Marauders of Gor

Chapter 13 Visitors in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth

Ihe hall of Svein Blue Tooth was of wood, and magnificent. The interior hall, not counting rooms leading from it onvarious sides, or the balcony which lined it, leading to other rooms, was some forty feet high, and forty feet in width, some two hundred feet in length. It, on the western side, was lined with a great, long table. Behind this table, its back to the western wall, facing the length of the hall, facing east, was the high seat, or the rightful seat, the seat of the master of the house. It was wide enough for three or four men to sit together on it, and, as a great honor, sometimes others were invited to share the high seat. On each side of this high seat were two pillars, about eight inches in diameter, and some eight feet high, the high-seat pillars, or rightful-seat pillars. They marked the seat, or bench, which might be placed between them as the high seat, or rightful seat. These pillars had been carved by craftsmen in the time of Svein Blue Tooth’s great grandfather, and bore the luck signs of his house. On each side of the high seat were long benches. Opposite, on the other side of the table, too, were long benches. A seat of honor, incidentally, was that opposite the high seat, where one might converse with the host. The high seat, though spoken of as “high,” was the same height as the other benches. The men of Torvaldsland, thus, look across the table at one another, not one down upon the other. The seat is “high” in the sense of being a seat of great honor. There was, extending almost the length of the hall, a pitfor a “long fire” over which food was prepared for retainers. On the long sides of the hall, on the north and south, there were long tables, with benches. Salt, in its bowls on the tables, divided men into rankings. Those sitting above the salt were accorded greater prestige than those sitting below it. If one sat between the salt and the high seat, one sat “above” the salt; if one sat between the salt and the entrance to the hall, one sat “below” the salt. At the high-seat table, that at which the high seat sat, all counted as being “above the salt.” Similarly, at the tables parallel to the highseat table, smaller tabies flanking the long fire on both sides, the tables nearest the high seat counted as being above the salt, those farthest away being below the salt. The division, was made approximately at the third of the hall closest to the high seat, but could shift, depending on the numbers of those in attendance worthy to be above the salt. The line, so to speak, imaginary to be sure, but definitely felt as a social reality, dividing those above from those below the salt, was uniformly “drawn” across the width of the hall. Thus, it was not the case that one at a long side table, who was above the salt, would be farther away from the high seat than one at one of the center tables, who was “below” the salt. In Ivar Forkbeard’s hall, incidentally, the salt distinctions were not drawn; in his hall all being comrades in arms, all were “above the salt.”Svein Blue Tooth’s holdings, on the other hand, were quite large and complexly organized. It would not have seemed proper, at least in the eyes of Svein Blue Tooth and others, for a high officer to sit at the same table with a fellow whose main occupation was supervising thralls in the tending of verr. Salt, incidentally, is obtained by the men of Torvaldsland, most commonly, from sea water or from the burning of seaweed. It is also, however, a trade commodity, and is sometimes taken in raids. The red and yellow salts of the south, some of which I saw on the tables, are not domestic to Torvaldsland. The arrangements of tables, incidentally, varies in different halls. I describe those appointments characterizing the hall of Blue Tooth. It is common, however, for the entrance of the hall to be oriented toward the morning sun, and for the high seat to face the entrance. None may enter without being seen from the high seat. Similarly, none are allowed to sit behind the high seat. In a rude country, these defensive measures are doubtless a sensible precaution. About the edges of the hall hung the shields of warriors, with their weapons. Even those who sat commonly at the center tables, and were warriors, kept their shields and spears at the wall. At night, each man would sleep in his furs behind the tables, under his weapons. High officers, of course, and the Blue Tooth, and members of his family, would retire to private rooms.

The hall was ornately carved, and, above the shields, decorated with cunningly sewn tapestries and hangings. On these were, usually, warlike scenes, or those dealing with ships and hunting. There was a lovely scene of the hunting of tabuk in a forest. Another tapestry, showing numerous ships, in a war fleet, dated from the time of the famine in Torvaldsland, a generation ago. That had been a time of great raids to the south.

Svein Blue Tooth had not been much pleased on the fields of the contests, on his purple-draped dais, when Ivar Forkbeard had announced his identity.

“Seize him and heat oil!” had been the first cry of the Blue Tooth.

“Your oath! Your oath!” had cried the horrified, startled rune-priests.

“Seize him!” screamed the Blue Tooth, but his men had, forcibly, restrained him, they glaring at Ivar Forkbeard with ill-disguised disapproval.

“You tricked me!” cried out the Blue Tooth.

“Yes,” adrnitted the Forkbeard. “It is true.”

Svein Blue Tooth, held in the arms of his men, struggled to unsheath his great sword of blued steel.

