Lighting their path into the Great Forest Outside.
CHAPTER 28
Clara walked back to Lillian's chamber, passing through the kitchen, the glasses lining the wood shelf like drops of rain caught in the sunlight. A sharp stab of homesickness for the sphere pierced her heart. That she would feel thus filled Clara with confusion. What was wrong with her that she would miss it? It may be as simple as it being the only home she had ever known. It was a wonderful home before Father had died and she would think on that as she opened the chamber door to attend to Lillian, her eyes burning with tiredness. She must rest soon or she would drop where she stood.
Lillian lay upon the beautiful bed, the gauzy covering making her face appear luminescent, obscure.
“Ah, I see Jack has told the entirety of the clan that I ail,” she said with mirth.
“Not all,” Clara smiled back, matching the humor without effort. Lillian did look a tad green. Clara could not imagine tending to a babe at this juncture in her life. She sighed sadly, holding a fierce hope that someday she would have a family.
Lillian turned on her side, looking at Clara critically. “You look tired, Princess.”
“Clara,” she reminded absently.
Lillian nodded. Rising, she steadied herself on the bed post, walking past Clara and opening the door. “Follow me, we have a small room where you may rest. After supper, we will go and bathe at the hot springs.” Lillian looked away dreamily for a moment. “It is a sublime place.”
Clara was indeed looking forward to becoming clean. She followed Lillian into a tiny chamber with an open casement window, the hinges held by brass that had been nailed into the wood and gleamed with a red hue in the filtered light from the forest.
Clara spied a narrow bed directly underneath the open window. She walked slowly over to where it lay, resplendent with ivory bed linen and a light comforter.
She turned to Lillian. “Thank you.”
“You are most welcome. You will see, Clara, that we are not savages here. We are a different people; we are human beings, just as the sphere-dwellers are.”
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.
The Band stood as she came into the room and she fought not to react to the sheer size of them. They were so huge, their stature filling the room. Instead, she bit the inside of her lip to a point of pain which filled her with the wakefulness necessary to be sharp-witted. She repeated to herself if they had meant to harm her they had ample opportunity and she could have done naught to defend herself against them.
She took a deep breath. “Good evening.”
“Princess,” they nodded at her. The guard smiled in a way that would have made a lesser woman squirm.
Lillian came in and relief took residence in her breast like a welcome friend.
“Oh! Clara, you are awake.”
“Yes, I feel much more myself.” she smiled gratefully.
Lillian said, “Please, let us find the community dining area and we will have some food. I am sure you are starving.”
Actually, Clara was.
“That would be wonderful,” she answered.
Joseph smiled at her and another woman came in, her simple clothing the same for all the females of the clan. But it was her demeanor that was so unique; she had a caution that was completely absent in Lillian, and she looked a bit different than the people of this clan.
The other two guards, Matthew and Stephen followed her out. She could feel one of their eyes boring into her back and wished that Bracus was here so she could but mention her feeling about the guard. that he had visited her while she stood at her window inside her chamber when she lived therein. Clara felt a trifle foolish...after all,
had she been of such sound mind prior, would she now be in this emergent situation? Her shoulders slumped a little thinking of her future. A future unknown.
When they had all exited the cottage, Joseph turned and introduced the woman to Clara, her name was Anna.
She looked at Clara with ancient eyes in a young face, a mirror of her own.
“Anna is from a sea clan, far east of here,” Joseph said.
Clara looked at her with interest, her large brown eyes regarded Clara in an intense way, equal parts caution and curiosity.
“It is very good to make your acquaintance,” Clara said.
To which Anna replied, “And I, yours.” She gave a small curtsey.
Clara knew not how long she would remain here but it would be very good to have a bit of female companionship amongst all the males.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a most fragrant smell.
“What is that?” she asked.
“What?” Lillian responded over her shoulder.
Clara opened her mouth to elaborate when the guard stepped up beside her and said, “Meat.”
She was so engrossed by his nearness that she did not watch where she walked, stumbling. She would have fallen if it had not been for him grabbing her elbow and it was as it had been with Philip, but more. A charge of intense heat climbed up her arm at the point of contact, surging into her head and making the small hairs on her nape stand on end. She saw his eyes widen in shock and he snatched his hand away, rubbing it where it had touched her. But she knew although he acted as if shocked by lightning, it had felt good.
They stood facing each other and the group stopped, staring at the two of them. “What has happened?” Lillian asked.
Clara shook her head, she did not know. However, this reaction seemed to be something between her and the Band. But not all she noticed. Why did it not occur with all of them?
Joseph walked over, looking down at her. She explained as best she could, “I stumbled and he caught my elbow to arrest my fall,” she said, pointing to the guard, “and I felt a heat...”
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 18