The Gate of Fire (20 page)

Thyatis, stripped down to her loincloth and
strophium
, stalked sideways, poised on the balls of her feet. Her arms were up, ready, muscles tensed. She drifted forward, then exploded into motion, sweat flying away from her hair and face. The wooden man shuddered as sidekicks and sharp, fast hand strikes rained against him. Thyatis pushed herself, going through the long series of punches, kicks, and blocks with increasing speed. Her muscles burned with the effort. Suddenly, spinning away, she shouted in fury and lashed out with a flying side-kick that cracked the wooden head. There was a splintering sound, and the round globe of old oak flew away, clattering off the wall of the training room. Thyatis landed on her feet, her breath hissing between bared, clenched teeth. Sweat ran off of her in tiny rivers. The cotton kilt around her waist clung, sopping wet, to her thighs.

She shouted again and her fists blurred, cracking sharply against the elbows of the wooden man. The worn grooves in the wood took her strike like they had taken tens of thousands of blows before. She spun away, her wrists and fists snapping through the blocking patterns at the end of the practice movements. Then she squatted heavily on the floor, holding her head in her hands. Her whole body felt like it had been beaten with a butcher's hammer.

"Ah, dear," a quiet voice came from the doorway, "you mustn't break the appliances. That poor man takes enough abuse as it is."

Thyatis rose, scowling, but then saw the Matron standing in the doorway, her elegant gown falling almost to her feet. The elderly woman's white hair was down, falling around her shoulders, and she held a folding fan in one hand. The Matron stepped into the room, her movements carefully controlled and showing echoes of the grace she had owned in youth. She sat on one of the benches along the wall, her head silhouetted against a deep-set window. Far beyond her, the line of the horizon was an azure slash in a field of white. The fan moved languidly, stirring the air.

Thyatis shook her head and stood up, going to the corner of the room where the broken head had come to rest. She picked it up, making a wry grimace at it, and put it back on its stump. It lolled to one side. "I should make a new one," she said, not looking at the Matron.

"Hmm. That might do your body some good; diving to one of the wrecks on the Teeth and recovering the wood to make it. But it will not settle your mind, my dear. Exhaustion will only gain you a short respite. Though... there are many stones to be quarried and carved for the new Temple of Atargatis..."

Thyatis turned to glare at the old woman, but the sight of her calm face and that slight smile that always hovered around her mouth, a dove waiting to unfurl its wings, stopped her. The Roman woman shook her head, sending tiny droplets of sweat sparkling across the room. "I am troubled," she said, gritting her teeth at the words. "I am unhappy. This is what I wanted—and now I feel distraught over it! This is what I wanted and not... what I want. Oh, Goddess, I feel directionless now, suddenly. I hate that. There is
nothing
to do!"

The Matron nodded, her eyes sparkling.

Thyatis paced around the room, filled with nervous energy. "Do you think I did the right thing?" Thyatis turned and stared at the Matron with an expression of deep concern on her face. "Bringing Shirin here, I mean. I asked no one's leave... it seemed the best course..."

"Your instincts have always been superlative," said the Matron slowly, her head cocked to one side like a curious hawk, watching the young woman pace. "Why do you doubt them now?"

"This is... this is higher than I have reached before. This is the Duchess's game, not mine. Mine is dark alleyways or deserted roads late at night. The quiet use of steel and wire and murder. But this... kidnapping and hiding princesses—oh, that is not a game I've played before. It would be so much easier if I had just followed the Emperor's command!"

The Matron smiled and nodded. She patted the bench beside her with a thin, wrinkled old hand. "Sit, my dear. You have made a serious decision, to contravene the orders of your commander. To go against the will, I suppose, of your mistress, the Duchess. Why do you suppose you did that?"

Thyatis groaned, sitting, and buried her head in her hands again. Through her fingers, her words were muffled, but audible. "I don't know! I thought the Duchess could better use the Princess alive, in Rome, than dead in Ctesiphon. Ayyy... but if the Emperor ever finds out! My head and hers will roll for it..."