The high rune-priest of the thing interposed himself between the violent Blue Tooth and the Forkbeard, who was, innocently, regarding cloud formations.

The rune-priest held up the heavy, golden ring of Thor, the temple ring itself, stained in- the blood of the sacrificial ox. “On this ring you have sworn!” he cried.

“And by many other things as well,” added the Forkbeard, unnecessarily to my mind.

The veins stood out on the forehead and neck of Svein Blue Tooth. He was a powerful man. It was not easy for his officers to restrain him. At last, eyes blazing, he subsided. “We will hold parley,” he said.

He, with his high officers, retired to the back of the dais. Many heated words were passed between them. More than one cast a rather dark look in the direction of the Forkbeard, who, then, his disguise cast off, was cheerily waving to various acquaintances in the crowd.

“Long live the Forkbeard!” cried a man in the throng. The men-at-arms of Svein Blue Tooth stirred uneasily. They edged more closely about the dais. I ascended the steps of the dais and stood at the back of the Forkbeard, hand on the hilt of the sword, to protect him if necessary. “You are insane,” I informed him. “Look,” he said, “there is Hafnir of the Inlet of Iron Walls. I have not seen him since I was outlawed.” “Good,” I said. He waved to the man. “Ho, there, Hafnir!” he cried. “Yes, it is I, Ivar Forkbeard!” The men-at-arms ofSvein Blue Tooth were now uncornfortably close. I pushed away spear points with my left hand.

Meanwhile the debate at the back of the dais went on. The issues seemed reasonably clear, though I could catch only snatches of what was said; they concerned the pleasures of boiling the Forkbeard and his retinue alive as opposed to the dangerous precedent which rnight be set if the peace of the thing was sundered, and the loss of credit which might accrue to Svein Blue Tooth if he reneged on his pledged oaths, deep oaths publicly and voluntarily given. There were also considerations to the effect that the rune-priests would be distressed if the oaths were broken, and that the gods, too, might not look lightly upon such a violation of faith, and might, too, more seriously, evidence their displeasure by such tokens as blights, plagues, hurricanes and famines. Against these considerations it was argued that not even the gods thernselves could blarne Svein Blue Tooth, under these circumstances, for not honoring a piddling oath, extracted under false pretenses; one bold fellow evenwent so far as to insist that, under these special circumstances, it was a solemn obligation incumbent on the Blue Tooth to renounce his oath and commit the Forkbeard and his followers, with the exception of slaves, who would be confiscated, to the oil pots. Fortunately, in the midst of his eloquence, this fellow sneezed, which omen at once, decisively, wiped away the weightiness of his point.

At last the Blue Tooth turned to face the Forkbeard. Svein’s face was red with rage.

The high rune-priest lifted the sacred temple ring.

“The peace of the thing,” said the Blue Tooth, “and the peace of my house, for the time of the thing, is upon you. This I have sworn. This I uphold.”

There was much cheering. The Forkbeard beamed. “I knew it would be so, my Jarl,” he said. The high rune-priest lowered the temple ring.

I rather admired Svein Blue Tooth. He was a man of his word. By his word he would stand, even though, as in the present case, any objective observer would have been forced to admit that his provocation to betray it, his temptation to betray it, must have been unusual in the extreme. In honor such a high jarl must set an example to the men ofTorvaldsland. He had, nobly, if not cheerfully, set the example.

“By tomorrow night,” said he, “when the thing is done, be free of this place. My oath is for the time of the thing, and for no longer.”

“You have six talmits of mine, I believe,” said the Forkbeard.

Svein Blue Tooth looked at him in rage.

“There is one for swimming,” said the Forkbeard, “one for climbing the mast, one for leaping the crevice, one for walking the oar, and two for prowess with the spear.”

Blue Tooth was speechless.

“That is six,” said the Forkbeard. “Never before in the history of the thing has a champion done this well.”

The Blue Tooth thrust the talmits toward the Forkbeard But the Forkbeard, humbly, inclined his head.

Then Svein Blue Tooth, as high jarl in Torvaldsland, one by one, tied about the forehead of Ivar Forkbeard the six talmits.

There was much cheering. I, too, cheered. Svein Blue Tooth was, in his way, not a bad fellow.

“By tomorrow night,” repeated Svein Blue Tooth to the Forkbeard, “when the thing is done, be free of this place My oath is for the time of the thung, and for no longer.”

“You frown upon me, and would put me below the salt,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “because I am outlaw.”

“I frown upon you, and would not let you within the doors of my hall, said Svein Blue Tooth, “because you are the greatest scoundrel and rogue in Torvaldsland!”

I could see that this compliment much pleased the Forkbeard, who, a vain fellow, was jealous of his reputation.

