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.
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.