by John Norman
Interestingly, the piercing of the septum, for the insertion of a nose ring, is regarded, generally, a great deal more lightly by female slaves than the piercing of the ears. Perhaps this is partly because, in the far south, the free women of the Wagon Peoples wear nose rings; perhaps it is because the piercing does not show; I do not know. The piercing of the ears, however, is regarded as being the epitome of a slave girl's degradation. Any woman, it is said, with pierced ears, is a slave girl.
"You insult me," said Hilda the Haughty, "to present me with such miserable merchandise! Is this the best that great Ar can offer?
Had I been of Ar I might have been angry. As it was I was somewhat irritated. The perfumes I was displaying to her had been taken, more than six months ago, by the Forkbeard from a vessel of Cos. They were truly perfumes of Ar, and of the finest varieties. "Who," I asked myself, "is Hilda, the daughter of a barbarian, of a rude, uncouth northern pirate, living in a high wooden fortress, overlooking the sea, to so demean the perfumes of Ar?" One might have thought she was a great lady, and not the insolent, though curvaceous, brat of a boorish sea rover.
I put my head to the floor. I groveled in the white and yellow silk of the perfumers. "Oh, great lady," I whined, "the finest of Ar's perfumes may be too thin, too frail, too gross, for one of your discernment and taste."
Her hands wore many rings. About her neck she wore, looped, four chains of gold, with pendants. On her wrists were bracelets of silver and gold.
"Show me others, men of the south," said she, contemptuously.
Again and again we tried to please the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar. We had little success. Sometimes she would wince, or make a face, or indicate disgust with a tiny motion of her hand, or a movement of her head.
We were almost finished with the vials in the flat, leather case.
"We have here," said I, "a scent that might be worthy of a Ubara of Ar."
I uncorked it and she held it, delicately, to her nostrils.
"Barely adequate," she said.
I restrained my fury. That scent, I knew, a distillation of a hundred flowers, nurtured like a priceless wine, was a secret guarded by the perfumers of Ar. It contained as well the separated oil of the Thentis needle tree; an extract from the glands of the Cartius river urt; and a preparation formed from a disease calculus scraped from the intestines of the rare Hunjer Long Whale, the result of the inadequate digestion of cuttlefish. Fortunately, too, this calculus is sometimes found free in the sea, expelled with feces. It took more than a year to distill, age, blend and bond the ingredients.
"Barely adequate," she said. But I could tell she was pleased.
"It is only eight stone of gold," said I, obsequiously, "for the vial."
"I shall accept it," said she, coldly, "as a gift."
"A gift!" I cried.
"Yes," said she. "You have annoyed me. I have been patient with you. I am now no longer patient!"
"Have pity, great lady!" I wept.
"Leave me now," said she. "Go below. Ask there to be stripped and beaten. Then swiftly take your leave of the house of Thorgard of Scagnar. Be grateful that I permit you your lives."
I hastily, as though frightened, made as though to close the flat, leather case of vials.
"Leave that," she said. She laughed. "I shall give it to my bond-maids."
I smiled, though secretly. The haughty wench would rob us of our entire stores! None of that richness, I knew, would grace the neck or breasts of a mere bond-maid. She, Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, would keep it for herself.
I attempted to conceal one vial, which we had not permitted her to sample. But her eye was too quick for me.
"What is that?" she asked, sharply.
"It is nothing," I said.
"Let me smell it," she said.
"Please, no, great lady!" I begged.
"You thought to keep it from me, did you?" she laughed.
"Oh, no, great lady," I wept.
"Give it to me," she said.
"Must I, lady?" asked I.
"I see," said she "beating is not enough for you. It seems you must be boiled in the oil of tharlarion as well!"
I lifted it to her, piteously.
She laughed.
My assistant and I knelt before her, at her feet. She wore, beneath her green velvet, golden shoes.
