Marauders of Gor

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 m 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 it’s path to the sea, 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 forthe 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 humour, 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 therostatic equilibrium in great cold; long, thin bodies, of course, are easiest to maintain therostatic 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.

Prior to his winning the swimming he had won talmits for climbing the “mast”, a tall pole of needle wood, some fifty feet high, smoothed and peeled: for jumping the “crevice”, actually a broad jump, on level land, where marks are made with strings, to the point at which the back heel strikes ther earth; wlking the “oar”, actually, a long pole; and throwing the spear, a real spear I am pleased to say, both for distance and accuracy; counting the distance and the accuracy of the spear events as two events which they are, he had thus, prior to the swimming, won five talmits.

He had done less well in the singing contest, though he much prided himself on his singing voice; he thought, in that one, the judges had been against him; he did not score highly either in the composition of poetry contest nor in the rhyming games; “I am not a skald,” he explained to me later; he did much better, I might mention, in the riddle guessing; but not well enough to win; he missed the following riddle; “What is black, has eighty legs and eats gold?”; the answer, though it might not seem obvious, was Black Sleen, the ship of Thorguard of Scagnar; the Forkbeard’s answer had been Black Shark, the legendary ship of Torvald, reputed discoverer and first Jarl of Torvaldsland; he acknowledged his defeat in this contest, however, gracefully; “I was a fool.” He grumbled to me. “I should have known!” Though I attempted to console him, he remained much put out with himself, and for more than an Ahn afterward.

In spite of his various losses, he had, even in his own modest opinion, done quite well in the contests. He was in excellent humor.

Perhaps the most serious incident of the contests had occurred in one of the games of bat and ball; in this contest there are two men on each side, and the object is to keep the ball out of the hands of the other team; no one man may hold the ball for more than the referee’s count of twenty; he may, however, throw it into the air, provided it is thrown over his head, and catch it again himself; the ball may be thrown to a partner, or struck to him with the bat; the bat, of course, drives the ball with incredible force; the bats are of heavy wood, rather broad, and the ball, about two inches in diameter, is also of wood, and extremely hard; this is something like a game of “keep away” with two men in the middle. I was pleased that I was not involved in the play. Shortly after the first “knock off”, in which the ball is served to the enemy, Gorm, who was Ivar’s partner, was struck cold with the ball, it driven from the opponent’s bat; this, I gathered, is a common trick; it is very difficult to intercept or protect oneself from a ball struck at one with great speed from a short distance; it looked quite bad for Ivar at this point, until one of his opponents, fortunately, broke his leg, it coming into violent contact with Ivar’s bat. This contest was called a draw.Ivar then asked me to be his partner. I declined.

“It is all right,” said Ivar, “even the bravest of men may decline a contest of bat-and-ball.”

I acceded to his judgment. There are various forms of ball game enjoyed by the men of Torvaldsland; some use bats, or paddles; in the winter, one such game, quite popular, is played, men running and slipping about, on ice; whether there is any remote connection between this game and ice hockey, I do not know; it is, however, ancient in Torvaldsland; Torvald himself, in the sagas, is said to have been skilled at it. Ivar Forkbeard, or Thorgeir of Ax Glacier, as we might call him, had won, all told, counting the swimming talmit, six talmits.

He was much pleased.

In the morning talmits would be awarded personally by the hand of Svein Blur Tooth.

“Let us, this afternoon,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “give ourselves to strolling.”

That seemed to me not a bad idea, unless a better might have been to flee for our lives.

In the morning we might find ourselves chained at the foot of cauldrons of boiling tharlarion oil.

But soon I, following the Forkbeard, together with some of his men, pressed in among the throngs of the thing.

I carried my short sword. I carried, too, the great bow, unstrung, with quiver of arrows.

The Forkbeard, too, and his men, were armed. Blows are not to be struck at the thing, but not even the law of the thing, with all its might, would have the termerity to advise the man of Torvaldsland to arrive or move about unarmed. The man of Torvaldsland never leaves his house unless he is armed; and, within his house, his weapons are always near at hand, usually hung on the wall behind his couch, at least a foot beyond the reach of a bond-maid whose ankle is chained. Should she, lying on her back, look back and up she sees, on the wall, the shield, the helmet, the spear and ax, the sword, in its sheath, of her master. They are visible symbols of the force by which she is kept in bondage, by which she is kept only a girl, whose belly is beneath his sword.

Most of the men at the thing were free farmers, blond-haired, blue-eyed and proud, men with strong limbs and work-roughened hands; many wore braided hair; many wore talmits of their district; for the thing their holidy best had been donned; many wore heavy woolen jackets, scrubbed with water and bosk urine, which contains ammonia as it’s cleaning agent; all were armed, usually with ax or sword; some wore their helmets; others had them, with their shields, slung at their back. At the thing, to which each free man must come, unless he work his farm alone and cannot leave it, each man must be present, for the inspection of his Jarl’s officer, a helmet, shield and either sword or ax or spear, in good condition. Each man, generally, save he in the direct hire of the Jarl, is responsible fot the existence and condition of his own equipment and weapons. A man in direct fee with the Jarl is, in effect, a mercenary; the Jarl himself, from his gold, and stores, where necessary or desirable, arms the man; this expense, of course, is seldom necessary in Torvaldsland; sometimes, however, a man may break a sword or lose an ax in battle, perhaps in the body of a foe, falling from a ship; in such a case the Jarl would make good the loss; he is not responsible for similar losses, however, among free farmers. Those farmers who do not attend the thing, being the sole workers on their farms, must, nonetheless, maintain the regulation armament; once annually it is to be presented before a Jarl’s officer, who, for this purpose, visits various districts. When the war arrow is carried, of course, all free men are to respond; in such a case the farm may suffer, and his companion and children know great hardship; in leaving his family, the farmer, weapons upon his shoulder, speaks simply to them. “The war arrow has been carried to my house,” he tells them.

We saw, too, many chieftains, and captains, and minor Jarls, in the crowd, each with his retinue. These high men were sumptuously garbed, richly cloaked and helmeted, often with great axes, inlaid with gold. Their cloaks were usually scarlet or purple, long and swirling, and held with golden clasps. They wore them, always, as is common in Torvaldsland, in such a way that the right arm, the sword arm, is free.

Their men, too, often wore cloaks, and, about their arms, spiral rings of gold and silver, and, on their wrists, jewel-studded bands.

In the crowd, too, much in evidence, were brazen bond-maids; they had been brought to the thing, generally, by captains and Jarls; it is not unusual for men to bring such slaves with them, though they are not permitted near the law courts or the assemblies of deliberation; the voyages to the thing were not, after all, ventures of raiding; they were not enterprises of warfare; there were three reasons for bringing such girls; they were for the pleasure of men; they served, as display objects, to indicate the wealth of their masters; and they could be bought and sold.

