correlated with sun and stars is not unknown to them. It is commonly relied on,
however, only in unfamiliar waters. Even fog banks, and the feeding grounds of
whales, and ice floes, in given season, in their own waters, give the men of
Torvaldsland information as to their whereabouts, they utilizing such things as
easily, as unconsciously, as a peasant might a mountain, or a hunter a river.
The ships of the men of Torvaldsland are swift. In a day, a full Gorean day of
twenty Ahn, with a fair wind they can cover from two hundred to two hundred and
fifty pasangs. I studied the board before me. It was set on a square chest. It
was a board made for play at sea, and such boards are common with the men of
Torvaldsland. In the center of each square was a tiny peg. The pieces,
correspondingly, are drilled to match the pegs, and fit over them. This keeps
them steady in the movements at sea. The board was of red and yellow squares.
The Kaissa of the men of Torvaldsland is quite similar to that of the south,
though certain of the pieces differ. There is, for example, not a Ubar but a
Jarl, as the most powerful piece. Moreover, there is no Ubara. Instead, there is
a piece called the Jarl's Woman, which is quite powerful, more so than the
southern Ubara. Instead of Tarnsmen, there are two pieces called the Axes. The
board has no Initiates, but there are corresponding pieces called Rune-Priests.
Similarly there are no Scribes, but a piece, which moves identically, called the
Singer. I thought that Andreas of Tor, a friend, of the caste of Singers, might
have been pleased to learn that his caste was represented, and honored, on the
boards of the north. The Spearmen moved identically with the southern Spearmen.
It did not take me much time to adapt to the Kaissa of Torvaldsland, for it is
quite similar to the Kaissa of the south. On the other hand, feeling my way on
the board, I had lost the first two games to the Forkbeard. Interestingly, he
had been eager to familiarize me with the game, and was abundant in his
explanations and advice. Clearly, he wished me to play him at my full
efficiency, without handicap, as soon as possible. I had beaten him the third
game, and he had then, delighted, ceased in his explanations and advice and,
together, the board between us, each in our way a war rior, we had played
Kaissa. The Forkbeard's game was much more varied, and tactical, than was that
of, say, Marlenus of Ar, much more devious, and it was far removed from the
careful, conservative, positional play of a man such as Mintar, of the caste of
Merchants. The Forkbeard made great use of diversions and feints, and double
strategies, in which an attack is double edged, being in effect two attacks, an
open one and a concealed one, either of which, depending on a misplay by the
opponent, may be forced through, the concealed attack requiring usually only an
extra move to make it effective, a move which, ideally, threatened or pinned an
opponent's piece, giving him the option of surrendering it or facing a
devastating attack, he then a move behind. In the beginning I had played
Forkbeard positionally, learning his game. When I felt I knew him better, I
played him more openly. His wiliest tricks, of coursej I knew, he would seldom
use saving them for games of greater import, or perhaps for players of
Torvaldsland. Among them, even more than in the south, Kaissa is a passion. In
the long winters of Torvaldsland, when the snow, the darkness, the ice and
wintry winds are upon the land, when the frost breaks open the rocks, groaning,
at night, when the serpents hide in their roofed sheds, many hours, under
swinging soapstone lamps, burning the oil of sea sleen, are given to Kaissa. At
such times, even the bond-maids, rolling and restless, naked, in the furs of
their masters, their ankles chained to a nearby ring, must wait. "It is your
move," said Forkbeard. "I have moved," I told him. "I have thrown the Ax toJarl
six." ''Ah! Laughed the Forkbeard. He then sat down and looked again at the
board. He could not now, with impunity, place his Jarl at Ax four. The sun, for
Torvaldsland, was hot. In the chronology of Port Kar, it was early in Year 3 of
the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains. In the chronology of Ar, which
serves, generally, to standardize chronology on Gor, it was 10,122 C.A., or
Contasta Ar, from the founding of Ar. The battle of the 25th of Se'Kara had
taken place in 10,120 C.A. In that same year, in its spring, in Port Kar, the
Council of Captains had assumed its sovereignty, thus initiating Year 1 of its
reign. Most Gorean cities use the Spring Equinox as the date of the New Year.