The Matron laid a gentle hand on the young woman's shoulder. "I think not, dear. The gossip of the markets reaches even here, to our quiet little island. The Emperor of the East—oh, he is beside himself with rage that such a succulent prize escaped him. Yes, that bear of a man wanted your friend as a wedding gift for his brother. But your master? This Emperor Galen? He is quietly pleased, though he would never say so."

"Why?" Thyatis frowned, watching the smiling face of her old teacher intently. "He bade me go into the city of his enemies and be ready and I failed him. I was not there when his soldiers stormed the gates—I was lost in the maze of the Palace of the Swan, trying to find..." Her voice faltered.

"Trying to find whom?" The Matron cocked her head again, her fine white hair falling to one side. "You were trying to find your friend, who was in danger of her life. You were trying to devise an escape from the sack and ruin of that great ancient city for not only yourself, but for your men and the family of your friend. Against this, you weigh the guessed-at desire of an emperor?"

The Matron stood and walked slowly to the western wall of the room, leaning a little on the balustrade under the deep-set windows. Beyond the window the sun blazed down on the island, throwing the aquamarine sea into sharp relief against the dark cliffs. She pursed her lips, looking out at the empty horizon. "This business of guessing at the intent and the desire of emperors is dangerous. Their concerns are not yours, or of any man or woman who does not wield such power. Their responsibilities color the world a different shade than do mine or yours. Emperors forget friends and family, or even those who have done them a good turn. They can
never
be trusted, you know."

Thyatis looked up. The Matron's voice had fallen low, and she seemed lost in memory.

"The concern of an emperor," continued the Matron in a very soft voice, "is the cruel business of Empire. I think, my dear student, that in this matter—of following your heart and helping your friend—the scales balance in your favor."

"Then I did the right thing?" Thyatis stood, nervously rubbing her hands on her thighs.

The Matron laughed and turned from the window. "No one can say that," she said, her old face creased by a wide smile. "But tell me this, O impetuous one, if you had left your dear Shirin in the ruin of that palace, and she now was the captive wife of a prince of the Eastern Empire, would you account that you had done the right thing?"

Thyatis stopped cold. An image of the Eastern Prince Theodore flashed in her mind, and Shirin was kneeling at his feet, her face bruised and streaked with tears, her pale yellow silk gown torn. The Prince was laughing, his broad red face flushed. A thin trickle of sweat crept down from his hairline. Without thinking, her lips contorted in a snarl and her fists clenched.

The Matron frowned, her eyes narrowing. "You see?" she said sharply, bringing Thyatis' attention back to her. "You could not bear it. So does your heart weigh the balance."

"Yes," Thyatis said, troubled again, "I suppose it is so."

Shirin leaned back against the cold stone of the wall in the changing room. Wearily, she raised one knee up and began stripping the padding from her shin. Each movement of her fingers as she unwrapped the cloth was filled with pain. Her fingers trembled as she picked at the knots. After a moment she realized she had been fumbling at one knot for an unknown amount of time. It had pulled tight in the exertion of the long endless day of training. Her hand flopped back down into her lap. Slowly, though she tried to fight against it, she slid sideways, unable to muster the energy to stay upright. The bench was carved slate, quarried from the depths of the island. It was cold and hard, but it held her up. Her eyes closed, and her breath ran fast in little short gasps.

She dreamed, and it was a dream of constant motion and pain.

A light touch came at her shoulder, and she sat up, her eyes blinking furiously.

A face appeared at the center of her vision, a delicate oval dominated by enormous dark eyes.

"Sifu..." she wheezed, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to fall asleep!"

"No matter, little bird," came the calm voice with its lilting undertone. "Let me help you up."

Fine-boned hands slipped under her arms and raised her up, though Shirin thought she would faint from the flush of pain that flooded her brutalized muscles. The months of training on the ships that had carried her and her family out of the Sinus Persicus, into the deep green waters of the
Mare Ethyraeum
, and finally to Egypt had toned her some, but nothing compared to the first day of her training here. Mikele carried her down a flight of steps into air thick with steam.

Hot water lapped at Shirin's feet and she gasped in relief to feel the warmth flow up her ankles.

"Here," Mikele said, stripping the short cotton
chlamys
off her. "Slide slowly into the water."