"Uncork it for me, you sleen," said she. I wondered if I had, in my life, seen ever so scornful, so proud, so cold a woman.
I uncorked the vial.
"Hold it beneath my nostrils," she said. She bent forward. I held the vial beneath her delicate nostrils.
She closed her eyes, and breathed in, deeply, expectant.
She opened her eyes, and shook her head. "What is this?" she said.
"Capture scent," I said.
I held her forearms. Ivar Forkbeard quickly pulled the bracelets and rings from her wrists and fingers. He then threw from her neck the golden chains. I pulled her to her feet, holding her wrists. Ivar tore the golden string from her hair, loosening it. It fell behind her, blond, below the small of her back. He tore the collar of her gown back from her throat, opening it at her neck.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
He snapped fetters of black iron on her wrists. They, by the fetters and their single link, were held about three inches apart.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"A friend of your father," said he. He tore away from his body, swiftly, the gown of the perfumers, that of white and yellow silk. I, too, cast aside the perfumer's gown.
She saw that we wore the leather and fur of Torvaldsland.
"No!" she cried.
My hand was over her mouth. Ivar's dagger was at her throat.
"While Thorgard roves at sea," said the Forkbeard, "--we rove in Scagnar."
"Shall I hold again the vial beneath her nose?" I asked. Soaked in a rag and scarf and held over the nose and mouth of a female it can render her unconscious in five Ihn. She squirmed wildly for an Ihn or two, and then sluggishly, and then fell limp. It is sometimes used by tarnsmen; it is often used by slavers. Anaesthetic darts, too, are sometimes used in the taking of females; these may be flung or entered into her body by hand; they take effect in about forty Ihn; she awakens often, stripped, in a slave kennel.
"No," said Ivar. "It is important for my plan that she be conscious."
I felt the mouth of the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar move beneath my hand.
The Forkbeard's dagger's point thrust slightly into her throat.
She winced.
"If you speak now above a whisper," said he, "you die. Is that understood?"
She nodded her head miserably. At a gesture from the Forkbeard, I released her mouth. I continued to hold her arm.
"You will never get me past the guards," she hissed.
The Forkbeard was looking about the room. From a small chest, he took a thick, covering cloth, orange. From the chest he took a scarf.
"There are guards," she hissed. "You are fools! You will never get me past the guards!"
"I have no intention of getting you past the guards" said Ivar Forkbeard.
She looked at him, puzzled. He went to the high window of her room, high in the wooden fortress, on its cliff, overlooking the dark bay below. We could hear waves crashing on rocks.
Ivar went to the window. He looked down. Then he came back into the room and took a clay lamp, lit, and went again to the window. He moved the lamp up and down once. I went to the window, holding the girl. Together we looked down into the wave-crashing blackness. Then we saw, briefly, uncovered and then covered again, a ship's lantern. Below, at the nineteenth hour, in the longboat of Ivar's ship, was Gorm, with four oarsmen.
"You have no ropes to lower me to your boat," she said. She lifted her wrists. "Remove, and swiftly," said she, "these disgusting fetters!"
Ivar Forkbeard went to the door of her room and, silently slipped the two beams into place, in their iron brackets.
She lo
oked to the floor; on it, scattered, lay her bracelets, her rings, the golden chains she had worn about her neck. Her throat, where Ivar had torn away the collar of the green gown, was now bared.
"Do you not want my rings," she asked, "my golden chains, my bracelets?"
"It is only for you that I have come to this place," he said. He grinned.
I, too, grinned. It was mighty insult to Thorgard of Scagnar. The golden chains, the rings, the bracelets, stripped from her, would be left behind. How could it be made more clear that her captor scorned these as baubles, that he had no need of them, and that it had been the girl herself, and only she, her body and her person, that had been sought and boldly taken?
