Marauders of Gor (23 page)

           
"Shhh!" said the Forkbeard.

           
The men rested on the oars. We carried no lights.

           
We were much surprised. To one of the wharves-of t-he holding of Thorgard of Scagnar, silently, like the serpent of the sea it was, carrying two lanterns at its prow, came Black Sleen. We had thought Thorgard's roving, his gathering of the harvests of the sea, would have taken him much longer. We saw men running down the boards ofthe wharf, carrying lanterns. Words were exchanged. I looked up. I could see the window of the quarters of Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar. There was a lamp lit still in the ~ room. Apparently she stayed up late. Outside the door of

           
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the compartment of her five bond-maids, curled sleeping on the floor, on their straw-filled mats, chained by their ankles, which area led into her own apartment, somnolent and bored, were four guards. Hilda whimpered. The Forkbeard kicked her with his boot. "Be silent," he said to her. I saw her hands twist futilely in the manacles. She, on her belly, soaked, miserable, lay silent.

           
"Go closer," said the Forkbeard. Almost noiselessly oars dipped, bringing us closer to the hull of Black Sleen.

           
We saw mooring ropes tossed and caught.

           
The oars were brought inboard. The men were weary. We saw shields, one by one, being tied over the bulwarks.

           
A gangplank was slid over the gunwale to the wharf. Then we saw Thorgard of Scagnar, cloak swirling, in his horned helmet, descend the gangplank. He was met by his men, and, high among them, by his holding's keeper, and the keeper of his farms.

           
He spoke to them shortly and then, in the light of the lanterns, strode down the wharf.

           
The men did not follow him, nor did his men on the ship yet leave it.

           
I gasped.

           
I heard, too, the intake of breath of the Forkbeard, and of Gorm, and the oarsmen.

           
Another shape emerged from the darkness of the ship.

           
It moved swiftly, with an agility startling in so huge a bulk. I heard the scrape of claws on the gangplank. It w~s humped, shaggy.

           
It followed Thorgard of Scagnar.

           
After it, then, came his men, timidly, those who had met Thorgard and those, too, from the ship. A wharf crew then busied themselves about the ship.

           
The Forkbeard looked at me. He was puzzled. "One ofthe Kurii," he said.

           
It was true. But the beast we had seen was not an isolated, degenerate, diseased beast, of the sort we had encountered at Forkbeard~s Landfall. It had seemed in its full health, swift and powerfill.

           
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"What has such a beast to do with Thorgard of Scagnar ?"

           
"What has Thorgard of Scagnar to do with such a beast ?" smiled Ivar Forkbeard.

           
"I do not understand this," I said.

           
"Doubtless it means nothing," said Ivar Forkbeard. "And at least it is of no concern to us."

           
"I shall hope not," I said.

           
"I have an appointment with Svein Blue Tooth," said Ivar Forkbeard. He kicked the captive with the side of his boot. She uttered a small noise, but made no other sound. "The Thing will soon be held," he said.

           
I nodded. What he had said was true. "But surely," I said, "you will not dare, an outlaw, attend the Thing ?"

           
"Perhaps," said Ivar. "Who knows ?" He grinned "Then," said he, "if I should survive, we will hunt Kurii."

           
"I hunt on]y one," I sal'd.

           
"Perhaps the one you hunt," said Ivar, "is even now within the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar."

           
"It is possible," I said. "I do not know." It seemed to me no~ unlikely that the Forkbeard's speculation might be true. But I had no wish to pursue Kurii at random.

           
"How will you know the one ofthe Kurii whom you seek ?" Ivar had asked me, in his hall.

           
"I think," I had said, "he will know me."

           
Of this I had little doubt.

           
I was certain that the Kur which I sought would know me, and well.

           
I did not know it, but I did not think that would make much difference.

           
It was my intention to hunt openly, and, I expected, this understood, my quarTy, hunting, too, would find me, and, together, we would do war.

           
It had doubtless been its plan to lure me to the north. I smiled. Surely its plan had been successful.

           
I looked at the holding-of Thorgard of Scagnar. If the Kur within it were he whom I sought, I had little doubt but that we should later meet. If it were not it which I sought,

           
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I had, as far as I knew, no quarrel with it.

           
But I wondered what it might be doing in the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar. The Kurii and men, as far as I knew, met only in feeding and killing.

           
"Let us go," said I to Ivar Forkbeard.

           
"Oars," said he, softly, to his oarsmen.

           
The oars, gently, noiselessly, entered the water, and the boat moved aw.~y, into the darkness.

           
There was a small sound, from the fetters on the prone girl's wrists.

           
The Forkbeard will attend

           
the Thing

           
"MyJarl!" cried Thyri, running into my arms. I lifted he and swung her about. She wore the k;irtle of white wool, th riveted collar of black iron.

