Salvia: The Exile. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Whatever she might have done, Salvia reflected as she stirred batter for pancakes with great vigour, the children didn’t deserve to be here. With each day that passed she was becoming more and more aware of how wrong her own behaviour had been. Away from her group of friends – who had all, apart from Nula, thought her garden escapade was a really funny idea – she was beginning to regain the values her parents had always lived by. And another thing, she thought. I need to find out more about the first Roku, and why she had been so different from the ones who followed her. And I must find a way to look behind that door that I can’t get to. And I must find out what speaking to the gate means, and see if I can get some more things for the children.
Later on, cleaning the cooker, she thought about her memories. Rubia had been right: coming here with all her memories intact would have pushed her into insanity, she thought. She’d never have focussed on the children or considered their needs. She’d have been far to busy dwelling on what she’d lost. But there was still a huge gap. She could remember walking into the Hortus Potentium with Sambucus – and without this bracelet on her wrist. Then she could remember – too vividly! – walking through the Porta Mutantis. With the bracelet on her wrist. But what had happened in between? Talking to the gate was easy to sort out. The children showed her where to stand, and she could see that there was some way or another that her voice could be heard by someone else, somewhere else. After a bit of thought, she put in some requests, heartened by the thought that the first Roku had asked for things and got them. Then she’d just have to wait and see. She didn’t tell the children what she’d done, in case they were disappointed. The books came first – the children found the packages waiting by the gates when they came home from school. They carried them in between them, and unpacked the first one almost disbelievingly.
“Look,” Ash said to Willow. “Look what Salvia has done for us.” It was Jay who solved Salvia’s other problem.
“I know how you can get to that big gate,” he said to Salvia on the night she read to him.
“How?”
“You can go through the first gate with us when we go to school. That gate lets us all through together. The next gates we can only go through one at a time. But you’d have to spend all day there until we came home.”
It was worth thinking about though. Two days later, Salvia was trying out Jay’s idea. She pushed at the huge door, hoping that it would open, else she’d have a long and boring day for no good reason at all. It creaked slowly open, and she looked inside. In both directions, all she could see was a maze of high theta-stone walls. But every entrance to the maze was blocked by a fall of stone. Whatever lay inside this maze wasn’t going to be easy to get at. Salvia wasn’t sure if she could climb over either the walls or the heaps of stone. For the first time, being near so much theta-stone was making her fell odd as well. Not the drained, exhausted sensation she’d experienced in the Theta Chamber, where she’d been able to feel the stone pulling the magic out of her. But the marks on her body were suddenly feeling hot and tight, and her clothes were more unbearably itchy than ever. She was just about to turn and go away when she saw the pick-axe leaning against the wall by the door. Clearing the rubble was incredibly hard work. Salvia was surprised by how unfit she felt. True, she’d been here eight weeks now, but she didn’t realise she’d become as weak as this from no regular exercise. And she wasn’t quite sure where she was going to move all this rubble to either, once she’d broken up the heap. But at least she’d get to see what was behind it. And then, to her utter amazement, the pile of rubble suddenly melted away, leaving only a few stones scattered on the ground. Salvia put down the heavy pick-axe and simply stared in disbelief. Those stones had been real enough – the ache in her back, and the sore patches on her hands told her as much. She opened the high metal gate that blocked her way through. Round the corner, behind the gate, another pile of stone met her eyes. Salvia sighed, and went and sat down until she felt rested enough to lift that heavy pick-axe again. By the time the children came home from school, Salvia had cleared three piles of rubble, and felt almost sick with fatigue. The palms of her hands were blistered, and there was no way she could do any more. The place was a maze – literally – and round every corner was another pile of stones hiding another metal gate. The gates were odd too – they vanished after Salvia went through them. Rubia might have taken Salvia’s magic from her, but that didn’t stop Salvia being aware of the magic in this place. There was a seriously powerful enchantment at work here. It was Robin’s turn for a bedtime story, and Salvia was reading her a fairy tale, about seven brothers who were turned into swans.
“Why didn’t the wicked queen just make them be swans forever? Why did she say they could be changed back if someone made them nettle shirts, and didn’t speak once while they were doing it?” “Because that’s what gave the enchantment its power. If there was a possibility they could be set free, then the enchantment would keep going by itself once she’d set it up. To just turn them into swans, she’d have to keep renewing the enchantment each day, and that would use a lot of her power up. Too much of it.” Salvia went on with the story.
