“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.
