Norman, John - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor.txt

by Marauders of Gor [lit]

  correlated with sun and stars is not unknown to them. It is commonly relied on,

  however, only in unfamiliar waters. Even fog banks, and the feeding grounds of

  whales, and ice floes, in given season, in their own waters, give the men of

  Torvaldsland information as to their whereabouts, they utilizing such things as

  easily, as unconsciously, as a peasant might a mountain, or a hunter a river.

  The ships of the men of Torvaldsland are swift. In a day, a full Gorean day of

  twenty Ahn, with a fair wind they can cover from two hundred to two hundred and

  fifty pasangs. I studied the board before me. It was set on a square chest. It

  was a board made for play at sea, and such boards are common with the men of

  Torvaldsland. In the center of each square was a tiny peg. The pieces,

  correspondingly, are drilled to match the pegs, and fit over them. This keeps

  them steady in the movements at sea. The board was of red and yellow squares.

  The Kaissa of the men of Torvaldsland is quite similar to that of the south,

  though certain of the pieces differ. There is, for example, not a Ubar but a

  Jarl, as the most powerful piece. Moreover, there is no Ubara. Instead, there is

  a piece called the Jarl's Woman, which is quite powerful, more so than the

  southern Ubara. Instead of Tarnsmen, there are two pieces called the Axes. The

  board has no Initiates, but there are corresponding pieces called Rune-Priests.

  Similarly there are no Scribes, but a piece, which moves identically, called the

  Singer. I thought that Andreas of Tor, a friend, of the caste of Singers, might

  have been pleased to learn that his caste was represented, and honored, on the

  boards of the north. The Spearmen moved identically with the southern Spearmen.

  It did not take me much time to adapt to the Kaissa of Torvaldsland, for it is

  quite similar to the Kaissa of the south. On the other hand, feeling my way on

  the board, I had lost the first two games to the Forkbeard. Interestingly, he

  had been eager to familiarize me with the game, and was abundant in his

  explanations and advice. Clearly, he wished me to play him at my full

  efficiency, without handicap, as soon as possible. I had beaten him the third

  game, and he had then, delighted, ceased in his explanations and advice and,

  together, the board between us, each in our way a war rior, we had played

  Kaissa. The Forkbeard's game was much more varied, and tactical, than was that

  of, say, Marlenus of Ar, much more devious, and it was far removed from the

  careful, conservative, positional play of a man such as Mintar, of the caste of

  Merchants. The Forkbeard made great use of diversions and feints, and double

  strategies, in which an attack is double edged, being in effect two attacks, an

  open one and a concealed one, either of which, depending on a misplay by the

  opponent, may be forced through, the concealed attack requiring usually only an

  extra move to make it effective, a move which, ideally, threatened or pinned an

  opponent's piece, giving him the option of surrendering it or facing a

  devastating attack, he then a move behind. In the beginning I had played

  Forkbeard positionally, learning his game. When I felt I knew him better, I

  played him more openly. His wiliest tricks, of coursej I knew, he would seldom

  use saving them for games of greater import, or perhaps for players of

  Torvaldsland. Among them, even more than in the south, Kaissa is a passion. In

  the long winters of Torvaldsland, when the snow, the darkness, the ice and

  wintry winds are upon the land, when the frost breaks open the rocks, groaning,

  at night, when the serpents hide in their roofed sheds, many hours, under

  swinging soapstone lamps, burning the oil of sea sleen, are given to Kaissa. At

  such times, even the bond-maids, rolling and restless, naked, in the furs of

  their masters, their ankles chained to a nearby ring, must wait. "It is your

  move," said Forkbeard. "I have moved," I told him. "I have thrown the Ax toJarl

  six." ''Ah! Laughed the Forkbeard. He then sat down and looked again at the

  board. He could not now, with impunity, place his Jarl at Ax four. The sun, for

  Torvaldsland, was hot. In the chronology of Port Kar, it was early in Year 3 of

  the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains. In the chronology of Ar, which

  serves, generally, to standardize chronology on Gor, it was 10,122 C.A., or

  Contasta Ar, from the founding of Ar. The battle of the 25th of Se'Kara had

  taken place in 10,120 C.A. In that same year, in its spring, in Port Kar, the

  Council of Captains had assumed its sovereignty, thus initiating Year 1 of its

  reign. Most Gorean cities use the Spring Equinox as the date of the New Year.

