"Welcome to Tharna!" said he. "Welcome to Tharna!"
"Yes," said Kron, only a step behind him, seizing my arm. "Welcome to Tharna."
Chapter Twenty-Four: THE BARRICADE
I ducked my head and shoved open the heavy wooden door of the Kal-da shop. The sign KAL-DA SOLD HERE had been repainted in bright letters. Also, smeared across the letters, written with a finger, was the defiant rallying call of the rebellion — "Sa'ng-Fori".
I descended the low, wide steps to the interior. This time the shop was crowded. It was hard to see where to step. It was wild and noisy. It might have been a Paga Tavern of Ko- ro-ba or Ar, not a simple Kal-da shop of Tharna. My ears were assailed by the din, the jovial uproar of men no longer afraid to laugh or shout.
The shop itself was now hung with perhaps half a hundred lamps and the walls were bright with the caste colours of the men who drank there. Thick rugs had been thrown under the low tables and were stained in innumerable places with spilled Kal-da.
Behind the counter the thin, bald-headed proprietor, his forehead glistening, his slick black apron stained with spices, juices and wine, busily worked his long mixing paddle in a vast pot of bubbling Kal-da. My nose wrinkled. There was no mistaking the smell of brewing Kal-da. From behind three or four of the low tables, to the left of the counter, a band of sweating musicians sat happily cross- legged on the rug, somehow producing from those unlikely pipes and strings and drums and disks and wires the ever intriguing, wild, enchanting — beautiful — barbaric melodies of Gor.
I wondered at this for the Caste of Musicians had been, like the Caste of Poets, exiled from Tharna. Theirs, like the Caste of Poets, had been a caste regarded by the sobre masks of Tharna as not belonging in a city of serious and dedicated folk, for music, like Paga and song, can set men" s hearts aflame and when men" s hearts are aflame it is not easy to know where the flame may spread.
As I entered the room the men rose to their feet and shouted and lifted their cups in salute.
Almost as one they cried out, "Tal, Warrior!"
"Tal, Warriors!" I responded, raising my arm, addressing them by all by the title of my caste, for I knew that in their common cause each was a warrior. It had been so determined at the Mines of Tharna.
Behind me down the stairs came Kron and Andreas, followed by Lara and Linna.
I wondered what impression the Kal-da shop would have on the true Tatrix of Tharna.
Kron seized my arm and guided me to a table near the centre of the room. Holding Lara by the hand I followed him. Her eyes were stunned but like a child" s were wide with curiosity. She had not known the men of Tharna could be like this.
From time to time as one of them regarded her too boldly she dropped her head and blushed.
At last I sat cross-legged behind the low table and Lara, in the fashion of the Gorean woman, knelt beside me, resting on her heels.
When I had entered the music had briefly stopped but now Kron clapped his hands twice and the musicians turned to their instruments.
"Free Kal-da for all!" cried Kron, and when the proprietor, who knew the codes of his caste, tried to object, Kron flung a golden tarn disk at him. Delightedly the man ducked and scrambled to pick it up from the floor. "Gold is more common here than bread," said Andreas, sitting near us. To be sure the food on the low tables was not plentiful and was coarse but one could not have known this from the good cheer of the men in the room. It might have been to them food from the tables of the Priest-Kings themselves. Even the foul Kal-da to them, reveling in the first intoxication of their freedom, was the rarest and most potent of beverages. Kron clapped his hands again and to my surprise there was a sudden sound of bells and four terrified girls, obviously chosen for their beauty and grace, stood before our table clad only in the scarlet dancing silks of Gor. They threw back their heads and lifted their arms and to the barbaric decadence set by the musicians danced before us.
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.