Turia, however, uses the Summer Solstice. The Spring Equinox, incidentally, is
also used for the New Year by the Rune-Priests of the North, who keep the
calendars of Torvaldsland. They number years from the time of Thor's gift of the
stream of Torvald to Torvald, legendary hero and founder of the northern
fatherlands. In the calendars of the Rune-Priests the year was 1,006. Forkbeard
and I sat in the shade, under a tented awning of sewn boskhides, some
thirty-five feet in length. It begins aft of the mast, which is set forward. It
rests on four poles, with two long, narrow poles, fixed in sockets, mounted in
tandem fashion, serving as a single ridge pole. These poles can also be used in
pushing off, and thwarting collisions on rocks. The bottom edges of the tented
awning are stretched taut and tied to cleats in the gunwales. There is about a
foot of space between the gunwales and the bottoms of the tented awnings,
permitting a view to sea on either side. Somewhat behind us, between the
benches, in the shade of the awning, among other riches taken in the sack of the
temple of Kassau, were the bond-maids. They, loot, too, knelt, or sat or laid
among golden plate, and candlesticks and golden hangings. Their ankles were no
longer bound; their wrists, now, those of most of them, were fettered before
their bodies; about their necks, now, however, they wore not simple binding
fiber; it had been replaced the first evening out of Kassau; they wore now,
knotted about their throats, a coffle rope of the north, about a half inch in
thickness, of braided leather, cored with wire. At night they slept with their
hands fettered behind them. Some of the girls slept, some curled on the golden
hangings of the temple; some sat or knelt, heads down; of the girls, four of
them, though still held in the coffle, were no longer fettered. They knelt, with
soft cloths and polishes, cleaning and rubbing to a high shine, which must
please the Forkbeard, the golden trove of the looted temple of Kassau. The men
of Forkbeard, their oars inboard, the ship under sail, amused themselves as they
would. Some slept on the benches or between them, some under the awning and some
not, or on the exposed, elevated stem deck. Here and there some sat in twos or
threes, talking. Two, like Forkbeard and myself, gave themselves to Kaissa. Two
others, elsewhere, played Stones, a guessing game. The giant, he who might have
been nearly eight feet in height, and had in the temple wrought such furious
slaughter, sat now, almost somnolently, on a rowing bench, sharpening, with
slow, deliberate movements, with a circular, flat whetstone, the blade of his
great ax. Three other men of the Forkbeard attended to fishing, two with a net,
sweeping it along the side of the serpent, for parsit fish, and the third, near
the stem, with a hook and line, baited with vulo liver, for the white-bellied
grunt, a large game fish which haunts the plankton banks to feed on parsit fish.
Only two of the Forkbeard's men did not rest, he at the helm, bare-headed,
looking to sea, and the fellow at the height of the mast, on lookout. The
helmsman studies the sky and the waters ahead of the serpent; beneath clouds
there is commonly wind; and he avoids, moving a point or more to port or
starboard, areas where there is little wave activity, for they betoken spots in
which the serpent might, for a time, find itself becalmed. The lookout stood
upon a broad, flat wooden ring, bound in leather, covered with the fur of sea
sleen, which fits over the mast. It has a diameter of about thirty inches. It
sets near the top of the mast, enabling the man to see over the sail, as well as
to other points. He, standing on this ring, fastens himself by the waist to the
mast by looping and buckling a heavy belt about it, and through his master belt.
Usually, too, he keeps one hand on or about the mast. The wooden ring is reached
by climbing a knotted rope. The mast is not high, only about thirty-five feet
Gorean, but it permits a scanning of the horizon to some ten pasangs. Forkbeard
put his First Singer to his own Ax four, threatening my Ax. I covered my piece
with my own First Singer, moving it to my own Ax five. He exchanged, taking my
Ax at Jarl six, and I his First Singer with my First Singer. I now had a Singer
on a central square, but he had freed his Ax four, on which he might now situate
the Jarl for an attack on the Jarl's Woman's Ax's file. The tempo, at this
point, was mine. He had played to open position; I had played to direct
position. The Ax is a valuable piece, of course, but particularly in the early
and middle game, when the board is more crowded; in the end game when the board
is freer, it seerns to me the Singer is often of greater power, because of the
greater number of squares it can control. Scholars weight the pieces equally, at
three points in adjudications, but I would weight the Ax four points in the
early and middle game, and the Singer two, and reverse these weights in the end
game. Both pieces are, however, quite valuable. And I am fond of the Ax. "You
should not have surrendered your Ax," said Forkbeard. "In not doing so," I said,
"I would have lost the tempo, and position. Too, the Ax is regarded as less
valuable in the end game." "You play the Ax well," said Forkbeard. "What is true
for many men may not be true for you. The weapons you use best perhaps you
should retain." I thought on what he had said. Kaissa is not played by
mechanical puppets, but, deeply and subtly, by men, idiosyncratic men, with
individual strengths and weaknesses. I recalled I had, many times, late in the
game, regretted the surrender of the Ax, or its equivalent in the south, the
Tarnsman, when I had simply, as I thought rationally, moved in accordance with
what were reputed to be the principles of sound strategy. I knew, of course,
that game context was a decisive matter in such considerations but only now,
playing Forkbeard, did I suspect that there was another context involved, that
of the inclinations, capacities and dispositions of the individual player. Too,
it seemed to me that the Ax, or Tarnsman, might be a valuable piece in the end
game, where it is seldom found. People would be less used to defending against
it in the end game; its capacity to surprise, and to be used unexpectedly, might
be genuinely profitable at such a time in the game. I felt a surge of power.
Then I noted, uneasily, the Forkbeard moving his Jarl to the now freed Ax four.
