Charles gave her a glower, she looked much fresher than he, his breeches sticking to his body as a second skin.
Clara laughed, her smile fading as Peter swung open the double door, ushering them into the wide foyer, the steam-chandelier not yet operating. Fading sunlight streamed through the many stained glass windows like fractured rainbows slicing the interior.
“Princess, Olive has your change of attire waiting in your chamber.”
“Thank you, Peter.”
Clara turned to Charles, looking over his sticky breeches and slightly rumpled blouse, he shook his head. “You Princess, she will require formality in her audience, I am as a bug.”
Clara laughed, and he winked. “You will await here then, while I change?”
“Yes.” Charles and Peter watched her climb the great staircase which led to her chamber.
Peter sighed. “She leads a hard life, our highness.”
“Yes she does.”
Peter and Charles stood in mutual silence. They were bound by the same laws that governed everyone in the Kingdom of Ohio; pretending their monarch was not ruled by her own selfishness and the ebb and flow of wine, rather than commerce and the daily yield of life.
Peter and Charles continued in amiable quiet. For years, since Charles was a youth, Peter had been at this door. He had seen many things.
An intuitive man, he remarked on Charles’ bearing, “What has happened this day?”
Charles hesitated, then continued, “Clara’s cream field yields a pink wash.”
Peter’s face fell. “The Queen will not like this. She will blame the daughter, whether it be her fault or no.”
“Yes.”
“This is why you accompany her?”
“Yes, and with Prince Frederic still about…” Charles let his words trail off.
“Yes, a troublesome man, most troublesome.” The older man looked at the younger, a gaze of perfect understanding passing between them.
“It will be good when he takes his leave,” Peter said.
“Yes, does he not have a kingdom to rule?”
Peter’s lips curved into a wry smile. “Yes, that is the way of it. However,” he arched a brow in apparent amused disdain, “I believe whatever ‘ruling’ there is may be done by King Otto.”
“He is too weak, by far, to rule that sphere,” Charles remarked, to which Peter only nodded in agreement.
They looked up at the same moment that Clara descended, resplendent, the day’s glow still upon the creaminess of her cheekbones, a dress of the palest pink falling to brush the tops of white shoes. The bruise the only reminder that hers was not a life of softness, but of survival.
She nodded at Peter. “Where is the Queen?”
“She takes rest in her chamber,” Peter paused. “Princess,” Clara turned, having already begun to make her way to the corridor, “…the King and Prince await you as well.”
Clara felt this was worse news. Ada seemed to gather more strength and anger when she had an important audience. At least she had Charles. “Thank you, Peter.”
“You are most welcome, Princess.” Clara knew that it was Peter’s way of subtly warning her to be prepared for more than just the Queen’s ire. She and Charles walked down the long corridor to Ada’s chamber. It felt like the old stories of pirates, when the end had come, one walked the plank. Clara knew how those lost souls must have felt, her life balanced on the narrow wood.
CHAPTER 12
Bracus looked up, startled, Anna had responded to Joseph with actual words. It was a rare thing when she spoke. As a point of fact, it was he, Bracus, that she most often spoke to. She was reticent with males.
He observed the two of them say a few things to each other then they walked over to the fire together. Amazing… and wonderful. It would be a great thing for that female to find solace and finally reach out to a male, a member of the Band would be especially good. He swung his head back around and both Matthew and Stephen had matching expressions of surprise. Even unflappable Philip, usually the one that chose his emotions carefully, had paused at the scene. He turned and looked at Bracus, his gladness a cloak about his face, shadowed in the twilight that was giving way to night.
“Joseph has cracked her, I see?” Stephen said derisively.
Bracus frowned at him. “It is a good thing that she responds to anyone, you should be glad of it. She is not an egg, dolt.”
Matthew smiled, calm as always. “You just wanted her for yourself,” clapping Stephen on the back, who slapped his hand away.
“I care not. There will be females aplenty when the sphere is penetrated,” Stephen said.
“I caution you, President Bowen has only authorized a negotiation with this Princess. It is no guarantee that they will wish to help us in our plight. After all, it is not theirs, obviously,” Bracus said.
Stephen grimaced. “That may be. But, as I see it, if the negotiations fail,” he paused for effect, “I, for one, will be inclined to sway them to see reason.”
Bracus saw a vision in his head of the Princess, being coerced into cooperating by means of force or anything. He did not like it. He was managing his emotions again. Something as foreign to him as imagining life as a sphere-dweller. When he clamped down enough to not let his emotions show, he responded, “That would not aid us. If we are to convince the sphere-dwellers to come to our aid, coercion and violence will not be the way of it.”
Matthew looked between the two of them, the least volatile of the three. “Perhaps you are both in the right.”
The two Band members looked at him in surprise, he as steeped in logic as twenty bags of tea.
“Do you now?” Bracus quizzed.
“Do listen. If the Princess is disinclined to assist us, we may be able to persuade the other sphere-dwellers with our logic.”
“She as hostage?” Stephen intuited, and Matthew nodded.
“It is the same,” Bracus argued.
