bosk?”
“And, in the hall,” it said, its lips drawing back from its jaws, “last night a man.”
“Kill it,” said Ivar Forkbeard.
Four spears were raised, but they did not strike.
“No,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “It is dead.”
Chapter 8 Hilda of Scagnar
“So is this the perfume that the high-born women of Ar wear to the song-dramas in En’Kara?” asked the blond girl, amused.
“Yes, Lady,” I assured her, bowing before her, lisping in the accents of Ar.
“It is gross,” said she. “Meaningless.”
“It is a happy scent,” I whined.
“For the low-born,” said she.
“Lalamus!” said I.
My assistant, a large fellow, but obviously stupid, smoothshaven as are the perfurners, in white and yellow silk, and golden sandals, bent over, hurried forward. He carried a tray of vials.
“I had not realized, Lady,” said I, “that perception such as yours existed in the north.”
My accent rnight not have fooled one of Ar, but it was not bad, and to those not often accustomed to the swift, subtle liquidity of the spfflh of Ar, melodius yet expressive, it was more than adecluate. My assistant, unfortunately, did not speak.
The eyes of Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, flashed. “You of the south think we of the north are barbarians!” she snapped.
“Such fools we were,” I admitted, putting my head to the floor.
“I might have you fried in the grease of tarsk,” she said, “boiled in the oil of tharlarion!”
“Will you not take pity, great Lady,” I whined, “on thom who did not suspect the civilization, the refinements of the north?”
“Perhaps,” said she. ”Have you other perfumes?”
My assistant, hopefully, lifted a vial.
“No,” I hissed to him. “In an instant such a woman wi see through such a scent.”
“Let me smell it,” said she.
“It is nothing, lady,” I whined, “though among the highes born and most beautiful of the women of the Physicians i is much favored.”
“Let me smell it,” she said.
I removed the cork, and turned away my head, as thougl shamed.
She held it to her nose. “It stinks,” she said.
Hastily I corked the vial and, angrily, thrust it back intc the hand of my embarrassed assistant, who returned it tc its place.
Hilda sat in a great curule chair, carved with the sign o~ Scagnar, a serpent-ship, seen frontally. On each post of the chair, carved, was the head of a snarling sleen. She smiled, coldly.
I reached for another vial.
She wore rich green velvet, closed high about her neck, trimmed with gold.
She took the next vial, which I had opened for her. “No,” she said, handing it back to me.
Her hair, long, was braided. It was tied with golden string.
“I had no understanding,” said she, “that the wares of Ar were so inferior.”
Ar, populous and wealthy, the greatest city of known Gor, was regarded as a symbol of quality in merchandise. The stamp of Ar, a single letter, that which appears on its Home Stone, the Gorean spelling of the city’s name, was often forged by unscrupulous tradesmen and placed on their own goods. It is not a difflcult sign to forge. It has, however, in spite of that, never been changed or embellithed; the stamp of Ar is a part of its tradition. In my opinion the goods of Ko-ro-ba were as good, or better, than those of Ar but, it is true, she did not have the reputation of the great city to the southeast, across the Vosk. Ar is often looked to, by those interested in such matters, as the setter of the pace in dress and manners. Fashions in Ar are eagerly inquired into; a garment “cut in the fashion of Ar” may sell for more than one of better cloth but less “stylish”; “as it is done in Ar” is a phrase often heard. Sometimes I had little objection to the spreadings of such fashions. After the restoration of Marlenus of Ar, in 10,1 19 Contasta Ar, from the founding of Ar, he had at his victory feast decreed a two-hort, about two and one half inches, shortening of the already briefly skirted garment ofthe female state slave. This was adopted immediately in Ar, and, city by city, became rather general. Proving that I myself am not above fashion I had had this scandalous alteration implemented in my own house; surely I would not have wanted my girls to be embarrassed by the excessive length of their livery; and, in fact, I did the Ubar of Ar one better, by ordering their hemlines lifted by an additional quarter inch; most Gorean slave girls have lovely legs; the more I see of them the better; I wondered how many girls, even as far away as Turia, knew that more of their legs were exposed to free men because, long ago, drunkenly, Marlenus of Ar, at his victory feast, had altered the length of the livery of the female state slaves of Ar. Another custom, long practised in the far south, below the Gorean equator, in Turia, for example, is the piercing of the ears of the female slave; this custom, though of long standing in the far south, did not begin to spread with rapidity in the north until, again, it was introduced in Ar. At a feast Marlenus, as a special treat for his high officers, presented before them a dancer, a female slave, whose ears had been pierced. She had worn, in her degradation, golden loops in her ears; she had not been able, even, to finish her dance; at a sign from Marlenus she had been seized, thrown to the tiles on which she had danced, and raped by more than a hundred men. Ear piercing, from this time, had begun to spread rapidly through the north, masters, and slavers, often inflicting it on thei glrls. Interestingly, the piercing of the septum, for the in sertion of a nose ring, is regarded, generally, a great dea 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 epito me 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 curvacious, brat of a boorish sea rover.
I put my head to the floor. I grovelled 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 perrnit 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's Hilda the Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, would kee,~) it for hersel~;
I attempted to conceal one vial, which we had not permitted her to sample. But her eye was too qwck ~or 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.
