Salvia: The Exile Chapter 5

Chapter 5 After the children had gone to bed, Salvia sat for a while, thinking about them. She could – she would – find names for each of them. She’d promised them that she would do that: she was going to keep her promise. Although Salvia didn’t realise it, she had changed a lot since the night she’d wrecked Rubia’s garden. The Salvia who’d still had her wings would have airily promised and then done nothing at all about it.
What else could she do with the children to make their life a little brighter? There was a bookshelf – with a reasonable number of books on it – but she’d never seen the children go near it. Yet they could read. She had a sneaking suspicion an earlier Roku might have forbidden it. From what she’d learnt so far, all the Roku seemed to have been a bit less than kind. Salvia was beginning to feel a bit more in control. She actually had breakfast ready and on the table for the children when they got up. And Primrose was definitely beginning to look a little happier, even if the other four remained as solemn as ever. And later on, Salvia saw Primrose encouraging Shi to come and play hopscotch with her. He looked a little uncertain at first, but she was very persuasive.
“Go on, have a go. It’s all right. Salvia won’t mind.” And presently Shi and Primrose were hopping happily on the grid Salvia had marked out for them.
“What else can I teach them? They need to play,” Salvia thought to herself. Ni was the nearest child when the idea of rock, paper, scissors came to her, and she began to teach Ni the game. Ni played with great earnestness.
“You are a funny little bird,” Salvia said to Ni, as they played. “What sort of bird?” Ni asked. And Salvia suddenly realised that although she had spoken casually, Ni was like a bird.
“A robin,” she said. “A lovely little robin, all determined and brave, even though it’s such a small bird.” “Robin. That’s you. My little Robin.”
And the child’s face lit up with a small smile, even as Salvia thought, “What am I getting myself into?” And later on that day, there were two children playing hopscotch, and two more playing rock, paper, scissors. It was still too quiet: they didn’t seem to know how to laugh yet, didn’t seem to feel free to call out to each other, but it was a beginning. Salvia finished cleaning up the bench, sink and cooker, and washed her hands afterwards. The dark, heavy bracelet on her wrist caught her eye again, and she looked hard at it. It was important. She knew it was. The memories hovered tantalisingly out of reach, and she tried to force them to the surface. She hadn’t been wearing it when she went to the Fons Veritatis. But she was wearing it now. So Rubia or Sambucus must have put it on her. And then, as she straightened up, a few more fragmentary memories came back to her. Rubia had found Salvia some different clothes – ones that hid the marks of her behaviour.
“We can’t let anyone see those, Sambucus. And look – with this hairstyle, and a little make-up, she’ll pass for someone from Estravania.”
Sambucus looked Salvia up and down. “She will. You’ve done a good job there, Rubia. How much longer do we have?” Rubia moved closer to Sambucus. Salvia just stood there. She felt like a puppet, being manipulated by the people round her. It was as though she had no free will anymore, no ability to choose any path for herself.
“You chose the wrong ones,” said a voice in her head. “And now you have to walk them.” “We don’t have much time. But we have just enough. With this much power in me, I can open the way to both places.”
“Do you suppose she even knows about them?” Sambucus asked, somewhat disparagingly.
Rubia’s face changed. “I hadn’t thought of that. But her family’s not that powerful, nor that well-connected. She might well not know of them.” She turned to Salvia.
“Do you know what the Porta Mutantis is?”
Salvia nodded wearily. It was the Exile Gate. You went through it, and either you never returned, or you returned changed beyond recognition. Where was Rubia going to send her? Calamintha had promised to send her somewhere easy, but Rubia wouldn’t settle for easy.
“You have been marked by the Fons Veritatis. Where the Porta Mutantis will send you, I cannot say. Salvia, you’ve become part of something bigger than even I was expecting. You know this island where we live is both an old and a powerful place?”
Salvia nodded again.
“There were the five founders. There are the five First Laws. There are five places of great power in our world, and two of them are on this very island. The Porta Mutantis is one of them, and you will be going to it very soon, but first we must visit the other place – the Hortus Potentium. And there you will have one final choice to make on this world.” It was a long walk, and Salvia was weary by the time they arrived. She could have sworn that she knew this island like the back of her hand, and yet she had never seen this stone wall, these dense trees, nor the ancient gate in the wall. Rubia shooed Sambucus away.
“She can’t go in here dressed like that. Not with those marks on her. She has to go as one acknowledging the wrong she has done.” Rubia made Salvia strip completely, then she fastened a length of fine white fabric about her, knotting it on the shoulder and clasping an ornate and heavy belt around her waist. She let Salvia’s hair down, and cleaned all the make-up from her face. Then she called Sambucus back.
“Listen, Salvia. There are two entrances to the Hortus Potentium. This is the first of them. Be very careful what you say here. It is not a place to be treated lightly. Listen well, and think long, before you speak. You ask questions at your peril. Sambucus may speak freely here, but you, Salvia, may not.”
