“I see I have interrupted not a moment too prematurely,” Edwin said with sarcasm.
They broke apart swiftly. Clara flushed with guilt and passion in an emotional slush. Her hand went to swollen lips that had been pressed against Matthew's so ardently but moments before.
Matthew was not in the least fazed by Edwin's unexpected appearance. “Ah, you could but knock as civilized people do and then you would not be apt to find us indisposed.”
Edwin's brows dropped down over the top of his amber colored eyes and he growled out, “we are not civilized, my brother. As well you know.”
Matthew nodded. “'Tis true.” He smiled as he agreed.
Clara noted it was a smile of violent invitation, not one of mirth.
She came around from behind Matthew, she would not hide behind him. Clara felt somewhat disheveled but decided it was more in her head than physical.
“Edwin,” she curtsied and he gave a slight bow. Her aqua eyes met his golden ones, the color of fine cognac and she continued, “has our party been assembled?”
“Yes. We but await your leisure.”
Clara was tired of the formality but her crown was fixed upon her head, wished or no.
“Let us be about it then,” she said, not able to keep the tone out of her voice.
Edwin's brows furrowed. “I know that you do not wish this meeting.”
“You know nothing, savage,” Charles said from the doorway as his eyes met Clara's.
Their friendship was now a tenuous affair at best; however, Charles was privy to exactly why she would not wish to meet with King Otto.
Edwin gave his full attention to Charles. “Aye, I may be savage but so is your Queen. And at your peril you disparage her if even by association.”
That was quite true. But what the Band did not understand was that Charles was not bent on introspection. He was all about what he wished at that precise moment. Unfortunately, Clara realized that it was still she.
He still wanted Clara.
Matthew saw it, Edwin saw it and Daniel... well, Daniel used every opportunity to cause profound awkwardness over it.
Clara sighed.
“Thank you, Charles. I do believe the men of the Band are privy to sufficient details of my past as to have an understanding of my discomfort.”
Charles glowered at Edwin and he smiled back. Of all the Band he was the slowest to ire.
However, Matthew was utterly different and Clara had to jog awkwardly, her hand bunched into the plush material of her skirt, her high heeled shoes trying to keep pace with his long stride as he came to stand chest to chest with Charles.
“Apologize,” Matthew ground out. His hands were fists at his sides, mottled with color from anger.
Charles' teeth ground together as Clara came between them and they were trees that could not be moved. She actually stomped her foot atop Charles' and he grimaced in pain. He turned on her, his irritation barely contained and Matthew tensed.
Clara was not deterred and poked her finger in his sternum. “Stop this pecking that you do with the Band. I have much on my mind as it is. I do not need to break up fights amongst the boys in the schoolyard.”
He scowled at her metaphor, however appropriate.
There was a knock on the solid wood of the door jamb and Sarah entered uninvited.
Which was quite wonderful. All the men's tension stepped down by half. She looked quite lovely. Clara's eyes flowed over the hour- glass form covered by her dress of deep blue velvet. Clara dare thought that Olive might have tightened her stays this morn but checked her comment at the last moment. It would be quite unseemly to comment on her form in front of the men.
Sarah wore her mother's pearls about her slender throat, they ran in a smooth string over the hollow therein. Sarah took in the contained tension in the room and said, “I hope I have interrupted at a most opportune time.”
Clara rolled her eyes, helpless to feign anything but irritation and responded, “Most indeed.”
Charles' scowl deepened and Matthew frowned. Edwin grinned. Clara swept out of her chamber, leaving the warring males in her wake, her arm looping solidly through Sarah's.
Her face moved toward Clara's and from her height she had to bend to reach it. “What has occurred in your chamber this day?”
Clara waved it away. “It is as it has been these past seasons, the men circle around me, marking their territory with urine aplenty while I scurry around wondering how to clean up the smell,” Clara joked.
