Mikele did not stir, but her voice echoed off the hidden pillars and the dark spaces in the room. "If there is a student, a teacher will appear. Is there a student here?"
"Yes, sifu."
Thyatis bowed again and stood aside, stepping to the base of one of the great grooved pillars that ringed the central space of the room. Shirin descended the steps, the light pit-pat of her feet audible in the quiet room. At the edge of the circle of light, she stopped and bowed, even as Thyatis had done. "I am a student," she said in a clear high voice. "Is there a teacher here?"
"Yes," Mikele said, still unmoving. "Show yourself in the circle of light."
Thyatis bit back a soft hiss as Shirin shrugged off the loose gown and stepped into the circle. Under the pale light, her skin seemed to gleam with health; a rich dark olive. Her full breasts were bound with a strophium of fine Egyptian cotton, and she wore a slight loincloth to cover herself. The months of training on the decks of ships in Arabian and Egyptian waters had trimmed away the baby fat that had accumulated in four years of soft, palatial life in Ctesiphon. She seemed to float in the air, poised and ready. Thyatis swallowed, seeing her exposed in the pale light as if for the first time.
"I am a teacher," Mikele said, and she moved slightly, making a soft bow, no more than an incline of her head. "Do you wish to learn?"
"Yes," Shirin answered, taking a step forward into the center of the circle of light and bowing. "I wish to learn."
Mikele regarded her gravely for a moment, then a flash of a brilliant smile crossed her face. "Then you shall learn."
Thyatis sighed and turned away, quietly making her way up the curving flight of stairs. Behind her, the other students of the Way, who had been sitting quietly in the shadows, came out, their voices and laughter filling the old domed temple that was the center of their school. At the top of the stairs, Thyatis looked down, her face sad, to see Shirin talking earnestly with the other girls. At the edge of their throng, Mikele was looking back at her, her high-boned face calm and serene. The Roman woman turned and left. She felt excluded from the life of her friend, though she had intended this all along. It hurt.
A wooden man stood at the side of a room with a wooden floor. The floor was worn and rubbed smooth by the scuff and passage of many feet. The wooden man, his stiff arms held out before him, was polished, too, though the patterns were uneven. His neck and face, his elbows, his crotch and knees were all grooved with wear. Once there had been features painted on the face- a fierce red beard and bushy eyebrows- but they had vanished long ago.
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?"