And then, as she leaned over to kiss Robin goodnight, she suddenly realised something. The maze, behind the door! That must be the equivalent of the nettle shirts! And that was why the pick-axe was there. There had to be a task that might possibly be accomplished, to break the spell, or to keep it running. But this still all made no sense to her. Why the children? Why was she here? And she was so tired from only clearing three piles of the stone. How was she going to manage this? She couldn’t do any more anyway, until the blisters on her hands had healed. To Salvia’s surprise and delight, the other things she had asked for came! They were both a bit worn and shabby, but she didn’t care. This world had rules, the first Roku had said to the children, and it seemed that she had been right. The next thing the children were going to need was new clothes – but did they have to be of such itchy fabric? She wasn’t the only one constantly scratching herself – or forever trying not to scratch herself. Ash in particular loved the easel and paints. “I knew there ought to be more beauty than this,” he said. He was fascinated by colour and shape, and his paintings reflected this. The weather was getting hotter – Salvia had taken to wearing her nightwear during the day – the clothes she’d been given were too hot, too restrictive. Her hair had always grown quickly, and now it was just touching her ears – she’d trimmed it just a little, to give it a bit of shape. The children were looking a bit less like convicts too. But Salvia was worried about herself – not for her own sake, but for the children’s. She wasn’t feeling well – hadn’t felt well since she’d gone into the maze to begin clearing it.
“I can’t be ill,” she thought. “The children need me. I’m just beginning to make things a bit better for them. I wish I knew what was wrong with me.” And then, as if the intensity of her thoughts had acted as a key, her memory unlocked itself for the final time. The door in the wall had closed behind them. Salvia was alone with Sambucus. The green turf path led to an ornate lattice work gate. Sambucus stopped outside it.
“There is so much I have to tell you and far too little time. You will have to listen carefully.”
Salvia was still mindful of Rubia’s warning about this place. She said nothing: merely looked at him attentively. “There is something very wrong at the moment. Rubia has observed many things – you’ll have to take my word for it, but here are some examples. Those of you with magical abilities are losing your wings at an incredibly early age. The birth rate among us has fallen hugely – there are too many only children. Calamintha is head of the council, yet her family has never been a powerful one – and in fact her mother had no magic at all. Which doesn’t mean that the child will have no magic, but it’s unusual to say the least. And Rubia thinks that you yourself are a sign too – you come from an old and well-respected family, yet you have broken every one of the First Five Laws. At your age! This should not be happening!”
Salvia could hear his frustration and anger.
“And now, the heart of this matter, for me at least. You know there were five treasures left by the five founders?” Salvia nodded, since he was waiting for a reply.
“My family guards one of them.” Salvia was surprised by that.
“From one generation to another, we have kept it, and used it if needed. In my generation, there were six of us, all potential guardians for it. Myself, my two sisters, and I had three cousins as well – all women. Any one of us could have been the next guardian.”
Salvia knew the story wasn’t going to end well. The bitterness – no, the unhappiness – in Sambucus’ voice told her so. She fixed her eyes on his, actually listening with all her heart to what he was saying.
“My older sister became pregnant. And my three cousins also, at much the same time. One had been married seven years, her sister was newly-wed, and the other cousin had been married for two years. We all thought this was such a good omen – a whole new generation of guardians all arriving at once.” He stopped, his voice cracking with remembered grief, then went on again.
“My sister died in childbirth, and the twins with her. The midwife said they were hopelessly deformed. Then my youngest cousin – and her baby too. My oldest cousin vanished, travelling to her home one day, and was never seen again. Her sister fell ill - with grief, it was said – and neither she nor the baby lived. And then my youngest sister went away.”
Salvia knew what ‘went away’ meant. It meant she’d just walked away from everyone and everything, left it all behind, and would never return. No wonder Sambucus was so grim and forbidding, with a tragedy like this behind him. But what had this got to do with her? Sambucus spoke again. “I need something from you. I need a child. I am the last of my generation, and I need a child to hold the treasure after me. Otherwise, anyone could come and claim it. And I think someone wants to do just that. I think those deaths were no accident. I think the timing of the pregnancies was no accident. Someone, somewhere in this world, is trying to gain more power for themselves than they ought to have. And Rubia thinks that if you take my unborn child into exile with you, whoever this person is will not be able to harm it there. But I can offer you something in return. We hold the bracelet called Alfwyn’s shield, and it offers powerful protection to whoever wears it. Carrying my child, you would be entitled to wear it. And I think you will need it.” Salvia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Bear his child! Only Rubia’s warning kept her from telling him outright that there was no way she’d do that! They didn’t even like each other. And then Sambucus, all unknowing, spoke the words that changed her mind for her. “I was planning to bring Nula here, to ask her to do this for me, but then Rubia thought you would serve our purposes better, so…”
Salvia didn’t hear the rest of what he said. She knew Nula. Nula would listen to this story and agree to bear his child. Nula would tie herself to him for life – even though, as Salvia very well knew, she was more than half in love with someone else. And, if Sambucus and Rubia were right, Nula would be in great danger too. Salvia was inclined to believe him – Calamintha had said she was uneasy about things, and that she and the council were trying to find out what was at the bottom of the early wing-loss for one thing. She would do this for Nula, do this to let Nula have the happy-ever-after that she so deserved. She had so nearly spoilt Nula’s life for ever: now was her chance to make amends. For the first time since she had stepped inside the Hortus Potentium, Salvia spoke.
