Marauders of Gor (25 page)

           
"No," she said, shuddering.

           
"Let me play," whimpered Pudding. "Let me play," whi pered Gunnhild.

           
"Do not misunderstand me, Ivar Forkbeard," whispere Hilda. If you order me to the furs I shall obey you, an swlftly. I will comply with your slightest wish, exactly an promptly. I will do whatever I am told."

           
Pudding and Gunnhild laughed.

           
Ottar stumbled up, putting his hand on one of the post~ By a length of ship's rope, he had tied Olga to his belt. Sh looked at me; her eyes shone; her lips were parted; she pu out her hand; I paid her no attention; she looked down, fis clenched, and whimpered. I smiled. I would use her befor the night was done.

           
"It is said," intoned Ottar, "that Hilda the Haughty daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, is the coldest of women.'

           
"Do you find men of interest?" asked the Forkbeard c

           
"No," she said. "I do not."

           
Ottar laughed.

           
"Are you not curious," asked Ivar of the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, "what it would be to feel on your body their hands, their mouths?"

           
'sMen are beasts!" she cried.

           
"Their teeth?" he asked.

           
"Men are hateful," she wept. "They are terrible beasts, using girls as their prey!" She looked about at the bondmaids. "Resist them!" she cried. "Resist them!"

           
Pudding threw bac~ her head and laughed. "Resistance is not permitted," she laughed.

           
"Throw her in the furs," cried Pretty Ankles. "Then she will learn whether she knows what she is taL~ing about or not.

           
"Throw her in the furs," cried another bond-maid. "Thr~w her in the furs," called yet another.

           
"Throw her in the furs," cried the bond-maids.

           
Hilda shuddered, terrified.

           
"Silence!" called out Ivar Forkbeard.

           
There was silence.

           
"What," asked Ivar Forkbeard of Hilda, "if I should order you to the furs?"

           
"I would obey you immediately," she said. "I have felt the whip," she explained.

           
"But of your own free will you would be unlikely to enter upon the furs?" asked Ivar.

           
"Of course not," she said.

           
~Gorm, who had now disentangled himself from Pouting Lips, joined the circle about the table, where we sat, others standing. She was behind him, combing her hair with a comb of horn.

           
"She is Hilda the Haughty," laughed Ottar. "She is the coldest of women!"

           
Hilda stood straight, her head high.

           
"Ottar, Gorm," said the Forkbeard. "Take her to the ice shed. Leave her there, bound hand and foot."

           
The bond-maids shrieked with pleasure. Men pounded 156

           
their left shoulders with the palms of their right hand ~ome pounded their plates on the heavy boards of t~ wooden table.

           
Ottar delayed only long enough to untie Olga from h belt. He had tied her there by ship's rope, knotted about h~ stomach. He left the rope about her stomach, but, with i free end, pulling her arms about one of the roof posts, tie her hands together.

           
He then left, following Gorm, who had dragged Hild from the hall.

           
She tried futilely to free herself. She looked at me, agc nized. "Untie me," she begged.

           
I looked at her.

           
"My body wants you, Tarl Red Hair," she wept. "M~ body needs you!"

           
I looked away from her, paying her no more attention. ] heard her moan, and rub her body on the post. "I need you Tarl Red Hair," she whimpered.

           
I would let her smolder for another Ahn or two. By thal time her body would be ready. To my slightest touch it would leap, helpless, squirming, in my arms. I would use her twice, the second time in the lengthy use of the Gorean master, that use in which, over an Ahn, the female slave or bond-maid is shown no mercy.

           
"Mead!" I called. Pretty Ankles rushed to serve me. I again bent to kiss the lips of Thyri.

           
Late and fully were we feasting when the thrall-boy, tugging on the sleeve of Ivar ~orkbeard, said to him, "MyJarl, the wench in the ice shed begs to be freed."

           
"How long has she begged?" asked the Forkbeard.

           
"For more than two Ahn," said the boy, grinning. He was male.

           
"Good boy," said the Forkbeard, and tore him a piece of neat.

           
"Thank you, myJarl," said the boy. The boy, unlike the adult male thralls, was not chained at ~ight in the bosk shed Ivar was fond of him. He slept, chained, in the kitchen.

           
"Red Hair, Gorrn," said the Forkbeard. "Fetch the littl~ Ubara of Scagnar."

           
We smiled.

           
"Gorm," said the Forkbeard. "Before she is freed, see that her thirst is assuaged."

           
"Yes, Captain," said Gorm.

           
We carried a torch to the ice shed. We opened the heavy door, lined with leather, and lifted the torch, closing the door behind us.

           
In the light of the torch we saw Hilda. We approached more closely.

