Blond Thimble cried out, seized by one of the men in the chain. She struck at him with the ladle. She was thrown to the ground beneath him. Instantly guards were on the fellow, striking him with spear butts and pulling him from the girl. They struck him cruelly. "She is for the guards," they told him.
Terrified, Thimble, her camisk half torn away, stumbled back, away from the chain.
"Fill their bowls again," said the head guard. 'They have much work to do today."
Thimble and Thistle began again at the far end of the line to my right. They swayed back, frightened, as far as they could from the line, in their serving.
They knew the terror of slave girls, among men hungry for women.
There were some forty men in my chain. Along the some seventy pasangs of the wall there were several such chains, with their own pens and facilities. Somewhere between three and four hundred men, with their guards, labored at one place or another along the wall. I do not think it was a mistake that I was in one of the more central chins. My lovely captor, doubtless, had so decreed it. She was quite proud of my capture, which she regarded as a function of her own merits. She wanted me in a position of maximum security, nearer the wall's center, closer to her headquarters. Too, I think she relished the pleasure of seeing me in her chains.
We were marched past the high platform overlooking the wall.
She was on the platform, with two guards.
"She is up early this morning," said one of the men.
Near the platform there were piled some logs and heavy stones, carried there by other laborers the preceding afternoon. Tools, also, wrapped in hide, were there.
"Lift these logs," said a guard. "Carry these stones."
I, with Ram and Imnak, and Tasdron, who had been the captain in the fee of Samos, he whose ship had been lost to the tarnsmen, shouldered one of the logs.
My lovely captor looked down on us. Her face was flushed with pleasure.
"She wears a man's furs," said Ininak.
That was true, at least from the point of view of a red hunter. Women of the red hunters are furred differently from the hunters. Their boots, soft, of sleenskin, are high, and reach the crotch, instead of the knee. Instead of trousers of fur they wear brief panties of fur. When they cover their breasts it is commonly with a shirt of beaded lartskin. In cold weather they, like the men, wear one or more hooded parkas of tabuk hide. Tabuk hide is the warmest pelt in the arctic. Each of the hairs of the nothern tabuk, interestingly, is hollow. This trapped air, contained in each of the hollow hairs, gives the fur excellent insulating properties. Air, incidentally, is extremely important, generally, in the effectiveness of the clothing of the red hunters. First, the garments, being of hide, are windproof, as most other garments are not. Cold air, thus, cannot penetrate the garment. The warming factor of the garment is a function of air trapped against the skin. This air, inside the garment, is warmed by the body, of course, The garment, because of the hood, and the weight of the garment on the shoulders, tends to trap this warm air inside. It does not escape from the bottom because warm air, being less dense than cold air, tends to rise. The major danger of these garments, interestingly, is the danger of the wearer becoming overheated. Perspiration in the arctic winter, which can freeze on the body, and soak the clothing, which can then become like ice, brittle and useless, is a peril to be avoided if at all possible. Yet the garment's design permits this danger to be nullified. When the hunter becomes overheated he pulls down the neck of the parka. This permits the warm air to escape and its place is taken by fresh, cold air from the bottom. He thus, by closing or opening the throat of the garment, regulates its effectiveness according to his needs. The warmth of most normal clothing, incidentally, is a function of layers of cloth, not of trapped, warmed air. These many layers of clothing are, of course, heavy, cumbersome and difficult to work in. Also, of course, since this sort of clothing is not normally windproof cold air penetrates the garment and, meeting the warm air of the body, tends to precipitate moisture. The garments thus become wet and more heavy, and more dangerous, at low temperatures. Also, there is no simply way of avoiding this danger. One may, of course, remove layers of clothing, but this, in arctic temperatures, can be dangerous in itself. Also, when one wishes to replace the clothing, it may be, by then, frozen. At arctic temperatures moisture in a garment can turn to ice in a matter of seconds. The armholes in a parka, incidentally, are cut large enough to allow a man to pull his arms and hands inside and warm them, if he wishes, against the body. The clothing of the arctic hunter seems ideally suited to his needs in the north. It is warm, light in weight and permits great freedom of movement.
"Work well, Tarl Cabot," cailed my lovely captor from the height of the platform.
"Move," said a guardsman.
We strode forth, moving in unison, on the left foot. Our right ankles, chained in coffle, followed.
The log was heavy.
"It is like stone," said Ram. He drove the iron bar, which he gripped in fur, downward. It struck the layer of permafrost, and rang.
I, too, drove the bar into the hole. A bit of frozen dirt was chipped away.
We made our hole at a diagonal, for the logs we were to set now were bracing logs, which would help support the wall at this place. It was some half a pasang from the platform. It was weakened at this point. I had heard of this yesterday, be-fore I had been conducted by my fair captor from her headquarters. Some work had been done yesterday, with logs and stone. More remained to be done now. This weakness was to the left of the platform, looking out toward the tabuk. The center of the wall had been built across the main run of the tabuk migration. The animals, frustrated, sometimes tended to press against the wall. Sometimes, too, animals at the wall were forced against it, pinned against it, by the weight of animals behind them. Sometimes, in open places, huge, massive bucks, heads down, would charge and strike the wall with their horns. The animals did not understand this obstruction in their path. It was incomprehensible to them, and, to many, maddening. Why did it not yield?
Two or three times, at certain points, I learned, the wall had buckled, but, each time, men managed to repair it in time.
"Put stone here," said a guardsman.
Men, carrying stone, placed it against the wall. Such support, however, would not be as effective as the log braces which we were laboring to set in place.
On the other side of the wall there were thousands of tabuk. New thousands arrived each day, from the paths east of Torvaldsland.
"With the permafrost," I said to Ram, "the logs of the wall cannot be too deeply fixed."
"They are deeply enough fixed," he said. "They could not be withdrawn without sufficient labor."
"Surely we have sufficient labor," I said.
"Perhaps you could discuss the matter with the guards," he said.
"They might not be agreeable," I pointed out.
"What is your plan?" he asked.
We two were chained together, but apart from the others, to facilitate our labors. Several other pairs, too, were so chained. The coffle, in virtue of the arrangements of chains and ankle rings, could be broken up into smaller work units.
"Imnak," I said, "would you like to go home?"
"I have not seen the performance of a drum dance in four moons," he said.
"Tasdron," said I, "would you like a new ship?"
"I would fit it to fight tarnsmen," said he. "Let them then try to take her."
"Do not be foolish," said a man. "Escape is hopeless. We are chained. Guards, if not here, are many."
"You have no allies," said another man.
"You are mistaken," I said, "our allies number in the thousands."
"Yes!" said Ram. "Yes!"
The keys to our ankle rings were in the keeping of the chief guard, the master of our coffle.