"The door was locked!" I said.

"Yes, Lady," said the leader of the guards. He was of the third rank, like Drusus Rencius. He, like the others, seemed surprised. Obviously he had not expected to see me at this time of night, or this early in the morning.

"Why was the door locked?" I demanded.

"It is always locked at this time of night," he said.

"Why?" I demanded.

"Orders," said he.

"Whose orders?" I asked.

"Those of Ligurious," he said.

"Why would such orders be given?" I asked.

"It is custom," said the guard.

"Why?" I asked.

"To protect the Tatrix, I suppose," said he. "Surely we would not want her wandering about the palace at night."

"There is danger in the palace?" I asked, angrily.

The guard shrugged. "Perhaps an assassin might have gained entrance," he said. "I would be safe enough accompanied by guards, I am sure," I said.

"At this Ahn," he said, "it is customary for the Tatrix to be within her quarters."

"I am leaving them," I said. I made as though to brush past him. But his arm, like a bar of iron, barred my way. "No, Lady, forgive me," he said, "but you may not pass."

I stopped back. I was startled.

"I am Tatrix!" I said.

"Yes, Lady," said he.

"Get out of my way!" I said.

"I am sorry," he said. "You may not pass."

"Call Ligurious!" I said. I was determined to get to the bottom of this matter. "I cannot disturb the first minister at this Ahn," he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"He is with his women," said the man.

"His women!" I said.

"Yes, Lady," said the man.

"I see," I said.

"If you wish," said the guard, "I can call Drusus Rencius."

"No," I said. "No." I then withdrew into the room. I saw the door close. Then, a moment or so later, I heard the two beams, one after the other, slid into place. "I am the Tatrix!" I screamed, angrily, from behind the door.

I then took off the robe, angrily, and threw it to the tiles. I could not go out. What need did I have of it?

Then, trembling, naked, with my finger tips, in the half darkness, in moonlit room, I examined the door. I even felt the great hinges, with their pins, like rivets, on my side of the door. The lower ends of the pins had been spread, beaten wide, so that they could not be forced upwards, freeing them. I sank to my knees behind the door. I lifted my head and put my finger tips to the heavy wood. "I am the Tatrix," I whispered. Then I rose to my feet and went to the side of the great couch. I looked back to the mirror behind the vanity. I saw the frightened girl there. She was, indisputably female, with all that that might entail on a world such as this.

"I am the Tatrix," I whispered.

Then I crept onto the great couch. I lay on my stomach on the couch, on the silk, near its foot. I supposed that sometimes girls might even be chained in such a place, like a dog at a man's feet, or perhaps even on the hard., cold tiles, under the slave ring. If I were so chained, I thought, I would quickly learn to be pleasing.

What manner of world was this, I wondered, on which I found myself. It was a world, I thought, on which men had never relinquished their sovereignty, on which they had never submitted to the knives of psychic castration.

From Earth, I could scarcely believe the men of this world, in their power and naturalness.

Where were such men on Earth, I asked myself. They must exist there, some few perhaps, somewhere. Thousands, perhaps millions of women on Earth, I thought, must secretly pine for such men. How, without submitting themselves to such men, how without satisfying the complementary equations of sexuality, could their own femininity be fulfilled? I had wished to go forth in the palace. I had not been permitted to do so, by men. I was angry! But, too, I knew that there were other emotions, deeper emotions, unfamiliar and troubling emotions, uncontrollable emotions, that were welling up within me. These emotions frightened me, and released me. I had not been able to do what I wished. It had not been permitted by men. My will had been overridden. I had been forced to comply not with my own wishes but with those of others. I had had to obey. "I am a Tatrix!" I said, angrily. But I did not believe that it was a Tatrix which lay most deeply within me.

"What am I?' I wondered.

I rose on the couch to a position half sitting, half kneeling. I looked at the girl in the mirror, half sitting, half kneeling, as I was.

"What are you?" I asked. "Are you a Tatrix?"

She did not respond.

"You do not look like a Tatrix," I told her. Again she did not respond. I then lowered myself to the couch and lay, again, on my stomach, near the foot of the couch. I recalled the girl in the mirror. I did not think she was so much different, truly, from the girls I had seen on the street, or those who had been chained on the cement shelves. I did not think that a man would think twice about it, for example, if he found her in a slave market. I was angry with Ligurious. I bad been told he was with his "women."

I wondered what it would be like to be one of his "women." Susan, I knew, was one of his women. She was half naked, branded and collared. She knelt before him, head down. She accorded him the utmost deference and respect. I wondered what it would be to be the woman of a man such as Ligurious. Suppose I did not please him, I said to myself. Would I be whipped? Yes, I said to myself, I would be whipped.

"What am I?' I wondered.

"I am a Tatrix," I responded.

I saw then that it was near morning. I then fell asleep where I had lain down, near the bottom of the couch, near the chain and slave ring.

"The arrogant knave now approaching the throne," said Ligurious, whispering in my ear, "is Miles, an ambassador, and general, from Argentum."

The fellow, approaching, coming up the long aisle toward "But do you not accept them for yourself, as well?" inquired Ligurious. "Had I my will," he said, "I would have come to the walls of Corcyrus not with the scrolls of protest but the engines of war."

"Beware the quickness of your tongue," said Ligurious, "for you rant now not in one of Argentum's taverns but in Corcyrus, and before the throne of her Tatrix." "Forgive me, noble Ligurious," said Miles. "I forgot myself. It was a natural mistake. In the taverns of Argenturn we of Argcnturn are indeed accustomed to speaking freely before women such as your Tatrix. They are paga slaves." There were cries of rage about me.

"Indeed," said he, "I have bad many women far superior to your Tatrix in just such taverns. They served, well in their chains, naked, in the pleasure alcoves."

More than one blade about me slipped swiftly, menacingly, from its sheath. Miles did not budge, nor flinch, at the foot of the throne. He had a great shock of black hair. His piercing gray eyes rested upon me. I wished that I was veiled. I did not think he would ever forget what I looked like.

"Your scrolls have been examined," said Ligurious. "I, the Tatrix, and those of the high councils, have scrutinized them with more care than they deserved. Their evidences are false, their arguments specious, their claims fraudulent." "Such a dismissal of their contents I expected," said Miles. "I myself would not have transmitted them. Better to have sent you the defiance of Argenturn and a spear of war."

I myself had examined the scrolls only in a sense. Excerpts had been read to me, with criticism, by Ligurious. His analysis of their contents, I did not doubt, was sound. He was a highly intelligent man, and familiar, clearly, with the geographical and political features of the problems. The issues had to do primarily with our silver mines, which, unfortunately, lay near Argenturn. Force, it seemed, was required to protect them. These mines were said to be almost as rich as those of Tharna, far to the north and east of Corcyrus. Ue claim of Argenturn, course, was that the silver mines were theirs. My education, so full and exacting in many ways, was incomplete in at least one obvious and glaring detail. I had not been taught to read Gorean. I was illiterate in Gorean.