Marauders of Gor coc-9 Page 7

  The men of Ivar Forkbeard threw their bulging cloaks, filled with gold and plate, into the ship.

  Ivar Forkbeard looked back.

  We heard, in the distance, a muffled crash. A wall of the temple had fallen. Then, a moment later, we heard the falling of another wall. Smoke, in angry billows, black and fiery, climbed the sky above Kassau.

  "I shall fetch a belonging or two," I said, "and be with you presently."

  "Do not delay overlong," suggested Ivar Forkbeard.

  "Very well," I said.

  I ran to the yard of a tavern near the docks. There I unsaddled, unbridled and freed the tarn I had ridden north. "Fly!" I commanded it. It smote the air with its wings, and beat its way into the smoky skies of Kassau. I saw it turn toward the southeast. I smiled. In such a direction, I knew, lay the mountains of Thentis. In those mountains had the forbearers of the bird been bred. I thought of the webs of spiders and turtles running to the sea. How fantastic, how strange, I thought, is the blood of beasts, and I realized, too, that I was a beast, and wondered on what might be the nature of those instincts which must be my own.

  I hurled a golden tarn disk to the ground, to pay for lodging in Kassau, and the care of the bird. I would leave the saddle.

  But from it, I took the saddlebags, containing some belongings, and some gold, and, too, the bedroll of fur and boskhide. From it, too, I took, in its waterproof sheath, the great bow, and its arrows, forty arrows flight and sheaf.

  I looked after the tarn. Already it had gone, disappearing in the smoking sky above Kassau.

  I had booked better passage to Torvaldsland.

  I turned and ran back to the wharf.

  Eight bows were trained on me; eight arrows lay ready at the taut string.

  "Do not fire," called Ivar Forkbeard to his bowmen. He grinned. "He plays Kaissa."

  I threw my gear into the ship, and, bow in hand, leaped into the serpent.

  "Cast off," said Ivar Forkbeard.

  The two mooring ropes were flung free of the mooring cleats. They were not cut. The bowmen took their places, with their fellows, on the benches. The serpent backed from the pier and, in the harbor, turned. The red-and-white striped sail, snapping, unfolding, was dropped from the spar.

  Between the benches, amidships, among piles of loot, their wrists fettered behind them, sat the naked bond-maids, and Aelgifu, in her torn, black velvet. They were still in throat coffle. Their ankles had been crossed, and lashed tightly with binding fiber. Aelgifu's shoes, I noted, had been removed, and her woolen hose; this was done that her ankles and feet, bared now like those of the bond-maids, might be as securely tied. No Gorean puts binding fiber over shoes or hose. It seemed Aelgifu, proud and rich, would go barefoot, like a peasant wench or a stripped bond-maid, by the will of Ivar Forkbeard, until her ransom was paid on the skerry of Einar five nights from this night, by the rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark. She alone of the women, though fettered and bound, and in coffle, did not seem unduly upset.

  Ivar Forkbeard went to the bond-maids. He looked down on the blond, slender girl. The coffle loop was on her throat. She sat, with her legs drawn up, her ankles crossed. #She moved her wrists in the fetters; there was a small sound as the three-inch joining link moved in the welded rings of the fetters.

  "It seems your bondage," said he, "pretty maid, will not be as short as you had hoped."

  She looked down.

  "There is no escape," he told her.

  She sobbed.

  The men of Torvaldsland began to sing at the oars.

  Ivar Forkbeard reached down to the planking on the deck and picked up Aelgifu's shoes and hose, where they had been discarded when they had been removed and her ankles bound. He threw them over the side.

  Then he joined me at the stern. We could see men at the docks. Some were even attempting to rig a coasting vessel to pursue the serpent. But they would not rig it.

  It was pointless.

  The men of Torvaldsland sang with great voices. The oars, two men to an oar, lifted and dipped. The helmsman leaned on the tiller of the great steering oar.

  Behind us we could see the smoke of the burning temple. Too, it seemed, the fires had spread elsewhere in Kassau, doubtless carried by the wind.

  We could now see those at the dock, and even those who had been bestirring themselves with the coasting vessel, returning to the town. We heard the ringing of the great bar which hung on its timber frame outside the temple. The town was afire. The men of Kassau left the docks, hurrying up the dirt streets, to take up their new labors.