Ivar Forkbeard then bent to the girl's feet and pulled away her golden shoes, and, his hands at her legs, she, her eyes closed, removed from her, too, her scarlet, silken hose, She stood, her arm held by my hand, in the fetters, in the dress of green velvet, it torn open at the collar to reveal her throat; she had been stripped of her rings, the bracelets, the chains; her hair was loose; her hose and shoes had been removed.
"Are you going to tie my ankles?" she asked.
"No," he said.
"You have no rope to lower me," she said.
"No," he said.
She looked at him, puzzled.
"I will bring high ransom," she said. She looked down at her jewelry on the floor. "I will bring higher ransom," she said, "if I am adorned."
"Your adornments," said he, "will be simple, a kirtle of white wool, a brand, a collar of iron."
"You are insane!" she hissed. "I am the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!"
"Wench," said he, "I did not take you for ransom."
"For what reason then," begged she, "have I been taken?"
"Are you so cold, Hilda the Haughty," asked he, "that you cannot guess?"
"Oh, no!" she hissed. "No! No!"
"You will be well taught to heel and obey," said he.
"No!" she hissed.
He lifted the orange coverlet, to throw it over her head.
"I ask only one thing," she begged, "should you be successful in this mad scheme."
"What is that?" asked Ivar Forkbeard.
"Never, never," she said, "let me fall into the hands of Ivar Forkbeard!"
"I am Ivar Forkbeard," said Forkbeard.
Her eyes widened with horror.
He threw the mantle over her head and, with the scarf, turned twice about her neck, and knotted tightly, tied it under her chin.
He had not rendered her unconscious, or gagged her, or tied her ankles. He wanted her to be able to cry out; her cries, of course, would be muffled; they would not be discernible on the height of the fortress; they might, however, be heard by Gorm and those in the boat; too, he wanted her to be able to thrash about; this, too, would help Gorm to locate her in the darkness.
The Forkbeard then lifted her from her feet, lightly. Her dress slid back, over her knees. We heard her muffled voice "No!" she wept. "I cannot swim!"
The Forkbeard then hurled her from the window and she fell, twisting and crying out, some hundred feet to the black waters below. With the waves, striking on rocks about, we did not hear the splash.
We gave Gorm time to find her and fish her out, throwing her in the boat and binding her ankles. Then the Forkbeard stood on the sill of the tall window, poised, and then he dived into the darkness; after about an Ehn, giving him time to surface and swim to the boat, I followed him.
In less than another Ehn, soaked and cold, teeth chattering, I had crawled over the bulwark of the longboat and joined the Forkbeard. He had already stripped and was rubbing himself with a fur cloak. I followed his example, and soon both of us were warmed and in dry clothes. The Forkbeard then bent to the soaked, shuddering captive. He removed one of the fetters and jerked the girl's hands behind her back. He then fettered her hands behind her. Her ankles had already been crossed and bound by Gorm. The Forkbeard then threw Hilda the Haughty face down in the longboat, and, from Gorm, took the tiller. She lay lengthwise, head toward the stem, between his booted feet.
"Shhh!" said the Forkbeard.
The men rested on the oars. We carried no lights.
We were much surprised. To one of the wharves of the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar, silently, like the serpent of the sea it was, carrying two lanterns at its prow, came Black Sleen. We had thought Thorgard's roving, his gathering of the harvests of the sea, would have taken him much longer. We saw men running down the boards of the wharf, carrying lanterns. Words were exchanged.
I looked up. I could see the window of the quarters of Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar. There was a lamp lit still in the room. Apparently she stayed up late. Outside the door of the compartment of her five bond-maids, curled sleeping on the floor, on their straw-filled mats, chained by their ankles, which area led into her own apartment, somnolent and bored, were four guards. Hilda whimpered. The Forkbeard kicked her with his boot. "Be silent," he said to her. I saw her hands twist futilely in the manacles. She, on her belly, soaked, miserable, lay silent.
"Go closer," said the Forkbeard. Almost noiselessly oars dipped, bringing us closer to the hull of Black Sleen.
