Freedom's Gate

by Naomi Kritzer

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were no windows in the tent; some light came in from the doorway and the hole in the roof, and the rest came from an oil lamp. Despite my glimpse of the brick-red rug, I had expected the inside of the tents to be black and plain, like the outside—or, perhaps, clean and stark, like the designs favored by Kyros and the other Greeks. Instead, the interior of the tent was lavishly decorated with a riot of color and patterns. Felt rugs of red, blue, and brilliant yellow carpeted the ground. The felt was locked into patterns: vines and swirls and the crisscross of a woven basket. The walls were hung with cloth of woven interlocking diamonds and triangles, with glittering bits of metal and glass sewn into the center of each shape. I had always pictured life among the Alashi as marginal at best. That even their leaders would be able to equip themselves with such rich decoration was a revelation to me. Perhaps they, alone among their people, live in luxury, I thought.

  Sitting cross-legged on an embroidered cushion on a low platform against the opposite wall of the tent was a very old woman. Her back was perfectly straight, and I found myself straightening my own tired shoulders in nervous response. Her hair hung in long white braids, interwoven with strands of silk cord and colored stones; she wore a gold necklace looped three times around her neck, with a medallion at the end. “Janiya,” she said to our guide. “Good morning.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so early, Eldress,” Janiya said.

  “You never disturb me for trivial reasons. What do you have for me?”

  “These two.” Janiya gestured, and Tamar and I edged forward. “I met them as they were trying to enter the camp. They say they were slaves of the Greeks and found their way to us across the desert.”

  The eldress raised her eyebrows and glanced at us. “Quite lucky, you finding your way here. We’re all gathered in one spot right now; if you’d missed us, you could have walked a long way before any of us found you.”

  “We saw the smoke from your fires, Eldress,” I said, as Tamar spoke at the same time: “We were lucky.”

  The eldress smiled, the lines in her face deepening with mild amusement. “You can get back to your sisters if you want, Janiya. I’ll take care of the new arrivals.”

  “Thank you, Eldress.” Janiya bowed to her and went out; her face showed clear relief to have us off her hands.

  “Sit with me,” the eldress said, gesturing to cushions at her feet. I pulled up a cushion and sat down; Tamar sat beside me. I eased my backpack off and set it on the ground beside me, hoping that I wasn’t violating some odd piece of nomadic etiquette.

  “What are your names?” Her voice was gentle. “Tell me how you came here.”

  “My name is Lauria,” I said.

  “Mine is Tamar.”

  We hesitated, and the old woman prompted, “And your story?”

  Though I’d rehearsed this mentally, I hesitated now, and Tamar spoke before I did. “We were the concubines of Sophos, commander of the Helladia garrison. Sophos bought me when I was ten; Lauria he bought just a few weeks ago from a friend in Elpisia. Lauria was a stable hand before she came to Sophos’s harem; I was a kitchen maid.” She swallowed, considered what to say next, then went on. “Lauria was very new, and she caught the eye of one of the guards. She was able to bribe him and he agreed to leave the gate unguarded for a night, and to leave a pack of food and supplies where she could find it. She checked to make sure that the way was clear, then woke me and asked if I’d like to come along. We couldn’t all run—not if we were to have any hope of actually escaping—but Lauria knew how much I hated Sophos, how much I hated—everything. So she woke me, and I told her that I’d escape with her or die trying.” Her voice shook a little. “We got out that night, hid in the desert, walked by night to avoid the heat, and drank water as we found it. We’ve been walking for about a week. I’ve lost track of the days.” She lifted her chin. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

  Tamar’s version of events had startled me—but, I concluded after a moment’s reflection, with her lie she protected both of us. The Alashi didn’t have to know that I would have left Tamar behind if she hadn’t woken up; they also didn’t have to know that she was foolish enough to let herself be captured by bandits, or what she did to avoid being killed on the spot. Of course, there was the little matter of the sword strapped to my pack . . .

  The eldress glanced from Tamar’s face to mine with a faint look of amusement. “The younger speaks for the elder?”

  I cleared my throat. “Tamar knows that I don’t like talking about the harem.”

  Tamar nodded.

  “Generous guard, to give you two pairs of boots. And a sword.”

