Salamander

Chapter Twelve: Ave Maria

Chapter Twelve

“Ave Maria . . .”

“Mariam, what are you doing?” I whispered to her as the guards pushed us through the house, leaving behind her parents and, thankfully, having not looked under the bed, her smaller sisters.

“Gratia plena . . .”

She was singing a tune – sweet but also sad. It also held the sound of hope. It took me a moment to realize that she was singing the hymn of the Church of Mary, a place at the far side of town in which my parents almost never took the liberty of taking me to. It had been on a normal Sunday when the Falkers had decided to take me with them, and the song that Mariam was currently singing was what the church sang as a prayer to Mary. Who wrote it, again? Someone named Bash? Batch? 

“Dominus tecum . . .”

“Shut up,” the male collector that was herding us from the behind said gruffly.

Madeline, who was walking in front of us as we went down the coiling stairs, said in an irritable tone, “Leave her alone.” Her voice was still hollow, but I could sense the slight amount of sympathy in her words.

“Benedicta tu in mulieribus . . .”

Mariam’s voice gradually got louder and louder, until it filled the second story of the house with a vibrato of heart-throbbing sound.

“Et benedictus fructus ventres . . .”

The staircase was now coiling down past the second story of the house, and we were soon

at the very first floor. “Tui Jesus . . .”

            The sweet song weakened at the end of the last word, and when I looked to my side, I could see that Mariam was stumbling against the firm hand of the male Collector on her shoulder. She looked down at the ground and closed her eyes. She took in a deep breath and continued to sing: “Sancta Maria . . .”

            “You have a good voice,” Madeline said like it was wind blowing through a cave.

            Mariam repeated the two words, this time at a higher pitch. “Sancta Maria . . . !”

            Madeline opened up the front door to the courtyard, bathed in the warm light of the sun. Everything was exactly the same: the horses were in their stables, the fallen windmill was just as rusted as ever, and the fountain at the center was gurgling as if nothing bad were happening. When I looked past the wooden gate, I saw that it actually wasn’t exactly the same. The procession of horses and carts were being pushed through the main sandstone street up ahead, and the cart in which Madeline and the male Collector led was parked right next to the fence of the courtyard. There were no kids inside it, but as more and more carts passed along the road, I could see hundreds of tightly-packed bodies, squirming and crying from within the wooden rails and struggling against the ropes that bound their hands and ankles. They were all children from this town and towns before us. It would also soon be children from towns ahead and, eventually, from the palace.

            “Maria . . . Ora pro nobis . . .” Mariam’s voice was now creeping into silent sobs. Her eyes were filling with tears, and whenever she blinked, they would stray from her eyelids and roll down her cheeks. This time, she was practically screaming. “NOBIS PECCATORIBUS!”

            We were crossing the courtyard, and each step I made hurt more than the one before it. The numbing cream Bale had given me had long-since worn off, and I found myself gradually beginning to slow my pace. I felt a sharp blow on my back. My weary legs unable to keep my balance, I fell to the ground, landing on a pile of mud. It caked the side of my face, my hair, and the side of my white, baggy shirt. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw the male Collector standing over me with a wry grin on his face. “You need to speed up your pace.”