“Do you not see? She will either say yea or nay. If she does not, we go to her sphere, and tell them any matter of thing that we wish. And they may be so inclined with the sure knowledge that we have her. As you are well aware, they presume us primitive.”
Stephen said, “Only you. I, on the other hand, am naturally sophisticated.”
Bracus gave Stephen a sound punch in the arm. “Say Captain! Why do you strike me?”
“Your voluptuous laziness in the field today. Nary an ounce of sophistication was in evidence then.”
“He speaks true,” Matthew said.
They laughed together for the moment. Soon enough, Bracus imagined tensions would run high as the time drew near to acquire the Princess.
The guard watched the shy female with Joseph of the Band. He kept his smirking to himself. His time would come. A female would not be his weakness. He would bend her to his will. This slobbering obsession with protecting the females and groveling before the sphere-dwellers in the hopes of acquiring their females made his blood boil. His patience was a built thing, a manufactured thing. It was his greatest weapon. No one was as sly as he. He would use their emotions and weakness towards females against them. No female would ever be important to him again.
Bracus took stock of the Band, all in attendance by the great fire. He had not spoken with three of his team: Joseph, Jacob and James. He would wait for tomorrow. He did not wish to disturb Anna and Joseph with their fragile bond linking together before his eyes, sitting at the huge log worn smooth from a hundred years of fire watching. Joseph dwarfed her form from a solid two feet away, she was less than half his size. He was a good hunter, fighter and protector, he liked the man at his back.
The clans were not always on good terms with one another. Bracus’ face darkened. He wished that all the Bands could see the strength of uniting. President Bowen did:
*
“Before the Earth Breathed Ash, Bracus, there was a force such as the one I am proposing, named the Po-lice. Their sole job was to serve and protect,” President Bowen stated.
“Not so different, warrior.”
“I have read the accounts. They were civilized, they gave people trial. There was much time spent on proving innocence when guilt was guaranteed.”
“It was flawed, however, we are as well. I accept that. But our strength lies in that which the Evil Ones gave us. This physical manipulation was initialized for a reason. You were bred to protect. It is physical; it is instinctual. We must come together and embrace that purpose.”
“We do have a cooperative with some clans,” Bracus said.
“Not all. That is the goal. I endeavor to acquire the Princess, and the negotiation being a successful thing, may create a positive ripple, one which inflates a sense of hope in all the clans. Once they see there is a possibility of a future for our peoples, they may be more willing to listen.”
Bracus nodded. Much of what Arthur said made sense. But Bracus understood human nature, and where there was not reason, fear would do as a handy substitute. He had seen the evidence of such.
He snapped out of his reverie as Jacob and James approached, cousins. Many of the Band were related, some distantly. They looked as different as two men could be. One fair haired and skinned with blue ice chips for eyes, cheeks a ruddy mask, the other with ink black eyes, dusky skin and hair that blended in with the surrounding night.
When James spoke, his teeth flashed in his mouth, “We see that Joseph has managed to get Anna to speak,” he said in a hushed tone.
The three men (and Philip, who had added himself to the group) smiled and nodded; Stephen the only one with a stony expression. They hung back at the edge of the forest clearing, enjoying the fire at a distance.
Jacob said, “A good thing, that.”
The Band nodded, with the ratio of males to females a dismal fifteen to one, any match was celebrated, births were greeted with a feast.
“I would give much to know of this clan that she comes from. That they would give up a female…” Jacob began.
“She was not given up, cousin, she escaped,” James said.
Bracus pressed hands to his hips, legs spread apart. “What say you? She has not mentioned any detail, nary one.”
“Nor to I,” and he leaned forward and all heads neared his, until there was a circle of six heads huddled together. “But Lillian has managed to get some story from her.”
The Band stood silently, James loved drama but would eventually get to the end of it. A great story teller, was James.
“She did not say all, but only that a male had attacked her.”
“I knew it!” Stephen intoned.
Bracus looked at him sharply, too loud, his look said. This would explain much. Her shyness of the males, where none had transgressed against her.
He had suspected as much.
Matthew and Philip stood quietly, thinking it through, as was typical of them.
“Is there anything more?” Jacob asked.
“Yes. Lillian thinks he was part of that clan’s Band.”
There was a pregnant silence as the members deliberated on a female being in the hands of a Band member that meant them harm.
They would come to harm, of that there was no doubt.
“How could she escape him?” Matthew asked. Excellent question, if phrased oddly.
Philip looked at Matthew in question.
“Come now? You are all thinking it. How would that female,” he gestured to Anna, still sitting semi-stiff beside Joseph, her small form looking tiny next to Joseph, “defend herself against any of us?”
It was disturbing. All the Band felt similarly about females. Who would know how they would feel if the situation were not so desperate? But, they seemed uniformly protective toward females in a way that was above that of other males of the clan. The few clans that were allied with them had a similar urgency and protectiveness. To hear that there may be a faction desiring to abuse was against all that they stood for. It was expected from the fragment, but not of the clan.
Philip asked the most pressing question of the night, “Did he beat her? Or…”
“It was the other,” James said significantly.
