Marauders of Gor (13 page)

           
The girl rose, and went to fill one of the small bowls for Aelgifu. Soon, she brought it to her.

           
As she approached Aelgifu, Aelgifu called out to her, "You walk well, Thyri. You walk as a bond-maid."

           
The slender, blondish girl, called Thyri, though now, actually, she had no name, not having been given one by the Forkbeard, did not respond to Aelgifu's taunt.

           
"Kneel," said Aelgifu.

           
The girl knelt.

           
"What have you there?" asked Aelgifu.

           
"Gruel," said the girl.

           
"Taste it," said Aelgifu.

           
Obediently, angrily, the girl did so.

           
"It is bond-maid gruel, is it not?" asked Aelgifu.

           
"Yes," said the girl.

           
"Why then," asked Aelgifu, "have you brought it to me?"

           
The girl put her head down.

           
"I am free," said Aelgifu. "Take it away. It is for such as you."

           
The girl did not respond.

           
"When my ransom is paid, and I return," said Aelgifu, "there will no longer be dispute as to who is the most beautiful in Kassau."

           
"No," said the girl.

           
"But I was always the most beautiful," said Aelgifu.

           
The blond girl's eyes flashed.

           
"Take this gruel away," said Aelgifu. "It is for bondmaids such as you."

           
The blond girl rose to her feet and left Aelgifu. The Forkbeard looked up from his game. He reached out and took the bowl from the blond girl. He said to Gorm, "Return her to the coffle." He took the blond girl back to the coffle. He made her kneel and again snapped on her wrists the iron, single-linked fetters of the north, and then he tied her by the neck at the end of the coffle.

           
The Forkbeard was using the Jarl's Ax's gambit, a powerful opening.
 
I studied the board with care.

           
Ivar Forkbeard approached Aelgifu with the small bowl of gruel. He crouched down beside her.

           
"When your father sees you tomorrow night," said he, "you must not be weak, but rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed. What otherwise would he think of the hospitality I extend to my prisoners?"

           
"I will not eat the gruel of bond-maids," said Aelgifu.

           
"You will eat it," said the Forkbeard, "or you will be stripped and put to the oar."

           
She looked at him with horror.

           
"That will not violate you, my pretty," said the Forkbeard.

           
In this punishment, the girl, clothed or unclothed, is bound tightly on an oar, hands behind her, her head down, toward the blade. When the oar lifts from the water she gasps for breath, only in another moment to be submerged again. A recalcitrant girl may be kept on the oar for hours. There is also, however, some danger in this, for sea sleen and the white sharks of the north occasionally attempt to tear such a girl from the oar. When food is low it is not unknown for the men of Torvaldsland to use a bond-maid, if one is available on the ship, for bait in such a manner. The least pleasing girl is always used. This practice, of course, encourages bondmaids to vie vigorously to please their masters. An Ahn on the oar is usually more than sufficient to make the coldest and proudest of females an obedient, eager-to-please bondmaid. It is regarded as second only to the five-lash Gorean slave whip, used also in the south, and what among the men of Torvaldsland is called the whip of the furs, in which the master, with his body, incontrovertibly teaches the girl her slavery.

           
"Open your mouth, my large-breasted beauty," said the Forkbeard.

           
Eyes wide, she did so. He thrust the contents of the small bowl into her mouth. Choking, the proud Aelgifu swallowed the thick gruel, that of dampened Sa-Tarna meal and raw fish, the gruel of bond-maids.

           
"Tomorrow night I shall have your ransom," he said.

           
"Tomorrow night,?' she cried, "I shall be free of you!"

           
He threw the cup back to the stern of the ship, and returned to sit down with me.

           
"I think I may have devised a plan," I said, "to meet the JarI's Ax's gambit."

           
' Good," said the Forkbeard, studying the board.

           
We heard sobbing from the bond-maids. We looked and saw the slender, blondish girl weeping, her body shaken by sobs, head down.

           
"Be silentl" said one of the other girls. "They will beat us!"

           
Gorm was then at her, and struck her five times with his knotted rope.

           
The slender blond girl stifled her sobs. "Yes, myJarl!" she wept.

           
Then she put her head down, and was silent, though her body still shook.

           
The Forkbeard and I returned to our game.

           
Chapter 5
                   
 
Feed her on the gruel of bond-maids

           
It was at noon of the following day that the lookout cried out, "Serpent to starboard !"

           
The Forkbeard looked up from the board, swiftly. The men of Ivar Forkbeard, too, suddenly came alive. They rushed to the starboard gunwales. Still they could see nothing. "Benches!" called the Forkbeard. Swiftly his men took their places; I heard the oars slide half outboard.

           
"Do not disturb the arrangement of the pieces," said Ivar Forkbeard, leaving the board. He climbed halfway up the knotted rope, halfway up the mast. I stood up. The day was cloudy. The awning had not been stretched this day. It lay rolled between the benches. I could see nothing.

