by John Norman
"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 Forkbeard, said to him, "My Jarl, 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, my Jarl," said the boy. The boy, unlike the adult male thralls, was not chained at night in the bosk shed. Ivar was fond of him. He slept, chained, in the kitchen.
"Red Hair, Gorm," said the Forkbeard. "Fetch the little 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 running 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 had held 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 mouth, he gave her of the drink he had brought with him.
And eagerly, whimpering, shuddering with cold, did Hilda the 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 floor.
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 fur covered, dirt sleeping level, and, trembling, shuddering with cold, drawing her body up, drew the furs about her. She lay 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 Torvaldsland, 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, firmly, 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!"
He gestured to her, and she fled from the circle, to join him, to throw herself at his side, to beg his touch, his bond-maid.
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 would 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 the 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 bond-maids 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 lat
er, 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.
"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, rubbed 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 kneeling, 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 furs?" she begged. I untied her hands from the post, taking, too, the rope from her belly, by which Ottar had fastened her to his belt, but left 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, she 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. "Force me," she whispered.
Bond-maids know they are chattel, and relish being treated as such. Deep in the belly, too, of every 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 they 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 express themselves in neurosis, hysteria and hostility. Technology and social structures, following their own dynamics, integral to their development and expansion, have left behind the pitiful, rational animals who are their builders and their victims. We have built our own cage, and defend it against those who would shatter its locks.
My left hand held her left arm, with my right hand I forced her right wrist behind her back; I thrust it up. She cried out, suddenly, with misery; I threw her to the furs; scarcely had she struck them, crying out, belly down, than I had clasped the fetter 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 fur of Torvaldsland. With a movement of the chain she knelt on the furs, her head down. I entered upon the furs. "To your belly," I said, "ankles a foot apart."
"Yes, my Jarl," she said. I then began to caress her, beneath the shins, on the inside of her feet, behind the backs of her knees, at the sides of her breasts, high between her thighs. By the sensitivity of her muscles, the movements of her body, sometimes her tiny cries, her breathing, she instructed 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 the extent of her, kissing and licking.
"What have you done to my body?" she whispered. "I have never felt this way, this deeply, this fully, before."
"What does your body tell you?" I asked.
"That I will be a marvel to you, Tarl Red Hair," she whispered. "A marvel!"
"Please me," I told her.
"Yes, my Jarl," she wept. "Yes!"
And when she had much pleased me, I finished with her, in the first 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 looked 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."
"My 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 her.
She lifted her head. "Is it beginning?" she asked.
"Yes," I told her.
"May 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 her back.
"Never have I yielded as I yielded now," she wept. "I would not exchange my collar for all the jewels on Gor!"
I held her. In time, she slept. I, too, then, slept. It was two Ahn before dawn. In one Ahn Ottar and the Forkbeard would be up, arousing the men. The serpent, the afternoon before, had been readied. This morning, at dawn, the serpent would leave the small wharf, dipping oars, gliding through fog on the inlet, the result of the cooler land winds moving over the somewhat warmer water of the encroaching Torvaldstream. Ivar Forkbeard, not wisely perhaps, was determined to attend the Thing. He had there, his opinion, an appointment to keep, with Svein Blue Tooth, 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 my 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 its path to the se
a, 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 humor, 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 thermostatic equilibrium in great cold; long, thin bodies, of course, are easiest to maintain thermostatic 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.