“I am told,” I told her, “that Olga is one of the best of the bond-maids.”

She lifted her body to me, begging for my touch. I fondled the extent of her, kissing and licking.

“What have you done to my body?” she whispered. “I have never felt this way, this deeply, this fully, before.”

“What does your body tell you?”, I asked.

“That I will be a marvel to you, Tarl Red Hair,” she whispered. “A marvel!”

“Please me,” I told her.

“Yes, my Jarl,” she wept. “Yes!”

And when she had much pleased me, I finished with her, in the lirs taking.

“Hold me,” she wept.

“I shall hold you,” I told her, “and then, in a time, bond-maid, you will be again used.”

She looLed at me, startled.

“This,” I told her, “is the first taking. It’s purpose is only to warm you for the second.”

She clutched me, not speaking.

I held her, tightly.

“Can I endure such pleasure?” she asked, frightened.

“You are bond,” I told her. “You will have no choice.”

“I~Iy Jarl,” she asked, frightened, “is it the second taking of the Gorean master, to which you intend to subject me?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“I have heard of it,” she wept. “In it,” she gasped, “the girl is permitted no quarter, no mercy!”

“That is true,” I told her.

We lay together, silently, I holding her, she against me, chained, for something like half of an Ahn. Then I touched.

“She lifted her head. “Is it beginning?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her.

“~lay a bond-maid beg one favor of her Jarl?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” I said.

She leaned over me. I felt her hair brush my body. “Be merciless,” she whispered. “Be merciless,” she begged.

“That is my intention,” I told her, and threw her to he.

“Never have I yielded as I yielded now,” she wept, “ would not exchange my collar for all the jewels on Gor!”

I held her. In time, she slept. I, too, then, slept. It was two Ahn before dawn. In one Ahn Ottar and the Forkbeard would be up, arousing the men. The serpent, the afte noon before, had been readied. This morning, at dawn the serpent would leave the small wharf, dipping oars, gliding through fog on the inlet, the result of the cooler la winds moving over the somewhat warmer water ol the croaching Torvaldstream. Ivar Forkbeard, not wisely perhaps, was determined to attend the Thing. He had there, his opinion, an appointment to keep, with Svein Blue Toot a great Jarl of Torvaldsland, who had outlawed him.

Chapter 10 A Kur will address the Thing

Roped together by the wrist, on the turf of the thing-fair, we grappled.

His body slipped in my hand. I felt my right wrist drawn back, at the side of m head, his two hands closed on it. He grunted. He was strong. He was Ketil, of Blue Tooth’s high farm, champion of Torvaldsland.

My back began to bend backward; I braced myself as I could, right leg back, bent, left leg forward, bent.

The men about cried out. I heard bets taken, speculations exchanged.

Then my right wrist, to cries of wonder, began to lift and straighten; my arm was then straight, before my body; I began, inch by inch, to lower it, toward the ground; if he did retain his grip; he would, at my feet, be forced to his knees. He released my wrist, with a cry of fury. The rope between us, a yard in length, pulled taut. He regarded me, astonished, wary, enraged.

I heard hands striking the left shoulders; weapons struck on shields.

Suddenly the champion’s fist struck toward me, beneath the rope. I caught the blow, turning, on the side of my left thigh.

There were cries of fury from the watchers.

I took then the right arm of the champion, his wrist in my right hand, my left hand on his upper arm, and extended the arm and turned it, so that the palm of his hand was up.

Then, at the elbow, I broke it across my right knee. I had had enough of him.

I untied the rope from my waist and threw it down. He knelt on the turf, whimpering, tears streaming down his face.

The hands of men pounded on my back. I heard their cries of pleasure.

I turned about and saw the Forkbeard. His hair was wet; he was drying his body in a cloak. He was grinning. “Greetings, Thorgeir of Ax Glacier,” said i. “Greetings, Red Hair,” said he. Ax Glacier was far to the north, a glacier spilling between two mountains of stone, taking in it’s path to the sea, spreading, the form of the ax. The men of the country of Ax Glacier fish for whales and hunt snow sleen. They cannot farm that far to the north. Thorgeir, it so happened, of course, was the only man of the Ax Glacier country, which is usually taken as the northern border of Torvaldsland, before the ice belts of Gor’s arctic north, who was at the thing-fair. “How went the swimming?” I asked him. “The talmit of skin of sea sleen is mine!” he laughed. The talmit is a headband. It is not unusual forthe men of Torvaldsland to wear them, though none of Forkbeard’s men did… They followed an outlaw. Some talmits have special significance. Special talmits sometime distinguish officers, and Jarls; or a district’s lawmen, in the pay of the Jarl; the different districts, too, sometimes have different styles of talmit, varying in their material and design; talmits, too, can be awarded as prizes. That Thorgeir of Ax Glacier had won the swimming must have seemed strange indeed to those of the thing-fair. Immersion in the waters of Ax Glacier country, unprotected, will commonly bring about death by shock, within a matter of Ihn. Sometimes I wondered if the Forkbeard might be mad. His sense of humour, I thought, might cost us all our lives. There was probably not one man at the thing-fair who took him truly to be of Ax Glacier; most obviously he did not have the epicanthic fold, which helps to protect the eyes of the men of Ax Glacier against extreme cold; further, he was much too large to be taken easily as a man of Ax Glacier; their diet does not produce, on the whole, large bodies; further, their climate tends to select for short, fat bodies, for such, physiologically, are easiest to maintain in the therostatic equilibrium in great cold; long, thin bodies, of course, are easiest to maintain therostatic equilibrium in great heat, providing more exposure for cooling. Lastly, his coloring, though his hair was dark, was surely not that of the far north, but, though swarthy, more akin to that of Torvaldsland, particularly western Torvaldsland. Only a madman, or a fool, might have taken seriously his claim to be of the Ax Glacier country. Much speculation had coursed among the contest fields as to the true identity of the smooth-shaven Thorgeir.

Prior to his winning the swimming he had won talmits for climbing the “mast”, a tall pole of needle wood, some fifty feet high, smoothed and peeled: for jumping the “crevice”, actually a broad jump, on level land, where marks are made with strings, to the point at which the back heel strikes ther earth; wlking the “oar”, actually, a long pole; and throwing the spear, a real spear I am pleased to say, both for distance and accuracy; counting the distance and the accuracy of the spear events as two events which they are, he had thus, prior to the swimming, won five talmits.

He had done less well in the singing contest, though he much prided himself on his singing voice; he thought, in that one, the judges had been against him; he did not score highly either in the composition of poetry contest nor in the rhyming games; “I am not a skald,” he explained to me later; he did much better, I might mention, in the riddle guessing; but not well enough to win; he missed the following riddle; “What is black, has eighty legs and eats gold?”; the answer, though it might not seem obvious, was Black Sleen, the ship of Thorguard of Scagnar; the Forkbeard’s answer had been Black Shark, the legendary ship of Torvald, reputed discoverer and first Jarl of Torvaldsland; he acknowledged his defeat in this contest, however, gracefully; “I was a fool.” He grumbled to me. “I should have known!” Though I attempted to console him, he remained much put out with himself, and for more than an Ahn afterward.