The Pearl Savage (25 page)

Clara nodded and smiled, which
turned into a gigantic yawn. Her face felt much better. She ran her
fingers gently over the worst of the swelling and thought it subdued.
Her eye was almost completely open now.

Lillian smiled back. “I will go
lie down myself.” and with that, she closed the door and Clara
stripped off the skirt and blouse she had worn but an hour, laying
them carefully over the sole wooden chair which stood in the corner
of the room. Her hair hung loose and she wished fiercely for her
knapsack which held her grooming tools and realized one of the Band
must have hers and Charles’ as well.

She lay down under the comforter and
allowed her body to loosen in stages, so tense from all the running
and tumultuous circumstances. Clara’s tiredness consumed her but she
lay awake for a time, overtired.

She listened to the sound of water,
it was strange and delightful at the same time. And the air! She did
not know if she would ever become accustomed to the fragrance of the
woods which clung to each breath that she took.

Clara gazed out the window, taking
in the great branches of the trees, their deep green shone like…
like the decanter that the Queen drank her beloved wine from.
Gooseflesh rose upon her arms, and it was then, in that realm between
sleeping and waking, that sleep prevailed, dragging her under into
unconsciousness.

The disturbing echo of her memories
following the spiral of her sleep.

****

Bracus looked down on the sleeping
form of Clara. Not a muscle moved, her breath causing the barest rise
and fall of her chest. He gazed at her for such a long time, Lillian
touched his shoulder and he sighed quietly as to not awaken her,
closing the door behind him soundlessly.

“She needs the rest, do not fret
over her. You have done as the President asked. She is here, safe.”
Lillian looked at him curiously, the captain of the Band was an
enigma. Not unkind… but not a member of the Band she would chat
with casually. Jack spoke of him in the highest of terms. However,
there was much below the surface of this warrior.

Bracus
swung his face toward Lillian and met her gaze. “I do not like to
leave the clan unguarded, the Band split by the
fragment
now.”

“We have Stephen, Matthew and
Joseph. All will be well. They did not penetrate the gate, the
perimeter, nothing.”

Mayhap it was not penetration they
sought? Could it be that it was their desire to split the Band, so
that when the clan lay more vulnerable to attack they could move
against it? That is exactly what Bracus would do had he designs on
striking another faction.

Lillian
looked at the emotions that played over his face, not sure what they
meant but she understood this: there was more to his interest in the
Princess
than mere protecting. She meant something entirely different to him.
Call it woman’s intuition. And what of it? Except that Lillian knew
that
he would need to return her to the sphere from which she came and
then what? Would the
sphere-dwellers
be agreeable? There was no way to know. She may not be a woman he
could have.

Bracus would have felt better to see
Clara awake and tell her goodbye. No matter. He would be gone but a
fore-night.

He nodded a goodbye at Lillian,
having turned down her offer of a drink. He did not wish to spend one
more second inside the gates of the clan. He wanted to retrieve
Evelyn and return to Clara. His duty then his wish. In that order. He
was nothing if not disciplined.

Lillian watched him leave with James
and Jacob. As she kissed Jack, he and Philip mounted their horses,
Jack’s face revealing how much he would worry over her in his
absence. Why he worried she knew not. The finest guards were here
watching over her and the clan.

What could go wrong?

****

Anna watched Joseph approach, grimy
from the acquisition of the Princess. His grim expression told her he
knew of Evelyn’s kidnap but when his eyes caught hers, his face
lightened. She could not help but give a small smile back. He might
be a male who would treat her well. She had been here a half year and
had yet to be threatened. She felt like a coward, leaving her clan,
leaving the other females at the possible peril of the Band. There
were more females in her sea clan and not all the Band was bad, but
there was a great deal of in-fighting amongst the males over the
females.

She
had a hard life in her clan, the endless chores, the violence a
constant thing. She was finally becoming accustomed to the easy
cadence
of
this clan, everyone working together as a unit, gathering, working,
cooking, and maintenance of the dwellings. Things were shared and it
was something that made Anna feel a part of something larger and it
lifted her heart. As he approached Anna she felt that stirring and
tried to squelch it. His hold on her deepening like fingers in flesh.
He moved her soul and she tried with everything she was to resist
that pull. Her disappointment in other males kept her from allowing
too much for this one.

Joseph
was very glad to see Anna. Her tentative smile acted as a salve on
his travel weariness and stress over the plight of the small girl,
Evelyn. Who had surely seen the murder of her father then been torn
from the woods by the
fragment.

He longed to sweep her up into his
arms but knew that would scatter their fragile bond like dandelion
seed.

Instead, he looked down into her
face, still closed to him, and squeezed her shoulder. “I am glad to
see you well.”

“And I you,” Anna said, stepping
closer, her heart beating like a trapped thing in her throat,
panicked.

Joseph
held his ground, it was almost too much to hope for
.
After months of working his way closer to her, trying at every turn
for her acceptance, she had made a move toward him.

He held himself still. She must wish
it, he would force nothing.

Anna placed first one hand on the
left side of his waist and then the right, feeling the hardness of
him underneath her hands. Supple skin over hardened muscle…she
stepped closer yet, her head a breath away from touching his chest.
Her fear and bravery combined in a heady rush, making her dizzy.

Joseph
could stand it no more. She was touching him and he had to touch her
back
.
His
hands found purchase on the small of her back, he pulled her to his
body, molding it to his and she gave a soft moan of pleasure,
surprising them both. As she began to pull away he held her tighter
and she stiffened.