  Tamar’s lips twitched and she held out her battered feet in their too-large boots. “We stole all these.”

  “I see.” The eldress looked from Tamar’s face to mine; she still looked amused, not angry, though I was quite certain she knew that Tamar had lied—or at least left a great deal out. She clasped her hands in her lap. “So,” she said. “You wish to become Alashi.”

  “Yes,” I said, as Tamar said, “Of course.”

  “‘Of course,’ you say. ‘Why else would we have come here?’ you think to yourselves. But perhaps we will not be quite what you expected. You were not raised among us; you don’t know our ways. You have, in short, been taught to be slaves. It falls to us to teach you to be people.” Tamar bristled slightly at that, and the eldress laughed at her, a little unkindly. “Oh yes, my dear. It may take some time. How old are you now?”

  I suspected that Tamar was considering adding some years to her total, to make sure she wasn’t sent to live with children, but after a moment she said, “Fourteen.”

  “Fourteen! That’s not so bad. You’ve only had fourteen years to learn to obey, to be helpless, to be passive.”

  “Would we be here if we were helpless?” Tamar said.

  “Probably not.” To the side of the platform where the eldress sat rested a small wooden box, carved with a constellation of stars and polished to a velvet sheen. The eldress leaned over to open it; from inside, she drew out two leather thongs and two beads of a deep, watery blue. She strung a bead on each thong and tied them off with her gnarled fingers.

  “There will be lessons, my new soldier sisters. And then there will be tests. Some are merely physical: you will be taught to ride a horse, shoot a bow, pack and put up a yurt, survive on the steppe. Others are mental: you will have the opportunity to prove that you have unlearned how to be a slave. As you pass each test, you will be gifted with a blue bead. When you have passed all the tests, you will be accepted as Alashi.” She handed each of us a necklace. “Put them on.”

  “How many tests are there?” I asked, pulling my matted hair out of the way as I put the necklace on. The lone blue bead rested against my breastbone.

  “When you have earned them all, we will tell you.”

  Great. A rigged game. I kept my face neutral, but suspected that the eldress guessed my thoughts. She smiled slightly and then tapped the blue bead with her withered finger. “The first test was to prove that you cared enough about your freedom to take it. You proved that by running away from your master and finding us.” She sat back with a nod.

  “So what do we do now?” Tamar asked, still afraid that she’d be sent to live with the children.

  “We split up in the summer, into subclans and soldier brotherhoods and sisterhoods. Lauria will go to live with the soldier sisters,” the eldress said.

  “I want to go with Lauria,” Tamar said.

  “Ordinarily we would not assign two newcomers to the same band.”

  “Do you divide sisters?” Tamar asked. “Because we are sisters by blood.”

  The eldress sat back; for the first time, she had the faint smile of one who’d been ever-so-slightly bested. “No,” she said. “We do not separate sisters—especially not sisters by blood. Well. It was Janiya who found you; I will send you to serve with Janiya. She’ll be pleased, no dou
bt.” The acid tone in her voice made it clear she knew Janiya would be anything but. “I’ll have someone take you to her. There will be a feast tonight, to welcome the two of you, and to celebrate the end of the spring gathering.” The eldress struck a small brass bell, and a young man quickly presented himself to escort us to Janiya’s encampment. “Oh,” she called as we reached the door to the tent. “The Greeks tell their slaves all sorts of stories about us, so perhaps you’d like to know, you won’t be the feast tonight. We don’t eat human flesh, and Prometheus and Arachne don’t ask for sacrifices, let alone the lives of young men and women. We offer our courage and our strength to the gods, not the flesh of former captives. We’re not fools enough to keep poisonous spiders as pets, either, and we don’t throw away the lives of new recruits on meaningless ‘tests’ of spider bites or walking through flames.”

  Although Tamar had insisted that the stories of human sacrifice were lies, I saw a slight exhalation of relief at the eldress’s words. Of course, she could be lying, to put us off our guard, I thought. But she hadn’t taken away my sword, and that was a good sign.

  “The only people we kill in cold blood,” the eldress added as we turned away, “are bandits, rapists, spies, and traitors.”