           
She lay on her side, in misery, across great blocks of ice; she could lift her head and shoulders no more than six inches from the ice; she could draw her ankles toward her body no more than six inches; small chips of wood, in which the ice is packed, clung about her body; she was bound, hand and foot, her wrists behind her, her ankles crossed and tied. Two ropes prohibited her from struggling to either a sitting or kneeling position, one running from her right ankle across the ice to a ring in the side of the shed, the other runnin,~ from her throat across the ice to a similar ring on the other side of the shed.

           
"Please," she wept.

           
Her teeth chattered; her lips were blue.

           
She lay before us, on her back.

           
"Please," she wept, piteously, "I beg to be permitted to run to the furs of Ivar Forkbeard."

           
We looked down on her. "I beg!" she cried. "I beg to be permitted to run to his furs!"

           
Gorm unbound the rope from her ankle, that which hadheld her legs straight, and that on her throat, which had prevented her from lifting her shoulders and head.

           
He did not unbind her wrists and ankles. He lifted her to a sitting position. She trembled with cold, whimpering. "I have brought you a drink," he said. 'Drink it eagerly, Hilda the Haughty."

           
"Yes, yes!" she whispered, her teeth chattering.

           
Then, holding her head back, and lifting the cup to her

           
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mouth, he gave her of the drink he had brought with him.

           
And eagerly, whimpering, shuddering with cold, did Hilda tke Haughty drink down the slave wine.

           
Gorm unbound her and threw her over his shoulder; so stiff and trembling with cold, and stiff from the ropes, was she that she could not stand.

           
I put my hand on her body; it was like ice. She was whimpering with cold, her head hanging down, over Gorm's back; her long hair fell to the back of his knees.

           
I lit the way with the torch, and we took her to the hall of the Forkbeard.

           
We carried her through the darkness and smoke of the hall, between the posts.

           
The Forkbeard was sitting on the end of his couch, his boots on the fioor.

           
Gorm threw her, on her knees, at the feet of the Forkbeard. Her head was down; her hair was over his boots. She trembled with cold.

           
Men and bond-maids gathered about.

           
The left side of her body was illuminated dully, redly, from the coals of the fire pit. The right side of her body was in darkness.

           
"Who are you?" demanded the Forkbeard.

           
"Hilda," she wept, "daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar."

           
"Hilda the Haughty?" he asked.

           
"Yes," she wept, head down, "Hilda the Haughty."

           
"What do you want?" he asked.

           
"To share your furs," she wept.

           
"Are you not a free woman?" he asked.

           
"I beg to share your furs, Ivar Forkbeard," she wept.

           
He rose to his feet and shoved back a long table, and a bench, on the other side of the fire pit. With his heel he drew in the dirt of the floor a bond-maid circle.

           
She looked at him.

           
Then he gestured that she might enter his couch. Gratefully, she crawled upon the couch, his section of that furcovered, dirt sleeping level, and, trembling, shuddering with cold, drawing her body up, drew the furs about her. She lay

           
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huddled in the furs. Her body shook beneath them. We heard her moan.

           
"Mead!" called Ivar Forkbeard, returning to the table. Pudding was first to reach him, with a horn of mead.

           
"Please come to my side, Ivar Forkbeard!" wept Hilda. "I freeze! Hold me! Please hold me!"

           
"Let that be a lesson in passion to you other bond-maids," laughed Ottar.

           
There was much laughter, and most from the beautiful, nude slaves of the men of TorvaldsIand, hot, collared, and eager in their brawny arms.

           
The Forkbeard, laughing, drained the horn. "Mead!" he cried. Gunnhild served him.

           
After this second horn of mead the Forkbeard, wiping his mouth with his arm, turned about and went to his furs.

           
He howled with misery.

           
"She is the coldest of women!" laughed Ottar.

           
"Hold me, Forkbeard!" she wept. "Hold me please!"

           
"Will you serve me well?" asked the Forkbeard.

           
"Yes," she cried. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

           
But the Forkbeard did not make her serve him then but, firmIy, held her body, locked in his arms, that of his prisoner, to his, warming her. After half of an Ahn I saw her, delicately, eyes frightened, lift her head and put her lips to his shoulder; softly, timidly, she kissed him; and then looked into his eyes. Suddenly she was flung on her back and his huge hand, roughened from the hilt of the sword, the handle of the ax, was at her body. "Oh no!" she cried. "No!"

           
Bets were made at the table. I bet on Ivar Forkbeard. Within an Ahn, Hilda the Haughty, to the jeers of men, the taunts of bond-maids, on her hands and knees, head down, hair falling forward, crept to the circle of the bond-maid, which Ivar Forkbeard had drawn in the dirt of the hall floor between the posts. The coals of the fire pit illuminated the left side of her body. She crawled before the bond-maids the oarsmen. She entered the circle, and then, within the circle, stood up. She stood very straight, and her head was up. "I am yours, Ivar Forkbeard," she said. "I am yours!"

           
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