Marauders of Gor coc-9

by John Norman

  She now had new tasks to which to address herself, cooking, and churning and carrying water; the improvement of her own carriage, and beauty and attractiveness; and the giving of inordinate pleasure in the furs to her master, Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of Torvaldsland; if she did not do so, well she knew, as an imbonded wench, that others would; it was not, indeed, until her reduction to slavery that she realized, for the first time, how fine a male, how attractive and how powerful, was Svein Blue Tooth, whom she had for years taken for granted; seeing him objectively for the first time, from the perspective of a slave girl, who is nothing herself, and comparing him with other free men, she realized suddenly how mighty how splendid and magnificent he truly was. She set herself diligently to please him, in service and in pleasure, and, if he would permit it, in love.

  Bera went to the next man, to fill his cup with mead, from the heavy, hot tankard, gripped with cloth, which she carried. She was sweating. She was barefoot. The bond-maid was happy.

  I drank.

  The wench Leah again pressed herself against me. I looked down upon her.

  "You are a wanton slave," I said.

  She looked up at me, laughing. "A girl in a collar is not permitted inhibitions," she said.

  It was true. Slave girls must reveal their sexual nature, totally. Do they not do so, they are beaten. On Earth, Leah had been a prim girl, reserved, even haughty and formal. I had forced these truths from her. But on Gor, as with others of her ilk, such lies and false dignities were not permitted her. On Gor, should the girl be so unfortunate as to fall into slavery, the total depth of her needs, her sensations, her deepest and most concealed sensualities, must expose themselves helplessly to the master, even though he may, if he choose, mock her cruelly, to her misery, for her vulnerabilities.

  An example will make this clear. Every woman, of glandular normality, has an occasional desire, often frightening her, to writhe lasciviously, naked, before a powerful male. Should she miserably fall to slavery the passion dance of a nude slave girl will surely be among the least of what is commanded of her. Consider then the plight of the girl. She is forced, to her shame, to do what she has, for years in the secret heart of her, yearned to do. But how helpless, how vulnerable, she is! The dance ended, she falls to the sand, or tiles. Has she pleased him? She can do no more. She looks up. Her pride is gone, like her clothing, save for brand and collar, stripped away. There are tears in her eyes. She is at his mercy. If he repudiates her, she is shamed; she has failed as a female. Probably she will be sold in disgust. But if she discovers, to her terror, that she has pleased him, and he gestures her to him, she knows that she, after such a performance, cannot be respected but can be only a slave in his arms. She has danced as a slave; she will be used as a slave. She is a slave.

  Leah looked up at me. I kissed her again, full on her rouged slave mouth. She kissed well, trembling. And earlier, too, she had danced well. And then, too, later, at first given no choice, then, excited, helplessly aroused, unrestrainable, abandoned, uncontrollable, had performed superbly, serving me well, in the furs. I looked down upon her. Eyes moist, she lifted her lips, eagerly, to mine. I kissed her again. I was pleased that the Forkbeard had given her to me.

  "I would speak!" called Svein Blue Tooth, rising to his feet, lifting a horn of mead. "Outlawry," said he, "once proclaimed by the hall of Blue Tooth against the person of Ivar Forkbeard, he of Forkbeard's Landfall, is herewith, in this hall, in this place, in the name of Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of Torvaldsland, lifted!"

  There was a great cheer.

  "Charges appertaining thereto," roared the Blue Tooth, spilling mead, "are revoked!"

  There were more cheers among the ashes, the blackened, fallen timbers, of the Blue Tooth's razed hall, amidst which the benches and tables of the feast were set. Many were the lamps, bowls on spears, which burned, and torches, too. And brightly glowed the long fire in the hall, over which tarsk and bosk, crackling and glistening with hot fat, roasted, turned heavily on spits by eager, laughing bond-maids.

  "Svein Blue Tooth and I," said Ivar Forkbeard, rising, spilling Hilda from his lap, "have had our differences."

  There was much laughter. The Forkbeard had had a price on his head. The Blue Tooth had sought his life.

  "Doubtless," said he, "it is possible we shall have them again."

  There was again much laughter.

  "For a man, to be great, needs great enemies, great foes." The Forkbeard then lifted his mead to Svein Blue Tooth. "You are a great man, Svein Blue Tooth," said he, "and you have been a great enemy."