The Forkbeard had bought with him, too, some bond-maids. They followed us. Their eyes were bright; their steps were eager; they had been long isolated on the farm; rural slave girls, the Forkbeard’s wenches, they were fantastically stimulated to see the crowds; they looked upon the thing-fields with pleasure and excitement; even had they been permitted, some of them, to look upon certain of the contests. It is said that such pleasures improve a female slave. Sometimes, in the south, female slaves are dressed in the robes of free women, even veiled, and taken by their masters to see the tarn races, or games, or songs-dramas; many assume that she, sitting regally by his side, is a companion, or being courted for the companionship; only he and she know that their true relation is that of master and slave girl; but when they return home, and the door to his compartment closes, their charade done, she immediately strips to brand and collar, and kneels, head to his feet, once again only an article of his property; how scandalized would have been the free woman, had they known that, next to them perhaps, had been sitting a girl who was only slave; but there were no disguises in Torvaldsland; there was no mistaking thatthe girls that followed the Forkbeard, or “Thorgeir of Ax Glacier,” were bond; to better display his pets, and excite the envy of others, the Forkbeard had had his girls drop their kirtles low upon their hips, and hitch them high, that their beauty might be well exhibited, from their collars to some inches below their navels, and, too, that the turns of their calves and ankles might be similarly displayed; I would have thought that they might have groaned with humiliation and attempted to hide themselves among us, but, instead, even Pudding and Thyri, they walked as proud, shameless bond-maid; the exposure of the females navel, on Gor, is known as the “slave belly”; only female slaves expose their navels; from a vendor, the Forkbeard bought his girls honey cake; with their fingers they ate it eagerly, crumbs at the side of their mouths.

“Look!” cried Pudding. “A silk girl!” The expression “silk girl” is used, often, among bond-maids of the north, to refer to their counterparts in the south. The expression reflects their belief that such girls are spoiled, excessively pampered, indulged and coddled, sleek pets, who have little to do but adorn themselves with cosmetics and await their masters, cuddled cutely, on plush, scarlet coverlets, fringed with gold. There is some envy in this charge, I think. More literally, the expression tends to be based on the fact that the brief slave tunic of the south, the single garment permitted the female slave, is often silk. Southern girls, incidentally, in my opinion, though scarcely as worked as their northern sisters in bondage, a function of the economic distinction between the farm and the city, are often worked, and worked hard, particularly if they have not pleased their masters. Yet, I think their labors less than those often performed by the wife of Earth. This is a consequence of Gor’s simpler culture, in which there is literally less to do, less to clean, less to care for, and so on, and also ofthe fact that the Gorean master, if pleased with the wench, takes care that she is fresh and ready for the couch. An overworked, weary woman, despondent and tired, is less responsive to her master’s touch; she does not squirm as well. The Gorean master, treating her as the animal she is, works and handles her in such a way that the responses of his passionate, exciting, hot-eyed, slim-legged pet are kept honed to perfection. Some men are better at this, of course, than others. There are scrolls, books, on Gor, which may be purchased inexpensively, on the feeding, care, and training of female slaves. There are others who claim, as would be expected, that the handling of a slave girl, in order to get the most out of her, is an inborn gift. Incidentally, for what it is worth, though the southern girl is, I expect, worked less hard then the northern girl, who is commonly kept isolated on the farm, she is more often than her northern sister put to the switch or whip; I think she lives under a harsher discipline; southern masters are harder with their girls, expecting more from them and seeing that they get it; northern girls, for example, are seldom trained in the detailed, intricate sensuous arts of the female slave; the southern girl, to her misery, must often learn these to perfection; moreover, upon command, she must perform, joyfully and skillfully.

The silk girl was heeling her master, a captain of Torvaldsland. She wore, indeed, a brief tunic of the south, of golden silk. She wore a collar of gold, and, hanging in her ears, were loops of gold.

“High-farm girls!” she whispered, as she passed the bond-maids of Ivar Forkbeard. In the south the southern slave girl commonly regards her northern counterparts as bumpkins, dolts from the high farms on the slopes of the mountains of Torvaldsland; she thinks of them as doing little but swilling tarsk and dunging fields; she regards them as, essentially, nothing more thana form of bosk cow, used to work, to give simple pleasure to rude men, and to breed thralls.

“Cold fish!” cried out Pudding. “Stick!” cried out Pouting Lips.

The silk girl, passing them, did not appear to hear them. “Pierced-ear girl!” screamed Pouting lips.

The silk girl turned, stricken. She put her hands to her ears. There were sudden tears in her eyes. Then weeping, she turned away, her head in her hands, and fled after her master.

The bond-maids of Ivar Forkbeard laughed delightedly. The Forkbeard reached out and seized Pudding by the back of the neck. He looked at her. He also looked at Pouting Lips, who shrank back. He turned Pudding’s head. “You wenches,” he said, “might look well with pierced ears.” “Oh, no, my Jarl.” Wept Pudding. “No!” “No,” wept Pouting Lips. “Please, no, my Jarl!”

“Perhaps,” mused the Forkbeard, “I shall have it done to the batch of you upon my return. Gautrek can perform this small task, I expect.”

“No,” whimpered the girls, huddled together. The Forkbeard turned then, and we contimued on our way. The Forkbeard whistled. He was in an excellent mood. In moments the girls, too, were again laughing and sporting, and pointing out sights to one another. There was only one of the Forkbeard’s wenches who did not sport and laugh. Her name was Dagmar. There was a strap of binding fibre knotted about her collar. She was led by Thyri. Her hands were tied together, behind her back. She had been brought to the thing to be sold off.

“Let us watch duels,” said the Forkbeard. The duel is a device by which many disputes, legal and personal, are settled in Torvaldsland. There are two general sorts, the formal duel and the free duel. The free duel permits all weapons; there are there are no restrictions on tactics or field. At the thing, of course, adjoining squares are lined out for these duels. If the combatants wished, however, they might choose another field. Such duels, commonly, are held on wave-struck skerries in Thassa. Two men are left alone; later, at nightfall, a skiff returns, to pick up the survivor. The formal duel is quite complex, and I shall not describe it in detail. Two men meet, but each is permitted a shield bearer; the combatants strike at one another, and the blows, hopefully, are fended by each’s shield bearer; three shields are permitted to each combatant; when these are hacked to pieces or otherwise rendered useless, his shield bearer retires, and he must defend himself with his own weapon alone; swords not over a given length, too, are prescribed. The duel takes place, substantially, on a large, square cloak, ten feet on each side, which is pegged down on the turf; outside this cloak there are two squares, each a foot from the cloak, drawn in the turf. The outer corners of the second of the two drawn squares are marked with hazel wands; there is this a twelve-foot-square fighting area; no ropes are stretched between the hazel wands. When the first blood touches the cloak the match may, at the agreement of the combatants, or in the discretion of one of the two referees, be terminated; a price of three silver tarn disks is then paid to the victor by the loser; the winner commonly then performs a sacrifice; if the winner is rich, and the match of great importance, he may slay a bosk; if he is poor, or the match is not considered a great victory, his sacrifice may be less. These duels, particularly of the formal variety, are sometimes used disreputably for gain by unscrupulous swordsmen. A man, incredibly enough, may be challenged risks his life among the hazel wands; he may be slain; then, too, of course, the stake, the farm, the companion, the daughter, is surrendered by law to the challenger. The motivation of this custom, I gather, is to enable strong, powerful men to obtain land and attractive women; and to encourage those who possess such to keep themselves in fighting condition. All in all I did not much approve of the custom. Commonly, of course, the formal duel is used for more reputable purposes, such as settling grievances over boundaries, or permitting an opportunity where, in a case of insult, satisfaction might be obtained.

