John Norman - Marauders of Gor

"Please, my Jarl," she cried, "do not mark your girl!"

At a sign from the Forkbeard, the iron was pressed deeply into her flesh, and held there, smoking for five Ihn. It was only when it was pulled away that she screamed. Her eyes had been shut, her teeth gritted. She had tried not to scream. She had dared to pit her will against the iron. But, when the iron had been pulled back, from deep within her flesh, smoking, she, her pride gone, her will shattered, had screamed with pain, long and miserably, revealing herself as only another branded girl. She, by the arm, was dragged from the log. She threw back her head, tears streaming down her face, and again screamed in pain. She looked down at her body. She was marked for identification. A hand on her arm, she was thrust, sobbing, to the anvil, beside which she was thrust to her knees.

The brand used by Forkbeard is not uncommon in the north, though there is less uniformity in Torvaldsland on these matters than in the south, where the merchant caste, with its recommendations for standardization, is more powerful. All over Gor, of course, the slave girl is a familiar commodity. The brand used by the Forkbeard, found rather frequently in the north, consisted of a half circle, with, at its right tip, adjoining it, a steep, diagonal line. The half circle is about an inch and a quarter in width, and the diagonal line about an inch and a quarter in height. The brand is, like many, symbolic. In the north, the bond-maid is sometimes referred to as a woman whose belly lies beneath the sword.

"Look up at me," said the smith.

The slender, blond girl, tears in her eyes, looked up at him.

He opened the hinged collar of black iron, about a half inch in height. He put it about her throat. It also contained a welded ring, suitable for the attachment of a chain.

"Put your head beside the anvil," he said.

He took her hair and threw it forward, and thrust her neck against the left side of the anvil. Over the anvil lay the joining ends of the two pieces of the collar. The inside of the collar was separated by a quarter of an inch from her neck. I saw the fine hairs on the back of her neck. On one part of the collar are two, small, flat, thick rings. On the other is a single such ring. These rings, when the wings of the collar are joined, are aligned, those on one wing on top and bottom, that on the other in the center. They fit closely together, one on top of the other. The holes in each, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, too, of course, are perfectly aligned. The smith, with his thumb, forcibly, pushed a metal rivet through the three holes. The rivet fits snugly.

"Do not move your head, Bond-maid," said the smith.

Then, with great blows of the iron hammer, he riveted the iron collar about her throat. A man then pulled her by the hair from the anvil and threw her to one side. She lay there weeping, a naked bondmaid, marked and collared.

"Next," called out the Forkbeard.

Weeping, another girl was flung over the branding log.

In the end only Aelgifu was left.

The Forkbeard, with the heel of his boot on the ground, drew a bond-maid circle. She looked at it. Then, to the laughter of the men, her head high, lifting her skirt, she stepped to the circle, and stood, facing him, within it.

"Remove your clothing, my pretty one," said Ivar Forkbeard. She reached behind the back of her neck and unbuttoned the dress of black velvet, and then drew it over her head. She stood then before us in a chemise of fine silk. This, too, she drew over her head, and threw to the ground. She then stood there, statuesque, proudly.

Ivar licked his lips. Several of his men cried out with pleasure, others struck their left shoulders with the palms of their right hand. Two, who were armed with shield and spear, smote the spear blade on the wooden shield.

"Will she not be a tasty morsel indeed?" Ivar asked his men.

The men cheered, and struck their shoulders, and again, the spear blades smote upon the shields. Fear entered the eyes of the proud Aelgifu.

"Run to the iron, wench," suddenly commanded Ivar Forkbeard, harshly. Moaning, Aelgifu ran from the circle to the branding log, and was thrown over it, belly down. In a moment the iron had bitten her. Her scream brought laughter from some of the other bond-maids. She was then thrust to the anvil and thrown to her knees beside it.

I saw the young, broad-shouldered thrall, who had been standing to one side, go to the slender blond girl. He lifted her to her feet.

"I see, Thyri," said he, "that you are now a woman whose belly lies beneath the sword."

"Wulfstan," she said.

"I am called Tarsk here," he said.

He fingered the collar on her throat. "The proud Thyri," he said, "a bond-maid!" He smiled. "You refused my suit," said he. "Do you recall?"

She said nothing.

"You were too good for me," he said. He laughed. "Now," said he, "doubtless you would crawl on your belly to any man who would free you."

She looked at him angrily.

"Would you not?" he asked.

"Yes, Wulfstan," she said. "I would!"

He held her by the collar. "But you will not be freed Thyri," he said. "You will continue to wear this. You are a bond-maid."

She looked down.

"It pleases me," said he, "to see you here." He stepped back from her. She lifted her eyes, angrily, to look upon him. "A brand," said he, "improves a woman. It improves you Thyri. Your collar, too, the iron on your neck, it against the softness of your body, is quite becoming."

"Thank you, Wulfstan," said she.

"Women," said he, "belong in collars."

Her eyes flashed.

"Sometimes," said he, "to discipline a bond-maid, she is hurled naked among the thralls." He smiled. "Do not fear. Should this be done to you I, in my turn, shall use you well Bond-maid. Quite well."

She shrank back from him.

The last blows of the smith's hammer rang out and Aelgifu, by the hair, was pulled from the anvil, wearing a collar of black iron.

"Hurry, bond-maids!" cried Ivar Forkbeard. "Hurry, lazy girls! There is a feast to be prepared!"

The bond-maids, Thyri and Aelgifu among them, fled, like a frightened herd of tabuk, across the short, turf-like green grass, to the gate of the palisade, to be put to work.

Ivar Forkbeard roared with laughter, his head back. On his lap, naked, cuddling, sat she who had been Aelgifu, her arms about his neck, her lips to the side of his head; her name had now been changed; the new name of the daughter of Gurt, Administrator of Kassau, was Pudding. On his other side, stripped, her collar of black iron at her throat, her arms about his waist, rubbing herself against his belt, was the bond-maid Gunnhild.

I held the large drinking horn of the north. "There is no way for this to stand upright," I said to him, puzzled.

He threw back his head again, and roared once more with laughter.

"If you cannot drain it," he said, "give it to another!"

I threw back my head and drained the horn.

"Splendid!" cried the Forkbeard.

I handed the horn to Thyri, who, in her collar, naked, between two of the benches, knelt at my feet.

"Yes, Jarl," said she, and ran to fill it, from the great vat. How marvelously beautiful is a naked, collared woman.

"Your hall," said I to the Forkbeard, "is scarcely what had expected."

I had learned, much to my instruction, that my conception of the northern halls left much to be desired. Indeed the true hall, lofty, high-beamed, built of logs and boards, with its benches and high-seat pillars, its carvings and hangings, its long fires, its suspended kettles, was actually quite rare, and, generally, only the richest of the Jarls possessed such. The hall of Ivar Forkbeard, I learned, to my surprise, was of a type much more common. Upon reflection, however, it seemed to me not so strange that this should be so, in a bleak country, one in which many of the trees, too would be stunted and wind-twisted.