“We can carry no more,” cried one of his men.

“Nor shall we,” laughed Ivar.

“The circle? Cried one.

“Leave it for the people to see,” laughed Ivar.“That it is only gold on a wheel of clay!”

He turned to face me.

“I want passage to Torvaldsland,” I said.“I hunt beast.”

“Kurii? He asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“You are mad,” he said.

“Less mad I expect than Ivar Forkbeard,” I said.

“My serpent,” said he, “ is not a vessel on which one may book passage.”

“I play Kaissa,” I said.

“The voyage north will be long,” he said.

“I am skilled at the game,” I said. “Unless you are quite good, I shall beat you.”

We heard the people screaming outside.I heard one of the beams in the ceiling crack.The roar of the flames seemed deafening.“We shall die in the temple if we do not soon flee,” said one of his me.Of all those in the temple, I think only I, and Ivar Forkbeard, and the giant, he of incredible stature, who had fought with such frenzy, did not seem anxious.He did not seem even aware of the flames.He carried a sack of plate at his back, heavy and bulging, which had been given to him by other men, that he might carry it.

“I, too, am skilled at the game,” said Ivar Forkbeard.

“Are you truly good?”

“I am good,” I said.“Whether I am as good as you, of course, I shall not know until we play.”

“True,” said Forkbeard.

“I sahll join you at your ship,” I said.

“Do so,” said he.

The he turned to one of his me.“Keep close to me the coins brought as offerings by the poor to the temple of Kassau,” he said.These coins had now been placed in the large, single bow.

“Yes, Captain,” said the man.

The rear wall, too, of the temple now caught fire, I heard another beam in the ceiling crack. There were sparks in the air.They stung my face.The bond-maids, their bodies exposed to them, cried out in pain.

“Open the other gate!” cried Ivar Forkbeard.Hysterically, crowding, those citizens of Kassau who had, weeping, terified, been lying on their stomachs in the dirt, beneath the burning roof, leapt to their feet and fled through the door.

Ivar permitted them to leave the temple.

“They are coming out!”cried a voice from the outside.We heard angry men running to the door, people turning the movements of chains, flails and rakes.

“Now let us leave” said Ivar Forkbear.

“You will never get us to the ship,” said the slender girl.

“You will hurry, pretty little bond-maids, and you, too, my large-breasted lovely,” said Ivar, indicating black-vel-veted Aelgifu, “or you will be cut out of the coffle by your heads.”

“Open the door,” he said.

The door was swung open.“To the ships,” he cried.

“Hurry, my pretties,” he laughed, striking the slender blond girl, and others of them, sharply with the palm of his hand.His men, too, the girls between them, pushed through the door.

“They are coming out here!” cried a voice, a man in the crowd of the poor, a peasant, turning about, seeing us.But many of those in the crowd were clasping loved ones, and friends, as they escaped from the other door.Swiftly, down the dirt street to the wharves from the temple, stirding, but not running, moved Ivar Forkbeard with his men, and his loot, both that of female flesh and gold.Many of the peasants, and fishermen, and other poor people, who had not found places in the temple, turned about.Several of them began to follow us, lifting flails and great scythes.Some carried chains, others hoes.

They had no leadership.

Like wolves, crying out, shouting, lifting their fists, they ran behind us as we made our way toward the wharves. Then a rock fell among us, and another.

Noen of them cared to rush upon the axes of the men of Torvaldsland.

“Save us!” cried the slender blond girl.“You are men!Save us!”

At her cries many of the men seemed emboldened and rushed more closely about us, but swings of the great axes kept them back.

“Gather together!”we heard.“Charge!”We saw Gurt, in his black satin, rallying them.

They had lacked a leader.They had one now.Ivar Forkbeard then took Aelgifu by the hair and turned her, so that those following might see.

“Stop!” cried Gurt to them.

The single-baled edge of the great ax lay at Aelgifu’s throat; her head was bent back.For Forkbeard, his left hand in her hair, his right hand just below the head of the ax, grinned at Gurt.

“Stop,” said Gurt, moaning, crushed.“do not fight them!Let them go!”

Ivar Forkbeard released Aelgifu and thrust her ruderly, stumbling, ahead of him.

“Hurry!” called Ivar Forkbeard to his men.“Hurry bright-fleshed ones,” called he to the fettered, burdened coffled bon-mids.

Behind us, we heard the roof of the temple, collapese, I looked back.Smoke stained the sky.

A hundred yards from the wharves we saw a crowd of angry men, perhaps two hundred, blocking the way.They held gaff, harpoons, even pointed stick. Some carried crash hooks and others chisels, and iron levers.

“You see,” cried the blond, girl, delightedly, “my bondage is short!”

“Citizens of Kassau!”called out Ivar Forkbeard cheerily.

“Greetings from Ivar Forkbeard!”

The men looked at him, tense, hunched over, weapons ready, angry.

Forkbeard then, grinning, slung his ax over his left shoulder, dropping it into the broad leather loop by which it may be carried, its head behind his head and to the left.This loop is fixed in a broad leather belt worn from the left shoulder to the right hip, fastened there by a hook, that the weight of the ax will not turn the belt, which fits into a ring in the otherwise unarmed, carry a knife at their master belt. All men of Torvaldsland, incidentally, even if otherwise unarmed, carry a knife at their master belt.The sword, when carried, and it often is, is commonly supported might be mentioned, the common Gorean practice.It can also, of course, be hung, by its sheath and sheath straps, form the master belt, which is quite adequate, being a stout heavy belt, to hold it.It is called the master belt, doubtless, to distinguish it from the ax belt and the sword belt, and because it is, almost always worn.A pouch, of course, and other accoutrements my hang, too, from it.Gorean garments, generally, do not contain pockets.Some say the master belt gets its name be cause it is used sometimes in the disciplining of bond-maids. This seems to be a doubtful origin for the name.It is true, however, questions of the origin of the name aside, that bond-maids, stripped, are often taught obedience under its lash.

Ivar Forkbeard reached out his hands and took from one of his men the bowl of coins which the poor had brought as their pitiful offerings to the temple of Kassau.

Then, smiling, by hadfuls he hurled the coins to the right and to the left.

Tense, the men watched him.One of those coins, of small denomination though they might be, was day’s wages on the docks of Kassau.

More coins, in handfuls, showered to the street, to the sides of the men.

“Fight!” screamed the blond girl.“Fight!”

One of the men, suddenly, reached down and snatched one.

Then, with a great, sweeping gesture, Ivar Forkbeard emptied the bowl of coins, scattering them in a shower of coper and iron over the men. Two more men reached down to snatch a coin.

“Fight!” screamed the blond girl.“Fight!”

The first man, scrabbling in the dirt, picked up another coin, and the another.

Then the second and third man found, each, another coin.Then the others, agonized, unable longer to resist, scurried to the left and right, their weapons discarded, and fell to their knees snatching coins.

“Cowards!” Slenn!”wept the blond girl.Then she cried out in misery, half choked by the coffle loop on her throat, as she found herself hurried, fettered and burdened with the others, through the workers of Kassau.