One case interested us in particular. A young man, not more than sixteen, was preparing to defend himself against a large burly fellow, bearded and richly helmeted.

“He is a famous champion,” said Ivar, whispering to me, nodding to the large burly fellow. “He is Bjarni of Thorstein Camp.” Thorstein Camp, well to the south, but yet north of Einar’s Skerry, was a camp of fighting men, which controlled the countryside about it, for some fifty pasangs, taking tribute from the farms. Thorstein of Thorstein’s Camp was their Jarl. The camp was od wood, surrounded by a palisade, built on an island in an inlet, called the inlet of Thorestein Camp, formally known as the inlet of Parsit, because of the rich fishing there.

The stake in this challenge was the young man’s sister, a comely, blond lass of fourteen, with braided hair. She was dressed in the full regalia of a free woman of the north. Theclothes were not rich, but they were clean, and her best. She wore two brooches; and black shoes. The knife had been removed from the sheath at her belt; she stood straight, but her head was down, her eyes closed; about her neck, knotted, was a rope, it fastened to a stake in the ground near the dueling square. She was not otherwise secured.

“Forfeit the girl,” said Bjarni of Thorstein Camp, addressing the boy, “and I will not kill you.”

“I do not care much for the making women of Torvaldsland bond,” said Ivar. “It seems improper,” he whispered to me. “They are of Torvaldsland!”

“Where is the boy’s father?” I asked one who stood next to me.

“He was slain in an avalanche,” said the man.

I gathered then that the boy was then owner of the farm. He had become, then, the head of his household. It was, accordingly, up to him to defend as best he could, against such a challenge.

“Why do you challenge a baby?” asked Ivar Forkbeard.

Bjarni looked upon him, not pleasantly. “I want the girl for Thorstein Camp,” he said. “I have no quarrel with children.”

“Will she be branded there, and collared?” asked Ivar.

“Thorstein Camp has no need for free women.”

“She is of Torvaldsland,” said Ivar.

“She can be taught to squirm and carry mead as well as any other wench,” said bjarni.

I had no doubt this was true. Yet the girl was young. I doubted that a girl should be put in collar before she was fifteen.

Ivar looked at me. “Would you like to carry my shield?” he asked.

I smiled. I went to the young man, who was preparing to step into the area of hazel wands. He was quite a brave lad.

Another youngster, about his own age, probably from an adjoining farm, would carry his shield for him.

“What’s your name, Lad?” I asked the young man preparing to enter the square marked off with the hazel wands.

“Hrolf,” said he, “of the Inlet of Green Cliffs.”

I then took both of the boys, by the scruff, and threw them, stumbling, more than twenty feet away to the grass.

I stepped on the leather of the cloak. “I’m the champion,” said I, “of Hrolf of Inlet of Green Cliffs.” I unsheathed the sword I wore at my belt.

“He is mad,” said Bjarni.

“Who is your shield bearer?” asked one of the two white-robed referees.

“I am!” called the Forkbeard, striding into the area of hazel wands.

“I appreciate the mad bravery,” said I, “of the good fellow Thorgeir of Ax Glacier, but, as we all know, the men of Ax Glacier, being of a hospitable and peaceful sort, are unskilled in weapons.” I looked at the Forkbeard. “We are not hunting whales now,” I told him, “Thorgeir.”

The Forkbeard spluttered.

I turned to the referee. “I cannot accept his aid,” I told him. “It would too much handicap me,” I explained, “being forced, doubtless, to constantly look out for, and protect, one of his presumed ineptness.”

“Ineptness!” thundered the Forkbeard.

“You are of Ax Glacier, are you not?” I asked him, innocently. I smiled to myself. I had, I thought, hoisted the Forkbeard by his own petard.

He laughed, and turned about, taking his place on the side.

“Who will bear your shield?” asked one of the referees.

“My weapon is my shield,” I told him, lifting the sword. “He will not strike me.”

“What do you expect to do with that paring knife?” asked Bjarni of Thorstein Camp, looking at me puzzled. He thought me mad.

“Your long sword,” I told him, “is doubtless quite useful in thrusting over the balwarks of ships, fastened together by grappling irons, as mine would not be, but we are not now, my dear Bjarni, engaging in combat over the bulwarks of ships.”

“I have reach on you!” he cried.

“But my blade will protect me,” I said. “Moreover, the arc of your stroke is wider then mine, and your blade heavier. You shall shortly discover that I shall be behind your guard.”

“Lying sleen!” cried out the man of Thorstein Camp.

The girl, the rope on her throat, looked wildly at me. The two boys, white-faced, stood behind the hazel wands. They understood no more of what was transpiring than most others of those present.

The chief referee looked at me. His office was indicated by a golden ring on his arm. To his credit, he had, obviously, not much approved of the former match.

“Approve me,” I told him.

He grinned. “I approve you,” said he, “ as the champion of Hrolf of Inlet of Green Cliffs.” Then he said to me, “As you are the champion of the challenged, it is your right to strike the first blow.”

I tapped the shield of Bjarni of Thorstein Camp, it held by another ruffian from his camp, with the point of my sword.

“It is struck,” I said.

With a cry of rage the shield bearer of Bjarni of Thorstein Camp rushed at me, to thrust me back, stumbling, hopefully to put me off my balance, for the following stroke of his swordsman.

I stepped to one side. The shield bearer’s charge carried him almost tot he hazel wands. Bjarni, sword high, had followed him. I now stood beside Bjarni, the small sword at his neck. He turned white. “Let us try again,” I said. Quickly he fled back, and was joined by his shield bearer. In the second charge, though I do not know if it were elegant or not, given the properties of the formal duel, I tripped the shield bearer. One is not supposed to slay the shield bearer but, as far as I knew, tripping, though perhaps not in the best of form, was acceptable. I had, at any rate, seen it done in an earlier match. And, as I expected, neither of the referees warned me of an infraction. I gathered, from the swift looks on their faces, that they had thought it rather neatly done, though they are supposed to be objective in such matters. The fellow went sprawling. Bjarni, quite wisely, he obviously brighter than his shield bearer, had not followed him so closely this time, but had hung back. Our swords met twice, and then I was under his guard, the point of my sword under his chin. “Shall we try again?” I asked.

The shield bearer leaped to his feet. “Let us fight!” he cried.

Bjarni of Thorestein Camp looked at me. “No,” he said. “Let us not try again.” He took the point of his sword and made a cut in his own forearm, and held it out, over the leather. Drops fell to the leather. “My blood,” said Bjarni of Thorstein Camp, “is on the leather.” He sheathed his sword.

The girl and her brother, and his friend, and others cried with pleasure.

Her brother ran to her and untied the rope from about her neck.

His friend, though she was but fourteen, took her in his arms.

