Marauders of Gor (26 page)

           
He gestured to her, and she fled from the circle, to join him, to throw herself at his side, to beg his touch, his bondmaid.

           
I collected nine tarn disks and two pieces of broken plate, plundered two years ago from a house on the eastern edge of Skjern.

           
Gunnhild had been given by the Forkbeard to Gorm for the night. I saw him holding her by the arm and pushing her ahead of him to his furs. This night her ankle wouId be held by his fetter, -not that of the Forkbeard. The Forkbeard had offered me Pudding, but, generously, thinking to have Thyri, I had, after using her once, given her for the night to Ottar. Even now she was, kneeling on his furs, being fettered by the keeper of Ivar Forkbeard's farm. You can imagine my irritation when I saw Thyri led past me, her left wrist in the grip of an oarsman. She looked over her shoulder at me, agonized. I blew her a kiss in the Gorean fashion, kissing and gesturing, my fingers at the right side of my mouth, almost vertical, then, with the kiss, brushing gently toward her. I had no special claim on-the pretty little bond-maid, no more than any other among t~he Forkbeard's men. The delicious little thing, like the other goods of the hall, was, for most practical purposes, for the use of us all. I heard the movements of chain, the moans of the bondmaids in the arms of their masters, men of-Torvaldsland.

           
I thought I would sleep alone this night.

           
"Tarl Red Hair," I heard.

           
I followed the sound of the voice and, to my delight, as Ottar had left her, she slipping his mind apparently, as she had mine, her hands still tied before her, about the post, kneeling in the dirt, was Olga.

           
"I hate you, Tarl Red Hair," she said.

           
I knelt beside her. I had intended to permit her to smolder for a time, she much aroused, and then later, when she had been much heated with need and desire, when, cruelly deprived, she had been aching to break into flame, throw her to my furs, but, unfortunately, I had forgotten about her.

           
"I forgot about you," I told her.

           
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"I hate you, Tarl Red Hair," she said.

           
I reached out to touch her. She shrank back in fury.

           
"Would you please untie me?" she asked.

           
I did not wish to sleep alone. I wondered if the fires in Olga which, earlier, had burned so deeply, so hotly, could be truly out. I wondered if they might be rekindled.

           
I slipped, kneeling, behind her. I heard her body move against the post.

           
I pushed her collar up, under her chin, and, with two fingers of my right hand and two fingers of my left, rubhed the sides of her throat.

           
"Please untie me," she whispered.

           
Her hands writhed in the bonds; her body pressed against the post; her left cheek was at the right side of the post~

           
My hands lowered themselves on her body. And then, her hands tied about the post, we both kneelingg I caressed her. She tried to resist, in fury, but I was patient. At last I heard her sob. "You are master," she said, "Tarl Red Hair." I kissed her on the back of the right shoulder. She put back her head. "Take me to your filrs?'' she begged. I untied her hands from the post, taking, too, the rope from her b~lly, by which Ottar had fastened her to his belt, but lett the rope on her right wrist, its free end in my hand, to lead her. But I needed not lead her. She followed eagerly, trying to press her lips to my left shoulder.

           
Before my sleeping area, my rude couch, my furs, ~ stopped. I stood behind her.

           
She stood very still, facing the couch, at its foot. She was a bond-maid. She was property. She was owned. 'CForce me," she whispered. Bond-maids know they are chattel, and relish being treated as such. Deep in the belly, too, of e~ery female is a desire, more ancient than the caves, to be forced to yield to the ruthless domination of a magnificent, uncompromising male, a master; deep within them ths~y all wish to submit, vulnerably and completely. nude, tO such a beast. This is completely clear in their fantasies; Earth culture, of course, gives little scope to these blood needs of the beauties of our race; accordingly, these needs, frustrated, tend to ex 162

           
pre~s themselves in neurosis, hys~eria and hostility. Technology and social structures, lollowing their own dynamics, in~egral to their development and expansion, have left behind the pitiful, rational animals who are their builders and the~r vlc~ims. We have built our own cage, and de~end it against those who would shatter its locks

           
M~, lett hand held her left arm, with my right hand I forc.ed her right wrist behind her back; I thrust it up. she cried out, suddenly, with misery; I threw her to the furs; scarcf ly had she struck them, crying out, belly down, than I had clasped the tetter of black iron about her ankle; chained, she turned to face me, sitting on the furs, tears in her eyes, her hands back, her legs flexed. I discarded the leather and tur of Torvaldsland. With a movement of the chain she knelr on the turs, her head down. I entered up~n the furs. "To your belly," I said, "ankles a foot apart." "Yes, my Jarl," she said. I then began to caress her, beneath th~ ,hins, on the inside~ of her feet, behind the backs ~f her knees~ at the sides of her breasts, high between her thighs. By ~he ~ensility of her muscles, the movements of her body, sometin es her tiny cries, her breathing, she ir~structed me in her weakness, which I, as a warrior, might then exploit. When I was satisfied, I threw her to her back.

           
"I am told," I told her, "that Olga is one of the best of the bond-maids."

           
She lifted her body to me, begging for my touch. I fondled th~ extent o~ her, kissing and licking.

           
"What have you done to my body?" she whispered. "I have never felt this way, this deeply, this ~ully, before."

           
"What does your body tell you?'; I asked.

           
"Tha~ I will be a marvel to you, Tarl Red Hair," she whispered. "A marvel!"

           
"Please me," I told her.

           
"Yes, m~ Jarl," she wept. "Yes!"

           
And when she had much pleased me, I finished with her, in the lirs~ taking.

           
"Hold me," she wept.