           
The bond-maids looked about themselves, frightened. Gorm was suddenly among them. He began, one by one, fettering their hands behind their backs. When he had done this, he knelt among them, crossing their ankles, tying them, too, tightly. If there was to be battle, they would be utterly helpless, completely unable to interfere in the least way. They would await the battle's result, and their disposition; they were females. At the mast, Aelgifu stood, still chained to it by the neck, her wrists still fettered before her.

           
"It is the serpent of Thorgard of Scagnar," cried out Forkbeard, much pleased.

           
"Is he an ally ?" I asked.

           
"No," laughed the Forkbeard, delighted, "an enemy!"

           
I saw the men of the Forkbeard grinning, one to the other. The huge feliow, with grayish face, who seemed generally much in lethargy, who had slaughtered with such frenzy in the temple of Kassau, slowly lifted his head. I thought I saw his nostrils flare. His mouth opened slightly, and I saw his teeth.

           
The Forkbeard then ordered the sail high reefed, set even to the spar.

           
"Keep her stern to the wind," he said. The oars slid outboard. Let free the ship will swing prow to the wind.

           
"We have time," said Ivar Forkbeard, "for another move or two."

           
"I am still attempting to break the Jarl's Ax's gambit," I said.

           
"Singer to Ax two is not a strong move," said the Forkbeard.

           
Twice yesterday, in long games, until the Torvaldsland gulls had left the sea and returned inland, I had failed to meet the gambit.

           
"You intend to follow it, of course," said the Forkbeard, "with Jarl to your Ax four."

           
"Yes," I admitted.

           
"Interesting," said the Forkbeard. "Let us play that variation."

           
It was a popular variation in the south. It is seen less frequently in the north. In the south, of course, the response is to the Ubar's Tarnsman's gambit. I could see that the Forkbeard, though expecting the variation, given the preceding four moves, was delighted when it had materialized. He had, perhaps, seldom played it.

           
"The serpent of Thorgard has seen us !" called the lookout, not at all dismayed.

           
"Excellent," said Ivar Forkbeard. "Now we will not be forced to wind the signal horns across the water."

           
I grinned. "Tell me about Thorgard of Scagnar," I said.

           
"He is an enemy," said Ivar Forkbeard, simply.

           
"The ships of this Thorgard," I said, "have often preyed on the shipping of Port Kar."

           
"The shipping of Port Kar," smiled Ivar Forkbeard, "is not uniquely distinguished in this respect."

           
"He is, therefore," said I, "my enemy as well as yours."

           
"What is your name ?" had asked the Forkbeard.

           
"Call me Tarl," I said.

           
"It is a name of Torvaldsland," he said. "Are you not of
 
Torvaldsland ?"

           
"No," I had told him.

           
"Tarl what ?" he had asked.

           
"It is enough that you call me Tarl," I said, smiling.

           
"Very well," said he, "but here, to distinguish you from others in the north, we must do better than that."

           
"How is that ?" I asked.

           
He looked at my hair, and grinned. "We will call you Tarl Red Hair," he said.

           
"Very well," I said.

           
"Your city," he asked, "what is it?"

           
"You may think of me," I had said, "as one of Port Kar."

           
"Very well," said he, "but I think we shall not make a great deal of that, for the men of Port Kar are not overly popular in the north."

           
"The men of Torvaldsland," I assured him, "are not overly popular in the south."

           
"The men of Port Kar, however," said the Forkbeard, "are respected in the north."

           
"The men of Torvaldslahd," I told him, "are similarly respected in the south."

           
Gorean enemies, if skilled, often hold one another in high regard.

           
"You play Kaissa well," had said Ivar Forkbeard. "Let us be friends."

           
"You, too, are quite skilled," I told him. Indeed, he had much bested me. I still had not fathomed the devious variations of the Jarl's Ax's gambit as played in the north. I expected, however, to solve it.

           
We had shaken hands over the board.

           
"Friend," he had said. "Friend," I had said.

           
We had then tasted salt, each from the back of the wrist of the other.

           
"The serpent of Thorgard wheels upon us!" called the lookout cheerily.

           
"Shall I get the great bow from my belongings ?" I asked Ivar Forkbeard.

           
I knew its range well exceeded that of the shorter bows of the north.

           
"No," said the Forkbeard.

           
"Eight pasangs away!" called the lookout. "The serpent hunts us!"

           
The Forkbeard and I played four more moves. "Fascinating," he said.

           
"Four pasangs away!" called the lookout.

           
"What shield is at his mast ?" called the Forkbeard.

           
"The red shield," called the lookout.

           
"Raise no shield to our own mast," said the Forkbeard.

           
His men looked at him, puzzled.

           
"Thorgard is quite proud of his great longship," he said, "the serpent called Black Sleen."