Salvia was going in there with Sambucus? Her already heavy heart sank yet further. Rubia opened the gates for them with a word that made the air round them hum, and Salvia walked through them with Sambucus, the short, springy turf soft and cold under her bare feet. Rubia hadn’t needed to warn her to be careful: the marks on her arms and body were throbbing in response to the place. But she was grateful to Rubia for telling her how to be careful. She glanced sideways at Sambucus walking beside her, his face as forbidding as ever. Why was she here? With him? And that was it. It was maddening, the way her memory came and went, as if someone was flicking a switch inside her head. But she felt sure that Sambucus had given her this bracelet, had put it on her. And that it was terribly significant, terribly important. And she had promised him something in return, but she couldn’t remember what! Panic rose in her as she tried vainly to remember.
“I don’t want to break yet another promise,” she cried out to the silent walls. Robin actually came to talk to Salvia about playing rock, paper, scissors! She brought Go with her, but he stood there, silent, almost as if he was waiting to be punished for enjoying himself.
“Robin,” Salvia asked. “Did all the Roku forbid you to play? Were they all horrible to you?” “Not the first one,” said Robin. “She loved us. She told us so.”
Salvia caught her breath in surprise. “Tell me a little about her.” But it was Go who suddenly broke his silence and spoke, the words and memories coming from somewhere deep within him.
“She was the first one. She was here before they put these masks on us. She used to hug us and sing to us at bedtime. I do remember that, though I don’t remember the songs any more. The she died, and the others came and said that we were not people, we were it. And when we had to go to school, they put these masks on us, so that everyone would know to keep away from us.” Salvia’s eyes filled with tears, and for the second time since she arrived, she hugged one of the children. “Why are you crying?” Go asked, as she let him go, and he looked straight at her face for the first time.
“Because you were loved, and you lost the person who loved you. That makes me very sad.”
“No-one has cried for us since the first Roku died. Salvia, will you stay please? Don’t go away like all the others do.”

Salvia: The Exile Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Sambucus helped Salvia up from the floor where she had fallen. Her head had been spinning, and she had felt hollow inside, completely drained of all her magical abilities. He held on to her – though she wasn’t going anywhere – while Rubia turned the pages of the huge book on the lectern. Then he stepped back, leaving Salvia alone in the middle of the floor. Rubia began to read aloud from the book, and a ring of flames appeared around Salvia’s feet and then rose up to engulf her body.
And when they died down again, she was different. She felt it instantly. Her strength had returned – she no longer felt physically drained – but something was missing. Then she realised what it was. She no longer had any magic within her. Rubia had turned her into a normal, non-magical person! Rubia set the glowing gem that was Salvia’s magic down onto a pedestal.
“When you return from exile, you may reclaim your magic. It will be here for you. But for now, you have to go to the Fons Veritatis again, to receive the marks of your behaviour.” Salvia spent the night in the Theta Chamber again.
“It won’t harm her now. And there’s no magic left in the walls for her to draw on. And no-one can sense her there – she is hidden.”
In the morning, Rubia let her come out, eat, wash, use the toilet, and then she dressed Salvia in different clothes.
“Perfect. You are a young girl, contemplating marriage, and coming to ask the fountain if you have made a good choice. And I am the aunt accompanying you.” “Do you know what you have to do?” They were back at the Fons Veritatis, but without Calamintha’s reassuring presence.
Salvia shook her head.
“I will speak the law. You will put your hand into the water and say what you did to break it. This is the Fons Veritatis. Do not lie, or what will happen to you will be more terrible than you can imagine.”
Salvia shuddered. Every child had heard the stories. But she had never expected to live them. Lie to the Fons Veritatis, and you would become a monster of unsurpassed ugliness. “Since it is to do with the First Five Laws, you do know I will have to speak of them all. They are whole in themselves, and may not be divided. Answer truthfully for the ones you have broken, and truthfully for the ones you have not. Say what you did to break them.” Rubia spoke the first of the laws that Salvia had broken.
“Tend the land.” The words rang, bell-like, over the fountain. Salvia bent and put her hand in the water.
“I caused brambles and weeds to grow in someone’s garden.”
Then she cried out in surprise, for the clear water turned black and oily. And she felt a sudden burning pain on her arm – and when she looked, there was a writhing, complex black symbol there that hadn’t been there before. The water cleared, and Rubia spoke again.
“Protect the weak.”
Salvia bent and put her hand in the water again. Here, at the Fons Veritatis, the truth was as clear to her as the water she touched.
“I messed up a garden, and I didn’t care who it belonged to. I thought it was probably some old lady, and I didn’t care that I was making life hard for her.” This time she was ready for the pain, brief but intense. It still left her blinking tears from her eyes though. She thought Rubia looked at her with some sympathy: certainly her voice was kinder when she said,
“And now for the other three of the first Five Laws. Speak the truth.” “But I don’t always.” Salvia really was in tears by now.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it, if I don’t always speak the truth. At least, I thought it didn’t matter.”
