John Norman - Marauders of Gor

We looked down on her. "I beg!" she cried. "I beg to be permitted to run to his furs!"

Gorm unbound the rope from her ankle, that which had held her legs straight, and that on her throat, which had prevented her from lifting her shoulders and head.

He did not unbind her wrists and ankles. He lifted her to a sitting position. She trembled with cold, whimpering. "I have brought you a drink," he said. "Drink it eagerly, Hilda the Haughty."

"Yes, yes!" she whispered, her teeth chattering.

Then, holding her head back, and lifting the cup to her mouth, he gave her of the drink he had brought with him.

And eagerly, whimpering, shuddering with cold, did Hilda the Haughty drink down the slave wine.

Gorm unbound her and threw her over his shoulder; so stiff and trembling with cold, and stiff from the ropes, was she that she could not stand.

I put my hand on her body; it was like ice. She was whimpering with cold, her head hanging down, over Gorm's back; her long hair fell to the back of his knees.

I lit the way with the torch, and we took her to the hall of the Forkbeard.

We carried her through the darkness and smoke of the hall, between the posts.

The Forkbeard was sitting on the end of his couch, his boots on the floor.

Gorm threw her, on her knees, at the feet of the Forkbeard. Her head was down; her hair was over his boots. She trembled with cold.

Men and bond-maids gathered about.

The left side of her body was illuminated dully, redly, from the coals of the fire pit. The right side of her body was in darkness.

"Who are you?" demanded the Forkbeard.

"Hilda," she wept, "daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar."

"Hilda the Haughty?" he asked.

"Yes," she wept, head down, "Hilda the Haughty."

"What do you want?" he asked.

"To share your furs," she wept.

"Are you not a free woman?" he asked.

"I beg to share your furs, Ivar Forkbeard," she wept.

He rose to his feet and shoved back a long table, and a bench, on the other side of the fire pit. With his heel he drew in the dirt of the floor a bond-maid circle.

She looked at him.

Then he gestured that she might enter his couch. Gratefully, she crawled upon the couch, his section of that fur covered, dirt sleeping level, and, trembling, shuddering with cold, drawing her body up, drew the furs about her. She lay huddled in the furs. Her body shook beneath them. We heard her moan.

"Mead!" called Ivar Forkbeard, returning to the table. Pudding was first to reach him, with a horn of mead.

"Please come to my side, Ivar Forkbeard!" wept Hilda. "I freeze! Hold me! Please hold me!"

"Let that be a lesson in passion to you other bond-maids," laughed Ottar.

There was much laughter, and most from the beautiful, nude slaves of the men of Torvaldsland, hot, collared, and eager in their brawny arms.

The Forkbeard, laughing, drained the horn. "Mead!" he cried. Gunnhild served him.

After this second horn of mead the Forkbeard, wiping his mouth with his arm, turned about and went to his furs.

He howled with misery.

"She is the coldest of women!" laughed Ottar.

"Hold me, Forkbeard!" she wept. "Hold me please!"

"Will you serve me well?" asked the Forkbeard.

"Yes," she cried. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

But the Forkbeard did not make her serve him then but, firmly, held her body, locked in his arms, that of his prisoner, to his, warming her. After half of an Ahn I saw her, delicately, eyes frightened, lift her head and put her lips to his shoulder; softly, timidly, she kissed him; and then looked into his eyes. Suddenly she was flung on her back and his huge hand, roughened from the hilt of the sword, the handle of the ax, was at her body. "Oh no!" she cried. "No!"

Bets were made at the table. I bet on Ivar Forkbeard. Within an Ahn, Hilda the Haughty, to the jeers of men, the taunts of bond-maids, on her hands and knees, head down, hair falling forward, crept to the circle of the bond-maid, which Ivar Forkbeard had drawn in the dirt of the hall floor between the posts. The coals of the fire pit illuminated the left side of her body. She crawled before the bond-maids, the oarsmen. She entered the circle, and then, within the circle, stood up. She stood very straight, and her head was up. "I am yours, Ivar Forkbeard," she said. "I am yours!"

He gestured to her, and she fled from the circle, to join him, to throw herself at his side, to beg his touch, his bond-maid.

I collected nine tarn disks and two pieces of broken plate, plundered two years ago from a house on the eastern edge of Skjern.

Gunnhild had been given by the Forkbeard to Gorm for the night. I saw him holding her by the arm and pushing her ahead of him to his furs. This night her ankle would be held by his fetter, not that of the Forkbeard. The Forkbeard had offered me Pudding, but, generously, thinking to have Thyri, I had, after using her once, given her for the night to Ottar. Even now she was, kneeling on his furs, being fettered by the keeper of Ivar Forkbeard's farm. You can imagine my irritation when I saw Thyri led past me, her left wrist in the grip of an oarsman. She looked over her shoulder at me, agonized. I blew her a kiss in the Gorean fashion, kissing and gesturing, my fingers at the right side of my mouth, almost vertical, then, with the kiss, brushing gently toward her. I had no special claim on the pretty little bond-maid, no more than any other among the Forkbeard's men. The delicious little thing, like the other goods of the hall, was, for most practical purposes, for the use of us all. I heard the movements of chain, the moans of the bond-maids in the arms of their masters, men of Torvaldsland.

I thought I would sleep alone this night.

"Tarl Red Hair," I heard.

I followed the sound of the voice and, to my delight, as Ottar had left her, she slipping his mind apparently, as she had mine, her hands still tied before her, about the post, kneeling in the dirt, was Olga.

"I hate you, Tarl Red Hair," she said.

I knelt beside her. I had intended to permit her to smolder for a time, she much aroused, and then later, when she had been much heated with need and desire, when, cruelly deprived, she had been aching to break into flame, throw her to my furs, but, unfortunately, I had forgotten about her.

"I forgot about you," I told her.

"I hate you, Tarl Red Hair," she said.

I reached out to touch her. She shrank back in fury.

"Would you please untie me?" she asked.

I did not wish to sleep alone. I wondered if the fires in Olga which, earlier, had burned so deeply, so hotly, could be truly out. I wondered if they might be rekindled.

I slipped, kneeling, behind her. I heard her body move against the post.

I pushed her collar up, under her chin, and, with two fingers of my right hand and two fingers of my left, rubbed the sides of her throat.

"Please untie me," she whispered.

Her hands writhed in the bonds; her body pressed against the post; her left cheek was at the right side of the post.

My hands lowered themselves on her body. And then, her hands tied about the post, we both kneeling, I caressed her. She tried to resist, in fury, but I was patient. At last I heard her sob. "You are master," she said, "Tarl Red Hair." I kissed her on the back of the right shoulder. She put back her head. "Take me to your furs?" she begged. I untied her hands from the post, taking, too, the rope from her belly, by which Ottar had fastened her to his belt, but left the rope on her right wrist, its free end in my hand, to lead her. But I needed not lead her. She followed eagerly, trying to press her lips to my left shoulder.

Before my sleeping area, my rude couch, my furs, she stopped. I stood behind her.

She stood very still, facing the couch, at its foot. She was a bond-maid. She was property. She was owned. "Force me," she whispered.