“But I have,” said the Forkbeard, “the means wherewith to buy myself free of the outlawry you yourself pronounced upon me.

“That is preposterous!” snorted the Blue Tooth. Several of his men laughed.

“No man,” said the Blue Tooth, looking suddenly at Ivar Forkbeard, “could pay such wergild as I set for you.”

“You have heard,” inquired Ivar Forkbeard, “of the freeing of Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, from the dungeons of Port Kar?” He smiled. “You have heard,” he inquired, “of the sack of the temple of Kassau?”

“You!” cried the Blue Tooth.

I saw the eyes of the Blue Tooth suddenly gleam with avarice. I knew then, surely, that he was of Torvaldsland. There is a streak of the raider in them all.

“The wergild I set you,” said he slowly, “was such that no man, by my intent, could pay it. It was one hundred stone of gold, the weight of a grown man in the sapphires ofSchendi, and the only daughter of my enemy, Thorgard of Scagnar.”

“May I pay my respects to you this night in your hall?” asked the Forkbeard.

Svein Blue Tooth looked at him, startled. He fingered the heavy tooth, on its chain, which hung about his neck, that tooth of a Hunjer whale, dyed blue.

Bera, his woman, rose to her feet. I could see that her mind was moving with rapidity.

“Come tonight to our hall, Champion,” said she.

The Blue Tooth did not gainsay her. The woman of the Jarl had spoken. Free women in the north have much power. TheJarl’s Woman, in the Kaissa oit the north, is a more powerful piece than the Ubara in the Kaissa of the south. This is not to deny that the Ubara in the south, in fact, exercises as much or more power than her northern counterpart. It is only to recognize that her power in the south is iess explicitly acknowledged.

The Forkbeard looked to Svein Blue Tooth. Svein fingered the tooth on its chain.

“Yes,” said he, “come tonight to my hall-Champion.”

There had then been again much cheering. SveinB1ue Tooth, high jarl of Torvaldsland, followed by his woman, and high officers and counselors, and other followers, thentook his way from the dais.

We had fed well in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth.

Many were the roast tarsk and roast bosk that had roasted over the long fire, on the iron spits. Splendid was the quality of the ale at the tables of the Blue Tooth. Sweet and strong was the mead.

The smoke from the fire found its way high into the rafters, and, eventually, out of the holes cut in the peaked roof. Some of these were eighteen inches square. Light was furnished from the cooking fire but, too, from torches set in rings on the wall, backed with metal plating; too, here and there, on chains from the beams, high above, there hung large tharlarion oil lamps, which could be raised and lowered from the sides. At places, too, there were bowls, with oil and wicks, with spikes on their bottoms, set in the dirtfloor, some six inches from the floor, others as high as five feet; this mode of lamp, incidentally, is more common in the private chambers. It was not unusual, incidentally, tha the floor of the great hall, rich as it was, was of dirt, strewnwith rushes. This is common in the halls of Torvaldsland. When the Forkbeard, and I, and other followers, many oi them bearing riches, entered the hall, we had been given a room to one side, in which we might wash and dry ourselves before the feast. In this room, unusual in halls, was a window. I had put my finger against it, and pressed outward. I was not paned with glass, but with some sort of membrane but the membrane was almost as clear as glass.

“What is this?” I had asked the Forkbeard.

“It is the dried afterbirth membrane of a bosk fetus,” he said.

“It will last many months, even against rain.”

Looking out through the window I could see the palisade about the hall and its associated buildings. The palisade inclosed some two acres; within it were many shops and storage houses, even an ice house; in the center, of course, reared the great hall itself, that rude high-roofed palace of the north, the house of Svein Blue Tooth. Through the membrane, hardly distorted, I saw the palisade, the catwalk about it, the guards, and, over it, the moons of Gor. In the far distance, the moonlight reflected from its snowy heights I saw, too, the Torvaldsberg, in which the legendary Torvald was reputed to sleep, supposedly to waken again if needed once more in Torvaldsland.

I smiled.

I turned to Ivar Forkbeard. I saw that treasures, borne by his men, had been placed in this side room.

He grinned.