Sarah frowned. “After this most dire turn of events has come to pass, and normalcy has taken root once again, you must choose. I am driven mad and I am not the source of their desire,” Sarah said with finality, cocking a pale brow.
“You have touched upon the core of it, my dear,” Clara said, turning, her arms clasped loosely on her friend's forearms, the crushed velvet a warm press under her fingertips. “I will choose most assuredly once this threat has passed,” Clara met her eyes, “or come to pass.”
Sara nodded; understanding exactly what that meant. Whether or not the spheres fell into the hands of the fragment, mattered little.
Change was afoot. Of that there was little doubt.
*
Clara and Sarah came to the tunnel crossroads and Clara greeted the sentry warmly. He was actually a clan-dweller but that mattered little. With half the males of the sphere having been murdered during the fragment's siege, new males had been assimilated into the sphere's unlikely embrace.
Clara had found the promise of female companionship to be a great motivator.
The steam-powered carriage awaited, the gears churning together soundlessly underneath the glass housing that held them, the vapors escaping through the clever escape hatch on the crest.
The sentry shook his head in wonder. “I have yet to come to a point of lack of fascination, Queen Clara,” he said, his eyes taking in every detail of the carriage.
Clara looked at it through his eyes. The carriage was an engineering marvel, like a swollen pumpkin of brass edged with forged copper, it had long running boards affixed on either side for ease of access. Large convex crystal windows allowed for easy viewing and ambient light to enter while traveling. It stood two horse lengths in height and narrowed the tunnel with its presence. It was at once as grand as it was beautiful.
Clara sighed. She missed walking. Every memory of the carriage held the taint of Ada within it.
“Yes, it is most spectacular,” Clara agreed neutrally, for his benefit.
Matthew arrived flanked by Bracus, Rowenna, Edwin and Maddoc. It was the absolute barest contingent that she could travel with and everyone would accept. If it were she alone in her decision making, she would travel independently of all.
Her mind immediately drifted to Matthew. Mayhap not all.
But it was not. As it were, she had endeavored to not argue with the Band. She had left their chambers in a huff instead.
Sarah and she awaited Clarence, who came in a flurry of anxiety. He bowed, “My Queen.”
“Yes?” Clara asked, taking in his flushed demeanor and rumpled attire.
“Charles and I wish to accompany you inside the carriage. In that way, we can meticulously choreograph the discussions that will take place at King Otto's kingdom prior to the gathering.”
Clara controlled her expression, noticing that Charles made his way to stand beside Clarence. She deliberated. Charles was quite skilled in the political machinations so pervasive amongst the spheres, having been her companion in years past. Clarence could act as buffer and Sarah would also be within reach. Decorum may be her greatest friend in this.
“That is an excellent suggestion, Clarence,” Clara said and saw out of the corner of her eye, the entire Band frown.
Matthew neared the carriage, looking at it distrustfully. “I do not admire this odd contraption,” he said.
“Aye, brother, it smacks of death,” Bracus said.
Maddoc nodded. “I like a horse beneath me. That I know I may
guide to my will. This...” he indicated the carriage with his palm. “It is not to my liking.”
The Band, so distrustful, Clara thought, hiding a smile but not soon enough for Matthew to miss it and she watched as his frown deepened.
“We may not have the advancements bestowed by the Evil Ones, but what we lack thereof, we compensate for in other areas,” Matthew said, and strode to the carriage, the weight of three horses, Clara was sure. He wrapped his hand around the stoutest portion of its undercarriage and with a mighty tug, lifted the back end a quarter horse length above the dirt floor of the tunnel.
Sarah gasped and covered her mouth in surprise.
Philip made an appearance just then and positioned himself at the opposing corner, where Bracus and Maddoc joined them. With a mighty heave they lifted the carriage, clearing it of its purchase on the passageway floor.
They were not overworked in their endeavor.
All their eyes were trained on Clara. She nodded, smiling. Their strength was as compelling as the advanced machinery they held in their mighty palms.
