Thomas Harlan - The Gate of fire

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."

"Wait. Do you think-will she stay with me?"

"Stay? No one can tell the future-but that is what you want, is it not? For her to be at your side, as long as you live?"

"Yes." Thyatis' voice was very low. The Matron smiled a little, watching hidden thoughts flicker across the young woman's face like deer racing in the sun and shadow of a forest. "I would like that."

"You want that," the Matron corrected her, laying her hand on Thyatis' arm. "You have been her protector, her guide, her rescuer. Is that enough for you, to shield her from the pain of the world and be responsible for her? To see that her children are fed and grow up strong? To have her at your back, at the hearth, waiting for you to return from war?"

"No!" Thyatis looked up, her face filled with disgust. "I do not own her!"

"Indeed," the Matron said in a very dry tone, "you do not. And so you bring her to us-not for sanctuary or to be hidden away from the world while the Duchess and these Emperors decide her fate. No, you are much more trouble than that… This is the thing that you desire: a friend, a partner, this phedaia who is your equal-not your master, not your slave-who stands at your side. A like mind and will with which to make delightful compromise. Do you want that?"