  Behind us, amidships, we heard the weeping of women, fettered bond-maids being carried north to serve harsh masters.

  The smoke billowed high in the sky above Kassau. We could hear, clearly, carrying over the water, the ringing of the great bar outside the temple.

  The men of Torvaldsland singing, the oars lifting and dipping, the serpent of Ivar Forkbeard took its way from the harbor of Kassau.

  Chapter 4 - THE FORKBEARD AND I RETURN TO OUR GAME

  Ivar Forkbeard, leaning over the side of his serpent, studied the coloring of the water. Then he reached down and scooped up some in the palm of his hand, testing its temperature.

  "We are one day's rowing," said he, "from the skerry of Einar and the rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark."

  "How do you know this?" I asked.

  We had been out of sight of land for two days, and, the night preceding, had been, with shortened sail, swept eastward by high winds.

  "There is plankton here," said Ivar, "that of the banks south of the skerry of Einar, and the temperature of the water tells me that we are now in the stream of Torvald, which moves eastward to the coast and then north."

  The stream of Torvald is a current, as a broad river in the sea, pasangs wide, whose temperature is greater than that of the surrounding water. Without it, much of Torvaldsland, bleak as it is, would be only a frozen waste of cliffs, inlets and mountains. Its arable soil is thin and found in patches. The size of the average farm is very small. #Good farms is often by sea, in small boats. Without the stream of Torvald it would probably not be possible to raise cereal crops in sufficient quantity to feed even its relatively sparse population.

  There is often not enough food under any conditions, particularly in northern Torvaldsland, and famine is not unknown. In such cases men feed on bark, and lichens and seaweed. It is not strange that the young men of Torvaldsland often look to the sea, and beyond it, for their fortunes. The stream of Torvald is regarded by the men of Torvaldsland as a gift of Thor, bestowed upon Torvald, legendary founder and hero of the land, in exchange of a ring of gold.

  Ivar Forkbeard went to the mast. Before it sat Aelgifu. She was chained to it by the neck. Her wrists, in the black, iron fetters of the north, were now fastened before her body that she could feed herself. There was salt in her hair. She still wore her black velvet but now it was stained with sea water, and salt, and was discolored, and stiff, and creased. She was barefoot.

  "Tomorrow night," said Ivar Forkbeard to her, "I shall have your ransom money."

  She did not deign to speak to him, but looked away. Like the bond-maids, she had been fed only on cold Sa-Tarna porridge and scraps of dried parsit fish.

  The men of Torvaldsland sometimes guide their vessels by noting the direction of the waves, breaking against the prow, these correlated with prevailing winds. Sometimes they use the shadows of the gunwales, failing across the thwarts, judging their angles. The sun, too, of course, is used, and, at night, the stars give them suitable compass, even in the open sea.

  It is a matter of their tradition not to rely on the needle compass, as is done in the south. The Gorean compass points always to the Sardar, the home of Priest-Kings. The men of Torvaldsland do not use it. They do not need it. The sextant, however, correlated with sun and stars is not unknown to them. It is commonly relied on, however, only in unfamiliar waters. Even fog banks, and the feeding grounds of whales, and ice floes, in given season, in their own waters, g
ive the men of Torvaldsland information as to their whereabouts, they utilizing such things as easily, as unconsciously, as a peasant might a mountain, or a hunter a river.

  The ships of the men of Torvaldsland are swift. In a day, a full Gorean day of twenty Ahn, with a fair wind they can cover from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pasangs.

  I studied the board before me.

  It was set on a square chest. It was a board made for play at sea, and such boards are common with the men of Torvaldsland. In the center of each square was a tiny peg. The pieces, correspondingly, are drilled to match the pegs, and fit over them. This keeps them steady in the movements at sea. The board was of red and yellow squares.

