Lara, to my surprise, watched them with delight.

"Where in Tharna," I asked, "did you find Pleasure Slaves?" I had noted that the throats of the girls were encircled by silver collars. Andreas, who was stuffing a piece of bread in his mouth, responded, his words a cheery mumble. "Beneath every silver mask," he averred sententiously, "there is a potential Pleasure Slave."

"Andreas!" cried Linna, and she made as if to slap him for his insolence, but he quieted her with a kiss, and she playfully began to nibble at the bread clenched between his teeth.

"Are these truly silver masks of Tharna?" I asked Kron, skeptically. "Yes," said he. "Good, aren" t they?"

"How did they learn this?" I asked.

He shrugged. "It is instinctive in a woman," he said. "But they are untrained of course."

I laughed to myself. Kron of Tharna spoke as might any man of any city of Gor — other than a man of Tharna.

"Why are they dancing for you?" asked Lara.

"They will be whipped if they do not," said Kron.

Lara" s eyes dropped.

"You see the collars," said Kron, pointing to the slender graceful bands of silver each girl wore at her throat. "We melted the masks and used the silver for the collar."

Other girls now appeared among the tables, clad only in a camisk and a silver collar, and sullenly, silently, began to serve the Kal-da which Kron had ordered. Each carried a heavy pot of the foul, boiling brew and, cup by cup, replenished the cups of the men.

Some of them looked enviously at Lara, others with hatred. Their look said to her why are you not clad as we are, why do you not wear a collar and serve as we serve?

To my surprise Lara removed her cloak and took the pot of Kal-da from one of the girls and began to serve the men.

Some of the girls looked at her in gratitude for she was free and in doing this she showed them that she did not regard herself as above them. "That," I said to Kron, pointing out Lara, "is the Tatrix of Tharna." As Andreas looked upon her he said softly, "She is truly a Tatrix." Linna arose now and began to help with the serving.

When Kron had tired of watching the dancers he clappped his hands twice and with a discordant jangle of their ankle bells they fled from the room. Kron lifted his cup of Kal-da and faced me. "Andreas told me you intended to enter the Sardar," he said. "I see that you did not do so." Kron meant that if I had entered the Sardar I would not have returned. "I am going to the Sardar," I said, "but I first have business in Tharna." "Good!" said Kron. "We need your sword."

"I have come to place Lara once more on the throne of Tharna," I said. Kron and Andreas looked at me in wonder.

"No," said Kron. "I do not know how she has bewitched you but we will have no Tatrix in Tharna!"

"She is everything that we fight against," protested Andreas. "If she again ascends the throne, our battle will have been lost. Tharna would once more be the same."

"Tharna," I said, "will never again be the same."

Andreas shook his head as if trying to comprehend what I might mean. "How can we expect him to make sense?" asked Andreas of Kron. "After all, he is not a poet."

Kron did not laugh.

"Or a metal worker," added Andreas hopefully.

Still Kron did not laugh.

His dour personality formed over the anvils and forges of his trade did not take lightly to the enormity of what I had said. "You would have to kill me first," said Kron.

"Are we not still of the same chain?" I asked.

Kron was silent. Then regarding me evenly with those steel- blue eyes he said, "We are always of the same chain."

"Then let me speak," I said.

Kron nodded curtly.

Several other men had by now crowded about the table.

"You are men of Tharna," I said. "But the men you fight are also of Tharna."

One of the men spoke. "I have a brother in the guards."

"Is it right that the men of Tharna lift their weapons against one another, men within the same walls?"

"It is a sad thing," said Kron. "But it must be."

"It need not be," I protested. "The soldiers and guardsmen of Tharna are pledged to the Tatrix, but the Tatrix they defend is a traitress. The true Tatrix of Tharna, Lara herself, is within this room.

Kron watched the girl, who was unconscious of the conversation. Across the room she was serving Kal-da to the men whose cups were lifted to her. "While she lives," said Kron, "the revolution is not safe."

"That is not true," I said.

"She must die," said Kron.

"No," I said. "She too has felt the chain and whip."

There was a murmur of astonishment from the men about the table. "The soldiers of Tharna and her guardsmen will forsake the false Tatrix and serve the true Tatrix," I said. "If she lives — " agreed Kron, looking at the innocent girl across the room.

"She must," I urged. "She will bring a new day to Tharna. She can unite both the rebels and the men who oppose you. She has learned how cruel and miserable are the ways of Tharna. Look at her!"

And the men watched the girl quietly pouring the Kal-da, willingly sharing the labours of the other women of Tharna. It was not what one would have expected of a Tatrix.

"She is worthy to rule," I said.

"She is what we fought against," said Kron.

"No," I said, "you fought against the cruel ways of Tharna. You fought for your pride and your freedom, not against that girl."

"We fought against the golden mask of Tharna," shouted Kron, pounding his fist on the table.

The sudden noise attracted the attention of the entire room and all eyes turned toward us. Lara, her back graceful and straight, set down the pot of Kal-da and came and stood before Kron.

"I no longer wear the golden mask," she said.

And Kron looked on the beautiful girl who stood before him with such grace and dignity, with no trace of pride or cruelty, or fear.

"My Tatrix," he whispered.

We marched through the city, the streets behind us filled like grey rivers with the rebels, each man with his own weapon, yet the sound of those rivers, converging on the palace of the Tatrix was anything but grey. It was the sound of the ploughing song, as slow and irresistible as the breaking of ice in frozen rivers, a simple, melodic paean to the soil, celebrating the first breaking of the ground.

At the head of that splendid, ragged procession five marched; Kron, chief of the rebels; Andreas, a poet; his woman, Linna of Tharna, unveiled; I, a warrior of a city devastated and cursed of the Priest-Kings; and a girl with golden hair, a girl who wore no mask, who had known both the whip and love, fearless and magnificent Lara, she who was true Tatrix of Tharna. It was clear to the defenders of the palace, which formed the major bastion of Dorna" s challenged regime, that the issue would be decided that day and by the sword. Word had swept ahead as if on the wings of tarns that the rebels, abandoning their tactics of ambush and evasion, were at last marching on the palace.

I saw before us once again that broad, winding but ever narrowing avenue which led to the palace of the Tatrix. Singing, the rebels began to climb the steep avanue. The black cobblestones could be felt clearly through the leather of our sandals.

Once more I noted that the walls bordering the avenue rose as the avenue narrowed, but this time, long before we neared the small iron door, we saw a double rampart thrown across the avenue, the second wall topping the first and allowing missiles to be rained down on those who might storm the first wall. The rampart was thrown between the walls where they stood at perhaps fifty yards from each other. The first rampart was perhaps twelve feet high; the second perhaps twenty.

Behind the ramparts I could see the blaze of weaponry and the movement of blue helmets.