Muchmeat was eaten; many horns were drained.
Though the hall of Ivar Forkbeard was built only of turf and stone, and though he himself was outlaw,he had met me at lts door, after I had been bidden wait outside, in his finest garments of scarlet and gold, and carrying a bowl of water and a towel. “Welcome to the hall of Ivar Forkbeard,” he had said. I had washed my hands and face in the bowl, held by the master of the house himself, and dried myself on the towel. Then invited within I had been seated across from him in the place of honor. Then from his chests, within the hall, he had given me a long, swirling cloak of the fur of sea sleen; a bronze-headed spear; a shield of painted wood, reinforced with bosses of iron; the shield was red in color, the bosses enameled yellow; a helmet, conical, of iron, with hanging chain, and a steel nosepiece, that might be raised and lowered in its bands; and, too, a shirt and trousers of skin; and, too, a broad ax, formed in the fashion ofTorvaldsland, large, curved, single-bladed; and four rings of gold, that might be worn on the arm.
“My gratitude,” said I.
“You play excellent Kaissa,” had said he.
I surmised to myself that the help of the Forkbeard might, in the bleak realities of Torvaldsland, be of incalculable value. He might know the haunts of Kurii; he might know dialects of the north, some of which are quite divergent from standard Gorean, as it is spoken, say, in ArorKo-ro-ba, or even in distant Turia; the habits and customs of the northern halls and villages might be familiar to him; I had no wish to be thrown bound beneath the hoes of thralls because I had inadvertently insulted a free man-at-arms or breached a custom, perhaps as simple as using the butter before someone who sat closer to the high-seat pillars than myself. Most importantly, the Forkbeard was a mighty fighter, a brave man, a cunning mind; in my work in the north I was grateful that I might have so formidable an ally. To put a collar on the throat of the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar seemed small enough price to pay for the assistance of so mighty a comrade. Thorgard of Scagnar, vicious and cruel, one of the most powerfill of the northern Jarls, was my enemy.
Too, he had, in his ship, Black Sleen, hunted us at sea.
I smiled. Let his daughter, Hilda the Haughty, beware.
I looked to the Forkbeard. He had one arm about the full, naked waist of the daughter of the administrator of Kassau, Pudding, and the other about the waist of marvelously breasted, collared Gunnhild. “Taste your Pudding, my Jarl,” begged Pudding. He kissed her. “Gunnhild! Gunnhild!” protested Gunnhild. Her hand was inside his furred shirt. He turned and thrust his mouth upon hers.
“Let Pudding please you,” wept Pudding. “Let Gunnhild please you!” cried Gunnhild. “I will please you better,” said Pudding “I will please you better!” cried Gunnhild. Ivar Forkbeard stood up; both bond-maids looked up at him, touching him “Run to the furs,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “both of youl”
Both girls quicklyfled to his furs.
He stepped over the bench, and followed them. At the foot of the ground level, which is the sleeping level, which lies about a foot above the dug-out floor, the long center of the hall, on the floor, against the raised dirt, here and there were rounded logs, laid lengthwise. Each log is ten to fifteen feet long, and commonly about eight inches to a foot thick. If one thinks of the sleeping level, on each side, as constituting, in effect, a couch, almost the length of the hall, except for the cooking area, the logs lie at the foot of these two couches, and parallel to their foot. About each log fitting snugly into deep, wide, circular grooves in the wood, were several iron bands. These each contained a welded ring, to which w.as attached a length of chain, termmating in a black-iron fetter.
Gunnhild thrust out her left ankle; the Forkbeard fettered her; a moment later Pudding, too, had thrust, forth her ankle, and her ankle, too, was locked in a fetter of the north. The Forkbeard threw off his jacket. There was a rustle of chain as the two bond-maids turned, Puddingon her left side, Gunnhild on her right, waiting for the Forkbeard to lie between rhem.
I heard men, down the table laughing. One of the new girls, from Kassau, had been thrown on her back, on the table. She lay in meat, and spilled mead. She was kickingand laughing, trying to push back from her body the pressing jackets of fur of the men of Torvaldsland. Another girl, I saw, was seized and thrown to the darkness of the sleeping platform. I saw her white body, briefly, trying to crawl away, but he who had thrown her upon the furs, seized her ankle and drew her to him. She was thrown mercilesslyunderhim, her shoulders pressed back, her beauty his prize. I saw her head lift, thrusting her lips to his, but it was then thrust back, and she whimpered, her body squirming, held helpless, loot, his to be done with as he pleased. When he lifted his mouth from hers, she put her arrns about his neck, and thrust up her head again, lips parted. “My Jarl!” she wept. “My Jarl!” Then he again thrust her back to the furs, with such force that she cried out, and then he, with rudeness and incredible force, used her for his pleasure. I saw her body struck again and again, she clinging to him, helplessly. He gave her no quarter. Bond-maids are treated without mercy. “I love you, my Jarl!” she screamed. Men at the tables, mead spilling, chewing on meat, laughed at her. She wept, and cried out with pleasure.
When the oarsman had finished with her and would return to the table, she tried to hold him. He struck her back on the furs. Weeping she held out her arms to him. He returned to his mead.
I saw another oarsman then crawl to her and, by the hair, pull her into his arms. In a moment I saw her collared body, desperately pressing and rubbing against hirn, he in her small, white arms, her belly thrust against the great buckle of the master belt. Then he, too, threw her to her back. “I love you, my Jarls,” she wept. “I love you, my Jarls!”
There was much laughter. I looked to one side; there, at a bench, lethargic, somnolent, like a great stone, or a sleeping larl, sat Rollo, he of such great stature, with grayish skin. He was bare-chested. About his neck, looped, was a cord of woven, golden wire, with a golden pendant, in the shape of an ax. He was shaggy haired. He seemed not to be aware of the wildness of thefeast, he seemed not to hear the laughter, the screams of the yielding bond-maids; he sat with his hands on his knees; hls eyes were closed. A bondmaid, passing him, carrying mead, brushed him. Frightened, she hurried past him. His eyes did not open. Rollo rested.
“Oh, no!” I heard Pudding say.
I turned to look to the Forkbeard’s couch. From about his neck he had taken the silver chain which had been the symbol of office of Gurt, Administrator of Kassau. He had forcibly drawn Pudding’s hands behind her, and, cunninglytwisting the chain, had fastened her wrists behind her with it. She sat on the furs, her left ankle clasped in the iron fetter which chained her to the log at the foot of the Forkbeard’s couch, her wrists fastened behind her with her father’s chain of office.
She looked at the Forkbeard with fear. He then threw her to her back. “Do not forget Gunnhild,” whined Gunnhild pressing her lips to the Forkbeard’s shoulder. I heard the movement of her own chain on the log.
Male thralls are chained for the night in the bosk sheds. Bondmaids are kept in the hall, for the pleasure of the free men. They are often handed from one to the other. It is the responsibility of he who last sports with them to secure them.
I heard screams of pleasure.
I looked down at Thyri, kneeling beside my bench. She looked up at me, frightened. She was a beautiful girl,with a beautifill face. She was delicate, sensitive. Her eyes were highly intelligent, beautiful and deep. A collar of black iron was riveted on her throat.
“Run to the furs, Bondmaid,” I said, harshly.
Thyri leaped to her feet and fled to my furs, weeping. I finished a horn of mead, rose to my feet, and went to my sleeping area.
She lay there, her legs drawn up.
“Ankle,” I said to her.