Shirin complied, feeling distant from her body as the warm water rose up around her. A glossy marble step ran around the circumference of the great bath, and she settled into it. The water came up to just above her breasts. It felt wonderful. Mikele settled herself above her, on the lip of the bath, her golden-toned legs on either side. Shirin leaned back, a breath hissing out between her teeth.

"Your work today," Mikele said in a conversational voice as she began rubbing the top of Shirin's scalp with her thumbs, her long fingers holding the Khazar woman's head upright, "was reasonable. You are slow, but not without the promise of speed. You are not very strong, but there is a hint of power in your efforts. You are very tight across the middle of your body—you carry too much bad
chi
in your lower back and along your spine."

Shirin lost the thread of the conversation, feeling only the glorious warmth that penetrated her bones and the slow, spreading wave of relaxation that seemed to radiate out from Mikele's thumbs.

"Why did you bring your dear friend here?"

Thyatis put down the wooden mug on the table and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Across from her, leaning back against an ancient carved wooden chair with a high back, the Matron regarded her. Darkness had come, stealing across the jagged peaks of the island, filling the bowl of the lagoon, covering the hidden windows with the shade of night. Thyatis sat in a small alcove cut into the side of the Matron's quarters, at a table of ancient cedarwood, with her legs tucked up under her. The alcove looked out, hidden by a crumbling out-thrust cliff, over the lagoon. An embrasure had been carefully cut along the natural line of the rock, keeping the little balcony hidden from those who might look up from below. A long afternoon had passed between them, and now dinner was done as well. A few plates stood between them on the table—simple hand-fired bowls and plates such as the Matron loved—and a red-checked amphora of Cretan wine.

"I"—Thyatis smiled, her teeth white in the twilight—"I don't think I even considered taking her anywhere else."

"Hmm..." The Matron looked out, over the lagoon, listening to the rhythmic slap of the water on the narrow beach below. "You brought her home, I think. To a place you felt safe. You chose well, my dear. She will be safe among us, while the island stands. But I do not think you made that decision bereft of all thought."

"How so?" Thyatis said, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. "All that time seems a blur to me."

"Oh," the Matron laughed in her quiet way, "your head may not have thought, but your heart surely did. Tell me, why did you bring her to us as an
ephebe
, a student, a novitiate of the Huntress? We would have taken her in without such an ancient ceremony—many women who have found sanctuary here have never taken the oaths. Why bring her to me in clothes of an ancient cut? Why have her recite, so formally, that hoary old greeting?"

Thyatis flushed, and scratched her scalp furiously, looking away. "I don't know... it just seemed the proper way to do it. I had forgotten about the Unsworn..."

"Pah!" the Matron barked, and she took a shelled nut out of the bowl on the table. She chewed it slowly, her eyes hard on Thyatis, who found that she could not meet them. "There is more than ceremony and tradition afoot in your addled brain. Tell me this, then: If she were gone away tomorrow, would you miss her?"

"Yes." Thyatis sighed, burying her face in her knees. "I miss her now, with her gone each day to train in the Temple of the Way. I should go on to Rome—the Duchess will be angry if I delay much longer—but it is hard to think of not seeing her."

"Ah, I thought as much. Tell me this, my dear, what would you do if she were to die?"

Thyatis looked up, her face grim.

"The man who dared touch her would pay dearly," she said in a tight voice. "Why are you asking me all of these questions?"

"Hmm... morbid curiosity, I suppose. Sometimes stray thoughts come to me like kittens seeking a bowl of fresh cream and a warm lap. This is the one that you inspire—you brought the lovely Shirin to us, to the island, so that she might be your
phedaia
."

"My what?" Thyatis squinted at the Matron, who raised an eyebrow at her.

"Old Lycurgus may take offense at my misusing a word he first coined, but I believe it means something like
shield-sister
. That is what you want, isn't it?"

Thyatis was puzzled, her face filled with confusion. "Shirin? You mean, I brought her here—you think I want to send her into battle? Make her an assassin? No, I don't want that..."

The Matron raised a hand, forestalling the confusion that was threatening to spill out of Thyatis' lips. "No, dear, not an image of you—rather an equal, or a partner. Someone who matches you in skill and talent. A sweet thought, if an unconscious one."