  Turia, however, uses the Summer Solstice. The Spring Equinox, incidentally, is

  also used for the New Year by the Rune-Priests of the North, who keep the

  calendars of Torvaldsland. They number years from the time of Thor's gift of the

  stream of Torvald to Torvald, legendary hero and founder of the northern

  fatherlands. In the calendars of the Rune-Priests the year was 1,006. Forkbeard

  and I sat in the shade, under a tented awning of sewn boskhides, some

  thirty-five feet in length. It begins aft of the mast, which is set forward. It

  rests on four poles, with two long, narrow poles, fixed in sockets, mounted in

  tandem fashion, serving as a single ridge pole. These poles can also be used in

  pushing off, and thwarting collisions on rocks. The bottom edges of the tented

  awning are stretched taut and tied to cleats in the gunwales. There is about a

  foot of space between the gunwales and the bottoms of the tented awnings,

  permitting a view to sea on either side. Somewhat behind us, between the

  benches, in the shade of the awning, among other riches taken in the sack of the

  temple of Kassau, were the bond-maids. They, loot, too, knelt, or sat or laid

  among golden plate, and candlesticks and golden hangings. Their ankles were no

  longer bound; their wrists, now, those of most of them, were fettered before

  their bodies; about their necks, now, however, they wore not simple binding

  fiber; it had been replaced the first evening out of Kassau; they wore now,

  knotted about their throats, a coffle rope of the north, about a half inch in

  thickness, of braided leather, cored with wire. At night they slept with their

  hands fettered behind them. Some of the girls slept, some curled on the golden

  hangings of the temple; some sat or knelt, heads down; of the girls, four of

  them, though still held in the coffle, were no longer fettered. They knelt, with

  soft cloths and polishes, cleaning and rubbing to a high shine, which must

  please the Forkbeard, the golden trove of the looted temple of Kassau. The men

  of Forkbeard, their oars inboard, the ship under sail, amused themselves as they

  would. Some slept on the benches or between them, some under the awning and some

  not, or on the exposed, elevated stem deck. Here and there some sat in twos or

  threes, talking. Two, like Forkbeard and myself, gave themselves to Kaissa. Two

  others, elsewhere, played Stones, a guessing game. The giant, he who might have

  been nearly eight feet in height, and had in the temple wrought such furious

  slaughter, sat now, almost somnolently, on a rowing bench, sharpening, with


  slow, deliberate movements, with a circular, flat whetstone, the blade of his

  great ax. Three other men of the Forkbeard attended to fishing, two with a net,

  sweeping it along the side of the serpent, for parsit fish, and the third, near

  the stem, with a hook and line, baited with vulo liver, for the white-bellied

  grunt, a large game fish which haunts the plankton banks to feed on parsit fish.

  Only two of the Forkbeard's men did not rest, he at the helm, bare-headed,

  looking to sea, and the fellow at the height of the mast, on lookout. The

  helmsman studies the sky and the waters ahead of the serpent; beneath clouds

  there is commonly wind; and he avoids, moving a point or more to port or

  starboard, areas where there is little wave activity, for they betoken spots in

  which the serpent might, for a time, find itself becalmed. The lookout stood

  upon a broad, flat wooden ring, bound in leather, covered with the fur of sea

  sleen, which fits over the mast. It has a diameter of about thirty inches. It

  sets near the top of the mast, enabling the man to see over the sail, as well as

  to other points. He, standing on this ring, fastens himself by the waist to the

  mast by looping and buckling a heavy belt about it, and through his master belt.