The Forkbeard was in a good mood. The last night had been quite a pleasant one for him. He had handed off Pudding and Gunnhild to his men, for the night, and had ordered to his furs Honey Cake, the former Miss Stevens of Earth, and the wench, Leah, the Canadian girl, whom I had won at archery and given to him as a gift. Honey Cake, like manyshy, introverted, timid girls, fearing her own sexuality and fearing that of men, sensing them in terror as her natural masters, was the mistress of secret, incredible depths of repressed sexual emotion and feeling; the Forkbeard, of course, a rude barbarian, was not in the least concerned with the walls which she had, carefully, over years, built to conceal her own needs and desires from herself; he simply shattered them; he had forced her, unable to resist, as only a bond-maid without choice, to look deeply and openly on her own naked needs and desires; then he had used her as a slave; she had yielded to him helplessly, wondrously, laughing, weeping, crying out with joy; the wench, Leah, whom I had won at archery, had tried to resist the Forkbeard; he had her beaten and thrown back to his furs; soon she, too, in her turn, was moaning with pleasure; helplessly; she was responding beautifully to him; by morning both girls, on and about him, fighting one another, jealous of one another, were begging for his touch; at dawn he had ordered one of his men, that he might get some sleep, to chain them prone head to foot, the right ankle of each chained to the projecting ring on the collar of the other; the Forkbeard did not rise until afternoon; he was then much refreshed; I had, in my turn, with several of the other of the Forkbeard’s men, enjoyed Pudding and Gunnhild; both were superb; toward morning, too, I had felt Olga’s small fingers at my ankle; she was, like several of the other bond-maids, chained by the right ankle, the chain some eight feet in length, to a stake driven into the earth near the center of the Forkbeard’s tent; she had crawled to the extent of her chain, her right leg extended behind her, and had stretched her right hand toward me; I took the furs to her side, wrapped her within them with me, and had much pleasure with her; we fell asleep two Ahn afterwards, she still held in my arms, her head on my shoulder. When the Forkbeard himself rose, ofcourse, the camp became quite active, and the slaves were put about many menial labors; the thrall, Tarsk, was unchained from Thyri, and set about the sawing of wood; Thyri herself, her kirtle thrown to her, was ordered to pound grain to make flour; she could not even look Tarsk in the face, I noted; she looked down, shyly; from her cries the night before I knew that she had, behind the tent, yielded to him; the other girls much teased her foryielding to a thrall; “I would have been beaten had I not yielded,” she said in defense; then she looked down once more, and smiled; she did not seem discontent.

I saw her, late in the afternoon, unbidden, secretly bringing him water at his work.

“Thank you, bond-maid,” said he.

She put down her head.

“You are pretty, bond-maid,” he said.

“Thank you, my Jarl,” she said.

He looked after her, as she sped away. He grinned. He then, whistling, worked with gusto. He did not then seem to me unlike a free man.

“If you are washed and readied,” said a young thrall, collared, in a kirtle of white wool, “it is permissible to present yourselves before the high seat of the house, before my master, Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of Torvaldsland.”

“We are honored,” had said the Forkbeard. He designated four of his men to guard the treasures.

We looked at one another.

“I feel,” I said, “as though I were walking into the jaws of a larl.”

“Do not fear,” said Ivar. “I, Forkbeard, am at your side.”

“Were you not at my side,” I said, “I doubt that I should feel as I do.”

“I see,” said the Forkbeard.

“Could we not,” I suggested, “simply leap naked into a pit of venomous osts, or, perhaps, race madly across the plains of the Wagon Peoples during a lightning storm, our swords raised over our heads?”

“The trick,” said the Forkbeard, “is not simply to walk into the jaws of a larl. Any fool can do that.”

“I am well aware of that,” I said.

“The trick,” said the Forkbeard, winking, but not thereby much reassuring me, “is to walk back out again!”

“You have some intention, then,” I asked, “of emerging from this escapade alive?”

“That is a portion of my plan,” acknowledged the Forkbeard. “And, failing that, we will die nobly, against heavy odds. Thus, my plan is foolproof.”

“You have reasoned it out well,” I admitted. “Lead on.”

The Forkbeard lifted his head boldly and, smiling, emerged from the side room, at the entrance to which he stopped and raised his hands, saluting the tables. He was greeted with warmth from the many warriors there. He had won six talmits. “The Forkbeard greets you!” shouted Ivar. I blinked. The hall was light. I had not understood it to be so large. At the tables, lifting ale and knives to the Forkbeard were more than a thousand men. Then he took his way to the bench opposite the high seat, stopping here and there to exchange pleasantries with the men of Svein Blue Tooth. I, and his men, followed him. The Blue Tooth, I noted, did not look too pleased at the Forkbeard’s popularity with his men. Near him, beside the high seat, sat his woman, Bera, her hair worn high on her head, in a kirtle of yellow wool with scarlet cape of the fur of the red sea sleen, and, about her neck, necklaces of gold.

