Marauders of Gor

Chapter 4 THE FORKBEARD AND I RETURN TO OUR GAME

Ivar Forkbeard, leaning over the side of his serpent, studied the coloring of the water.Then he reached down and scooped up some in the palm of his hand, testing its temperature.

“We are one day’s rowing,” said he, “from the skerry of Einar and th rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark.”

“How do you know this?”I asked.

We had been out of sight of land for two days, and, the night preceding, had been, with shortened sail, swept eastward by high winds.

“There is plankton here,” said Ivar, “that of the banks south of the skerry of Einar, and the temperarutre of the water tells me that we are now in the stream of Torvald, which moves eastward to the coast and then north.”

The stream of Torvald is a current, as a broad river in the sea, pasangs wide, whose temperature is greater than that of the surrounding water.Without it, much of Torvaldsland, bleak as it is, would be only a forzen waste.Torvcliffs, inlets and mountasin. Its arable soilis thin and found in patches.The size of the average farm is very small.Good farms is often by sea, in small boats.Without the stream of Tovald it would probably be I possible to raise cereal crops in sufficient quantity to fee even its relatively sparse population.There is often not enough food under any conditions, particularly I n northern Torvaldsland, and famine is not known.In such cases men feed on bark, and lichens and seaweed.It is not strange that the young men of torvaldsland often look to the sea, and beyond it, for their fortunes.The streamof Torvald is regarded by the men of Torvaldsland as a gift of Thor, bestowed upon Torvald, legendary founder and hero of the land, in exchange of a ring of gold.

Ivar Forkgeard went to the mast.Before it sat Aelgifu.She was chained to it by the neck.Her wrist, in the black, iron fetters of the north, were now fastened before her body that she could feed herself.There was salt in her hair.She still wore her black velvet but now it was stained with sea water, and slat, and was discolored, and stiff, and creased.She was barefoot.

“Tomorrow night,” said Ivar Forkbeard to her, “ I shall have your ransom money.”

She did not deign to speak to him, but looked away.Like the bond-maids, she had been fed only on cold Sa-Tarna poridge and scraps of dried parist fish.

The men of Toravldsland sometimes guide their vessels by noting the direction of the waves, breaking against the prow, these correlated with prevailing winds.Sometimes they use the shadows of the gunwales, failing across the ghwarts, judging their angles.The sun, too, of couse, is used, and, at night, the stars give them suitable compass, even in the open sea.

It is a matter of their tradition not to rely on the needle compass, as is done in the south. The Gorean compass points always to the Sardar, the home of Priest-Kings.The men of Torvaldsland do not use it. They do not need it. The sextant, however, 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! Laughedthe 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 25^th of Se’Kara had taken place in 10,12 °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 ofThor’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, fearedthem. 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 umade 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.

“Yourhall 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 bond-maid the meanest of the free men of the North is her jarl. We heard Aelgifu laugh from the mast.The bond-haired girl rose to her feet and surrendered the scoop to Gorm, who put it away, and then closed the deck planking. She then went to one of the large, wooden, covered water buckets, roped to the deck, and in it submerged a water-skin. I heard the bubbling as the skin filled.

The men of Torvaldsland had not sought the whales. They had meat enough. They had barely taken notice of them. It was now late in the afternoon.

I noted the blondish girl, the water bag now, wet and heavy, over her shoulder, going to the men of the Forkbeard, to offer them drink.

She was quite beautiful.

The men who had fished with the net had now cleaned the catch of parsit fish, and chopped the cleaned, boned, silverish bodies into pieces, a quarter inch in width. Another of the bond-maids was then freed to mix the bond-maid gruel, mixing fresh water with Sa-Tarna meal, and then stirring in the raw fish.

“Let us have another game,” said the Forkbeard.

I set up the pieces.

He went to Ael~ifu, who sat before the mast, her wr;sts fettered before her, her neck chained to the mast. He lifted her black, velvet dress up a little, revealing her ankle. She shrank back against the mast.

“Tomorrow night,” he said, “I will have your ransom money.”

“Yes,” she said.

With his two large hands, he held her right ankle. She could not draw it away.

“I am free,’ she whispered.

Holding her ankle with his left hand, he, with the fingers of his right hand, caressed, gently, her instep. She shuddered.

“I am free,” she said. “Free!”

“Would you not, my large breasted beauty,” said he, “like to spend the night with me in my bag of the skin of the sea sleen?”

“No!” she cried. “No!’Then she said, “If I am violated he will not pay the ransom! Too he will bring with him awoman, that determination on this matter be made! Surely you wish my ransom!”

“Yes,” said the Forkbeard, putting down her ankle, “I do indeed want your ransom, and I shall have it.”

“Then, Beast,” said she, “do not touch me!”

“I am not touching you,” said he, and got to his feet.

She turned away, and would not look at him. But she said to him, “Give me a covering for the night, that I may not be wet and cold.”

“Go lie with the bond-maids,” said he.

“Never!” she said.

“Then stay where you are,” said the Forkbeard.

She looked up at him, her hair bedraggled, her eyes flashing. “Very well,” said she, “I shall endure the night cheerfully. It will be my last in your bondage!”

