the window anchored at
eye level in a massive door made of oak and used the bell. It chimed
shrilly and she saw a smart-looking girl, two years her senior stroll
to the door, while faces appeared behind her, curious to see who was
visiting. When they saw that it was she, the Princess, hands were
raised with hushed whispers behind them.

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 on the lower part 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 said
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, she thought Sarah
wonderful. She was just the balm Clara needed and 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.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, “I must
go.”

Clara nodded, holding back laughter
and Sarah leaned in, giving her cheek a kiss. And with that, the door
closed and Clara watched Sarah regain control of a classroom run
amuck.

Clara whirled, galloping down the
stairs in a near trot (very unladylike, and certainly, exceedingly
un-royal), at a near run for the pier. As she neared it, she could
see the poles marking the fields, the water lapping the shore, the
sand here not that of the great sea that Father spoke of but a
respite from her life, one she would gladly take.

She could just make out the dark
forms of Russel and Sydney. Their poles were buried in the soft muck
of the bottom. She slowed her pace, seeing their laughing faces. They
thought that she was most un-royal in her bearing.
Clara
agreed
.
Billy’s sons waited for her as she approached
the pungy. She used Russel’s arm for balance upon entry into the
boat, hopping down with expert grace, having done it a thousand times
before.

“High color for your Highness.”
Russel laughed, upon seeing her rosy cheeks.

“You were running again? A
Princess
running!” Sydney
teased.

“There will be hell to pay if the
Queen sees you, Princess,” Russel stated.

Sydney flicked the collar of her
blouse, noting the bruise, “looks like there already was.”

The laughter faded as the men
regarded her. She looked down, embarrassed. She should have insisted
on a different garment, one that could hide Ada’s fingerprints.

Russel used a finger to tilt her
chin up so their eyes could meet, “no Princess, do not be ashamed.
It is not you who should feel guilty, it is she.”

Sydney nodded agreement, “she
needs some of her own handiwork laid upon her. She would understand
better then, me thinks.”

“Shh, do not say such,” Clara
put a finger to his lips and Sydney grasped it, kissing it then
letting it fall.

Clara’s blush deepened. Sydney had
made it clear if she were not Princess, he would have courted her. It
made things vaguely uncomfortable between them but Clara maintained
more friends were better. She needed all the allies she could manage.

Russel cleared his throat, “Let us
cast off.”

Sydney looked at his brother
sharply, then nodded, “Yes, alright.”

They untethered the lines and Clara
took stock of the wooden pails, she counted one only.

“Where is the fresh water bucket?”
she asked, setting her lunch pail in the box built for such things.