I watched two men wrestling.
I had not yet spoken to Imnak about the carving of bluish stone among my belongings, the carving of a Kur, with an ear half torn away.
I could see the blue line of the Hrimgar Mountains in the distance to the south. To the north the tundra stretched forth to the horizoll.
Many people do not understand the nature of the polar north. For one thing, it is very dry. Less snow falls there generally than falls in most lower latitudes. Snow that does fall, of course, is less likely to melt. Most of the land is tundra, a cool, generally level or slightly wavy, treeless plain. In the summer this tundra, covered with mosses, shrubs and lichens, because of the melted surface ice and the permafrost beneath, preventing complete drainage, is soft and spongy. In the winter, of course, and in the early spring and late fall, desolate, bleak and frozen, wind-swept, it presents the aspect of a barren, alien landscape. At such times the red hunters will dwell by the sea, in the spring and fall by its shores, and, in the winter, going out on the ice itself.
I stepped aside to let a young girl pass, who carried two baskets of eggs, those of the migratory arctic gant. They nest in the mountaim of the Hrimgar and in steep, rocky outcroppings, called bird cliffs, found here and there jutting out of the tundra. The bird cliffs doubtless bear some geological relation to the Hrimgar chains. When such eggs are frozen they are eaten like apples.
I saw a woman putting out a pan for a domestic snow sleen to lick clean.
In another place several women sat on a fur blanket playing a cat's cradle game. They were quite skilled. This game is generally popular in the Gorean north. It is played not only by the red hunters, but in Hunjer and Skjern, and in Torvaldsland, and as far south as the villages in the valley of the Laurius.
The tundra at this time of year belies its reputation for bleakness. In many places it bursts into bloom with small flowers. Almost all of the plants of this nature are perennials, as the growing season is too short to permit most annuals to complete their growing cycle. In the winter buds of many of these plants lie dormant in a fluffy sheath which protects them from cold. Some two hundred and forty different types of plants grow in the Gorean arctic within five hundred pasangs of the pole. None of these, interestingly, is poisonous, and none possesses thorns. During the summer plants and flowers will grow almost anywhere in the arctic except on or near the glacial ice.
At certain times in the summer even insects will appear, black, long-winged flies, in great swarms, coating the sides of tents and the faces of men.
Two children raced past me, playing tag.
I looked to the north. It was there that Zarendargar waited.
"Greetings, Master," said Thimble.
"Greetings," I said to her. She was dressed, save for her bondage strings, in much the same way as most of the women of the red hunters, bare-breasted, with high boots and panties. Thistle, however, behind her, was naked, in a northern yoke and on a leather leash. The northern yoke is either of wood or bone, and is drilled in three places. The one Thistle wore was of wood. It was not heavy. It passed behind her neck at which point one of the drilled holes occurred. The other two holes occurred at the terminations of the yoke. A leather strap is knotted about the girl's wrist, passed through the drilled hole at one end of the yoke, usually that on her left, taken up through the hole behind the neck, looped twice about her neck, threaded back down through the center hole, taken up through the other hole at the end, usually the one at her right, and tied about her right wrist. She is thus fastened in the yoke. From each end of the yoke hung a large sack.
"We are going to pick moss and grass," she said. Moss is used as wicks for the lamps. Grass, dried, is used for insulation between the inner soles of the boots and the bottom of the fur stockings in the winter.
"That is good," I said. "Why is Thistle yoked?"
"It pleased me, Master," said Thimble, first girl. There was little love lost between the girls.
"Was she insubordinate?" I asked.
"She said a sharp word to me," said Thimble.
"Did you switch her, too?" I asked.
"Of course, Master," said Thimble.
"Excellent," I said. Discipline must be kept in the tent.
I looked at Thistle. She met my eyes, briefly, and then looked down. She was quite attractive. I had not as yet had either Thimble or Thistle.
"Is Imnak finished yet with the new slave girl?" I asked, referring to Arlene.
"I think so, Master," said Thimble, smiling. "At least he has tied her to a pole behind the tent."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"I do not think she is much good, Master," said Thimble, one slave girl appraising another.
"Do not let me detain you from your labors," I said.
Thistle, suddenly, knelt down before me, yoked, and put her lips to my boot. Her head was jerked up by the leash in the hand of Thimble. Her eyes were moist "Master!" she begged.
"Come, Slave!" snapped Thimble, and pulled her to her feet and dragged her away, behind her. Thistle looked over her shoulder, at me. I gave no sign of response. She stumbled away, on Thimble's leash. I smiled to myself. Thistle, as I had expected, was the first of the girls to begin to understand and feel her slavery.
"Help us, Tarl," said Akko, whom I had met earlier in the day.
"He is a big fellow," said a man.
"Yes," said another.
I followed Akko and his friends to a place where two teams of men waited, a heavy, braided rope of twisted sleen-hide stretched between them.
They put me at the end of the rope. Soon, to the enthusiastic shouts of observers, we began the contest. Four times the rope grew taut, and four times our team won. I was much congratulated, and slapped on the back.
I was, accordingly, in a good mood when I returned to Imnak's tent.
"Greetings, my friend," I said. I had noted that Arlene, her wrists crossed and over her head, bound, was fastened to the horizontal pole of a meat rack, supported by its two tripods of inclined poles.
"Have you had a good day?" inquired Imnak, politely.
"Yes," I said.
"That is good," he said.
I waited a while. Then I said, "Have you had a good day?"
"Perhaps someone has not had a good day," said Imnak.
"I am sorry to hear that," I said.
"Perhaps someone who won a wager," he said, "is not well repaid for his having won."
"Oh?" I said.
"Sometimes," he said, "it is hardly worth winning." He shrugged.
"I will return in a moment," I said.
I went back of the tent to Arlene.
"I want to talk to you," she said. "I will have no more of this treatment on your part. You cannot simply give me to anyone you please."