He smiled.

"You may speak with impunity," I said. "What is it that I seem to be to you?" "A female slave," be said.

"Oh!" I cried, in fury.

"Does Lady Sheila often go unveiled?" be asked.

"Yes," I said. "A Tatrix has no secrets from her people. It is good for her people to be able to look upon their Tatrix?"

"As Lady Sheila wishes," he said, bowing. "May I now withdraw?"

"Yes!" I said. He had seen me without my veil. I felt almost naked before him, almost as though I might truly be a slave.

"I shall be at your call," he said. He then withdrew.

I twisted on the couch and turned again to my back. I looked up at the ceiling. The effects of the wine I had had for supper were still with me. I think it may have been drugged.

It was not easy to sort things out. I had had a strange dream, mixed in with other dreams.

"I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus," I had said to Ligurious, in the palanquin. "Of course," he had said.

How can I be the Tatrix of Corcynis, I asked myself. Does this make any sense? Is it not all madness? I could understand how women could be brought to this world to be put in collars and made slaves, like -Susan, for example, and doubtless others. That was comprehensible. But why would one be brought here to rule a city? Surely such positions of privilege and power these Goreans would reserve for themselves. The more typical position for an Earth girl, I suspected to find herself at the feet of a master. I wondered if I were truly the Tatrix of Corcyrus. Surely I had seldom exercised significant authority. Too, at times, my schedule seemed a bit erratic or strange. At certain Alin I was expected to be in the public rooms of the palace and, at others, even at the ringing of palace time bars, for no reason I clearly understood, I was expected to be in my quarters.

"Certain traditions customarily govern the calendar of the Tatrix," Ligurious had informed me. At certain times I bad been conducted to my quarters I bad thought that sessions of important councils had been scheduled, councils at whose sessions it would be natural to expect the presence of the Tatrix. The matters to be discussed in certain of these meetings, however, I had learned from Ligurious, were actually too trivial to warrant the attention of the Tatrix. Thus it was not necessary that I attend. In certain other cases, I was informed, the meetings had been postponed or canceled. Protocols and customs are apparently extremely significant to Goreans. What seemed to me inexplicable oddities or apparent caprices in my schedule were usually explained by reference to such things. It is fitting that the proprieties of torcyrus be respected by her Tatrix, even when they might appear arbitrary, had said Ligurious.

I looked up at the ceiling, in the hot Corcyran night.

Was I the Tatrix of Corcyrus?

Susan, I was sure, believed me to be the Tatrix. of Corcyrus. So, too, I was confident, did my bodyguard, Drusus Rencius, once of Ar.

Too, I had not been challenged in the matter in my audiences, my public appearances, or even in court. By all, it seemed, I was accepted as the Tatrix of Corcyrus. Ligurious, first minister of the city, even, had assured me of the reality of this dignity. And had I wished further confirmation of my condition and status surely I had received it earlier today, from the very citizens of Corcyrus itself. "Hail Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrusl" they had cried.

"I am the Tatrix of Corcyrus," I had told Ligurious. "Of course." he had said. Inexplicable and strange though it might seem, I decided that I was, truly, the Tatrix of Corcyrus.

I closed my eyes and then opened them. I shook my head, briefly. The effects of the wine I had had for supper were stin with me. I think that it might have been drugged. What purpose could have been served by such an action, however, I had no idea.

I bad had a strange dream, mixed in with other dreams.

I whimpered on the great couch, lying in the heat of the Corcyran night. I was Tatrix.

How extraordinary and marvelous this was! Too, I was not insensitive to the emoluments and perquisites of this office, to the esteem and prestige that might attend it, to the glory that might be expected to be its consequence, to the wealth and power which, doubtless, sometime, would prove to be its inevitable attachments.

In office, clearly, I acknowledged to myself, I was a Tatrix.

I wondered, however, if there was a Tatrix within me, or something else. I forced from my mind, angrily, the memory of the girls in brief tunics, chained by the neck, kneeling down, heads down, in the street. I forced from my mind, angrily, the memory of the women in the market, naked, chained in place, awaiting the interest of buyers.

I twisted on the great couch, in misery.

Nowhere more than on this world had I felt my femininity, and nowhere else, naturally enough, I suppose, had I felt it more keenly frustrated. I wondered what it was, truly, to be a woman.

I had had a strange dream. I had awakened into it, or had seemed to awaken into it, from another. In the preceding learn I had been on my hands and knees on the tiles of a strange room. I was absolutely naked. There was a chain on my neck and it ran to a ring in the floor. Drusus Rencius, standing, was towering over me. He carried a whip. He was smiling. I looked up at him, in terror. He shook out the long, broad, pliant blades of the Whip. It was a five-stranded Gorean slave whip. I looked at the blades, in terror. "What are you going to do?" I asked. "Teach you to be a woman," he said. I had then seemed to awaken into another dream. In this one was Ligurious. I felt portions of the coverlet being wrapped about me, between my shoulders and thighs. My arms were pinned to my sides, within the coverlet. I whimpered. It seemed that I was only partially conscious. Then I became aware of someone else in the room, bearing a small, flickering lamp. Ligurious held the coverlet with his right hand, holding it together, holding me in place, helplessly within it. With his left hand, it fastened in my hair, he pulled my head back painfully. This exposed my features to the lamp. I sobbed, responding to this domination.

"Do you see?" he asked. "Is it not remarkable?"

"Yes," said a woman's voice. I gasped. It was as though I looked upon myself. She, as I had, earlier in the day, wore the robes of the Tatrix. She, too, as I had, wore no veil. In the madness of the dream, in its oddity, it was surely I, or one much like myself, who looked upon me. How strange are dreamsl "I think she will do very nicely," said Ligurious.

"fbat, too, would be my conjecture," said the woman.

Ligurious moved his right hand, grasping the rim of the coverlet, tight about my breasts.

"Do you wish to see her, fully?" he asked. I whimpered. I realized he could strip the coverlet away, baring me in the light of the lamp.

"You are not so clever as you think, Ligurious," she said.

"Do you think I do not see that you, in stripping her, would be, in effect, and to your lust and amusement, stripping me, and before my very eyes?"

"Forgive me," smiled Ligurious, first minister of Corcyrus.

"Pull the lower portion of the coverlet down further," she said. "You have revealed too much of her thighs."

"Of course," he smiled, and adjusted the coverlet, drawing it down, over my knees.

"Men ate beasts," she said.

"You well know my feelings for you," he said.

"They will go unrequited," she said. "Content yourself with your slaves." I feared the woman bending over me. I could sense now that even if she seemed superficially much like me, at least in appearances, she was in actuality quite different. She seemed highly intelligent, doubtless more so than I, and severe and decisive. She seemed harsh, and hard and cold. She seemed merciless and cruel; she seemed arrogant, impatient, demanding, haughty and imperious. Such a woman I thought, as I am not, is perhaps a true Tatrix. Surely it seemed more believable that such a woman might hold power in a city such as Corcyrus than I. The lamp again approached more closely. Again my head was pulled back, helplessly, firmly, forcibly.