Anna was immediately frightened and
although she had initiated the contact, she did not know what to do
about it. His arms tightened about her like steel bands, his heart
beating strong and fast in her ear.

“Do not… do not go. Let me hold
you but a moment longer.”

Anna clenched her teeth, willing her
body to relax. This was Joseph, a male that had treated her with
kindness and been tender with her each day she had been here. She had
to learn to trust him. She was so utterly lonely she could taste it
like bitter fruit.

She would force herself to trust.

Joseph felt her relax in his arms
and it was the single best feeling he had ever had the pleasure of
knowing. This is what life was about. There must be something beyond
existing and he meant to grab it. He kissed the top of her head,
which smelled of the soap of his clan., everything that was clean and
pure.

Joseph held Anna tighter.

CHAPTER 29

Charles
and Clarence were tired. They had not time to appreciate their escape
into the Outside. In the pursuit of Princess Clara as their focus,
the distractions of the new environment were of no help. Twigs,
grass, large branches hindered, tore and laboriously slowed their
progress. Charles had only books on tracking techniques with which to
guide them and this was the
savages’
environ.
They
were familiar. He and Clarence were not and more and more Charles
felt that weakness as an exquisite paralysis.

They pressed on.

Presently they passed an odd looking
pole, worn smooth, as long as the banquet table in the Gathering
Room, with two shorter poles anchoring it. He noted there was manure
scattered about the area.

Clarence squatted down, looking
closer at the construction of it. A drop of sweat ran down his face
from temple to chin, falling to the ground on top of droppings where
lazy flies hovered. That was another thing that Charles could not get
accustomed to: the sheer volume of insects and other small creatures
roaming freely, untroubled by their presence.

“It is a pole to tether a horse,”
Clarence stated.

“How do you know?”

“There is one for Trading Day that
the other spheres which visit tie their horses upon.”

Charles
looked at it, realizing that the mystery of the
savages
continued to deepen.

He and Clarence scouted the area
taking deep pulls of water from their flasks. Soon it would not be
enough. They would have to find a water source.

That is when they heard it… water.
Charles could not believe their luck.

It was ten minutes more before they
found the source of the water. A small creek flowed through the
deepest part of the forest but what gave them pause was the
depressions which lay beside the creek. People had lain here.

Clara had been here.

Charles knew this because her crown
lay sparkling in the dim light.

He picked it up, searching the
filigree gallery. Where was she? he thought, clenching the crown, its
delicate metal biting the tender flesh of his palm.

He and Clarence looked at each
other.

“Mayhap she left it as a sign she
had come this way?” Clarence speculated.

Charles nodded. “Possibly. But I
think it more likely that it escaped her notice. After all, it is not
every day that one is kidnapped by a merciless group of primitives.”
Obviously, they were not as primitive as the People of the Sphere had
presumed.

They pressed on, using the hoof
prints of the horses to follow behind, praying to the Guardians that
rain would not come and wipe away all traces of the trail of bread
crumbs which followed Clara.

Clarence and he counted five horses.
When they stopped to look closely at the prints there was one set
which left a deeper impression and Charles said, “This must be the
horse that carried two riders.”

Clarence
looked up at him, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. The
open meadow allowed the heat and brightness of the sun to permeate
into every pore. And they had thought that the heat of the sphere
unbearable! This was altogether
as hot
but a different type of heat.

Clara
was alive.
These
prints were fresh, causing hope to swell inside Charles.

Clarence grinned as hope flared.
They would be able to retrieve the Princess after all.

They bedded down for the night at
the meadow’s edge. The stars began to appear in the twilight which
enveloped the day, winking at them from a dressing of inky velvet.

It was a view Charles had never
seen, one he wished he could have shared with Clara.

****

Clara
awoke, completely disoriented and slowly her memories assaulted her:
the aborted escape, the attempted rape, her “rescue” by the Band,
her new place here amongst the
clan-dwellers
.
She opened her eyes, unsure of what time it was but the light that
filtered into the room spoke of twilight. Mayhap she had slept four
or five hours. Her stomach told her she had missed lunch entirely
with a low rumble.

Suddenly, Clara thought of the
oysters: she would never eat oysters again. Another wave of
homesickness washed over Clara and her eyes stung with tears. She
reminded herself that living was better than the alternative which
awaited her in the sphere.

It was a mantra that she tired of.

She swung her feet over to the
floor, touching it immediately, the bed not high like the one inside
the sphere. Clara gulped back her weak feelings of isolation. Spying
a wash basin with a pitcher, she walked over to it using the water on
her hands and splashing some upon her face.

She dressed quickly, again wishing
she could have her grooming implements, she knew she looked a fright.
With that lovely assessment, she quietly stole out of the room and
came upon the remainder of the Band sitting about the eating table,
their long legs splayed out before them. Lillian was not to be seen
or Bracus.

She
schooled her expression of unease. Unknown males were not something
that instilled confidence and trust. And
,
she
had seen them kill the remainder of the Prince’s guard.

The guard looked at the Princess and
thought how interesting it was that she was a master of her
expression. One so young, she should show everything on her face. Yet
she was self-contained in a way that was fascinating to him. No
matter, he was sure, as their acquaintance progressed he could elicit
emotions. Oh yes, he was positive of that.