Bjarni of Thorstein Camp went to the boy whom he had challenged. From his wallet he took forth three tarn disks of silver and placed them, one after the other, in the boy’s hand. “I am sorry, Hrolf of the Inlet of Green Cliffs,” he said, “for having bothered you.”

Then Bjarni came to me and put out his hand. We shook hands. “There is fee for you in Thorstein Camp,” said he, “should you care to share our kettles and our girls.”

“My thanks,” said I. “Bjarni of Thorstein Camp.” Then he, with his shield bearer, left the leather of the square of hazel wands.

“These I give to you, Champion,” said the boy, trying to push into my hands the three tarn disks of silver.

“Save them.” Said I, “for your sister’s dowry in her companionship.”

“With what then,” asked he, “have you been paid?”

“With sport,” I said.

“My thanks, Fighter,” said the girl.

“My thanks, too, Champion,” said the boy who held her.

I bowed my head.

“Boy!” cried the Forkbeard. The boy looked at him. The Forkbeard threw him a golden tarn disk. “Buy a bosk and sacrifice it,” said the Forkbeard. “Let there be much feasting on the farms of the Inlet of Green Cliffs!”

“My thanks, Captain!” cried the boy. “My thanks!”

There was cheering from the men about, as I, the Forkbeard, some of his men, and some of his bond-maids, left the place of dueling.

We passed one fellow, whom we noted seized up two bars of red hot metal and ran some twenty feet, and then threw them from him.

“What is he doing?” I asked.

“He is proving that he has told the truth,” said the Forkbeard.

“Oh,” I said.

I noted that the bond-maids of Ivar Forkbeard attracted more then their expected share of attention. They were quite beautiful, from collars to low bellies, and the turn of their legs.

“Your girls walk well.” I told Ivar.

“They are bond-maids,” said he, “under the eyes of strange men.”

I smiled. The girls wore their kirtles as they did not simply that the riches owned by Ivar Forkbeard might be well displayed, the better to excite the envy of others and brighten his vanity, but for another reason as well; the female slave, knowing she is slave, finds it stimulating to be exposed to the inspection of unknown men; do they find her body pleasing; do they want it; is she desired; she sees their looks, their pleasure; these things, for example, do they wish they owned her, she finds gratifying; she is female; she is proud of her allure, her beauty; further, she is stimulated by knowing that one of these strange men might buy her, might own her, and that then she would have to please him, and well; the eyes of a handsome free man and a slave girl meet; she sees he wonders how she would be in the furs; he sees that she, furtively, speculates on what it would be like to be owned by him; she smiles, and, in her collar, hurries on; both receive pleasure.

“When we return to Forkbeard’s Landfall,” said the Forkbeard, “they will be better, for having looked, and having been looked upon.”

In the south, a girl is sometimes sent to the market clad only in her brand and collar; not infrequently, upon her return home, she begs her master for his touch. To be seen and desired is stimulating to the female slave.

A girl must be careful, of course; should she in anyway irritate, or not please, her master she may be switched or whipped.

In some cities, once a day, a girl must kneel and kiss the whip which, if she is not sufficiently pleasing to her master, will be used to beat her.

A farmer, in the crowd, reached forth. His heavy hand, swiftly, from her left hip to her right breast, caressed Thyri, lingering momentarily on her breast. She stopped, startled. Then she darted away. “Buy me, my Jarl!” she laughed. “Buy me!”

The Forkbeard grinned. His girls, he knew, were good. Few who looked upon them would not have liked to own them.

We saw thralls, too, in the crowd, and rune-priests, with long hair, in white robes, a spiral ring of gold on their left arms, about their waist a bag of omens chips, pieces of wood soaked in the blood of the sacrificial bosk, slain to open the thing; these chips are thrown like dice, sometimes several times, and are then read by the priests; the thing-temple, in which the ring of the temple is kept, is made of wood; nearby, in a grove, hung from poles, were bodies of six verr; in past days, it is my understanding, there might have been decided, however, a generation ago, by one of the rare meetings of the high council of rune-priests, attended by the high rune-priests of each district, that thralls should no longer be sacrificed; this was not defended, however, on grounds of the advance of civilization, or such, but rather on the grounds that thralls, like urts and tiny six-toed tharlarion, were not objects worthy of sacrifice; there had been a famine and many thralls had been sacrificed; in spite of this the famine had not abated for more than four growing seasons; this period, too, incidentally, was noted for the large number of raids to the south, often involving entire fleets from Torvaldsland; it had been further speculated that the gods had no need of thralls, or, if they did, they might supply this need themselves, or make this need known through suitable signs; no signs, however, luckily for thralls, were forthcoming;this was taken as a vindication of the judgement of the high council of rune-priests; after the council, the status of rune-priests had risen in Torvaldsland; this may also have had something to do with the fact that the famine, finally, after four seasons, abated; the status of the thrall, correspondingly, however, such as it was, declined; he was now regarded as much in the same category with the urts that one clubs in the Sa-Tarna sheds, or are pursued by small pet sleen, kept there for that purpose, or with the tiny, six-toed rock tharlarionof southern Torvaldsland, favored for their legs and tails, which are speared by children. If the thrall had been nothing in Torvaldsland before, he was now less than nothing; his status was now, in effect, that of the southern, male work slave, found often in the quarries and mines, and, chained, on the great farms. He, a despised animal, must obey instantly and perfectly, or be subject to immediate slaughter. The Forkbeard had bought one thrall with him, the young man, Tarsk, who, even now, followed in the retinue of the Forkbeard; it was thought that if the Forkbeard should purchase a crate of sleen fur or a chest of bog iron the young man, on his shoulders, might then bear it back to our tent, pitched among other tents, at the thing; bog iron, incidentally, is inferior to the iron of the south; the steel and iron of the weapons of the men of Torvaldsland, interestingly, is almost uniformly of southern origin; the iron extracted from bog ore is extensively used, however, for agricultural implements.

In the crowd, too, I saw some merchants, though few of them, in their white and gold. I saw, too, four slavers, perfumed, in their robes of blue and yellow silk, come north to buy women. I saw, by the cut of their robes, they were from distant Turia. Forkbeard’s girls shrank away from them. They feared the perfumed, silken slavery of the south; in the south the yoke of slavery is much heavier on a girl’s neck; her bondage is much more abject; she is often little more than a pleasure plaything of hermaster; it is common for a southern master to care more for his pet sleen than his girls. In the north, of course, it is common for a master to care more for his ship than his girls. I saw, too, in the crowd, a physician, in green robes, from Ar and a scribe from Cos. These cities are not on good terms but they, civilized men, both in the far north, conversed affably.

“Send that one to the platform!” cried out a farmer, indicating Gunnhild.

“To the platform!” roared Ivar Forkbeard.

He tore away her kirtle. Soon she, barefoot, was climbing the wooden steps to the platform.

This is a wooden walkway, about five feet wide and one hundred feet long. On the walkway, back and forth, smiling, looking one way then the other, turning about, parade stripped bond-maids. They are not for sale, though many are sold from the platform. The platform is instituted for the pleasure of the free men. It is not unanalogous to the talmit competitions, though no talmit is awarded. There are judges, usually minor Jarls and slavers. No judge, incidentally, is female. No female is regarded as competent to judge a female’s beauty; only a man, it is said, can do that.