  "I shall now," said the Blue Tooth, "if it be within my power, prove to be so good a friend."

  Then the Blue Tooth climbed to the table's top and stood there, and the Forkbeard, astonished, climbed, too, to the surface of the table. Then the men strode to one another, meeting one another and, weeping, embraced.

  Few eyes, I think, in the ruins of that hall, under the torchlight, beneath the stars, the height of the Torvaldsberg in the distance, illuminated in the light of the three moons, were dry.

  Svein Blue Tooth, his arms about the Forkbeard, cried out, hoarsely. "Know this, that from this day forward, Ivar Forkbeard stands among the Jarls of Torvaldsland!"

  We stood and cheered the fortune, the honor, that the Blue Tooth did unto the Forkbeard.

  Ivar, no longer outlaw, now stood among the Jarls of the north.

  Spear blades rang on shields. I stood proudly, strong in my happiness for the fortune of my friend.

  But as the men cried out, and cheered, and the weapons clashed on shields, I looked to a place in the hall where, mounted on a great stake, was the huge, savage head of the Kur, which I had slain on the Skerry of Vars. For a man to be great, had said Ivar Forkbeard, he must need great enemies. I looked at the huge, somber, shaggy head of the Kur, mounted on its stake, some eight feet from the ground. I wondered if men, truly, knew how great their enemies were. And I wondered if men, in ways so weak, so puny, were adequate to such foes. The Kur, it seemed to me, in virtue of its distant, doubtless harsh evolution, was well fitted to be a dominant form of life. It would prove indeed to be a great foe. I wondered if man could be so great a foe, if he in his own terribleness, his ferocity, his intelligence, could match such a beast. On his own worlds, in a sense, man had no natural enemies, save perhaps himself. I regarded the huge, somber head of the Kur. Now he had one, a predator, a foe. Could man be a match for such a beast? I wondered on what might be the magnitude of man.

  "Gifts!" cried Ivar Forkbeard. His men, bearing boxes, trunks, bulging sacks, came forward. They spilled the contents of these containers before the table. It was the loot of the temple of Kassau, and the sapphires of Schendi, which had figured in the wergild imposed upon him by Svein Blue Tooth in the days of his outlawry. Knee deep in the riches waded Ivar and, laughing, hurled untold wealth to those in the hall. Then his men, too, distributed the riches. Then, too, naked slave girls were ordered to the riches, to scoop up sapphires in goblets and carry them about the tables, serving them to the men, kneeling, head down, arms extended, as though they might be wine, and the warriors, laughing, reached into the cups and seized jewels. I saw Hrolf, from the East, the giant, mysterious Torvaldslander, take one jewel from the goblet proffered him, kneeling, by a naked, collared beauty. He slipped it in his pouch, as a souvenir.

  Ivar Forkbeard himself came to me, and pressed into my hand a sapphire of Schendi. "Thank you," said Ivar Forkbeard. I, too, slipped the sapphire into my pouch. To me, too, it was rich with meaning.

  "Ivar!" called Svein Blue Tooth, when the loot was distributed, pointing to Hilda, who, in her collar, stripped cuddled at the Forkbeard's side, "are you not, too, going to give away that pretty little trinket?"

  "No!" laughed the Forkbeard. "This pretty little trinket, this pretty little bauble, I keep for myself!" He then took Hilda in his arms and, holding her across his body, kissed her. She melted to him, in the fantastic, total yielding of the slave girl.

  "Guests!
" shouted a man. "Guests to enter the hall of Svein Blue Tooth!"

  We looked to where once had stood the mighty portals of the hall of Svein Blue Tooth.

  "Bid them welcome," said the Blue Tooth, and he himself left the table, taking a bowl of water and towel to meet the guests at the portal. "Refresh yourselves," said he to them, "and enter."

  Two men, with followers, acknowledged the greeting Svein Blue Tooth; they washed their hands, and their faces and they came forward. I stood.

  "We have sought you," said Samos of Port Kar. "I had feared we might be too late."

  I did not speak.

  He turned to regard the huge, shaggy head of the Kur mounted on its stake.

  "What is this?" he asked.

  "Grendel," I said to him.

  "I do not understand," he said.