“I will do this for you.” They walked together through the lattice gate and to the centre of the little green maze that lay beyond. They faced each other across the bowl of earth that was at the heart of the maze.
“Will you do this with your whole heart?” Sambucus asked.
“Yes,” Salvia answered. “I do this with my whole heart.” It was a heart for her friend, rather than Sambucus, but it was completely true. Together, they both leant forward and each planted a seed in the bowl. Then they both stepped back, and Salvia could not stop herself from crying out with surprise. A tree shot up from the centre of the bowl, laden with fruit, and round the base of the tree, another plant grew, with softly glowing golden-orange fruit on it. “Now choose any fruit you like and eat it.” Sambucus actually sounded as if he, too, had been surprised by what had happened. Salvia bent and picked one of the glowing fruits from around the base of the tree. She ate it, and then watched Sambucus pick and eat a fruit from the tree. She could feel this magic working: the fruit burned within her; though it wasn’t actually unpleasant, she decided. And the markings on her body were warm to the touch again. Together they walked out of the maze, through the doors in the stone wall and round to the other entrance to the Hortus Potentium. Between two tall stones, a path led to a room tucked away among the trees. Rubia had met them as they came out for the first time, and now she had walked with them to this entrance. Sambucus walked between the stones, but Salvia paused, not quite sure how to say what she wanted to say.
“Rubia…” Her voice was agonised, and Rubia understood instantly.
She looked deep into Salvia’s eyes.
“Are you willing to do this?”
Salvia nodded, and Rubia was satisfied with what she read as well as heard.
“But you’re afraid of this…” Rubia paused and cast around for a suitable phrase. “Next step?”
Salvia nodded mutely.
“Don’t worry – I came prepared.” She handed Salvia a flask full of a glowing purple liquid.
“Drink this.” Salvia did so, and felt the potion take effect almost straight away. She relaxed, her fears faded away into the distance, and her willingness to do this became stronger. Rubia’s voice reached her as if from a distance.
“This potion has been a great help in many a political marriage – especially where an heir is needed. Mind you, it doesn’t work unless your heart is willing; but then it’s very effective.” The bed in the room seemed to have grown out of the ground, and it was hard to tell where the trees began and the walls ended. The room was open to the sky above them, and Salvia thought the stars had never seemed so bright. Her panic had subsided, and she felt able to fulfil the promise she’d made to Sambucus. There was no doubt in her mind that she would conceive – the whole room was full of burgeoning life. As he drew her down on to the bed, instead of fear she felt only a calm confidence that all would be well. Afterwards, Sambucus clasped the heavy bracelet on her wrist. It gleamed golden in the room.
“Salvia, this is the shield of Alfwyn. And I hope it may be a shield, not only to our unborn child, but also to you. I fear you will need it.” He let her hands fall and stepped back, and a sudden sheet of flame engulfed her body, power crackling about her like a miniature thunderstorm. “I’ve heard of that, but never seen it! Never seen the shield of Alfwyn rise up around someone like that.” Sambucus was honestly taken aback. “I think – I hope – this is a good omen for us both. But who knows in these troubled times?” But when Salvia looked down at the golden bracelet on her wrist, it had gone as black as the marks on her arms, and looked as dull and as heavy as a piece of old, time-worn iron. Sambucus couldn’t account for this either. And when he tried to take it off to look at it more closely, he couldn’t do so. And neither could Salvia.
They spent the rest of the night asleep on the bed in the room, and in the morning, before the sun was even up, they left on the walk to the Ports Mutantis, and the beginning of Salvia’s exile from her homeland. She was carrying Sambucus’ child. The realisation was so shocking that Salvia’s legs almost gave way under her, and she had to sit down hastily. Now what was she going to do? How was she going to cope with this, on top of everything else? And Sambucus had hoped that his child would be safer in exile with Salvia than back in their world. If only he had known what was going to happen to her!