“Smile, you she-sleen!” roared the Forkbeard.

Gunhild smiled, and walked.

No free woman, of course, would even think of entering such a contest. All who walk on such a platform are slave girls.

At last only Gunnhild and the “silk girl”, she who had worn earrings, walked on the platform.

And it was Gunnhild who was thrown the pastry, to the delight of the crowds, shouting, pounding their spear blades on their wooden shields.

“Who owns her?” called the chief judge.

“I do!” called the Forkbeard.

He was given a silver tarn disk as prize.

Many were the bids on Gunnhild, shouted from the crowd, but the Forkbeard waved such offers aside. The man laughed. Clearly he wanted the wench for his own furs. Gunnhild was very proud.

“Kirtle yourself, wench,” said the Forkbeard to Gunnhild, throwing her her kirtle. She fixed it as it had been before, low on her hips, hitched above her calves.

At the foot of the steps leading down from the platform, the Forkbeard stopped, and bowed low. I, too, bowed. The slave girls fell to their knees, heads down, Gunnhild with them.

“How shameful!” said the free woman, sternly.

The slave girls groveled at her feet. Slave girls fear free women muchly. It is almost as if there were some unspoken war between them, almost as if they might be mortal enemies. In such a war, or such an enmity, of course, the slave girl is completely at the mercy of the free person; she is only slave. One of the great fears of a slave girl is that she will be sold to a woman. Free women treat their female slaves with incredible hatred and cruelty. Why this is I do not know. Some say it is because they, the free women, envy the girls their collars and wish that they, too, were collared, and at the complete mercy of masters.

Free women view the platform with stern disapproval; on it, female beauty is displayed for the inspection of men; this, for some reason, outrages them; perhaps they are furious because they cannot display their own beauty, or that they are not themselves as beautiful as women found fit, by lusty men with discerning eyes, for slavery; it is difficult to know what the truth is in such matters; these matters are further complicated, particularly in the north, by the conviction among free women that free women are above such things as sex, and that only low and loose girls, and slaves, are interested in such matters; free women of the north regard themselves as superior to sex; many are frigid, at least until carried off and collared; they often insist that, even when they have faces and figures that drive men wild, that it is their mind on which he must concentrate his attentions; some free men, to their misery, and the perhaps surprising irritation of the female, attempt to comply with this imperative; they are fools enough to believe what such women claim is the truth about themselves; they should listen instead to the dreams and fantasies of women, and recall, for their instruction, the responses of a free woman, once collared, squirming in the chains of a bond-maid. These teach us truths which many women dare notspeak and which, by others, are denied, interestingly, with a most psychologically revealing hysteria and vehemence. “No woman,” it is said, “knows truly what she is until she has worn the collar.”Some free women apparently fear sex because they feel it lowers the woman. This is quite correct. In few, if any, human relationships is there perfect equality. The subtle tensions of dominance and submission, universal in the animal world, remain ineradicably in our blood; they may be thwarted and frustrated but, thwarted and frustrated, they will remain. It is the nature of the male, among the mammals, to dominate, that of the female to submit. The fact that humans have minds does not cancel the truths of the blood, but permits their enrichment and enhancement, their expression in physical and psychological ecstasies far beyond the reach of simpler organisms; the female slave submits to her master in a thousand dimensions, in each of which she is his slave, in each of which he dominates her.

“Shameful!” cried the free woman.

In the lowering of the woman, of course, a common consequence of her helplessness in the arms of a powerful male, her surrenderings, her being forced to submit, she finds, incredibly to some perhaps, her freedom, her ecstasy, her fulfilment, her exaltation, her joy; in the Gorean mind this matter is simple; it is the nature of the female to submit; accordingly, it is natural that, when she is forced to acknowledge, accept, express and reveal this nature, that she should be almost deliriously joyful, and thankful, to her master; she has been taught her womanhood; no longer is she a sexless, competitive pseudoman; she is then, as she was not before, female; she then finds herself, perhaps for the first time, clearly differentiated from the male, and vulnerably, joyfully, complementary to him; she has, of course, no choice in this matter; it is not permitted her; collared, she submits; I know of no group of women as joyful, as spontaneous, as loving and vital, as healthy and beautiful, as excited, as free in their delights and emotions, as Gorean slave girls; it is true they must live under the will of men, and must fear them, and the lash of their whips, but, in spite of these things, they walk with a sensuous beauty and pride; they know themselves owned; but they wear their collars with a shameless audacity, a joy, an insolent pride that would scandalize and frighten the bored, depressed, frustrated women of Earth.

“I do not approve of the platform,” said the free woman, coldly.

Forkbeard did not respond to her, but regarded her with great deference.

“These females,” she said, indicating the Forkbeard’s girls, who knelt at her feet, their heads to the turf, “could be better employed on your farm, dunging fields and making butter.”

The free woman was a tall woman, large. She wore a great cape of fur, of white sea-sleen, thrown back to reveal the whiteness of her arms. Her kirtle was of the finest wool of Ar, dyed scarlet, with black trimmings. She wore two brooches, both carved of the horn of kailiauk, mounted in gold. At her waist she wore a jewelled scabbard, protruding from which I saw the ornamented, twisted blade of a Turian dagger; free women in Torvaldsland commonly carry a knife; at her belt, too, hung her scissors, and a ring of many keys, indicating that her hall contained many chests or doors;her hair was worn high, wrapped about a comb, matching the brooches, of the horn of kailiauk; the fact that her hair was worn dressed indicated that she stood in companionship; the number of keys, together with the scissors, indicated that she was mistress of a great house. She had gray eyes; her hair was dark; her face was cold, and harsh.

“But I am of Ax Glacier,” said the Forkbeard. In Ax Glacier country, of course, there were no farms, and there were no verr or bosk, there being insufficient grazing. Accordingly there would be little field dunging to be done, there being no fields in the first place and no dung in the second; too, due to the absence of verr or bosk, butter would be in scarce supply.

The free woman, I could see, was not much pleased with the Forkbeard’s response.

“Thorgeir, is it not?” she asked.

“Thorgeir of Ax Glacier,” said the Forkbeard, bowing.

“And what,” asked she. “would one of Ax Glacier need with all these miserable slaves?” She indicated the kneeling girls of Forkbeard.

“In Ax Glacier country,” said the Forkbeard, with great seriousness, “the night is six months long.”

“I see,” smiled the woman. Then she said, “You have won talmits, have you not, Thorgeir of Ax Glacier?”

“Six,” said he, “Lady.”

“Before you claim them,” she said, “I would recommend that you recall your true name.”

He bowed.

Her recommendation did not much please me.

She lifted the hem of her kirtle of scarlet wool about the ankles of her black shoes and turned away. She looked back, briefly, once. She indicated the kneeling slaves. “Kirtle their shame,” she said. Then strode away, followed by several men-at-arms.

“Kirtle your shame!” cried the Forkbeard.