We had fed well in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth. During the meal, for Svein was a rich man, there had been acrobats, and jugglers and minstrels. There had been much laughter when one of the acrobats had fallen into the long fire, to leap scrambling from it, rolling in the dirt. Two other men, to settle a grievance, had had a tug of war, a bosk hide stretched between them, across the long fire. When one had been pulled into the fire the other had thrown the hide over him and stomped upon him. Before the fellow in the fire could free himself he had been much burned. This elicited much laughter from the tables. The juggIers had a difficult tiIne, too, for their eyes on the cups and plates they were juggling, they were not infrequently tripped, to the hilarity of the crowd. More than one minstrel, too, was driven from the hall, the target of barrages of bones and plates.

The Forkbeard was, at one point, so furious at the ineptness of the musicians, that he informed me of his own intention to regale the tables with song. He was extremely proud of his singing voice.

I prevailed upon him to desist. “You are a guest,” I told him, “it would not be seemly for you, by your talents, to shame the entertainers, and thereby perhaps reflect upon the honor of your host, who doubtless has provided the best he can.”

“True,” admitted the Forkbeard.

I breathed more easily. Had Ivar Forkbeard broken into song I would have given little for our chances.

Male thralls turned the spits over the long fire; female thralls, bond-maids, served the tables. The girls, though collared in the manner of Torvaldsland, and serving men, were fully clothed. Their kirtles of white wool, smudged and stained with grease, fell to their ankles; they hurried about; they were barefoot; their arms, too, were bare; their hair was tied with strings behind their heads, to keep it free from sparks; their faces were, on the whole, dirty, smudged with dirt and grease; they were worked hard; Bera, I noted, kept much of an eye upon them; one girl, seized by a warrior, her waist held, his other hand sliding upward from her ankle beneath the single garment permitted her, the long, stained woolen kirtle, making her cry out with pleasure, dared to thrust her lips eagerly, furtively, to his; but she was seen by Bera; orders were given; by male thralls she was bound and, weeping, thrust to the kitchen, there to be stripped and beaten; I presumed that if Bera were not present the feast might have taken a different turn; her frigid, cold presence was, doubtless, not much welcomed by the men. But she was the woman of Svein Blue Tooth. I supposed, in time, normally, she would retire, doubtless taking Svein Blue Tooth with her. It would be then that the men might thrust back the tables and hand the bond-maids about. No Jarl I knew can hold men in his hall unless there are ample women for them. I felt sorry for Svein Blue Tooth. This night, however, it seemed Bera had no intention of retiring early. I suspected this might have accounted somewhat for the ugliness of the men with the entertainers, not that the men of Torvaldsland, under any circumstances, constitute an easily pleased audience. Generally only Kaissa and the songs of skalds can hold their attention for long hours, that and stories told at the tables.

After the entertainers had been driven from the hall and much food had been eaten, Svein Blue Tooth, who had showed much patience, said to Ivar Forkbeard, “It is my understanding that you believe yourself to have that wherewith your deed’s wergild might be met.”

“Perhaps,” admitted the Forkbeard.

Svein Blue Tooth’s eyes gleamed. He fingered the tooth of the Hunjer whale, on its golden chain, slung about his neck.

“The wergild was high,” said the Blue Tooth.

The Forkbeard stood up. “Bring gold and sapphires,” said he, “and bring scales.”

To the astonishment of all those in the hall, from the side room, boxes and sacks of gold were brought forth by the Forkbeard’s men, and, too, a large, heavy sack of leather, filled with tiny objects.

Men left the back tables; men crowded about; even the thralls and the bond-maids, astonished, disbelieving, crowded near.

“Room! Make room here!” called the Forkbeard.

For more than two Ahn gold was weighed, on two pairs of scales, one furnished by the Forkbeard, the other by the house of Svein Blue Tooth. To my relief the scales, alrnost perfectly, agreed.

The gold accumulated.

The eyes of Svein Blue Tooth and Bera, narrow, shining, were filled with pleasure.

“There is forty weight of gold here,’ said Svein Blue Tooth’s man, almost as though he could not believe it, “four hundred stone of gold.”

There was a gasp from the throng.

The Forkbeard then went to the heavy leather sack and ripping the leather away at its throat, poured onto the dirt, lustrous, scintillating, a shower of jewels, mostly a deep blue, but some were purple, and other white and yellow, the carved sapphires of Schendi, each in the shape of a tiny panther.

“Aiii!” cried the throng. Svein Blue Tooth leaned forward, his fists clenched. Bera, her eyes blazingcould not speak.

The Forkbeard shook his sack further. More jewels fell forth, some among them more unusual varieties of sapphire, pale pink, orange, violet, brown and even green.

“Ah,” cried the throng. “How beautiful!” cried a bondmaid, who did not, herself, own even her collar of iron.

“Weigh them,” said the Forkbeard.

I had not, myself, realized there were so many varieties of sapphires. Until this time I had been familiar only with the bluish stones.