They carefully lowered the carriage. It gave a light bounce as the wheels kissed the dirt floor once again.
Charles came forward slowly clapping his hands. The silence of the tunnel was legendary, the thickness of the sphere walls were greatest there and had a way of swallowing sounds. The clapping had a dull, clipped echo and all eyes turned to him.
“Bravo! Men of the Clan, Bravo.”
The Band was not deaf to insults and heard such in the undertones of his voice. Their faces were as thunder.
Charles ignored the obvious threat of them.
“You see yourselves as the greatest threat here. True?”
“We are, sphere-dweller,” Philip ground out, his hands balling into fists at his sides.
Charles' mouth curled into a petty smile. “I think the Travelers determined differently.” He met each pair of eyes that were there, going on, “they dispatched the lot of you quite handily. Which left the females vulnerable and unprotected. What say you?” Charles finished softly. “What say you?” he repeated. His eyes held theirs for a heartbeat. “What did all your glorious physicality do for you in that moment. While our precious monarch lay immobile before danger?”
Clara was so infuriated by his speech that she had to gather herself before she spoke. Every member of the Band looked as if they had been to a fight and lost. Clara swung to him. “I do apologize.” Her eyes met his smug expression. “But I have misspoke. You may not attend me this day.”
Charles' face went from smug confidence to just the soft side of rage.
Instantly.
It was very disconcerting to watch. Clara took an involuntary step backward.
“You need me to attend you,” Charles said through clenched teeth.
“I do not need wisdom steeped in bitterness. It is a beverage I wish to consume no longer.” Her eyes met his and she moved to the carriage without Charles.
As Clara's heeled instep met the forged copper footstep, a large hand clutched the pearl-embedded handle to open it for her. It was Matthew's azure gaze that met hers. She liked what she saw there.
Honor and respect.
He swept her inside, closing and locking the door. Trapping her with Sarah and Clarence.
The gears sped, the steam hissing rhythmically as it was released, the Band trailing behind, their great horses necessary for the length of journey. It would be a solid two hours before they would arrive.
Clara dreaded it.
What she dreaded even more was the promise of what lay in her future with Charles.
As she turned around to watch those that followed, she caught sight of Charles' face, his beautiful hat was crunched in an indelicate fist of simmering anger.
Clara turned her back to him, shoving him out of her mind so that she might think on queenly affairs. Her heart torn.
Her mind entangled.
Emotion and duty once again a convoluted affair; it wrapped Clara in its familiar embrace.
CHAPTER THREE
It was always curious to arrive at a sphere other than the one from which she hailed.
Clara marveled at how the Kingdom of Kentucky was managed as compared to her own. They had a royal guard that was one of the largest. Not for protection but for policing.
Crime was rampant in this sphere. There had even been whispers of fragment-like behaviors. Clara found it hard to fathom. However, as they moved past the final point of entry to the kingdom, the differences between the kingdoms was appalling in its divergence.
Clara looked with wide eyes at the people whom they passed. The poor lined the cobblestone streets like ragged waifs and her heart broke for them. Small children with cheekbones standing at attention like weapons and sunken eyes that held a sorrow far too mature for their years testified to their neglect. Clara's eyes tightened.
“Does the kingdom not feed their hungry?” Sarah whispered, her hand pressed against the glass, taking in the filthy clothes, the bereft expressions.
“I do not believe anything supersedes the cultivation of the grapes,” Clarence replied carefully.
Sarah turned to face Clarence, her palm pressed against the glass of the window, the bulbous shape magnifying the people that silently watched their progression. “You should have known this, Clarence. I feel a fool. Arriving as we do, in all our apparent finery, while they do not have sufficient food to stave off the gnawing of their bellies!” She cried softly, throwing her hands up in front of her face, the tears burning a pathway behind the wall of her fingers.
“Please, Sarah,” Clara began, removing fingers wet with tears. “Do not cry. As you tell me, we cannot save everyone. Nay, hardly could I save myself. Do you recall that?”