  Usually, too, he keeps one hand on or about the mast. The wooden ring is reached

  by climbing a knotted rope. The mast is not high, only about thirty-five feet

  Gorean, but it permits a scanning of the horizon to some ten pasangs. Forkbeard

  put his First Singer to his own Ax four, threatening my Ax. I covered my piece

  with my own First Singer, moving it to my own Ax five. He exchanged, taking my

  Ax at Jarl six, and I his First Singer with my First Singer. I now had a Singer

  on a central square, but he had freed his Ax four, on which he might now situate

  the Jarl for an attack on the Jarl's Woman's Ax's file. The tempo, at this

  point, was mine. He had played to open position; I had played to direct

  position. The Ax is a valuable piece, of course, but particularly in the early

  and middle game, when the board is more crowded; in the end game when the board

  is freer, it seerns to me the Singer is often of greater power, because of the

  greater number of squares it can control. Scholars weight the pieces equally, at

  three points in adjudications, but I would weight the Ax four points in the

  early and middle game, and the Singer two, and reverse these weights in the end

  game. Both pieces are, however, quite valuable. And I am fond of the Ax. "You

  should not have surrendered your Ax," said Forkbeard. "In not doing so," I said,

  "I would have lost the tempo, and position. Too, the Ax is regarded as less

  valuable in the end game." "You play the Ax well," said Forkbeard. "What is true

  for many men may not be true for you. The weapons you use best perhaps you

  should retain." I thought on what he had said. Kaissa is not played by

  mechanical puppets, but, deeply and subtly, by men, idiosyncratic men, with

  individual strengths and weaknesses. I recalled I had, many times, late in the

  game, regretted the surrender of the Ax, or its equivalent in the south, the

  Tarnsman, when I had simply, as I thought rationally, moved in accordance with

  what were reputed to be the principles of sound strategy. I knew, of course,

  that game context was a decisive matter in such considerations but only now,

  playing Forkbeard, did I suspect that there was another context involved, that

  of the inclinations, capacities and dispositions of the individual player. Too,

  it seemed to me that the Ax, or Tarnsman, might be a valuable piece in the end

  game, where it is seldom found. People would be less used to defending against

  it in the end game; its capacity to surprise, and to be used unexpectedly, might

  be genuinely profitable at such a time in the game. I felt a surge of power.

  Then I noted, uneasily, the Forkbeard moving his Jarl to the now freed Ax four.

  The men with the net drew it up. In it, twisting and flopping, silverish,

  striped with brown, squirmed more than a stone of parsit fish. They threw the

  net to the planking and, with knives, began to slice the heads and tails from

  the fish. "Gorm," said the Forkbeard. "Free the first bond-maid on the coffle.

  The lazy girl has rested too long, and send her to me with a bailing scoop."

  Gorm was bare-chested and barefoot. He wore trousers of the fur of sea sleen.