I had little doubt, however, that the stones were genuine. Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, would have insisted on the fee for his rescue being paid in genuine stones, as a matter of pride. Too, the Forkbeard, in dealing with his Jarl, Svein Blue Tooth, would not use false stones. He would be above that. It is one thing to cheat one not of Torvaldsland, quite another to attempt to defraud one of one’s own country, particularly one’s Jarl. I had no doubt that the spilled glory heaped gleaming in the dirt of the hall of Svein Blue Tooth was what it seemed, true stones, and an incredible treasure.

The jewels, like the gold, were patiently weighed.

There were many exclamations from the warriors present, and others in the throng. The weight of the stones was more than that of a full-grownman.

Ivar Forkbeard stood behind these riches, and grinned, and spread his hands.

“I did not think there were such riches in all of Torvaldsland,” whispered Bera.

Svein Blue Tooth was much impressed. He could scarcely speak. With such riches there would be no Jarl in Torvaldsland who could even remotely compare to him. His power would be the equal of that of a Ubar of the south.

But the men of Torvaldsland are not easily pleased. The Blue Tooth leaned back. “There was, Forkbeard,” said he, smiling, “a third condition to the wergild.”

“Oh, my Jarl?” asked Ivar.

“It seems I must keep this treasure,” said he, “and you remain outlaw. It may, however, count as the first two installments of a completed transaction. I shall revoke your outlawry when, and only when, too, you deliver to me the daughter of my enemy, Thorgard of Scagnar.”

The Blue Tooth’s men, not pleased, murmured angrily. “The Forkbeard, surely, has more than paid wergild,” cried one. “What man has been set such a price and has paid it?” cried another.

“Silence!” cried Svein Blue Tooth, standing behind the table. He scowled at his men.

“No one, not an army or a fleet,” cried another, “could take the daughter of so powerful a Jarl as Thorgard of Scagnar!”

“You seem to ask the impossible, my Jarl,” observed Ivar Forkbeard.

“I do ask the impossible,” said Svein Blue Tooth. “Of you, my friend, Ivar Forkbeard, I choose to ask the irnpossible.”

The Forkbeard’s men muttered angrily. Weapons were grasped.

Even the men of Svein Blue Tooth, perhaps a thousand in the hall, were angry. Yet the Blue Tooth, boldly, their Jarl, matched his will to theirs. Which one of them would dare to challenge the will of their Jarl?

I admired the Blue Tooth in his way. He was courageous. In the final analysis, I had little doubt that his men would abide by his decision.

The Blue Tooth sat down again in the high seat. “Yes, friend Forkbeard,” said he, “of you, as is my right, I ask what cannot be done, the impossible.”

The Forkbeard turned and, facing the entrance of the hall, called out, “Bring forth the female.”

There was no sound in the great hall, save the crackle of the fires and torches.

The men, and the thralls and bond-maids, parted. From the doors to the hall, swung wide, now approaching, came four figures, Ottar, who had accompanied the Forkbeard to the thing, two of the Forkbeard’s men, with spears, and, between them, clad in rich robes of concealment, such as are worn in the south, even to the veils, the figure of a girl.

These four stopped before the table, opposite the high seat of Svein Blue Tooth. The girl stood among the gold, and the heaped sapphires. Her robes were marvously wrought, subtle, soft, seeming almost in their sheens, like the jewels, to shift their colors in the light of the lamps and the flickering torches. The robes were hooded; she was twice veiled, once in white silk and, under it, in purple silk.

“What mockery is this?” demanded the Blue Tooth, sternly.

“No mockery, my Jarl,” said the Forkbeard. He extended his hand toward the girl. “May I present to my Jarl,” he asked, “Hilda, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar?”

The girl reached to her hoods and brushed them back, freeing her hair, and then, pin by pin, she unfastened the two veils, one after the other, and dropped them.-

“It is she,” whispered a man at the table of Svein BlueTooth. “I was once in the hall of Thorgard. It is she!’

“Are you-are you,” asked Svein Blue Tooth, “the daughter of Thorgard, Thorgard of Scagnar?”

“Yes, my Jarl,” she said.

“Before Thorgard of Scagnar had the ship Black Sleen,” said Svein, slowly, “he had another ship. What was its name?”

“Horned Tharlarion,” she said. “He still has this ship, too,” she added, “but it does not now serve as his flagship.”

“How many oars has it?” he asked.

“Eighty,” said she.

“Who keeps the fisheries of Thorgard?” asked a man.

“Grim, once of Hunjer,” she said.

“Once in battle,” said Svein Blue Tooth, “I wounded Thorgard of Scagnar.”

“The scar,” she said, “is on his left wrist, concealed unde a studded wristlet.”