  Tamar smiled at that and gave an approving nod. It took every drop of self-control I possessed to do the same. Bandits, rapists, spies, and traitors. Well. I’m two out of four. I wonder how they’ll execute me if they figure it out?

  Tamar twiddled the bead with her fingers as we walked across the valley. The Alashi were up for the day now; people were carrying buckets of water from a well or stream I hadn’t seen, hanging laundry, visiting with friends, mending clothes and boots. A pack of children tore past us; I overheard one of them shout, “Kill the Greeks! Mount up your horses!” They pantomimed leaping onto horseback, waving sticks in the air like swords and spears. I bit my lip, and Tamar smiled a little to herself.

  When we reached Janiya’s encampment, our male guide bid us an abrupt, embarrassed good-bye; I realized that somewhere we had crossed a border into female territory. The eldress had used the term sisters, and everyone in the camp was a woman. Tamar seemed to be one of the youngest; Janiya, the woman who’d met us earlier, was probably the oldest at around forty. Tamar glanced at me; I looked around for Janiya, spotted her, and approached.

  She looked us over with clear dismay. “Did the eldress send you to me? Both of you?” We nodded. “Well. Put your packs down inside. The sisterhood is just now gathering, so I’ll introduce you to everyone later.”

  We stepped into the round tent Janiya had pointed to. Like the eldress’s, the inside was very different from the dull exterior. The walls were hung with the same glittering tapestries; the floor was covered with overlapping wool rugs, and ringed with pillows. Blankets were stacked in a basket near the door. No fire burned in the center of the tent, but a brightly polished copper kettle caught the sunshine that streamed down through the smoke hole. We set our packs down near the door and stepped back outside; the air was cooler inside than out, but the thick wool walls kept out the breeze as well as the heat. We settled ourselves in the shade outside. Tamar lay down, her head on her arm; I stayed awake to observe Janiya and her sisters-in-arms.

  More women trickled in, in ones and twos, throughout the morning. Many clearly hadn’t seen each other in a while and greeted each other with clear warmth and excitement. Janiya was more formal with the women, clasping arms instead of hugging them. People glanced at Tamar and me with evident curiosity, and I saw Janiya murmur explanations to a few of them. I twisted my blue bead on its thong, wondering if Kyros’s aeriko was watching me right now. If it had been around, it certainly hadn’t been very useful. I had assumed I would feel more certain of my footing once I reached the Alashi, but if anything, I felt more out of place and nervous than I had in Sophos’s harem.

  With effort, I recollected myself. The first step is the same as it’s always been, I told myself. Observe. Unlike an aeriko, I could be trusted to analyze and draw conclusions based on what I saw, and to properly report those conclusions. Anyone who dealt with aerika knew they simply withheld anything we didn’t specifically ask for.

  So. The women here were meeting again for the first time in a while. The eldress had said that the Alashi split into small bands for the dry summer season, both subclans—families, I thought I would probably call those—and soldier sisterhoods and brotherhoods. Presumably Janiya commanded a soldier sisterhood. It made sense, I thought, to keep the young men and women separate if they were supposed to concentrate on their military skills. The Sisterhood of the Weavers maintained a small, independent army of swords-women; they were kept strictly separate from men. I’d encountered a few of these swordswomen on my errand to the Sisterhood. I’d been tempted, at the time, to ask if they were recruiting, but had ended up returning to Kyros, as I always did.

  I wondered how the Alashi spent their winters—surely not in one big camp like this one. I’d have to ask later.

  All the women seemed to own weapons, though they were something of a mixed collection. Some owned short, broad swords that looked like they’d been stolen from a Penelopeian armory; others owned curved swords like mine. Others had daggers or spears. Nearly everyone had a bow and a quiver of arrows. The weapons were as immaculately kept as any military commander could ask for—the blades clean and sharp, the leather scabbards well oiled. Greek commanders often owned swords that were as much jewelry as weapons, with gems set into the handle or at the base of the blade, but Janiya’s sword seemed as plain and functional as everyone else’s.

  All the women wore loose linen trousers with a tunic over them, and an embroidered vest over that. I saw bits and pieces of armor stashed around camp—leather vests, padded helmets, gauntlets—but apparently they put it on only if they were expecting trouble.