  The Kaissa of the men of Torvaldsland is quite similar to that of the south, though certain of the pieces differ. There is, for example, not a Ubar but a Jarl, as the most powerful piece. Moreover, there is no Ubara. Instead, there is a piece called the Jarl's Woman, which is quite powerful, more so than the southern Ubara. Instead of Tarnsmen, there are two pieces called the Axes. The board has no Initiates, but there are corresponding pieces called Rune-Priests. Similarly there are no Scribes, but a piece, which moves identically, called the Singer. I thought that Andreas of Tor, a friend, of the caste of Singers, might have been pleased to learn that his caste was represented, and honored, on the boards of the north. The Spearmen moved identically with the southern Spearmen.

  It did not take me much time to adapt to the Kaissa of Torvaldsland, for it is quite similar to the Kaissa of the south. On the other hand, feeling my way on the board, I had lost the first two games to the Forkbeard. Interestingly, he had been eager to familiarize me with the game, and was abundant in his explanations and advice. Clearly, he wished me to play him at my full efficiency, without handicap, as soon as possible. I had beaten him the third game, and he had then, delighted, ceased in his explanations and advice and, together, the board between us, each in our way a warrior, we had played Kaissa.

  The Forkbeard's game was much more varied, and tactical, than was that of, say, Marlenus of Ar, much more devious, and it was far removed from the careful, conservative, positional play of a man such as Mintar, of the caste of Merchants. The Forkbeard made great use of diversions and feints, and double strategies, in which an attack is double edged, being in effect two attacks, an open one and a concealed one, either of which, depending on a misplay by the opponent, may be forced through, the concealed attack requiring usually only an extra move to make it effective, a move which, ideally, threatened or pinned an opponent's piece, giving him the option of surrendering it or facing a devastating attack, he then a move behind.

  In the beginning I had played Forkbeard positionally, learning his game. When I felt I knew him better, I played him more openly. His wiliest tricks of course, I knew, he would seldom use, saving them for games of greater import, or perhaps for players of Torvaldsland. Among them, even more than in the south, Kaissa is a passion. In the long winters of Torvaldsland, when the snow, the darkness, the ice and wintry winds are upon the land, when the frost breaks open the rocks, groaning, at night, when the serpents hide in their roofed sheds, many hours, under swinging soapstone lamps, burning the oil of sea sleen, are given to Kaissa. At such times, even the bond-maids, rolling and restless, naked, in the furs of their masters, their ankles chained to a nearby ring, must wait.

  "It is your move," said Forkbeard.

  "I have moved," I told him. "I have thrown the Ax to Jarl six."

  "Ah!" laughed the Forkbeard. He then sat down and looked again at the board. He could not now, with impunity, place his Jarl at Ax four.

  The sun, for Torvaldsland, was hot. In the chronology of Port Kar, it was early in Year 3 of the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains. In the chronology of Ar, which serves, generally, to standardize chronology on Gor, it was 10,122 C.A., or Contasta Ar, from the founding of Ar. The battle of the 25th of Se'Kara had taken place in 10,120 C.A. In that same year, in its spring, in Port Kar, the Council of Captains had assumed its sovereignty, thus initiating Year 1 of its reign. Most Gorean cities use the Spring Equinox as the date of the New Year. Turia, however, uses the Summer Solstice. The Spring Equinox, incidentally, is also used for the New Year by the Rune-Priests of the North, who keep the calendars of Torvaldsland. They number years from the time of Thor's gift of the stream of Torvald to Torvald, legendary hero and founder of the northern fatherlands. In the calendars of the Rune-Priests the year was 1,006.

  Forkbeard and I sat in the shade, under a tented awning of sewn boskhides, some thirty-five feet in length. It begins aft of the mast, which is set forward. It rests on four poles, with two long, narrow poles, fixed in sockets, mounted in tandem fashion, serving as a single ridge pole. These poles can also be used in pushing off, and thwarting collisions on rocks. The bottom edges of the tented awning are stretched taut and tied to cleats in the gunwales. There is about a foot of space between the gunwales and the bottoms of the tented awnings, permitting a view to sea on either side.