The men with the net drew it up. In it, twisting and flopping, silverish,
striped with brown, squirmed more than a stone of parsit fish. They threw the
net to the planking and, with knives, began to slice the heads and tails from
the fish. "Gorm," said the Forkbeard. "Free the first bond-maid on the coffle.
The lazy girl has rested too long, and send her to me with a bailing scoop."
Gorm was bare-chested and barefoot. He wore trousers of the fur of sea sleen.
About his neck was a golden chain and pendant, doubtless taken once from a free
woman of the south. As he approached the bond-maids they shrank back from him,
fearing him, as would any bond-maid one of the men of Torvaldsland. I looked
upon the eyes of the first girl on the coffle, who was the slender, blondish
girl, who had worn the red vest and jacket. I recalled how disappointed she had
been in the men of Torvaldsland, when, heads hanging, they had accompanied the
Forkbeard to the temple at Kassau. She had then, with amusement, regarded them
with contempt. But it was neither amusement nor contempt which shone in her eyes
now as she, shrinking back from him, looked upon Gorm. She now saw the men of
Torvaldsland in their mightiness, in their freedom, and strength and power, and
she, a stripped, fettered bond-maid, coffled, feared them. She knew that she
belonged to them, such fierce and mighty beasts, and that she, and her beauty,
lay at their mercy, that she, and her beauty, were theirs to do with as they
pleased. Roughly Gorm unknotted the coffle rope from her neck. He then gestured
that she, kneeling, should lift her fettered wrists to him; she did so; he, with
a key from his belt, opened the fetters which held her; he thrust them in his
belt; he then pulled her by the arm roughly to her feet and thrust her toward
the Forkbeard. She stumbled across the loose deck planking and stood, hair
before her face, before us. She thrust her hair back with her right hand, and
stood well. A bailing scoop was thrust into her hands. It has four sides. It is
ùmade of wood. It is about six inches in width. There is a diagonally set board
in its bottom, and the back and two sides are straight. It has a straight, but
rounded handle, carved smaller at the two ends, one where it adjoins the scoop,
the other in back of the grip. Gorrn moved aside eight narrow planks from the
loose decking. Below, some two inches deep, about a foot below the deck
planking, about two inches over the keel beam, black and briny, shifted the
bilge water. There was not much water in the bilge, and I was surprised. For a
clinker built ship, the serpent of Ivar Forkbeard was extraordinarily tight. The
ship, actually, had not needed to be bailed at all. Indeed, it had not been
bailed since Kassau. The average ship of Torvaldsland is, by custom, bailed once
a day, even if the bilge water does not necessitate it. A ship which must, of
necessity, be bailed three times in two days is regarded as unseaworthy. Many
such ships, however, are sailed by the men of Torvaldsland, particularly late in
the season, when the ship is less tight from months of the sea's buffeting. In
the spring, of course, before the ships are brought from the sheds on rollers to
the sea, they are completely recalked and tarred. "Bail," said the Forkbeard.
The girl went to the opened planking
and fell to her knees beside it, the wooden
scoop in her hands. "Return to me," said the Forkbeard, harshly. Frightened the
girl did so. "Now turn about," said he, "and walk there as a bondmaid." Her face
went white. Then she turned and walked to the opened planking as a bond-maid.
The other bond-maids gasped. The men watching her hooted with pleasure. I
grinned. I wanted her. "Bond-maid!" scorned Aelgifu, from where she was fettered
and chained to the mast. I gathered that these two, in Kassau, had been rival
beauties. Then, sobbing, the blondish girl, who had been forced to walk as a
bond-maid, fell to her knees beside the opened planking. Once she vomited over
the side. But, on the whole, she did well. Once the Forkbeard went to her and
taught her to check the scoop, with her left hand, for snails, that they not be
thrown overboard. Returning to me he held one of the snails, whose shell he
crushed between his fingers, and sucked out the animal, chewing and swallowing
it. He then threw the shell fragments overboard. "They are edible," he said.
"And we use them for fish bait." We then returned to our game. Once the blond
girl cried out, the scoop in her hand. "Look!" she cried, pointing over the port
gunwale. A hundred yards away, rolling and sporting, were a family of whales, a
male, two females, and four calves. Then she returned to her bailing. "Your hall
is taken," said the Forkbeard. His Jarl had moved decisively. The taking of the
hall, in the Kaissa of the North, is equivalent to the capture of the Home Stone
in the south. "You should not have surrendered your Ax," said the Forkbeard. "It
seems not," I said. The end game had not even been reached. The hall had been
taken in the middle game. I would think more carefully before I would surrender
the Ax in the future. "I am finished," said the slender girl, returning to where
we sat, and kneeling on the deck. She had performed her first task for her
master, the Forkbeard, drying, as it is said, the belly of his serpent. It had
been the first of her labors, set to her by her master in her bondage. "Give
Gorrn back the scoop," said the Forkbeard, "and then carry water to my men."
"Yes," she said. The Forkbeard looked at her. "Yes," she said "-myJarl." To the
Norman, John - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor.txt Page 8
