Marauders of Gor (7 page)

           
I had turned away and walked to the temple, for I wished to
 
have a place to stand.

           
Another feature of the northern ships is that they have, in effect, a prow on each end. This permits them to be beached, on rollers, more easily. They can be brought to land in either direction, a valuable property in the rocky, swift northern waters. Furthermore this permits the rowers, in reversing positions on the benches, to reverse the direction of the ship. This adds considerably to the manoeuvrability of the craft. It is almost impossible to ram one of the swift ships of the north.

           
The procession, I knew, must now be on its way to the temple.

           
Within the temple the incense hung thick about the rafters. It smarted my eyes, it sickened me.

           
The litany and responses of the congregation were now completed and the initiates, some twenty within the rail, began to sing in archaic Gorean. I could make out little of the wording. There was an accompaniment by sistrums. Portions of the hymn were taken up by four delicate boys standing outside the white rail on a raised platform. Their heads were shaved and they wore robes resembling those of the initiates. Choirs of such boys often sang in the great temples. They were young male slaves, purchased by initiates, castrated by civil authorities and, in the monasteries, trained in song. I supposed, to one versed in music, their soprano voices were very beautiful,
 
Here in the far north, of course, in Kassau, to have any such boys, properly trained in the archaic hymns, indicated some wealth. I did not think such singers existed even in Lydius. The High Initiate of Kassau obviously was a man of expensive tastes.

           
I looked about myself. Most of the people seemed poor, fishermen, sawyers, porters, peasants. Most wore simple garments of plain wool, or even rep-cloth. The feet of many were bound in skins. Their backs were often bowed, their eyes vacant.
 
The furnishings of the temple were quite splendid, gold hangings, and chains of gold, and lamps of gold, burning the finest of imported tharlarion oils. I looked into the hungry eyes of a child, clinging in a sack to its mother's back. She kept nodding her head in prayer. The temple itself is quite large. It is some one hundred and twenty feet in length, and forty feet in width and height. Its roof, wooden-shingled, is supported on the walls, and two rows of squared pillars. On these pillars, and at places on the walls, were nailed sheets of gold. On these were inscribed prayers and invocations to the Priest-Kings. There were many candles in the sanctuary. They made the air even closer, burning the oxygen. The high altar, of marble, setting on a platform, also marble, of three broad steps, was surmounted by a great rounded circle of gold, which is often taken as a symbol of Priest-Kings. It is without beginning or end. It stands, I suppose, for eternity.
 
At the foot of the altar
 
beasts were sometimes sacrificed, their horns held, their heads twisted, the blood from their opened throats caught in shallow golden bowls, to be poured upon the altar; too, choice portions of their flesh would be burnt upon the altar, the smoke escaping through a small hole in the roof. The temple, incidentally, is orientated
 
to the Sardar. When the High Initiate stands facing the altar, before the circle of gold, he faces the distant Sardar, the abode of Priest-Kings. He bows and prays to the distant Sardar and lifts the burned meat to the remote denizens of
 
those mysterious mountains.

           
There are no pictures or representations of Priest-Kings within the temple, incidentally, or, as far as I know,
 
elsewhere on Gor. It is regarded as blasphemy to attempt to picture a Priest-King. I suppose it is just as well. The Initiates claim they have no size or shape or form. This is incorrect but the Initiates are just as well off, I expect, in their conjectures. I speculated what a great picture of Misk might look like, hanging at the side of the table. I wondered what might become of the religion of Priest-Kings if Priest-Kings should ever choose to make themselves known to men.

           
I would not prophesy for it a bright future.

           
I looked again upon the slender, blondish girl, bored in the crowd. Again she looked at me, and looked away. She was richly dressed. The cape of white fur was a splendid fur. The scarlet vest, the blouse of white wool, the long woollen skirt, red, were fine goods. The buckle from Cos
 
was expensive. Even the shoes of black leather
 
were finely tooled. I supposed her the daughter of a rich merchant. There were other good looking wenches, too, in the crowd, generally blond girls, as are most of the northern girls, many with braided hair. They were in festival finery. This was holiday in Kassau.
 
Ivar Forkbeard, in death, if not in life, was making pilgrimage to the temple, that his bones might be anointed at the hands of the High Initiate, would he sop graciously deign to do so.
 
This word had been brought from the wharves to the High Initiate. He had, in his mercy, granted this request. The hollow bars on their great chains, hanging from timber frames outside the temple, had been struck.
 
Word had been spread. Ivar Forkbeard, the unregenerate, the raider, the pirate, he who had dared to make the fist of the hammer over his ale, would come at last, in death if not in life, humbly to the temple of Priest-Kings. There was much rejoicing in Kassau.

           
In
 
the crowd, with the poor, were many burghers of Kassau, stout men of means, the pillars of the town, with their families. Several of these stood on raised platforms, on the right, near the front of the temple. I understood these places to be reserved for dignitaries, men of substance and their families.

           
I examined the younger women on the platform. None, it seemed to me, was as excellent as the slender blond girl in the cape
 
of white sea-sleen fur and scarlet vest. One was, however, not without interest. She was a tall, statuesque girl, lofty and proud, grey-eyed. She wore black and silver, a full, ankle-length gown of rich, black velvet, with silver belts, or straps, that crossed over her breasts, and tied about her waist. From it, by strings, hung a silver purse, that seemed weighty.
 