  About his neck was a golden chain and pendant, doubtless taken once from a free

  woman of the south. As he approached the bond-maids they shrank back from him,

  fearing him, as would any bond-maid one of the men of Torvaldsland. I looked

  upon the eyes of the first girl on the coffle, who was the slender, blondish

  girl, who had worn the red vest and jacket. I recalled how disappointed she had

  been in the men of Torvaldsland, when, heads hanging, they had accompanied the

  Forkbeard to the temple at Kassau. She had then, with amusement, regarded them

  with contempt. But it was neither amusement nor contempt which shone in her eyes

  now as she, shrinking back from him, looked upon Gorm. She now saw the men of

  Torvaldsland in their mightiness, in their freedom, and strength and power, and

  she, a stripped, fettered bond-maid, coffled, feared them. She knew that she

  belonged to them, such fierce and mighty beasts, and that she, and her beauty,

  lay at their mercy, that she, and her beauty, were theirs to do with as they

  pleased. Roughly Gorm unknotted the coffle rope from her neck. He then gestured

  that she, kneeling, should lift her fettered wrists to him; she did so; he, with

  a key from his belt, opened the fetters which held her; he thrust them in his

  belt; he then pulled her by the arm roughly to her feet and thrust her toward

  the Forkbeard. She stumbled across the loose deck planking and stood, hair

  before her face, before us. She thrust her hair back with her right hand, and

  stood well. A bailing scoop was thrust into her hands. It has four sides. It is

  ùmade of wood. It is about six inches in width. There is a diagonally set board

  in its bottom, and the back and two sides are straight. It has a straight, but

  rounded handle, carved smaller at the two ends, one where it adjoins the scoop,

  the other in back of the grip. Gorrn moved aside eight narrow planks from the

  loose decking. Below, some two inches deep, about a foot below the deck

  planking, about two inches over the keel beam, black and briny, shifted the

  bilge water. There was not much water in the bilge, and I was surprised. For a

  clinker built ship, the serpent of Ivar Forkbeard was extraordinarily tight. The

  ship, actually, had not needed to be bailed at all. Indeed, it had not been

  bailed since Kassau. The average ship of Torvaldsland is, by custom, bailed once

  a day, even if the bilge water does not necessitate it. A ship which must, of

  necessity, be bailed three times in two days is regarded as unseaworthy. Many

  such ships, however, are sailed by the men of Torvaldsland, particularly late in

  the season, when the ship is less tight from months of the sea's buffeting. In

  the spring, of course, before the ships are brought from the sheds on rollers to

  the sea, they are completely recalked and tarred. "Bail," said the Forkbeard.

  The girl went to the opened planking
and fell to her knees beside it, the wooden

  scoop in her hands. "Return to me," said the Forkbeard, harshly. Frightened the

  girl did so. "Now turn about," said he, "and walk there as a bondmaid." Her face

  went white. Then she turned and walked to the opened planking as a bond-maid.

  The other bond-maids gasped. The men watching her hooted with pleasure. I

  grinned. I wanted her. "Bond-maid!" scorned Aelgifu, from where she was fettered

  and chained to the mast. I gathered that these two, in Kassau, had been rival

  beauties. Then, sobbing, the blondish girl, who had been forced to walk as a

  bond-maid, fell to her knees beside the opened planking. Once she vomited over

  the side. But, on the whole, she did well. Once the Forkbeard went to her and

  taught her to check the scoop, with her left hand, for snails, that they not be

  thrown overboard. Returning to me he held one of the snails, whose shell he

  crushed between his fingers, and sucked out the animal, chewing and swallowing

  it. He then threw the shell fragments overboard. "They are edible," he said.

  "And we use them for fish bait." We then returned to our game. Once the blond

  girl cried out, the scoop in her hand. "Look!" she cried, pointing over the port

  gunwale. A hundred yards away, rolling and sporting, were a family of whales, a

  male, two females, and four calves. Then she returned to her bailing. "Your hall

  is taken," said the Forkbeard. His Jarl had moved decisively. The taking of the

  hall, in the Kaissa of the North, is equivalent to the capture of the Home Stone

  in the south. "You should not have surrendered your Ax," said the Forkbeard. "It

  seems not," I said. The end game had not even been reached. The hall had been

  taken in the middle game. I would think more carefully before I would surrender

  the Ax in the future. "I am finished," said the slender girl, returning to where

  we sat, and kneeling on the deck. She had performed her first task for her

  master, the Forkbeard, drying, as it is said, the belly of his serpent. It had

  been the first of her labors, set to her by her master in her bondage. "Give

  Gorrn back the scoop," said the Forkbeard, "and then carry water to my men."

  "Yes," she said. The Forkbeard looked at her. "Yes," she said "-myJarl." To the