We saw mooring ropes tossed and caught.
The oars were brought inboard. The men were weary. We saw shields, one by one, being tied over the bulwarks.
A gangplank was slid over the gunwale to the wharf. Then we saw Thorgard of Scagnar, cloak swirling, in his horned helmet, descend the gangplank. He was met by his men, and, high among them, by his holding's keeper, and the keeper of his farms.
He spoke to them shortly and then, in the light of the lanterns, strode down the wharf.
The men did not follow him, nor did his men on the ship yet leave it.
I gasped.
I heard, too, the intake of breath of the Forkbeard, and of Gorm, and the oarsmen.
Another shape emerged from the darkness of the ship.
It moved swiftly, with an agility startling in so huge a bulk. I heard the scrape of claws on the gangplank. It was humped, shaggy.
It followed Thorgard of Scagnar.
After it, then, came his men, timidly, those who had met Thorgard and those, too, from the ship. A wharf crew then busied themselves about the ship.
The Forkbeard looked at me. He was puzzled. "One of the Kurii," he said.
It was true. But the beast we had seen was not an isolated, degenerate, diseased beast, of the sort we had encountered at Forkbeard's Landfall. It had seemed in its full health, swift and powerful.
"What has such a beast to do with Thorgard of Scagnar?"
"What has Thorgard of Scagnar to do with such a beast?" smiled Ivar Forkbeard.
"I do not understand this," I said.
"Doubtless it means nothing," said Ivar Forkbeard. "And at least it is of no concern to us."
"I shall hope not," I said.
"I have an appointment with Svein Blue Tooth," said Ivar Forkbeard. He kicked the captive with the side of his boot. She uttered a small noise, but made no other sound. "The Thing will soon be held," he said.
I nodded. What he had said was true. "But surely," I said, "you will not dare, an outlaw, attend the Thing?"
"Perhaps," said Ivar. "Who knows?" He grinned "Then," said he, "if I should survive, we will hunt Kurii."
"I hunt only one," I said.
"Perhaps the one you hunt," said Ivar, "is even now within the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar."
"It is possible," I said. "I do not know." It seemed to me not unlikely that the Forkbeard's speculation might be true. But I had no wish to pursue Kurii at random.
"How will you know the one of the Kurii whom you seek?" Ivar had asked me, in his hall.
"I think," I had said, "he will know me."
Of this I had little doubt.
I was certain that the Kur which I sought would know me, and well.
I did not know it, but I did not think that would make much difference.
It was m
y intention to hunt openly, and, I expected, this understood, my quarry, hunting, too, would find me, and, together, we would do war.
It had doubtless been its plan to lure me to the north. I smiled. Surely its plan had been successful.
I looked at the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar. If the Kur within it were he whom I sought, I had little doubt but that we should later meet. If it were not it which I sought, I had, as far as I knew, no quarrel with it.
But I wondered what it might be doing in the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar. The Kurii and men, as far as I knew, met only in feeding and killing.
"Let us go," said I to Ivar Forkbeard.
"Oars," said he, softly, to his oarsmen.
The oars, gently, noiselessly, entered the water, and the boat moved away, into the darkness.
There was a small sound, from the fetters on the prone girl's wrists.
Chapter 9 - THE FORKBEARD WILL ATTEND THE THING
"My Jarl!" cried Thyri, running into my arms. I lifted her and swung her about. She wore the kirtle of white wool, the riveted collar of black iron.
I drank long at the lips of the bond-maid.
About me I heard the joyous cries of the men of Ivar's farm, the excited cries of bond-maids.
Ivar Forkbeard crushed to his leather Pudding and Gunnhild, kissing first one and then the other, as each eagerly sought his lips, their hands, too, those of bond-maids, eager upon his body.
Other bond-maids pressed past me to greet favorites among the oarsmen of Forkbeard's serpent.
Behind Forkbeard, and to his left, her head high, disdainful, stood Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar.