His girls, quickly, frightened, tears in their eyes, drew about them as well as they could their kirtles. They covered, as well as they could, their bodies, having been shamed by the free woman. It is a common practice of free women, for some reason, to attempt to make female slave ashamed of her body.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Bera,” said he, “companion of Svein Blue Tooth.”

My heart sank.

“He should put her in a collar,” said the Forkbeard. I was scandalized at the very thought.

“She needs the whip,” he said. Then he looked at his girls. “What have you done?” he asked. “Drop your kirtles, and hitch them up!”

Laughing, once more proud of their bodies, the girls of the Forkbeard insolently slung their kirtles low on their hips, and hitched them high over their calves, even half way up their delightful thighs.

Then, we again continued on our way, leaving the place of the platform, the place of Gunnhild’s triumph, where she had received a pastry, and where her master, the Forkbeard, had made a silver tarn disk on her beauty. She gave the other girls crumbs of the pastry and permitted Dagmar, who was to be sold off, to lick frosting from her fingers.

In the bond-maid shed there was a rustle of chain, as the girls looked up.

Light filtered into the shed from windows cut high in the wall on our right. The girls at, or knelt or laid on straw along on our right. The shed is some two hundred feet long, about ten feet wide, and eight feet in height.

An officer of Svein Blue Tooth, assisted by two thralls, quickly assessed Dagmar, stripping her, feeling her body, the firmness of her breasts, looking inher mouth.

“A tarn disk of silver,” he said.

Dagmar had, two months ago, stolen a piece of cheese from Pretty Ankles; she had been beaten for that, at the post; fastened there by Ottar and switched by Pretty Ankles, until Pretty Ankles had tired of switching her, too; she had not been found sufficiently pleasing by several of the Forkbeard’s oarsmen; she was, accordingly, to be sold off, as an inferior girl.

“Done,” said the Forkbeard.

Dagmar was sold.

There were some one hundred bond-maids for sale in the shed. They all wore collars of the north, with the projecting iron ring. They were fastened by a single chain, but it was not itself run through the projecting loop on their collars; rather, a heavy padlock, passing through a link of the chain and the projecting loop, secured them; in this way the chain, when a girl is taken from the chain, or added to it, need not be drawn through any of the loops; the girls may thus, with convenience, be spaced on the chain, removed from it, and added to it.

The Forkbeard was given the tarn disk, which he placed in his wallet. It had been taken from a sack slung about the right wall. There, from one of several small wooden boxes projecting an intervals from the wall, he took an opened padlock. He then walked across the shed, still holding Dagmar by the arm, and threw her to her knees. He then lifted the chain and, by means of the padlock, passing it through the loop on her collar and a link in the chain, secured her.

The Forkbeard, meanwhile, was looking at the bond-maids.

They were, of course, stripped for the view of buyers.

Behind the Forkbeard were myself, his men, those bond-maids who had accompanied us, and the thrall, Tarsk, who had been bought along, should the Forkbeard have made any heavy purchases.

“My Jarl,” said Thyri.

“Yes,” said the Forkbeard.

“Should this thrall,” she asked, indicating Tarsk, once Wulfstan of Kassau, “be permitted to look upon the beauty of the bond-maids?”

“What do you mean?” asked Ivar Forkbeard.

“He is, after all,” said thyri, “only a thrall.”

I wondered that she would deny the young man this pleasure. I recalled that she had said she hated him. I, personally, had no objection tohis presence in the shed. Thralls, I expected, had few pleasures. It might have been more than a year since he had been permitted a female.

The young man looked upon the proud Thyri with great bitterness.

She lifted her head, and laughed.

“I think,” said IvarForkbeard, “that I will send him back to the tent.”

“Excellent,” she said. She smiled at the thrall.

“Chain!” said the Forkbeard. One of his men took from over his shoulder a looped chain. At each end it terminated in a manacle. It had been held, looped, by these manacles being locked into one another. He removed it from his shoulder and opened the manacles. The chain itself was about a yard long. He handed it to the Forkbeard.

The young man would go chained to the tent.

“Wrist,” said the Forkbeard.

The young man extended his wrists. Thyri watched, delighted.

The Forkbeard closed the manacle about the young man’s left wrist.

Thyri laughed.

Then the Forkbeard took Thyri’s right wrist and closed it in the other fetter.

“My Jarl!” she cried.

“She is yours until morning,” the Forkbeard told the young thrall. “Use her behind the tent.”

“My thanks, my Jarl!” he cried.

“My Jarl!” wept Thyri.

Tarsk seized the length of chain in his right fist, about a foot from her fetter. He jerked it. The fetter was large on her wrist, but she could not slip it. She was held. She looked at him with horror. “Hurry, Bond-maid!” he cried. He turned about, dragging her by the right wrist, and, almost running, pulled her, stumbling, crying out, after him.

The Forkbeard, and I, and his men, laughed. We had not been much pleased at the insolence of the bond-maid with respect to the young thrall; once, we recalled, her taunting of him had almost cost him his life; I had intervened, and he had only been whipped instead; I had little doubt that Wulfstan of Kassau, the thrall, Tarsk, had many scores to settle with the pretty little she-sleen, once a fine young lady of Kassau; too, I recalled, she had once refused his suit, he supposedly not being good enough for her. “I hope,” said the Forkbeard, “he will not make her scream all night behind the tent. I wish to obtain a good night’s rest.”

“It would be a shame,” said I, “to interfere with his pleasure.”

“If necessary,” said the Forkbeard, “I will simply have him gag her with her own kirtle.”

“Excellent,” I said.

The Forkbeard then turned his attention to the chained female slaves in the shed.

Some extended their bodies to him; some turned, to display themselves, provocatively; for he was obviously a desirable master; but others affected not to notice him; though I noticed that their bodies were held beautifully as he passed, particularly should he pause to regard them; other girls, perhaps newer to their collars, shrank back against the boards, trying to cover themselves; some regarded him with tears in their eyes; some with fear; some with open hostility; others with sullen resentment; all knew that he might, like any man, own them, completely.

To my surprise, he stopped before a dark-haired girl who sat with her legs drawn up, her arms about them, her ankles crossed; her cheek was aid across her knees; she seemed startled that the Forkbeard stopped before her; she looked up at him, frightened, and then put her face down again, across her knees, but now her eyes were frightened, and every inch of her seemed tense.

She looked up at him, but then could not meet his eyes. She seemed a shy, introverted girl, one who might, before her capture, have been much alone.

The she had been caught by slavers.

“I would make a poor slave, my Jarl,” she whispered.

“What do you know of this girl?” asked the Forkbeard of the officer of Svein Blue Tooth, who was accompanying him.

“She peaks little and, as she can, when not chained, as in the exercise pen, she keeps to herself.”

The Forkbeard reached his hand toward her knee, but, she watching, terrified, did not touch it, and then withdrew it.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then opened them. She had feared to be touched.