Svein leaned back.

“In this same engagement,” she said, “he wounded you, and more grievously. You will bear the scar in your left shoulder.”

Bera flushed.

“It is true,” said Svein Blue Tooth.

“I tell you,” cried the man at the table, “it is Hilda, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar. I have been in his hall. It is she!”

The women of the north, commonly, do not veil themselves.

“How were you taken?” asked Svein Blue Tooth.

“By trickery, my Jarl,” said she. “In my own compartments was I taken, braceleted and hooded.”

“How were you conveyed past guards?” asked the Blue Tooth.

“From the window of my compartments, braceleted and hooded, late at night, helpless, in darkness. I was hurled into the sea, more than a hundred feet below. A boat was waiting. Like a fish I was retrieved and made prisoner, forced to lie on my belly in the boat, like a common maid. My captors followed.”

There was a great cheer from the men in the hall, both those of Ivar Forkbeard and those of Svein Blue Tooth.

“You poor, miserable girl,” cried Bera.

“It could happen to any female,” said Hilda, “even you, great lady.”

“Men are beasts,” Bera cried. She regarded Ivar, and me, and his men, with fury. “Shame be upon you, you beasts!” she cried.

“Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of Torvaldsland, meet Hilda, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar,” said Ivar. “Hilda, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, meet Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of Torvaldsland.”

Hilda inclined her head in deference to the Jarl.

There was another great cheer in the hall.

“Poor girl,” cried Bera, “how you must have suffered!”

Hilda lowered her head. She did not respond to Bera. I thought she smiled.

“Never had I thought to have Hilda, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, stand prisoner before me, before the high seat of my house,” said Svein Blue Tooth.

“Before you I stand more than prisoner, my Jarl,” said she.

“I do not understand,” said Svein Blue Tooth.

She did not raise her head.

“You need not address me as your Jarl, my dear,” said Svein Blue Tooth. “I am not your Jarl.”

“But every free man is my Jarl,” she said. “You see, my Jarl,” said she, lifting her head proudly and pulling her rich, glistening robes some inches down upon her shoulders, “I wear the collar of Ivar Forkbeard.”

The collar of black iron, with its heavy hinge, its riveted closure, its projecting ring of iron, for a chain or padlock, showed black, heavy, against the whiteness of her lovely throat.

“You have dared to collar the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!” cried Bera to Ivar Forkbeard.

“My master does what he pleases, Lady,” said Hilda.

I wondered what Bera would say if she knew that Hilda had been put at the oar, and taught to heel; that she had been whipped, and taught to obey; that she had been caressed, and taught to respond.

“Silence, Bond-maid!” cried Bera.

Hilda put down her head.

“To think,” cried Bera, “that I expressed solicitude for a collar-girl!”

Hilda dared not speak. For a bond-maid to speak in such a situation might be to invite a sentence of death. She shuddered.

In fury, Bera, lifting her skirt from about her ankles, took her way from the long table, retiring to her own quarters.

“You collared her!” laughed Svein Blue Tooth.

“Of course,” said the Forkbeard.

“Superb!” laughed Svein Blue Tooth, rubbing his hands together.

“Lift your head, Wench,” he said. His attitude toward Hilda had changed, completely.

She did so.

She had a beautiful face, blue eyes, long, loose blond hair.

“Is she pretty?” asked Svein Blue Tooth.

“Remove your slippers,” said the Forkbeard.

The girl did so. She stepped from them. She did not wear stockings. Roughly the Forkbeard, then, his hands at her shoulders, tore away the robes of concealment.

The men, and the bond-maids, cried out with pleasure, with admiration.

Hilda stood proudly, her head high, amidst the heaped gold, jewels, sapphires, in the dirt about her feet. She had been branded. It had been done by the hand of Ivar Forkbeard himself, before dawn, some days ago, shortly before the ship had left for the thing. She had been carried weeping, over his shoulder, her brand fresh, aboard his ship, The collar, too, before the brand, that very morning, had been closed about her neck, and riveted shut.

I observed the brand. She was now only another girl whose belly lay beneath the sword, a property-girl, a collargirl, a slave, a bond-maid.

The eyes of Svein Blue Tooth, and those of his men, glistened as they feasted upon her bared beauty.

“It seems,” said Svein Blue Tooth, “that the wergild has been well met.”

“Yes,” said the Forkbeard, “it might seem so.”

“In the morning I shall proclaim the lifting of your outlawry,” said the Blue Tooth.

I relaxed. It seemed we would come alive, after all, out of the hall of the Blue Tooth. I had only feared some treachery, or trickery, upon his part, some northern trick. Yet he had now, before his men, spoken. And I knew him, by this time, to be one who stood with his word, and stood well with it, and proudly. His word was to him as his land, and his sword, as his honor and his ship; it would be kept; it would be neither demeaned nor broken.