  A few of the soldier sisters had sat near me in the shade of the yurt and I could overhear their conversation a bit. Two of the women were a year or two younger than me: Erdene and Saken. I caught their names after a few minutes of listening. The third, Ruan, was a bit older. Erdene and Saken seemed very close; they suffered Ruan’s presence, I decided after listening for a few minutes, mostly out of respect for her seniority rather than fondness for her personally.

  “I can’t believe you’re back,” Saken said to Erdene with a laugh. “I heard at the beginning of gathering that you spent all winter . . .”

  “I can’t believe I’m back, either,” Erdene said. “I swear on Arachne’s web, Arai and I did it every night.” She sighed deeply. “But I bled just last week. I’m definitely not pregnant.”

  Saken shook her head with a fond smile. “You’ll just have to try again next winter.”

  Erdene brightened a little at the prospect. “But for now, I’ll have to cut off my hair.” She raked her fingers through black curls that barely reached her shoulders, and let out her breath in an audible wistful sigh. “It’s almost long enough to braid properly.”

  “I’ve got the scissors right here,” Ruan said, holding up a set of shears.

  “Thanks, but no thanks, Ruan, I think I’ll wait until sundown at least,” Erdene said.

  Ruan set the scissors down a little stiffly, and Saken took pity on her. “Give them to Erdene; she can cut my hair now,” she said.

  Erdene took the scissors and trimmed Saken’s hair, cutting it into a neat black cap. “Are you ready to lose your locks, Ruan?” Saken asked when she was done. Ruan nodded, and Saken trimmed her hair as Erdene had trimmed hers.

  I touched my own matted hair, which undoubtedly reeked of sweat and long-curdled perfume, and was tempted to go ask for the scissors immediately. But there was clearly a way that these things were done, and I didn’t want to slip out of step, unknowing, if I didn’t have to.

  As the sun rose in the sky, Ruan built the fire up a bit, then brought a pot out from the yurt; a short while later I smelled the familiar, earthy smell of lentils and rice. Saken wandered by at around midda
y and asked, “Is it almost ready? I’m famished.” Inhaling the smell of cooking lentils, my nervousness had been almost replaced by ravenous hunger. When was the last time I’d eaten? Just the previous day, I realized after a few moments, but it had been only a fragment of food. There was still a little bit of cheese in our bag, I’d hoarded our food so carefully, and for a moment I was almost tempted to go get it. No, I thought. I’ll wait and eat with everyone else.

  Tamar roused as Ruan and Saken carried a pot out of the yurt. “Are we eating?” she asked, her voice still a little hazy from sleep. I stood up; Tamar clung to my arm, and we turned toward the pot of rice and lentils like the starving vagabonds we were.

  Erdene had brought out earthenware bowls; they were golden-red and decorated with pictures of horses. Ruan filled a bowl for Erdene, and a bowl for Saken; others from the camp lined up quickly and got their food. When everyone else had been served, Tamar and I stepped forward.

  Ruan looked us up and down with a sneer. “Ah yes. New arrivals to share our food; how lucky we are, to get two at once.” She dropped the ladle back into the pot. “Until the welcome banquet tonight, you are not in Janiya’s sword sisterhood. See to your own food.”

  Tamar fell back a step, her face going red, then white. But she was too proud to beg, and I was too desperate to avoid attracting suspicion. “We have food in our bag,” I whispered to her, thinking faintly of the tiny morsels of cheese that remained. “We can eat that.”

  Tamar shook her head, her lips tight. “Wait here,” she said, and limped quickly into the yurt. She returned a moment later with the cheese, and unfolded the rag it was wrapped in. “You must be very poor, to have nothing to share with a hungry stranger,” she said to Ruan. “Here. We share our surplus with you.” And she set the cheese down on the ground, and stalked away.

  Saken laughed out loud. “I’d yield now if I were you, Ruan.” When Ruan neither picked up the cheese nor the ladle, Saken rolled her eyes, picked up the cheese and two bowls, and filled them herself. “Welcome to both of you, and I accept your invitation to share food. My name is Saken.” She handed a bowl to Tamar, and a bowl to me. “Sit beside me, new sisters, and eat.” She added, in a low, kind voice, “You can tell me your names when you’ve filled your stomachs.”