           
I drank long at the lips of the bond-maid.

           
About me I heard the joyous cries of the men of Ivar' farm, the excited cries of bond-maids.

           
Ivar Forkbeard crushed to his leather Pudding and Gunn hild, kissing first one and then the other, as each eagerl~ sought his lips, their hands, too, those of bond-maids, eage; upon his body.

           
Other bond-maids pressed past me to greet favorite among the oarsmen of Forkbeard's serpent.

           
Behind Forkbeard, and to his left, her head high, disdain ful, stood Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scag nar.

           
The men, and the bond-maids, many in one another'~ arms, fell back to regard her.

           
She stood behind the Forkbeard, and to his left. Her back was quite straight; her head was in the air. She was nol fettered. Her dress of green velvet, trimmed in gold, she still wore; it was torn back from the collar, as the Forkbeard had done in Scagnar, revealing the whiteness of her throat, hinting at the delights of her bosom; the gown, however, now, was discolored, stained and torn; much of the trip she had been fettered, her belly to the mast; also, on ~he right side, it was torn to the hip, revealing her thigh, ca1f and ankle; this had happened when, on the voyage, she had been

           
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put on the oar; her hose and shoes had been removed in Scagnar. She stood proudly. She was what the Forkbeard had-sought; she was his prize.

           
"So that," said Ottar, his hands on his heavy belt, inlaid with gold, "is Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!"

           
"Gunnhild is better!" said Pouting Lips.

           
"Who is Gunnhild?" asked Hilda, coldly.

           
"I am Gunnhild," said ~unnhild. She stood proudly on the arrn of the Forkbeard, the white kirtle split to her beliy, the black iron at her throat.

           
"A bond-maid!" laughed Hilda, contemptuously.

           
Gunnhild stared at her, in fury.

           
"Gunnhild ;s better!" said Pouting Lips.

           
"Strip them and see," said Ottar.

           
Hilda turned white.

           
The Forkbeard turned about and, one arm about Pudding, the other about Gunnhild, started from the dock.

           
Hilda followed him, to his left.

           
"She heels nicely," said Ottar. The men and bond-maids laughed. The Forkbeard stopped. Hilda's face burned red with fury, but she kept her head high.

           
Pet sleen are taught to heel; so, too, sometimes, are bondmaids; I was familiar with this sort of thing, of course; in the south it was quite common for slave girls, in various fashions in various cities, to heel their masters.

           
Hiida, of coursej was a free woman. For her to heel was an incredible humiliation.

           
The Forkbeard started off again, and then again stopped. Again, Hilda followed him as before.

           
"She is heeling!" laughed Ottar.

           
There were tears of rage in Hilda's eyes. What he said, of course, was true. She was heeling. On his ship the Forkbeard had taught her, though a free woman, to heel.

           
It had not been a pleasant voyage for the daughter ~f Thorgard of Scagnar. She had been, from the beginning, fettered with her belly to the mast. For a filll day, too, the coverlet had been left tied over her head, fastened by the

           
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twice-turned, knotted scarf about her neck. On the secon day, it had been thrust up only that the spike of a water ba~ could be thrust between her teeth, and then replaced; on he third day the coverlet was torn away and, with the scar~ thrown overboard; Ivar Forkbeard, on that day, watered he~ and, with a spoon, fed her a bit of bond-maid gruel.

           
Starving she had snatched at jt greedily.

           
' How eagerly you eat the gruel of bond-maids," he had commented.

           
Then she had refused to eat more. But, the next day, to his amusement, she reachedl forth her mouth eagerly for the nourishment.

           
On the f~th day, and thereafter, for her feedings, he would tie her ankles and release her from the mast, her wr1sts ~hen tettered before her, that she might feed herself.

           
After the fifth day he fed her broths and some meats, that she might have good color.

           
With the improvement n her diet, as was his expectation, something of her haughtiness and ~emper returned.

           
On the eighth day he released her from the mast, that she mlght waLk about the ship.

           
Atter she had walked about, he had said to her, "Are you ready to heel?"

           
"I am not a pet sleen!" she had cried.
      
- -
 

           
"Put her to the oar," had said the Forkbeard.

           
Hilda, clothed, had been roped, hand and foot, and body,on her back, head down, to one of the nineteen-foot oars.

           
"You cannot do Ihis to me," she cried.

           
Then, to her misery, she felt the oar move. "I am a free woman!" she cried.

           
Then, like any bond-maid, she found herself plunged beneath the cold green surface of Thassa.

           
The oar lifted.

           
"I arn the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!" she cried, sp~t~ln~ wa-er, half blinded.

           
Then Ihe oar dipped again. When it pulled her next from the water, she was ciearly te~ified. She had swallowed water. She had learned what any bond-maid swi~tly learns, that one