“I think there is some mistake,” said Ivar Forkbeard.

Inwardly I groaned.

“How is that?” asked the Blue Tooth.

“How is it that the wergild is met?” asked Ivar Forkbeard.

The Blue Tooth looked puzzled. He pointed to the jewels, the gold, the girl. “You have that here wherewith to meet the wergild,” said he.

“That is true,” said the Forkbeard. Then he drew himselfup to a not inconsiderable full height. “But who has told you that I choose to meet it?”

Suddenly the men in the hall, both those of the Forkbeard and of Svein Blue Tooth, began to cheer. I, too, was on my feet among them. None of us had suspected it, and yet it was what one should have expected of such a man as the Forkbeard. Never in the north had there been such a coup of honor! Though it might mean the death of us all, those who followed the Forkbeard, and that of perhaps hundreds of the men of Svein Blue Tooth, we cheered. My heart bounded, my blood raced. I struck, again and again, my left shoulder with the palm of my right hand. I heard swords clashing against the sides of plates, spear blades clattering on shields, and ringing, one against the other.

Slowly Svein Blue Tooth rose to his feet. He was livid with rage.

There was not a man in the hall but knew that his kinsman, a distant cousin, Finn Broadbelt, whom the Forkbeard had slain, had fallen in fair duel, and that wergild should not have been levied; and there was not a man in that hall but knew that the Blue Tooth had decreed, even were such justified, a wergild to the deed of the Forkbeard whose conditions were outrageous, deliberately formulated to preclude their satisfaction, a wergild contrived to make impossible the meeting of its own terms, a wergild the intent of which was, in its spitefulness, to condemn the Forkbeard to perpetual outlawry. Then, to the astonishment of all Torvaldsland, and most to that of Svein Blue Tooth, the Forkbeard, redoubtable, after earning six talmits in the contests, delivered to his hall the very wergild no man had supposed it possible to pay, and had then, arrogantly, before the high seat of the Blue Tooth itself, refused to pay!

“In this land,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “rather than accept pardon at the hands of such a Jarl, one such as you, Svein Blue Tooth, I make what choice a free man must. I choose the sleen, the forest and the sea!”

Svein Blue Tooth regarded him.

“I do not pay the wergild,” said the Forkbeard. “I choose to remain outlaw.”

Once again there was much cheering. I clapped the Forkbeard about the shoulders. Gorm, and Ottar, too, stood with him, and his other men. Hilda knelt at his feet, among the gold, the jewels, her lips pressed to his furred boots. “My Jarl! My Jarl!” she wept.

Then there was silence in that high-roofed hall.

All eyes turned to Svein Blue Tooth.

He stood before the high seat of his house, standlng before the long table; behind him, on each side, were the high-seat pillars of his house.

He prepared to speak. Suddenly he lifted his head. I, too, and several of the others, at the same time, detected it. It was smoke. “The hall is afire!” cried one man. Flames, above and behind us, crept at the southeast corner of the interior roof, above and, as we faced it, to the right of the doors. Smoke, too, began to drift in from one of the side rooms. We saw something move within it.

“What is going on?” cried a man at one of the tables.

The doors behind us, both of them, great, carved doors, suddenly thrust open.

In the doorway, silhouetted against flames behind them, we saw great, black, shaggy figures.

Then one leapt within the hall. In one hand it carried a gigantic ax, whose handle was perhaps eight feet long, whose blade, from tip to tip, might have been better than two feet in length; on its other arm it carried a great, round, iron shield, double strapped; it lifted it, and the ax; its arms were incredibly long, perhaps some seven feet in length; about its left arm was a spiral band of gold; it was the Kur which had addressed the assembly.

It threw back its head and opened its jaws, eyes blazing, and uttered the blood roar of the aroused Kur; then it bent over, regarding us, shoulders hunched, its cIaws leaping from its soft, furred sheaths; it then laid its ears back flat against the sides of its great head.

No one could move.

Then, other Kurii behind it, crowding about it, past it, it shrieked, lips drawn back, with a hideous sound, which, somehow, from its lips and mien, and mostly from its eyes, I took to be a sign of pleasure, of anticipation; I would learn later that this sound is instinctively uttered by Kurii when they are preparing to take blood. This cry, like a stimulus, acted upon the others, as well; almost instantly, with the velocity that the stranger signal can course through a pack of urts, this shriek was picked up by those with it; then, the hall filled with their horrid howling, eyes blazing, led by the Kur with the golden band, frenzied by the blood shriek, they leaped forward, great axes flailing.