  "It is a joke," I said. Beside me, naked, in her collar, Leah shrank back, her hand before her mouth. I look at her. "Yes," I said. She had been of Earth, a free girl until brought as a slave to Gor. She understood my meaning. New understanding, new recognition, figured in her eyes. The wars of Priest-Kings and Others, the Kurii, were of ancient standing. I did not know, nor I suppose did others, outside the Nest, when the first contacts had been made, the first probes initiated, the first awareness registered on the part of Priest-Kings that there were visitors within their system, strangers at the gates, intruders, dangerous and unwelcome, threatening, bent upon the acquisition of territories, planetary countries. It seemed to me not unlikely that the Grendel of legend had been a Kur, a survivor perhaps of a forced landing or a decimated scouting party. Perhaps, even, as a punishment, perhaps for impermissible murder or for violation of ship's discipline, he had been put to shore, marooned.

  "How is it that you have sought me?" I asked.

  "The poison," said he, "that which lay upon the blades of the men of Sarus of Tyros, lurks yet in your body."

  "There is no antidote," I told him. "This I had from Iskander of Turia, who knew the toxin."

  "Warrior," said the man who stood with Samos, "I bring the antidote."

  "You are Sarus of Tyros," I said. "You sought my capture, my life. We have fought as foes in the forests."

  "Speak," said Samos to Sarus.

  Sarus regarded me. He was a lean man, hard, scarred, with clear eyes. He was not of high family in Tyros, but had risen through the ranks to captainship in Tyros. His accent was not of high caste; it had been formed on the jetties of the island Ubarate of cliffed Tyros, where he had for years, I had learned, led gangs of ruffians; caught, he had been dragged before Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, for sentencing to impalement; rather, Chenbar had liked the looks of him and had had him taught the sword; swiftly, given his skills and intelligence, had the young, rugged brigand risen in the service of the Ubar; they were as brothers; there was; I was sure, no man in Tyros more loyal to her Ubar than Sarus. It was to him, as soon as Chenbar, freed of the dungeon of Port Kar, to which I had seen him consigned, had returned to Tyros, that the task had been given to hunt and capture the Ubar of Ar, Marlenus, and an Admiral of Port Kar, Bosk. Of these matters I have elsewhere written.

  "The weapons of my men and myself, unknown to us, before we left Tyros," said he, "were treated with a toxin of the compounding of Sullius Maximus, once a Ubar of Port Kar." Sullius Maximus had been one of the five Ubars of Port Kar, whose reigns, dividing the city, had been terminated when the Council of Captains, under the leadership of Samos, First Captain of Port Kar, had assumed the sovereignty. The others had been Chung, Nigel, Eteocles, and Henrius Sevarius, the last of which, however, had ruled in name only, the true power being controlled by his uncle, Claudius, acting in the role of regent.

  Eteocles had fled; I had known him last to be in terraced Cos, an advisor to her Ubar, gross Lurius, of the Cosian city of Jad. Nigel and Chung were in Port Kar, though now only as powerful captains, high in her council. They had fought against the united fleets of Tyros and Cos and, without their help, doubtless Port Kar could not have won the great victory of the 25th of Se'Kara, in the first year of the reign of the Council of Captains, in the year 10,120 Contasta Ar, from the Founding of Ar.

  Claudius, who had been regent for Henrius Sevarius, and had slain his father, and sought the life of the boy, had been slain by a young seaman, a former slave, named Fish, in my house. The whereabouts of Henrius Sevarius, on whose head a price had been set, were unknown to the Council of Captains. The boy named Fish, incidentally, was still in my service, in Port Kar. He now called himself Henrius.

  Sullius Maximus, most cultured of the former Ubars of Port Kar, a chemist and poet, and poisoner, had sought refuge in Tyros; it had been granted him. "I swear to you that this is so," said Sarus. "We of Tyros are warriors and we do not deal in poisons. Upon my return to Tyros, Sullius inquired if our foes had been wounded, and I informed him that indeed we had struck you, drawing blood. His laughter, as if demented, he turning away, alarmed me.

  I forced the truth from him. I was in agony. It was to you that my men and myself, those who survived, owed their lives. Marlenus would have carried us to Ar for mutilation and public impalement. You were magnanimous, honoring us as warriors and sword brothers. I demanded an antidote. Laughing, Sullius Maximus, adjusting his cloak, informed me that there was none. I determined to slay him, and then take ship to Port Kar, that you might then, if you chose, cut my throat with your own hands. When my blade lay at the heart of the poisoner Chenbar, my Ubar, aroused by his weeping, bade me desist. Swiftly did I inform my Ubar of the shame that Sullius Maximus had wrought upon the Ubarate.