Where as fear inhibits sexual performance in a male, rendering it impossible, because neutralizing aggression, essential to male power, fear in a woman, some fear, not terror, can, interestingly, improve her responsiveness, perhaps by facilitating her abject submission, which can then lead to multiple orgasms. This is another reason, incidentally, why Goreans favor the enslavement of desirable women; the slave girl knows that she must please her master, and that she will be punished, and perhaps harshly if she does not; this maked her not only desperate to please the brute who fondles her, but also produces in her a genuine fear of him; this fear on her part enhances her receptivity and responsiveness; also, of course, since fear stimulates aggression, which is intimately connected with male sexuality, her fear, which she is unable to help, to her master’s amusement, deepens and augments the very predation in which she finds herself as quarry; and if she should not be afraid, it is no great matter; any woman, if the master wishes, can be taught fear.

After the Forkbeard had withdrawn his hand he studied her eyes intently. I, too, detected that for which he had sought, the object of his experiment. Though she had feared his touch, yet, when he had withdrawn his hand, there was, momentarily, disappointment in her eyes. She both feared to be touched, and desperately yearned for the touch.

“Is she healthy?” asked the Forkbeard.

“Yes,” said the officer of Svein Blue Tooth.

I had seen such women, sometimes on Earth. They were often studious, quiet girls, keeping much to themselves, lonely girls, yet with brilliant minds, marvelous imaginations, and fantastic, suppressed latent sexuality. They were often among the greatest surprises, and bargains, in the Gorean slave markets. Viginia Kent, whom I had known in Ar, years ago, who had become the companion of the warrior Relius of Ar, been such a girl. On Earth she had taught acient history and classical languages at a small college on Earth; to many she might then have seemed a rather blue-stocking, forbidding girl; Gorean slavers, however, with greater perception perhaps then her fellow Earthlings, had seen her potential; she had been, one of several such items of cargo, abducted to Gor; on Gor, given no choice, suitably trained, she had become one of the most exquisite and delicious female slaves it had ever been my pleasure to see in a collar. Relius, given her, had freed her; his friend, Ho-Sorl, given another Earth girl, Phyllis Robertson, had kept the latter in a collar; Relius was younger that Ho-Sorl, and a romantic. Ho-Sorl, doubtless, was more experienced in the handling of females; I wondered if Virginia, to her astonishment, perhaps after a quarrel or after a night of depriving Relius in order to obtain some whim of herhad awakened one morning recollared, again the slave of a master.

“Kneel,” said the Forkbeard to the girl, “legs apart, palms of your hands on your thighs.”

With a movement of the chain, she did so.

He crouched before her.

“I may wish to use you to breed thralls,” he said. “You must be healthy for the farm. Put your head back, close your eyes and open your mouth.”

She did as she was told, that the Forkbeard might examine her teeth. Much may be told of the age and condition of a female slave, as of a kaiila or bosk, from her teeth.

But the Forkbeard did not look into her mouth. His left hand slipped to the small of her back, holding her, and his right hand went suddenly to her body. She cried out, trying to pull back, but could not, and then, her eyes closed, whimpering, she thrust forward, writhing and then, sobbing, held herself immobile, teeth gritted, eyes screwed shut, trying not to feel. When his hands left her body she tried, sobbing, to strike him, but he caught both her small wrists, holding them. She struggled futilely, held kneeling.

“Put your head back,” he said. “Open your mouth.”

She shook her head, wildly.

“I am holding your hands,” he pointed out.

Warily, eyes open, she opened her mouth. He looked at her teeth.

“I may wish to use you to breed thralls,” he said. “You must be healthy for the farm.”

He stood up.

“What do you want for her?” he asked the officer of Svein Blue Tooth.

“I had her for a broken coin,” he said, “half a silver tarn disk of Tharna. I will let you have her for a whole coin.”

The Forkbeard returned tot he man the tarn disk of silver which he had received for Dagmar.

The officer of Svein Blue Tooth, with a key at his belt, unlocked the padlock which held the girl’s collar to the common chain. He tossed the padlock, open, into one of the wooden boxes projecting from the wall.

The girl, kneeling, looked up at the Forkbeard. “Why did my Jarl buy me?” she asked.

“You have excellent teeth,” said the Forkbeard.

“For what will my Jarl use me?” she asked.

“Doubtless you can learn to swill tarsks,” he said.

“Yes my Jarl,” she said. Then she put her cheek, to our suprise, to the side of his leg, and lowering her head, holding his boot, kissed it.

It was very delicately, and lovingly, done.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Peggie Stevens,” she said. I smiled. It was an Earth name.

“You are an Earth female,” I told her.

“Once,” she said. “Now I am only female.”

“American?” I asked.

“Prior to my enslavement,” she said.

“From what state?” I asked.

“ Connecticut,” she said.

Since the Nest War the probes of aliens had grown more bold, even on Gor; they had little difficulty in taking female slaves on Earth; gold, exchangeable for materials essential to their enterprises, was well guarded on Earth; it could seldom be obtained in quantities without attracting the attention of the agents of Priest-Kings; on the other hand, the women of Earth, dispersed, abundant, many of them beautiful, superb slave stock, the sort a Gorean master enjoys training to the collar, were, generally, unguarded; Earth took greater care to guard her gold than her females; accordingly, the women of Earth, unprotected, vulnerable, like luscious fruit on wild trees, were free for the pickings of Gorean slavers; a network, I gathered, existed for their selection and acquisition; Earth was helpless to prevent the taking of their most beautiful women; they were eventually sold naked from blocks in Gorean markets. I suppose that the governments of Earth, or some of them, were aware of the slaving; perhaps merchants of Middle Eastern countries were suspected; there were, however, delicate negotiations concerning oil to be respected; it would not be well to be too bold in pressing accusations; what were a few beautiful women, taken as slave girls into harems of Middle Eastern businessmen and potentates, to the commodity which supported civilization and turned the wheels of industry; but the evidence would not point to the Middle East; further, the small amount of slaving, if any, which might be done commercially in Western Europe or on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States would not account for the numbers of missing beauties; hundreds a year, I surmised, turned up in Gorean markets. I speculated that Earth governments, or some og them, were reasonably well aware that their planet must now be the locus of frequent alien slave raids; but why would alien power not make itself known and openly demand their jewels among the female resourses of the planet; the governments would not know of the power of the Priest-Kings, which the agents of the Kurii profoundly and wisely feared; what could these governments of Earth do; they could do nothing; could they, wisely, inform their populations that their planet lay under the attacks of technologically advanced aliens, with which their own primitive technologies were incapable of copying; that they, and all of Earth, seemed to lie at the mercies of invaders from outer space; such an announcement could only bring about the loss of confidence in governments, panic, hoarding, crime, perhaps a breakdown in communication, perhaps anarchy, perhaps a shattering of trust and civilizations themselves. No. It was better to say nothing. Accordingly, I supposed, this very night, on Earth, there were completely unsuspecting beautiful girls, thinking it a night like any other, who would undress themselves and snap off the light, and retire, not knowing that they had been, perhaps for weeks, scouted by slavers; I wondered if they would awaken in terror, the slavers rope on their throat, hi needle, with it’s drug, thrusting into their side; or if, days later, perhaps weeks, they would awaken sluggishly, then suddenly alert to the change of gravity, and find themselves in a barred, cemented slave kennel, on their left ankles, locked, the steel identification device of the agents of the Kurii, that their manifests be correct, their records precise.

