that the Forkbeard, though expecting the variation, given the preceding four moves, was delighted when it had materialized. He had, perhaps, seldom played it.
“The serpent of Thorgard has seen us!” called the lookout, not at all dismayed.
“Excellent,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “Now we will not be forced to wind the signal horns across the water.”
I grinned. “Tell me about Thorgard of Scagnar,” I said.
“He is an enemy,” said Ivar Forkbeard, simply.
“The ships of this Thorgard,” I said, “have often preyed on the shipping of Port Kar.”
“The shipping of Port Kar,” smiled Ivar Forkbeard, “is not uniquely distinguished in this respect.”
“He is, therefore,” said I, “my enemy as well as yours.”
“What is your name?” had asked the Forkbeard.
“Call me Tarl,” I said.
“It is a name of Torvaldsland,” he said. “Are you not ofTorvaldsland?”
“No,” I had told him.
“Tarl what?” he had asked.
“It is enough that you call me Tarl,” I said, smiling.
“Very well,” said he, “but here, to distinguish you from others in the north, we must do better than that.”
“How is that?” I asked.
He looked at my hair, and grinned. “We will call you Tarl Red Hair,” he said.
“Very well,” I said.
“Your city,” he asked, “what is it?”
“You may think of me,” I had said, “as one of Port Kar.”
“Very well,” said he, “but I think we shall not make a great deal of that, for the men of Port Kar are not overly popular in the north.”
“The men of Torvaldsland,” I assured him, “are not overly popular in the south.”
“The men of Port Kar, however,” said the Forkbeard, “are respected in the north.”
“The men of Torvaldslahd,” I told him, “are similarly respected in the south.”
Gorean enemies, if skilled, often hold one another in high regard.
“You play Kaissa well,” had said Ivar Forkbeard. “Let us be friends.”
“You, too, are quite skilled,” I told him. Indeed, he had much bested me. I still had not fathomed the devious variations of the Jarl’s Ax’s gambit as played in the north. I expected, however, to solve it.
We had shaken hands over the board.
“Friend,” he had said. “Friend,” I had said.
We had then tasted salt, each from the back of the wrist of the other.
“The serpent of Thorgard wheels upon us!” called the lookout cheerily.
“Shall I get the great bow from my belongings?” I asked Ivar Forkbeard.
I knew its range well exceeded that of the shorter bows of the north.
“No,” said the Forkbeard.
“Eight pasangs away!” called the lookout. “The serpent hunts us!”
The Forkbeard and I played four more moves. “Fascinating,” he said.
“Four pasangs away!” called the lookout.
“What shield is at his mast?” called the Forkbeard.
“The red shield,” called the lookout.
“Raise no shield to our own mast,” said the Forkbeard.
His men looked at him, puzzled.
“Thorgard is quite proud of his great longship,” he said, “the serpent called Black Sleen.”
I had heard of the ship.
“It has a much higher freeboard area than this vessel,” I told Ivar Forkbeard. “It is a warship, not a raider. In any engagement you would be at a disadvantage.”
The Forkbeard nodded.
“It is said, too,” said I, “to be the swiftest ship in the north.”
“That we will find out,” said the Forkbeard.
“Two pasangs away!” called the lookout.
“It has forty benches,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “Eighty oars, one hundred and sixty rowers.” The benches on only one side, I recalled, are counted. “But her lines are heavy, and she is a weighty ship.”
“Do you intend to engage her?” I asked.
“I would be a fool to do so,” said the Forkbeard. “I have with me the loot ofthe temple of Kassau, and eighteen bond-maids, and lovely Aelgifu. I would have much to lose, and little to gain.”
“That is true,” I said.
“When I engage Thorgard of Scagnar,” said Ivar Eiorkbeard, “I shall do so to my advantage, not his.”
“One pasang!” called the lookout.
“Do not disturb the pieces,” said Ivar, getting up. He said to Gorm, “Take the first bond=maid and draw her up the mast.” Then he said to two others of his men, “Unbind the ankles of the other bond-maids and thrust them to the rail, where they may be seen.” Then he said to the rowers on the starboard side, “When I give the signal, let us display to Thorgard of Scagnar what we can of the riches of the temple of Kassau!”