Her blond hair was lifted from the sides and back of her head by a comb of bone and leather, like an inverted isosceles triangle, the comb fastened by a tiny black ribbon about her neck and another such ribbon about her forehead. Her cloak, of black fur, , from
 
the black sea sleen, glossy and deep, swirled to her ankles. It was fastened by a large circular brooch of silver, probably from Tharna. She was doubtless the daughter of a very rich man. She would have many suitors.
 
 

           
I looked again to the High Initiate, a cold, stern, dour man, hard faced, who sat in his high, white hat in hie robes upon the throne within the white rail.

           
Within that rail, above
 
the altar, some in chests, others displayed on shelvings, was much rich plate, and vessels of gold and silver. There were the golden bowls used to gather the blood of the sacrificed animals; cups to pour libations top the Priest-Kings; vessels containing oils; lavers in which the celebrants of the rites might cleanse their hands from their work; there were
 
even the small bowls of coins, brought as offerings by the poor, to solicit the favour of initiates that they might intercede with Priest-Kings on their behalf, that the food rots would not fail, the suls not rot, the fish come to the plankton, the verr yield her kid with health to both, the vulos lay many eggs.

           
How hard to me, and cruel, seemed the face of the High Initiate. How rich they were, the initiates, and how little they did. The peasant tilled his fields, the fisherman went out in his boat, the merchant risked his capital.
 
But the initiate did none of these things.
 
Rather he lived by exploiting the superstitions and fears of simpler men. I had little doubt but that the High Initiate had long seen through his way of life, if he had not at first. Surely now he was no simple novice. But he had not changed his way of life. He had not gone to the fields, nor to the fishing banks, nor to the market. He had remained in the temple. I studied his face. It was not that of a simple man, or that of a fool. I had little doubt that the initiate knew full well what he was doing I had little doubt but what he knew that he knew as little as others of Priest-Kings, ands was as ignorant as others. And yet still he sat upon his throne, in the gilded temple, amid the incense, the ringing of the sistrum, the singing of boys.

           
The child in the sack on the mother's back whimpered. "Be silent,'" she whispered to it. "Be silent!"

           
Then, from outside, rang once the great hollow bar, hanging on its chain.

           
Inside the initiates, and the boys, at a sign from the High Initiate, a lifted, clawlike hand, were silent.
 
 

           
Then the initiate rose from his throne, and went slowly to the altar and climbed the steps. He bowed thrice to the Sardar and then turned to face the congregation.

           
"Let them enter the palace of Priest-Kings," he said

           
I now heard the singing, the chanting, of initiates from outside the door. Twelve of them had gone down to the ship, with candles, to escort the body of Ivar Forkbeard to the temple. Two now entered, holding candles. All eyes craned to see the procession which now, slowly, the initiates singing, entered the incense-filled temple.

           
Four huge men of Torvaldsland, in long cloaks, clasped about their necks, heads down, bearded, with braided hair, entered, bearing on their shoulders a platform of crossed spears. On this platform, covered with a white shroud, lay a body, a large body. Ivar Forkbeard, I thought to myself, must have been a large man.

           
"I want to see him," whispered the blond girl to the woman with whom she stood.

           
"Be silent," hushed the woman.

           
I am tall, and found it not difficult to look over the heads of many in the crowd.

           
So this is the end, I thought to myself, of the great Ivar Forkbeard.

           
He comes in death to the temple of Priest-Kings, that his bones may be anointed with the grease of Priest-Kings.

           
It was his last will, now loyally, doggedly, carried out by his saddened men.

           
Somehow I regretted that Ivar Forkbeard was dead.

           
The initiates, chanting, now filed into the temple with their candles. The chant was taken up by the initiates, too, within the sanctuary. Behind the platform of crossed spears, heads down, filed the crew of Forkbeard. They wore long cloaks; they carried no weapons; no shields; they wore no helmets.

           
Weapons, I knew were not to be carried within the temple of Priest-Kings.

           
They seemed beaten, saddened dogs. They were not as I had expected the men of Torvaldsland to be.

           
"Are those truly men of Torvaldsland?" asked the blonde girl, of the older woman, obviously disappointed.

           
"Hush," said the older woman. "Show reverence for this place, for Priest-Kings."

           
"I thought they would be other than that," sniffed the girl.

           
"Hush," said the older woman.

           
"Very well," said the girl; irritably. "What weaklings they seem."

           
To the amazement of the crowd, at a sign from the High Initiate of Kassau, two lesser initiates opened the gate to the white rail.

           
Another initiate, sleek, fat, his shaved head oiled, shining in the light of the candles, carrying a small golden vessel of thickened chrism went to each of the four men of Torvaldsland, making
 
on their foreheads the sign of the Priest-Kings, the circle of eternity.

           
The crowd gasped.
 
It was incredible honour that was being shown to these men, that they might, themselves, on the platform of crossed spears, carry the body of Ivar Forkbeard, in death penitent, to the high steps of the great altar. It was the chrism of temporary permission, which, in the teachings of initiates, allows one not consecrated to the service of Priest-Kings to enter the sanctuary. In a sense it is counted an anointing, though an inferior one, and of temporary efficacy. It was first used at roadside shrines, to permit civil authorities to enter and slay fugitives who had taken sanctuary at the altars. It is also used for workmen and artists, who may be employed to practice their craft within the rail, to the enhancement of the temple and the Priest-king's glory.

           
Ivar Forkbeard's body was not anointed as it was carried through the gate in the rail.