The girl who had prepared the bond-maid gruel, had now been refettered and placed again in the coffle. The slender blond girl, who had been giving the men water from the skin bag, was now given the work of filling small bowls from the large wooden bowl, for the bond-maids. She used a bronze ladle, the handle of which was curved like the neck and head of a lovely bird. About the handle was a closed bronze ring, loose. It formed a collar for the bird’s neck. The bond-maids did not much care for their gruel, unsweetened, mudlike Sa-Tarna meal, with raw fish. They fed, however. One girl who did not care to feed was struck twice across her back by a knotted rope in the hand of Gorm. Quickly then, and well, she fed. The girls, including the slender blondish girl, emptied rheir bowls, even to licking them, and rubbing them with their saliva-dampened fingers, that no grain be left, lest Gorm, their keeper in the ship, should not be pleased. They looked to one another infear, and put down their bowls, as they finished, fed bondwenches.

“Come here, Wench,” called the Forkbeard.

The slender blondish girl quickly approached him, and knelt before him on the deck.

“Feed her,” said the Forkbeard, gesturing over his shoulder.

The girl rose, and went to fill one of the small bowls for Aelgifu. Soon, she brought it to her.

As she approached Aelgifu, Aelgifu called out to her, “You walk well, Thyri. You walk as a bond-maid.”

The slender, blondish girl, called Thyri, though now, actually, she had no name, not having been given one by the Forkbeard, did not respond to Aelgifu’s taunt.

“Kneel,” said Aelgifu.

The girl knelt.

“What have you there?” asked Aelgifu.

“Gruel,” said the girl.

“Taste it,” said Aelgifu.

Obediently, angrily, the girl did so.

“It is bond-maid gruel, is it not?” asked Aelgifu.

“Yes,” said the girl.

“Why then,” asked Aelgifu, “have you brought it to me?”

The girl put her head down.

“I am free,” said Aelgifu. “Take it away. It is for such as you.”

The girl did not respond.

“When my ransom is paid, and I return,” said Aelgifu, “there will no longer be dispute as to who is the most beautiful in Kassau.”

“No,” said the girl.

“But I was always the most beautiful,” said Aelgifu.

The blond girl’s eyes flashed.

“Take this gruel away,” said Aelgifu. “It is for bondmaids such as you.”

The blond girl rose to her feet and left Aelgifu. The Forkbeard looked up from his game. He reached out and took the bowl from the blond girl. He said to Gorm, “Return her to the coffle.” He took the blond girl back to the coffle. He made her kneel and again snapped on her wrists the iron, single-linked fetters of the north, and then he tied her by the neck at the end of the coffle.

The Forkbeard was using the Jarl’s Ax’s gambit, a powerful opening.I studied the board with care.

Ivar Forkbeard approached Aelgifu with the small bowl of gruel. He crouched down beside her.

“When your father sees you tomorrow night,” said he, “you must not be weak, but rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed. What otherwise would he think of the hospitality I extend to my prisoners?”

“I will not eat the gruel of bond-maids,” said Aelgifu.

“You will eat it,” said the Forkbeard, “or you will be stripped and put to the oar.”

She looked at him with horror.

“That will not violate you, my pretty,” said the Forkbeard.

In this punishment, the girl, clothed or unclothed, is bound tightly on an oar, hands behind her, her head down, toward the blade. When the oar lifts from the water she gasps for breath, only in another moment to be submerged again. A recalcitrant girl may be kept on the oar for hours. There is also, however, some danger in this, for sea sleen and the white sharks of the north occasionally attempt to tear such a girl from the oar. When food is low it is not unknown for the men of Torvaldsland to use a bond-maid, if one is available on the ship, for bait in such a manner. The least pleasing girl is always used. This practice, of course, encourages bondmaids to vie vigorously to please their masters. An Ahn on the oar is usually more than sufficient to make the coldest and proudest of females an obedient, eager-to-please bondmaid. It is regarded as second only to the five-lash Gorean slave whip, used also in the south, and what among the men of Torvaldsland is called the whip of the furs, in which the master, with his body, incontrovertibly teaches the girl her slavery.

“Open your mouth, my large-breasted beauty,” said the Forkbeard.

Eyes wide, she did so. He thrust the contents of the small bowl into her mouth. Choking, the proud Aelgifu swallowed the thick gruel, that of dampened Sa-Tarna meal and raw fish, the gruel of bond-maids.

“Tomorrow night I shall have your ransom,” he said.

“Tomorrow night,?’ she cried, “I shall be free of you!”

He threw the cup back to the stern of the ship, and returned to sit down with me.

“I think I may have devised a plan,” I said, “to meet the JarI’s Ax’s gambit.”

‘ Good,” said the Forkbeard, studying the board.

We heard sobbing from the bond-maids. We looked and saw the slender, blondish girl weeping, her body shaken by sobs, head down.

“Be silentl” said one of the other girls. “They will beat us!”

Gorm was then at her, and struck her five times with his knotted rope.

The slender blond girl stifled her sobs. “Yes, myJarl!” she wept.

Then she put her head down, and was silent, though her body still shook.

The Forkbeard and I returned to our game.