(urth) my father's mounted guard

[Marc Aramini]

As far as Thecla being the autarch's daughter, it belies huge thematic portions of the text.  The exultant daughters are kept as insurance agaisnt rebellion for their middle class ruler, as concubines.

Why does the autarch have his daughter in the tower of torment to catch Thea? It would be simply ridiculous to the integrity of the story and the relationship between the exultants edging for hereditary class rights and the alternatively selected ruler for his daughter to be an exultant.

Borski may be right about the name Pelagia and its combination of pelagic and agia, but some of those nested names he posits seem to me to be counterproductive to the act of creation and freedom Gene had in writing.