           
"I shall hold you," I told her, "and then, in a time, bond-maid, you will be again used."

           
She looLed at me, startled.

           
"This," I told her, "is the first taking. It's purpose is only to warm you for the second."

           
She clutched me, not speaking.

           
I held her, tightly.

           
"Can I endure such pleasure?" she asked, frightened.

           
"You are bond," I told her. "You will have no choice."

           
"I~Iy Jarl," she asked, frightened, "is it the second taking of the Gorean master, to which you intend to subject me?"

           
"Yes," I told her.

           
"I have heard of it," she wept. "In it," she gasped, "the girl is permitted no quarter, no mercy!"

           
"That is true," I told her.

           
We lay together, silently, I holding her, she against me, chained, for something like half of an Ahn. Then I touched

           
"She lifted her head. "Is it beginning?" she asked.

           
"Yes," I told her.

           
"~lay a bond-maid beg one favor of her Jarl?" she asked.

           
"Perhaps," I said.

           
She leaned over me. I felt her hair brush my body. "Be merciless," she whispered. "Be merciless," she begged.

           
"That is my intention," I told her, and threw her to he

           
~Never have I yielded as I yielded now," she wept. " would not exchange my collar for all the jewels on Gor!"

           
I held her. In time, she slept. I, too, then, slept. It wa t~vo Ahn before dawn. In one Ahn Ottar and the Forkbeard would be up, arousing the men. The serpent, the afte noon before, had been readied. This morning, at daw~ the serpent would leave the small wharf, dipping oars, gli ing through fog on the inlet, the result of the cooler la winds moving over the somewhat warmer water ol the e croaching Torvaldstream. Ivar Forkbeard, not wisely perhaps, was determined to attend the Thing. He had there, his opinion, an appointment to keep, with Svein Blue Toot a great Jarl of Torvaldsland, who had outlawed him.

           
Chapter 10
                  
A Kur will address the Thing

           
Roped together by the wrist, on the turf of the thing-fair, we grappled.

           
His body slipped in my hand. I felt my right wrist drawn back, at the side of m head, his two hands closed on it. He grunted. He was strong. He was Ketil, of Blue Tooth's high farm, champion of Torvaldsland.

           
My back began to bend backward; I braced myself as I could, right leg back, bent, left leg forward, bent.
 

           
The men about cried out. I heard bets taken, speculations exchanged.

           
Then my right wrist, to cries of wonder, began to lift and straighten; my arm was then straight, before my body; I began, inch by inch, to lower it, toward the ground; if he did retain his grip; he would, at my feet, be forced to his knees. He released my wrist, with a cry of fury. The rope between us, a yard in length, pulled taut. He regarded me, astonished, wary, enraged.

           
I heard hands striking the left shoulders; weapons struck on shields.

           
Suddenly the champion's fist struck toward me, beneath the rope. I caught the blow, turning, on the side of my left thigh.

           
There were cries of fury from the watchers.

           
I took then the right arm of the champion, his wrist in my right hand, my left hand on his upper arm, and extended the arm and turned it, so that the palm of his hand was up.

           
Then, at the elbow, I broke it across my right knee. I had had enough of him.

           
I untied the rope from my waist and threw it down. He knelt on the turf, whimpering, tears streaming down his face.
 

           
The hands of men pounded on my back. I heard their cries of pleasure

           
I turned about and saw the Forkbeard. His hair was wet; he was drying his body in a cloak. He was grinning. "Greetings, Thorgeir of Ax Glacier," said i. "Greetings, Red Hair," said he. Ax Glacier was far to the north, a glacier spilling between two mountains of stone, taking in it's path to the sea, spreading, the form of the ax. The men of the country of Ax Glacier fish for whales and hunt snow sleen. They cannot farm that far to the north. Thorgeir, it so happened, of course, was the only man of the Ax Glacier country, which is usually taken as the northern border of Torvaldsland, before the ice belts of Gor's arctic north, who was at the thing-fair. "How went the swimming?" I asked him. "The talmit of skin of sea sleen is mine!" he laughed. The talmit is a headband. It is not unusual for
 
the men of Torvaldsland to wear them, though none of Forkbeard's men did.. They followed an outlaw. Some talmits have special significance. Special talmits sometime distinguish officers, and Jarls; or a district's lawmen, in the pay of the Jarl; the different districts, too, sometimes have different styles of talmit, varying in their material and design; talmits, too, can be awarded as prizes. That Thorgeir of Ax Glacier had won the swimming must have seemed strange indeed to those of the thing-fair. Immersion in the waters of Ax Glacier country, unprotected, will commonly bring about death by shock, within a matter of Ihn. Sometimes I wondered if the Forkbeard might be mad. His sense of humour, I thought, might cost us all our lives. There was probably not one man at the thing-fair who took him truly to be of Ax Glacier; most obviously he did not have the epicanthic fold, which helps to protect the eyes of the men of Ax Glacier against extreme cold; further, he was much too large to be taken easily as a man of Ax Glacier; their diet does not produce, on the whole, large bodies; further, their climate tends to select for short, fat bodies, for such, physiologically, are easiest to maintain in the therostatic equilibrium in great cold; long, thin bodies, of course, are easiest to maintain therostatic equilibrium in great heat, providing more exposure for cooling. Lastly, his coloring, though his hair was dark, was surely not that of the far north, but, though swarthy, more akin to that of Torvaldsland, particularly western Torvaldsland. Only a madman, or a fool, might have taken seriously his claim to be of the Ax Glacier country. Much speculation had coursed among the contest fields as to the true identity of the smooth-shaven Thorgeir.