“How did you come to the north?” I asked the slave girl, Miss Stevens.

“I was sold in Ar,” she said, “to a merchant from Cos. I was chained in a slave ship, with many other girls, on tiers in the hold. The ship fell to four raiding vessels of Torvaldland. I have been, by my reckoning, eight months in the north.”

“What did your last Jarl call you?” asked the Forkbeard.

“Butter Pan,” she said.

The Forkbeard looked to Gunnhild. “What shall we call this pretty little slave?” he asked.

“Honey Cake,” suggested Gunnhild.

“You are Honey Cake,” said the Forkbeard.

“Yes, my Jarl,” said Miss Stevens.

The Forkbeard then left the bond-maid shed. We all followed him. He did not restrain Honey Cake in any way. She, nude, in her collar, back straight, accompanied him. Her head was high. She was a bought girl. The other girls, still on the chain, regarded her with envy, with resentment, hostility. She had paid them no attention. She had been purchased. They remained unbought girls, wenches left on the chain; they had not yet been found desirable enough to be purchased.

Few suspected, on this day, in the thing, that something unprecedented would occur.

After we had left the bond-maid shed I had let the Forkbeard and his retinue return to their tent. Honey Cake, when last I saw her, dared to cling to his arm, her head to his shoulder. He, with a laugh, thrust her back witht he other girls that she, as they, might heel him. Happily she did so.

I watched them disappear among the crowds.

Ivar had won siv talmits. He had done quite well.

Honey Cake, too, I thought, would make him a delicious little slave.

We would all enjoy her.

I was at the archery range when the announcement was made.

I had not intended to participate in the competition. Rather, it had been my plan to buy some small gift for the Forkbeard. Long had I enjoyed his hospitality, and he had given me many things. I did not wish, incidentally, even if I could, to give him a gift commensurate with what he had, in his hospitality, bestowed upon me; the host, in Torvaldsland, should make the greatest gifts; it is, after all, his house or hall; if his guest should make him a greater gifts than he makes the guest this is regarded as something in the nature of an insult, a betrayal of hospitality; after all, the host is not running an inn, extending hospitality like a merchant, for profit; and the host must not appear more stingy than the guest who, theoretically, is the one being welcomed and sheltered; in Torvaldsland, thus, the greater the generosity is the host’s prerogative; should the Forkbeard, however, have come to Port Kar then, of course, it would have been my prerogative to make him the greater gifts than he did me. This is, it seems to me, an intelligent custom; the host, giving first, and knowing what he can afford to give, sets the limit to the giving; the guest then makes certain that his gifts are less than those of the host; the host, in giving more, wins honor as a host; the guest, in giving less, does the host honor. Accordingly, I was concerned to find a gift for the Forkbeard; it must not be too valuable, but yet, of course, I wanted it to be something that he would appreciate.

I was on my way to the shopping booths, those near the wharves, where the best merchandise is found, when I stopped to observe the shooting.

“Win Leah! Win Leah, Master!” I heard.

I looked upon her, and she looked upon me.

She stood on the thick, rounded block; it was about a yard high, and five feet in diameter;she was dark-haired, long-haired; she had a short, luscious body, thick ankles; her hands were on her hips. “Win Leah, Master!” she challenged. She was naked, except for the Torvaldsland collar of black iron on her neck, with its projecting ring, and the heavy chain padlocked about her right ankle; the chain was about a yard long; it secured her, by means of a heavy ring, to the block. She laughed. “Win Leah, Master!” she challenged. She, with the archery talmit, was the prize in the shooting.

I noted her brand. It was a southern brand, the first letter, in cursive script, of Kajira, the most common expression for a Gorean female slave. It was entered deeply in her left thigh. Further, I noticed that she had addressed me as “Master,” rather than “my Jarl.” I took it, from these indications, that she had learned her collar in the south; probably originally it had been a lock collar, snugly fitting, of steel; now, of course, it had been replaced with the riveted collar of black iron, with the projecting ring, so useful for running a chain through, or for padlocking, or linking on an anvil, with a chain. The southern collar, commonly, lacks such a ring; the southern ankle ring, however, has one, and sometimes two, one in the front and one in the back.

“Will you not try to win Leah, Master?” she taunted.

“Are you trained?” I asked.

She seemed startled. “In Ar,” she whispered. “But surely you would not make me use my training in the north.”

I looked upon her. She seemed the perfect solution to my problem. The gift of a female is sufficiently trivial that the honor ofthe Forkbeard as my host would not be in the least threatened; further, this was a desirable wench, whose cuddly slave body would be much relished by the Forkbeard and his crew; further, being trained, she would be a rare and exquisite treat for the rude giants of Torvaldsland; beyond this, of course, commanded, she would impart her skills to the best of her abilities to his other girls.

“You will do,” I told her.

“I do not understand,” she said, stepping back. The chain slid on the wood.

“Your name, and accent,” I said, “bespeak an Earth origin.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“ Canada,” she whispered.

“You were once a woman of Earth,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“But now you are only a Gorean slave girl,” I told her.

“I am well aware of that, Master,” she said.

I turned away from her. The target in the shooting was about six inches in width, at a range of about one hundred yards. With the great bow, the peasant bow, this is not difficult work. Many marksmen, warriors, peasants, rencers, could have matched my shooting. It was, of course, quite unusual in Torvaldsland. I put twenty sheaf arrows into the target, until it bristled with wood and the feathers of the Vosk gull.

When I retrieved my arrows, to the shouting of the men, the pounding of their bows on their shields, the girl had been already unchained from the block.

I gave my name to the presiding official. Talmits would be officially awarded tomorrow. I accepted his congratulations.

My girl prize knelt at my feet. I looked down upon her “What are you?” I asked.

“Only a Gorean slave girl, Master,” she said.

“Do not forget it,” I told her.

“I shall not, Master,” she whispered.

“Stand,” I told her.

She stood and I lashed her wrists tightly together behillc her back.

It was then that the announcement was heard. It swept like oil, aflame in the wind, through the crowds of the thing Men looked at one another. Many grasped their weapons more tightly.

“A Kur,” it was said, “One of the Kurii, would address the assembly of the thing!”

The girl looked at me, pulling against the fiber that bound her wrists. “Have her delivered to the tent of Thorgeir of Ax Glacier,” I told the presiding official. “Tell him that she is a gift to him from Tarl Red Hair.”

“It will be done,” said the official. He signaled two burly thralls, each of whom seized her by one arm.

“Deliver her to the tent of Thorgeir of Ax Glacier,” he told them. “Tell him that she is a gift to him from Tarl Red-Hair.”

The girl was turned about, each of the thralls holding one of her arms. She looked once over her shoulder. Then, between the thralls, moaning, crying out, stumbling, a gift being delivered, she was thrust toward the tent of he who was known at the thing as Thorgeir of Ax Glacier.

My eyes and those of the official who had presided at the archery contest met.

“Let us hasten to the place of the assembly,” he said. Together we hurried from the field where I had won the talmit in archery, and a girl, to the place of the assembly.