  "I have ridded you of an enemy!" cried Sullius. "Be grateful! Reward me!"

  "Poison," said Chenbar, "is the weapon of women, not warriors. You have dishonored me!"

  "Let me live!" cried the poisoner.

  "Do you, Sarus, retain the poisoned steel?" inquired my Ubar.

  "Yes, my Ubar," replied I.

  "In ten days, wretched Sullius," decreed my Ubar, "your flesh will be cut with the steel of Sarus. On the tenth day, if you would again move your body of your own will, it would be well for you to have devised an antidote."

  Sullius Maximus, then, shaken, white-faced, tottering, was hurried by guards to his chambers, his vials and chemicals. Sarus smiled. He removed a vial from his pouch. It contained a purplish fluid.

  "Has it been tested?" asked Samos.

  "On the body of Sullius Maximus," said Sarus. "On the tenth day, on his arms and legs, and twice, transversely, across his right cheekbone, that his face be scarred and his shame known, I drew the poisoned blade, drawing blood with each stroke."

  I smiled. Sullius Maximus was a handsome man, extremely vain, even foppish. He would not appreciate the alteration of his physiognomy, wrought by the blade of Sarus.

  "Within seconds," said Sarus, "the spiteful fluid took its effect. The eyes of Sullius were wild with fear. "The antidote! The antidote!" he begged. We sat him in a curule chair, vested as a Ubar, and left him. We wished the poison to work, to be truly fixed within his system. The next day, when the bar of noon was struck on the wharves, we administered to him the antidote. It was effective. He is now again in the court of Chenbar, much chastened, but serving again as laureate and advisor. He is not much pleased, incidentally, with the scarring of his countenance. Much amusement on account of it is taken at his expense by his fellows of the court. He holds little affection for you, or for me, Bosk of Port Kar."

  "He called you 'Bosk of Port Kar'," said Ivar Forkbeard, standing near me.

  I smiled. "It is a name I am sometimes known by," I said.

  Sarus proffered to me the vial.

  I took it. "There is, I discover, attendant upon its assimilation," said Sarus of Tyros, "delirium and fever, but, in the end, the body finds itself freed of both poison and antidote. I give it to you, Bosk of Port Kar, and with it the apologies of my Ubar, Chenbar, and those of myself, a seaman in his service."

  "I am surprised," I said, "that Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, is so solicitous of my
welfare."

  Sarus laughed. "He is not solicitous of your welfare, Warrior. He is solicitous, rather, of the honor of Tyros. Little would please Chenbar more than to meet you with daggers on the fighting circle of Tyros. He owes you much, a defeat, and chains and a dungeon, and he has a long memory, my Ubar. No, he is not solicitous of your welfare. If anything, he wants you well and strong, that he may meet you, evenly, with cold steel."

  "And you, Sarus?" I inquired.

  "I," said Sarus, simply, "am solicitous of your welfare, Bosk of Port Kar. You gave, on the coast of Thassa, freedom, and life, to me and my men. I shall not, ever, forget this."

  "You were a good leader," I said, "to bring your men, some wounded, from high on Thassa's coast to Tyros."

  Sarus looked down.

  "There is place in my house in Port Kar," I said, "for one such as you, if you wish to serve me."

  "My place," said Sarus, "is in Tyros." Then he said, "Drink, Bosk of Port Kar, and restore the honor of Chenbar, and the honor of Sarus, and of Tyros."

  I removed the stopper from the vial.

  "It may itself be poison," said Samos.

  I smelled it. It smelled sweet, not unlike a syrup of Turia. "Yes," I said, "it may be." It was true what Samos had said. It could be, indeed, that I held in my hand not an antidote, but a lethal dose of some unknown toxin. I thought of Turia, of its baths and wines. The plan of Tyros might thus, foiled upon the coast of Thassa, be in effect accomplished in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth, at least with respect to him known as Bosk of Port Kar.

  "Do not drink it," said the Forkbeard to me.

  But I had felt, after the battle, again in my body the effects of the poison, though briefly. I had little doubt but that it still lingered in my body. I had little doubt but that, in time, it would again force me to the blankets and chair of a recluse in a hall in Port Kar. If not countered, it would, eventually, doubtless, have its way.