  Somewhat behind us, between the benches, in the shade of the awning, among other riches taken in the sack of the temple of Kassau, were the bond-maids. They, loot, too, knelt, or sat or laid among golden plate, and candlesticks and golden hangings. Their ankles were no longer bound; their wrists, now, those of most of them, were fettered before their bodies; about their necks, now, however, they wore not simple binding fiber; it had been replaced the first evening out of Kassau; they wore now, knotted about their throats, a coffle rope of the north, about a half inch in thickness, of braided leather, cored with wire. At night they slept with their hands fettered behind them. Some of the girls slept, some curled on the golden hangings of the temple; some sat or knelt, heads down; of the girls, four of them, though still held in the coffle, were no longer fettered. They knelt, with soft cloths and polishes, cleaning and rubbing to a high shine, which must please the Forkbeard, the golden trove of the looted temple of Kassau.

  The men of Forkbeard, their oars inboard, the ship under sail, amused themselves as they would. Some slept on the benches or between them, some under the awning and some not, or on the exposed, elevated stem deck. Here and there some sat in twos or threes, talking. Two, like Forkbeard and myself, gave themselves to Kaissa. Two others, elsewhere, played Stones, a guessing game. The giant, he who might have been nearly eight feet in height, and had in the temple wrought such furious slaughter, sat now, almost somnolently, on a rowing bench, sharpening, with slow, deliberate movements, with a circular, flat whetstone, the blade of his great ax. Three other men of the Forkbeard attended to fishing, two with a net, sweeping it along the side of the serpent, for parsit fish, and the third, near the stem, with a hook and line, baited with vulo liver, for the white-bellied grunt, a large game fish which haunts the plankton banks to feed on parsit fish.

  Only two of the Forkbeard's men did not rest, he at the helm, bare-headed, looking to sea, and the fellow at the height of the mast, on lookout. The helmsman studies the sky and the waters ahead of the serpent; beneath clouds there is commonly wind; and he avoids, moving a point or more to port or starboard, areas where there is little wave activity, for they betoken spots in which the serpent might, for a time, find itself becalmed. The lookout stood upon a broad, flat wooden ring, bound in leather, covered with the fur of sea sleen, which fits over the mast. It has a diameter of about thirty inches. It sets near the top of the mast, enabling the man to see over the sail, as well as to other points. He, standing on this ring, fastens himself by the waist to the mast by looping and buckling a heavy belt about it, and through his master belt. Usually, too, he keeps one hand on or about the mast. The wooden ring is reached by climbing a knotted rope. The mast is not high, only about thirty-five feet Gorean, but it permits a scanning of the horizon to some ten pasangs.

  Forkbeard put his First Singer to his own Ax four, threatening my Ax. I covered my piece with my own First Singer, moving it to my own Ax five. He exchanged, taking my Ax at Jarl six, and I his First Singer with my F
irst Singer. I now had a Singer on a central square, but he had freed his Ax four, on which he might now situate the Jarl for an attack on the Jarl's Woman's Ax's file.

  The tempo, at this point, was mine. He had played to open position; I had played to direct position.

  The Ax is a valuable piece, of course, but particularly in the early and middle game, when the board is more crowded; in the end game when the board is freer, it seems to me the Singer is often of greater power, because of the greater number of squares it can control. Scholars weight the pieces equally, at three points in adjudications, but I would weight the Ax four points in the early and middle game, and the Singer two, and reverse these weights in the end game. Both pieces are, however, quite valuable. And I am fond of the Ax.

  "You should not have surrendered your Ax," said Forkbeard.

  "In not doing so," I said, "I would have lost the tempo, and position. Too, the Ax is regarded as less valuable in the end game."

  "You play the Ax well," said Forkbeard. "What is true for many men may not be true for you. The weapons you use best perhaps you should retain."

  I thought on what he had said. Kaissa is not played by mechanical puppets, but, deeply and subtly, by men, idiosyncratic men, with individual strengths and weaknesses. I recalled I had, many times, late in the game, regretted the surrender of the Ax, or its equivalent in the south, the Tarnsman, when I had simply, as I thought rationally, moved in accordance with what were reputed to be the principles of sound strategy. I knew, of course, that game context was a decisive matter in such considerations but only now, playing Forkbeard, did I suspect that there was another context involved, that of the inclinations, capacities and dispositions of the individual player. Too, it seemed to me that the Ax, or Tarnsman, might be a valuable piece in the end game, where it is seldom found. People would be less used to defending against it in the end game; its capacity to surprise, and to be used unexpectedly, might be genuinely profitable at such a time in the game. I felt a surge of power.