“A terrible abuse!” Stephen whispered fiercely, looking covertly at Anna, still beside the fire.
“He should be flogged,” Philip said.
“Yes, he should,” Bracus said.
“Or possibly something more creative,” Jacob finished.
The men straightened up, Philip inclining his head toward the fire, leaving the subject for the moment. “Let us discuss the business of the sphere. I wish to be informed.”
Matthew and Stephen nodded.
The Band walked as one to the communal fire, commanding and deadly, an ancient force of reckoning, prepared to make a historic move destined to change their lives forever. As the heat of the fire washed over Bracus’ body, that feeling of foreboding stole over him, the chill fighting the warmth emanating from the blaze. His senses, ever acute, were on full alert. As if there was something right under his nose he was missing, if he just sniffed a little harder, he would discover it.
He shook his misgivings away, heading toward Joseph and Anna, his spirits momentarily lifted at the sight of them together.
CHAPTER 13
Charles stiffened as soon as he entered the queen’s chamber. Chamber did not accurately describe her quarters. The bed was in an entirely different area, a door between where he now stood and the place where she slept. This was a parlor of sorts, resplendent in every covering, dimension and scale. But for the blight upon the room, it would have been a reflection of beauty. Queen Ada made the room dim in Charles’ estimation. She stood in the middle, her back to the audience of Clara and he. The deep purple folds of her dress were a rich warm velvet. The wrong material for the season, but she ran cold, he had heard, her scrawny form encased in the richest fabrics, regardless of the season.
He knew just how cold she really was.
Charles was acutely aware of the stickiness of his clothes as Prince Frederic’s gaze lingered over the result of his day’s work. The Prince was supremely fresh in his linen trousers, silk blouse of the finest weave and an overcoat of a rich, deep blue. King Otto sat beside him looking decidedly uncomfortable which struck a lingering question for Charles: what had they walked in on? What conversation aborted?
Ada turned suddenly, her back now to the Outside her dark eyes boring into Clara’s, her subdued figure standing steady under the onslaught of the Queen’s stare.
“Tell me, daughter.”
Clara sucked in a breath, girding her loins, no doubt. “The yield is as expected…”
“But?” Ada asked the question as a statement.
“…the cream has taken on a pink wash.” Clara kept her shoulders back and straight with effort. If she was uncomfortable it did not show to Charles. Of course, Clara was well-schooled in keeping her expression to herself.
The Queen’s hands clenched and unclenched, she looked from Clara to King Otto.
“May I address this, Queen Ada?” King Otto requested.
She nodded stiffly and Charles heard a vague, grunting sound.
“I will trade the pink pearls for the rare grapes. That is not important.”
Clara looked confused for the briefest of moments. “Did you not wish to trade for the cream, King Otto?” Was it possible she would not be the whipping girl for the wrong color?
The King looked profoundly uncomfortable and Charles’ stomach clenched moments before King Otto articulated his worst fear, “For the pleasure of a hastened Wedded Joining I will forgive the color and sweeten the exchange with the grapes that are so coveted.” His gaze slid to Queen Ada then back to Clara, “…and forgive even red pearls for the opportunity of a melding of our respective kingdoms.”
Charles was flabbergasted. Clara freshly ten and seven years! She was too young by far to be joined with Prince Frederic.
Before he could comment, Clara interjected, “We agreed that
we would wait one year hence. Upon my Day of Birth celebration, marking my womanhood, ten and eight years.” Clara’s face had a pinched quality and had paled but there she stood, resolute in her bearing.
Charles thought again how beauty had a faceted quality and hers was many.
Prince Frederic spoke, “I have decided I cannot wait to appreciate our new status, my Princess.” His smarmy tone indicated that which he referred.
Charles felt he would be sick, his anger infused his body, vibrating to his extremities. “She cannot wed legally, she must be ten and eight years, the age of legal consent. Even you must understand that, Prince Frederic, you being twenty and one years yourself?”
Prince Frederic sharpened his gaze on Charles, opening his mouth to say something scathing when Queen Ada interrupted, “He matters not. What he speaks matters not. He is here by my sufferance alone.”
She looked at Charles. “Yes?”
“Yes, my Queen.” Charles said with the greatest reluctance. He could not bear this man touching Clara. That she did not love him, want him… nay, that she did not even like him, was a misery he could not tolerate for one more moment.
Charles said, “Mayhap she does not wish to rule, my Queen.”
The Queen’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Charles. “She has told you this?”
“Not in so many words.”
Clara turned to him, gripping his shoulders. “Do not try to help me, dear friend. You know that I must rule one day. Queen Ada will step down so that I may, once Prince Frederic and I are joined… rule this sphere.”
Charles’ fists clenched into balls of anger. “You cannot mean that you wish this joining now.”
Clara’s face looked pained while she searched for a way of diplomacy when there was none. “I wish for a proper betrothal, the length as originally negotiated upon. Not a rushed affair.” Clara stared at King Otto, who looked away from the naked accusation he saw there.
“You get what you wish, daughter…to rule the people that are so precious to you, and I get my grapes.” Ada threw up her hands triumphantly.
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