John Norman - Marauders of Gor

The free woman, I could see, was not much pleased with the Forkbeard's response.

"Thorgeir, is it not?" she asked.

"Thorgeir of Ax Glacier," said the Forkbeard, bowing.

"And what," asked she. "would one of Ax Glacier need with all these miserable slaves?" She indicated the kneeling girls of Forkbeard.

"In Ax Glacier country," said the Forkbeard, with great seriousness, "the night is six months long."

"I see," smiled the woman. Then she said, "You have won talmits, have you not, Thorgeir of Ax Glacier?"

"Six," said he, "Lady."

"Before you claim them," she said, "I would recommend that you recall your true name."

He bowed.

Her recommendation did not much please me.

She lifted the hem of her kirtle of scarlet wool about the ankles of her black shoes and turned away. She looked back, briefly, once. She indicated the kneeling slaves. "Kirtle their shame," she said. Then strode away, followed by several men-at-arms.

"Kirtle your shame!" cried the Forkbeard.

His girls, quickly, frightened, tears in their eyes, drew about them as well as they could their kirtles. They covered, as well as they could, their bodies, having been shamed by the free woman. It is a common practice of free women, for some reason, to attempt to make female slave ashamed of her body.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Bera," said he, "companion of Svein Blue Tooth."

My heart sank.

"He should put her in a collar," said the Forkbeard. I was scandalized at the very thought.

"She needs the whip," he said. Then he looked at his girls. "What have you done?" he asked. "Drop your kirtles, and hitch them up!"

Laughing, once more proud of their bodies, the girls of the Forkbeard insolently slung their kirtles low on their hips, and hitched them high over their calves, even half way up their delightful thighs.

Then, we again continued on our way, leaving the place of the platform, the place of Gunnhild's triumph, where she had received a pastry, and where her master, the Forkbeard, had made a silver tarn disk on her beauty. She gave the other girls crumbs of the pastry and permitted Dagmar, who was to be sold off, to lick frosting from her fingers.

In the bond-maid shed there was a rustle of chain, as the girls looked up.

Light filtered into the shed from windows cut high in the wall on our right. The girls sat, or knelt or laid on straw along on our right. The shed is some two hundred feet long, about ten feet wide, and eight feet in height.

An officer of Svein Blue Tooth, assisted by two thralls, quickly assessed Dagmar, stripping her, feeling her body, the firmness of her breasts, looking in her mouth.

"A tarn disk of silver," he said.

Dagmar had, two months ago, stolen a piece of cheese from Pretty Ankles; she had been beaten for that, at the post; fastened there by Ottar and switched by Pretty Ankles, until Pretty Ankles had tired of switching her, too; she had not been found sufficiently pleasing by several of the Forkbeard's oarsmen; she was, accordingly, to be sold off, as an inferior girl.

"Done," said the Forkbeard.

Dagmar was sold.

There were some one hundred bond-maids for sale in the shed. They all wore collars of the north, with the projecting iron ring. They were fastened by a single chain, but it was not itself run through the projecting loop on their collars; rather, a heavy padlock, passing through a link of the chain and the projecting loop, secured them; in this way the chain, when a girl is taken from the chain, or added to it, need not be drawn through any of the loops; the girls may thus, with convenience, be spaced on the chain, removed from it, and added to it.

The Forkbeard was given the tarn disk, which he placed in his wallet. It had been taken from a sack slung about the right wall. There, from one of several small wooden boxes projecting an intervals from the wall, he took an opened padlock. He then walked across the shed, still holding Dagmar by the arm, and threw her to her knees. He then lifted the chain and, by means of the padlock, passing it through the loop on her collar and a link in the chain, secured her.

The Forkbeard, meanwhile, was looking at the bond-maids.

They were, of course, stripped for the view of buyers.

Behind the Forkbeard were myself, his men, those bond-maids who had accompanied us, and the thrall, Tarsk, who had been bought along, should the Forkbeard have made any heavy purchases.

"My Jarl," said Thyri.

"Yes," said the Forkbeard.

"Should this thrall," she asked, indicating Tarsk, once Wulfstan of Kassau, "be permitted to look upon the beauty of the bond-maids?"

"What do you mean?" asked Ivar Forkbeard.

"He is, after all," said Thyri, "only a thrall."

I wondered that she would deny the young man this pleasure. I recalled that she had said she hated him. I, personally, had no objection to his presence in the shed. Thralls, I expected, had few pleasures. It might have been more than a year since he had been permitted a female.

The young man looked upon the proud Thyri with great bitterness.

She lifted her head, and laughed.

"I think," said Ivar Forkbeard, "that I will send him back to the tent."

"Excellent," she said. She smiled at the thrall.

"Chain!" said the Forkbeard. One of his men took from over his shoulder a looped chain. At each end it terminated in a manacle. It had been held, looped, by these manacles being locked into one another. He removed it from his shoulder and opened the manacles. The chain itself was about a yard long. He handed it to the Forkbeard.

The young man would go chained to the tent.

"Wrist," said the Forkbeard.

The young man extended his wrists. Thyri watched, delighted.

The Forkbeard closed the manacle about the young man's left wrist.

Thyri laughed.

Then the Forkbeard took Thyri's right wrist and closed it in the other fetter.

"My Jarl!" she cried.

"She is yours until morning," the Forkbeard told the young thrall. "Use her behind the tent."

"My thanks, my Jarl!" he cried.

"My Jarl!" wept Thyri.

Tarsk seized the length of chain in his right fist, about a foot from her fetter. He jerked it. The fetter was large on her wrist, but she could not slip it. She was held. She looked at him with horror. "Hurry, Bond-maid!" he cried. He turned about, dragging her by the right wrist, and, almost running, pulled her, stumbling, crying out, after him.

The Forkbeard, and I, and his men, laughed. We had not been much pleased at the insolence of the bond-maid with respect to the young thrall; once, we recalled, her taunting of him had almost cost him his life; I had intervened, and he had only been whipped instead; I had little doubt that Wulfstan of Kassau, the thrall, Tarsk, had many scores to settle with the pretty little she-sleen, once a fine young lady of Kassau; too, I recalled, she had once refused his suit, he supposedly not being good enough for her. "I hope," said the Forkbeard, "he will not make her scream all night behind the tent. I wish to obtain a good night's rest."

"It would be a shame," said I, "to interfere with his pleasure."

"If necessary," said the Forkbeard, "I will simply have him gag her with her own kirtle."

"Excellent," I said.

The Forkbeard then turned his attention to the chained female slaves in the shed.

Some extended their bodies to him; some turned, to display themselves, provocatively; for he was obviously a desirable master; but others affected not to notice him; though I noticed that their bodies were held beautifully as he passed, particularly should he pause to regard them; other girls, perhaps newer to their collars, shrank back against the boards, trying to cover themselves; some regarded him with tears in their eyes; some with fear; some with open hostility; others with sullen resentment; all knew that he might, like any man, own them, completely.