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.
We were within crossbow range.
I motioned to the others to remain back and, carrying a shield and spear in addition to my sword, approached the rampart.
On the roof of the palace beyond the double rampart I could occasionally see the head of a tarn and I heard their screams. Tarns, however, would not be too effective against the rebels in the city. Many of them had cut long bows and many of them were armed with the spears and crossbows of fallen warriors. It would be risky business coming close enough to bring talons into play.
And should the warriors have attempted to use the tarns merely to fire down on the crowd, they would have suddenly found the streets deserted, until the shadow of the bird had passed and the rebels could move another hundred yards closer to the palace. Trained infantry, incidentally, might move rapidly through the streets of a city with shields locked over their heads, much in the fashion of the Roman testudo, but this formation requires discipline and precision, martial virtues not to be expected in high degree of the rebels of Tharna.
About a hundred yards from the rampart I put down the shield and spear, signifying a temporary truce.
A tall figure appeared on the rampart and did as I had done.
Though he wore the blue helmet of Tharna I knew that it was Thorn. Once again I began to approach the rampart.
It seemed a long walk.
Step by step I climbed the black avenue wondering if the truce would be respected. If Dorna the Proud had ruled upon that rampart rather than Thorn, a Captain, and a member of my own caste, I was certain that a bolt from some crossbow would have pierced my body without warning. When at last I stood unslain on the black cobblestones at the foot of the double rampart I knew that though Dorna the Proud might rule in Tharna, though it might be she who sat upon the golden throne of the city, that it was the word of a warrior that ruled on those ramparts above me. 'Tal, Warrior,' said Thorn, removing his helmet.
'Tal, Warrior,' I said.
Thorn' s eyes were clearer now than I remembered them, and the large body which had been tending to corpulence had, in the stress of fighting, hardened into muscular vigour. The purplish patches that marked his yellowish face seemed less pronounced now than before. Two strands of hair still marked his chin in parallel streaks and on the back of his head his long hair was still bound in a Mongol knot. The now clear, oblique eyes regarded me.
'I should have killed you on the Pillar of Exchanges,' said Thorn. I spoke loudly so that my voice might carry to all who manned the double rampart.
'I come on behalf of Lara, who is true Tatrix of Tharna. Sheathe your weapons. No more shed the blood of men of your own city. I ask this in the name of Lara, and of the city of Tharna and its people. And I ask it in the name of the codes of your own caste, for your swords are pledged to the true Tatrix — Lara — not Dorna the Proud!'
I could sense the reaction of the men behind the rampart.
Thorn too now spoke loudly for the benefit of the warriors. 'Lara is dead. Dorna is Tatrix of Tharna.'
'I live!' cried a voice behind me and I turned and to my dismay I saw that Lara had followed me to the rampart. If she were killed the hopes of the rebels might well be blasted, and the city plunged interminably into civil strife.
Thorn looked at the girl and I admired the coolness with which he regarded her. His mind must have been in tumult for he could not have expected that the girl produced by the rebels as the true Tatrix would actually be Lara. 'She is not Lara,' he said coldly.
'I am,' she cried.
'The Tatrix of Tharna,' sneered Thorn, looking on the unconcealed features of Lara, 'wears a golden mask.'
'The Tatrix of Tharna,' said Lara, 'no longer chooses to wear a mask of gold.'
'Where did you get this camp wench, this imposter?' asked Thorn. 'I purchased her from a slaver,' I said.
Thorn laughed and his men behind the barricade laughed too. 'The slaver to whom you sold her,' I added.
Thorn laughed no longer. I called out to the men behind the barricade. 'I returned this girl — your Tatrix — to the Pillar of Exchanges where I gave her into the hands of Thorn, this Captain, and Dorna the Proud. Then treacherously I was set upon and sent to the Mines of Tharna, and Dorna the Proud and Thorn, this captain, seized Lara, your Tatrix, and sold her into slavery — sold her to the slave Targo, whose camp is now at the Fair of En' Kara, sold her for the sum of fifty silver tarn disks!'
'What he says is false,' shouted Thorn.
I heard a voice from behind the barricade, a young voice. 'Dorna the Proud wears a necklace of fifty silver tarn disks!'
'Dorna the Proud is bold indeed,' I cried, 'to flaunt the very coins whereby her rival — your true Tatrix — was delivered into the chains of a slave girl!'
There was a mutter of indignation, some angry shouts from the barricade. 'He lies,' said Thorn.
'You heard him,' I cried, 'say to me that he should have killed me on the Pillar of Exchanges! You know that it was I who stole your Tatrix at the Amusements of Tharna. Why should I have gone to the Pillar of Exchanges if not to surrender her to the envoys of Tharna?'
A voice cried out from behind the barricade. 'Why did you not take more men with you to the Pillar of Exchanges, Thorn of Tharna?'
Thorn turned angrily in the direction of the voice.
I responded to the question. 'Is it not obvious?' I asked. 'He wanted to protect the secret of his plan to abduct the Tatrix and put Dorna the Proud upon her throne.'
Another man appeared at the top of the barricade. He removed his helmet. I saw that it was the young warrior whose wound Lara and I had tended on the wall of Tharna.
'I believe this warrior!' he cried, pointing down at me.
'It is a trick to divide us!' cried Thorn. 'Back to your post!' Other warriors in the blue helmets and grey tunics of Tharna had climbed to the top of the barricade, to see more clearly what befell.
'Back to your posts!' cried Thorn.
'You are warriors!' I cried. 'Your swords are pledged to your city, to its walls, to your people and your Tatrix! Serve her!'
'I shall serve the true Tatrix of Tharna!' cried the young warrior. He leaped down from the barricade and laid his sword on the stones at Lara' s feet.
'Take up your sword,' she said, 'in the name of Lara, true Tatrix of Tharna.'
'I do so,' he said.
He knelt on one knee before the girl and grasped the hilt of the weapon. 'I take up my sword,' he said, 'in the name of Lara, who is true Tatrix of Tharna.'
He rose to his feet and saluted the girl with the weapon. 'Who is true Tatrix of Tharna!' he cried.
'That is not Lara!' cried Thorn, pointing to the girl.
'How can you be so certain?' asked one of the warriors on the wall. Thorn was silent, for how could he claim to know that the girl was not Lara, when presumably he had never looked upon the face of the true Tatrix? 'I am she,' cried the girl. 'Are there none of you here who have served in the Chamber of the Golden Mask? None of you who recognise my voice?' 'It is she!' cried one of the men. 'I am sure!' He removed his helmet. 'You are Stam,' she said, 'first guardsman of the north gate and can cast your spear farther than any man of Tharna. You were first in the military games of En' Kara in the second year of my reign.'
Another warrior removed his helmet.
'You are Tai,' said she, 'a tarnsman, wounded in the war with Thentis in the year before I ascended the Throne of Tharna.'
Yet another man took from his head the blue helmet.
'I do not know you,' she said.
The men on the wall murmured.
'You could not,' said the man, 'for I am a mercenary of Ar who took service in Tharna only within the time of the revolt.'
'She is Lara!' cried another man. He leaped down from the wall and placed his sword also on the stones at her feet.