Sarah looked into Clara's eyes and nodded, once.
Clara shrugged a velvet-encased shoulder and said, “Perhaps I can manage through my negotiations to provide some standard higher than the one which rules here,” she said, sweeping her palm at the poverty and dirt that shrouded the sphere.
Clarence revisited the conversation they had been engaged in for a good portion of the tunnel travel. “Remember, Queen Clara, that we must align with them foremost. That any kind of,” Clarence waffled his hand back and forth, “imbalance of wealth, need be addressed last, when all other areas of importance have been explored.”
Clara knew that and gave him a neutral expression. His astute mind intuiting from that exactly how things would occur.
Her way. Billy had said once that her compass ran true. That she would default by automatic nature to the things that helped the most.
In this case, it was about survival. Clara rolled the different pieces of a large puzzle in the confines of her mind and laid hold of several which fit together nicely.
She smiled and Clarence noticed it, cocking a brow in question.
“It will all come together in accordance with what is needed. All things work out for the best.”
Clarence gave her a nod of deference. “As my queen says it, so shall it be.”
Sarah smiled through eyes that remained full of water, placing her head on Clara's small shoulder.
She shouldered quite a bit.
*
Clara could not help but stare as she arrived at the Royal Manse of this sphere. It was as a jewel in the midst of costume jewelry of the lowest caliber. A pocket of glory in a broken garment.
The structure had elaborate corners with cross-hatched stones made of marble, veined in a rich gold. It rose to almost the apex of the sphere, stout and imposing. At the top the roof was a rich slate, deep crimson, garish against the rich creams and golds of the marble. Four pillars of the same material graced the front balustrade and lent an air of sophistication which underscored the unwelcome feeling that swirled around the structure.
The footman came to the carriage and opened it on Clara's side, as was protocol for royalty, glancing warily at the Band as he did.
They would be something to behold. Men that r
anged six and a half feet at a minimum, whose heads were taller than the shoulders of their steeds.
Perhaps it was the gills that showed as shell-pink ribbons of flesh twined about their necks, which helped the shock escalate to staring. Rowenna stood amongst the Band and was the most shocking of all, her display of flesh on a female taking all eyes off the men and on to her. She stared down every pair of eyes that looked overly long until no more looked upon her bare arms and ankles, revealed by breeches so tight they left little room to imagine her anything other than female.
Clara put a discreet hand about her mouth to hide her smile. She was enjoying all of this far too much.
However, it was Prince Frederic's home sphere so she must be forgiven her lapse in queenly behavior.
She put her gloved hand in that of the footman's outstretched palm and he swept her down from the nest of the carriage with a wobbly smile and she returned it with confidence.
It was at that moment as she breathed her first air of the Kingdom of Kentucky that she saw the simpering form of King Otto approach. She smoothed her features and as he approached for the required two-sided kiss she withheld her flinch with great effort. Only Matthew's clenched fists belied that he knew her deepest emotions. King Otto's hands grasped hers firmly and when his lips left her second cheek she withdrew her hands just as soon as protocol would allow.
“My dear, Clara,” he murmured, shamelessly eyeing the rare pearls which graced her bodice. “How splendid you look!” His jowls flapped unattractively as he fawned over her and Clara played the game with aplomb, gazing up at him through the layer of her lashes and he flushed a deep red.
Clara was so unmoved by his lasciviousness it was almost humorous but was excellent at feigning emotion she did not feel and did so now. She recognized that some lessons given by Queen Ada had not been without merit.
“Thank you, kind King,” she said as she curtsied.
He smiled, full of his own presumed charm and she took reluctant hold of his arm as he held it out to her.
“I have a special treat this day, Queen Clara,” he said with a wide grin, the teeth of his mouth bordering on an unhealthy yellow, his pudgy hand patted hers, leaving behind moisture.
savage 04 - the savage vengeance Page 2