The men laughed.
“Will we not fight?” asked the giant, slowly.
Ivar Forkbeard went to him, as might have a father, and took his head in his hands, and held it against his chest. “No battle now,” said he, “Rollo. Another time.”
“No-battle-now?” asked the giant.
“No battle now,” repeated the Forkbeard, shaking the giant’s head. “Another time. Another time.”
There was an agony of disappointment in the large eyes of the huge head.
“Another tirne!” laughed the Forkbeard, giving the great head a shake, as though it might have been that of a pet hound or bear.
“A half pasang and slowing!” called the lookout. “She will approach astern!”
“Swing to face her amidships,” laughed the Forkbeard. Let them see what riches we carry!”
The blond, slender girl’s wrists were now fettered before her body, and a rope attached to the fetters. It was thrown over the spar. Her hands were jerked over her head. Then, by her fettered wrists, she moaning, her naked body twisting against the mast, foot by foot, she was drawn to five feet below the spar. She dangled there, in pain, her body that of a stripped bond-maid, exquisite, tempting, squirming, a taunt to the blood of the men of Thorgard of Scagnar.
That will encourage them to row their best,” said Ivar Forkbeard.
Then the other bond-maids, seventeen of them, were thrust to the rail, and, steadied by the hands of rowers, stood upon it, wrists fettered behind them, in coffle.
The ship of Thorgard was now little more than a quarter of a pasang away. I could detect its captain, doubtless the great Thorgard himself, on its stern deck, above the helmsman, with a glass of the builders.
What marvelous beauties he saw, seventeen naked prizes fettered and coffled, that might be his, could he but take them, and, dangling from the mast, perhaps the most exquisite of all, the slender, blond girl, perhaps herself worth five bond-maids of the more common sort. Aelgifu, too, of course, might be seen, chained to the mast, her wrists fettered before her. That she was clothed would indicate to Thorgard thal: she was free, and might bring high ransom.
“Throw the bond-maids between the benches and secure them,” said Ivar, to those steadying them at the rail. Quickly the miserable bond-wenches were pulled back and flung, belly down, some Iying on others, between the benches. Gorm quickly bent to them, lashing their ankles together. “Lower the wench from the spar!” called the Forkbeard. “You on the starboard side, display now the loot of Kassau’s temple!”
Rowers of Ivar Forkbeard now took their place at the port side. Some waved the golden hangings of the temple over their heads, as though they might have been banners. Others, jeering across the water, lifted up plates and candlesticks. The blond, slender girl, lowered from the mast, collapsed at its foot. She was pulled to her feet by the arm and thrust running, stumbling, to Gorm. He fettered her hands behind her body, and thrust her to her belly, face down, among the other girls. He then fastened her again in the coffle and, swiftly, lashed together her ankles.
The ship of Thorgard was now only some hundred yards away.
An arrow cleft the air, passing over the gunwales.
“Throw the loot over the bond-maids,” called the Forkbeard. This would provide the miserable wenches, terrified and fettered, some measure of protection from missiles, stones and darts. “The awning!” called Forkbeard. Some of the girls looked up, the slender, blond girl among them, and saw the darkness of the awning, unrolled, quickly cast over the loot. Some of them screamed, being suddenly plunged in darkness.
More arrows slipped past. One struck in the mast. Aelgifu knelt behind it, still chained to it by the neck, her head in her fettered hands. A javelin struck in the deck. A stone bounded from the rail at the top of the port gunwale, splintering it. The ship of Thorgard, Black Sleen, was no more than some fifty yards away. I could see helmeted men at its gunwales, some five feet above the water line. The helmets of the north are commonly conical, with a nose-guard, that can slip up and down. At the neck and sides, attached by rings, usually hangs a mantle of linked chain. The helmet of Thorgard himself, however, covered his neck and the sides of his face. It was horned. Their shields, like those of Torvaldsland, are circular, and of wood. The spear points are large and heavy, of tapered, socketed bronze, some eighteen inches in