Rubia went on, even as Salvia gasped at the pain and saw a third mark appear on her.
“Keep your vows.”
“I have broken my vows more than once.” Now Salvia was crying in earnest, as the water turned black once again, and once again the brief burning pain seared her arm. Rubia’s voice sounded worried as she said the last of the laws. Surely the girl couldn’t have broken all five? Salvia’s family weren’t poor, and she was not unloved – far from it. There was no excuse for her to have broken this one.
“Neither covet nor steal.”
“I have done both.” Salvia could not – dared not – lie. Suddenly the Fons Veritatis shot high up into the air. Salvia cried out and fell to the ground. As the water from the fountain played over her, Rubia saw to her amazement – and shock – dark patterns wriggling over Salvia’s body and settling there on her skin. She had read of this – but never expected to see it. Salvia came round back at Rubia’s cottage. Somehow, Rubia had got them both home. She climbed to her feet, and instantly found herself inside a ring of small flames. Sambucus was bent over a crystal globe, gazing into its depths.
“This goes beyond us and our plans. The Fons Veritatis itself has marked her.” Rubia was consulting another of the many books that were in the room.
“No. Our plans can still stand. There is no conflict. But her exile will be far longer than she thought it would be.”
“Then should we continue with it, if that is going to be the case?”
“Sambucus. What has happened to your family? Your sister?”
“She died in childbirth, and the twins with her.”
“And your three cousins?”
“You know! The same happened to them and their babies!”
“We have no choice. The plan can still go ahead.” Rubia walked over to Salvia.
“Do you know what it means, to erase the marks of your behaviour?”
“Yes. It means to go and think about what you have done.”
“No! It does not! Why have you not been taught the truth? It means exactly what it says. And you bear the marks. You will be able to return from exile only when those marks have gone, only when you have erased them.” “But how do I do that?” And then, maddeningly and frustratingly, her memory shut down again. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember Rubia’s answer. She had no idea what she had to do, to erase the marks on her body. One thing she could do, Salvia decided, was to teach the children how to play. She found a loose bit of stone, and scratched out a hopscotch grid. The children grasped the idea of the game quite quickly. Watching San, Salvia thought she almost saw a smile appear on her face. But Salvia herself still felt hopelessly out of her depth. She still wasn’t managing to get breakfast ready on time. She left the tap running, and flooded the floor. The cleaning didn’t come naturally to her, and took her ages to do. And, eating away at the back of her mind, was the knowledge that she had deserved to be here. She had broken all of the First Five Laws. The dark swirling marks on her arms and body were a constant reminder to her of what she had done. Salvia began to make more of an effort, rising as the light was just beginning to show in the sky in order to have breakfast ready for the children. The week’s laundry was collected – the children put it outside the gates on their way to school – and clean laundry was delivered, along with fresh food. The rough coarse clothes made her skin itch and she had to fight not to scratch herself all the time. For some reason, the top of her right leg was the worst place – she’d taken to sleeping on her left side or her back. And sometimes, the marks of her behaviour were warm to the touch, almost unpleasantly so. Salvia felt really proud of herself when she finally got all the children fed before school. It worried her though that everywhere was so dreary. The poor things hardly saw any colour or beauty at all. And their clothes were so ugly – and the haircuts were pretty brutal too. “Ichi, who cuts your hair?” Salvia asked, as she began washing the dishes. Today, she was going to get on top of what needed doing!
“The Roku does it. It says that we should look like what we are”
Well, I’m not going to cut it, thought Salvia. As the children left for school, Salvia began to attack the mess that was the cooker. What did Ichi mean: we should look like what we are? What had the children been told about themselves? “San,” Salvia asked, as the children did their homework. “What do people say you are?”
San looked up. “Bad. Very bad. It should not exist. But this world has rules, so it cannot be killed. It will be kept in here instead and kept away from others so that it cannot harm them. It must hide its face because it is so ugly. It cannot have a name, only a number.” What did San mean: they were so ugly? The soldiers Salvia had seen when she arrived looked just like herself. San wasn’t ugly! Moved with sudden compassion, Salvia swept the little girl up into her arms.
“You are not ugly. And how can you be bad if you’ve lived here all your life?” I’m the bad one, she thought. I had everything, and I didn’t care enough about it.
“And you shall have a name. Let me look at you, and see what name will suit you.” Salvia looked down at the face San raised towards her. Fair hair, blue eyes – San was like a little flower really. And so young. Salvia didn’t think she was much more than seven years old.
“You’re a little flower,” she said. “A little shy springtime flower. A little primrose.”
“What’s a flower?”
“Something beautiful. Like you, my little Primrose. Like you.” The other children turned and looked at both Salvia and Primrose. Salvia knew what they were thinking.
“Yes. You can all have names. I have to choose them carefully, so that they suit who you are, so it will take me a little time to find the right ones for you. But I will find a name for each of you.”