“Thosewho would live,” called our Forkbeard, “lie on the your stomachs.”
The people in the temple, many of them splattered with the blood of their neighbours, some severely wounded, threw themselves, shuddering, man and woman, and child, to their stomachs. They lay among many of their own dead.
I myself did not lie with them. Once I had been of the warriors.
I stood.
The men of Torvaldsland turned to face me.
“Why do you not lie beneath the ax, Stranger?” called out Forkbeard.
“I am not weary,” I told him.
Forkbeard laughed. “It is a good reason,” he said. “Are you of Torvaldsland?”
“No,” I told him.
“You are of the warriors?” asked Forkbeard.
“Perhaps once,” I told him.
“I shall see,” said Forkbeard. Then to one of his men, he said, “Hand me a spear.” One of the spears which had formed the platform on which he had been carried, gaining entrance to Kassau and the temple, was handed to him.
Suddenly behind me I heard a war cry of Torvaldsland.
I turned and swept to the guard position, in the instant seeing the man’s distance, and spun again to strike from my body, before it could penetrate it, the hurled spear of Ivar Forkbeard. It must be taken behind the point with the swiftblow of the forearm. The spear caroomed away and struck the wall of the temple, fifty feet behind me.In the same instant I had spun again, in the guard position, to stand againstthe man with his ax. He pulled up short, and looked to Ivar Forkbeard. I turned again to face the Forkbeard.
He grinned. “Yes, he said, “once perhaps you were of the warriors.”
I looked to the man behind me, and to the others. They lifted their axes in their right hand. It was a salute of Torvaldsland. I heard their cheers.
“He remains standing.” Said Ivar Forkbeard.
I sheathed my sword.
“Hurry!” called the Forkbeard to his men. “Hurry! The people of the town will gather!”
Swiftly, tearing hangings from the walls, prying loose sheets of gold, pulling down even lamps from their chains, filling their cloaks with cups and plates, the men of Torvaldsland stripped the temple of whatthey could tear loose and carry. Ivar Forkbeard leaped down from the altar and began, angrily, to hurl vessels of consecrated oils against the walls behind the sanctuary. Then he took a rack of candles and hurled it against the wall. Fire soon bit into the timbers behind the sanctuary.
The Forkbeard then leaped over the rail of the sanctuary and strode among the people lying on their stomachs, the wall facing the Sardar being eaten by fire, illuminating the interior of the temple.
He reached down, here and there, to rip a purse from one of the richer townsfolk. He took the purse of the burgher in black satin, and took, too, from his neck, the silver chain of his office, which he slung about his own neck.
He then drew with the handle of his ax a circle, some twenty feet in diameter, in the dirtfloor of the circle.
It was a bond-maid circle.
“Females,” he cried, gesturing with the great ax toward the wall opposite the doors, “swiftly! To the wall! Stand with your backs against it!”
Terrified, weeping, the men groaning, the females fled to the wall. I saw, standing there, terrified, their backs against it, the blond girl in the scarlet vest and skirt, her hair in the snood of scarlet yarn, tied with filaments of golden wire; and the large statuesque girl, in black velvet, with the silver straps over her breasts, and tied about her waist, with the purse. Ivar Forkbeard, in the light of the burning wall of the temple, quickly examined the line of women. From some he took jewellery, bracelets, necklaces and rings. From others her took purses, hanging at their belts. He tore away the purse from the large blonde girl, and the silver straps, too, which had decorated the black velvet of her gown. She shrank back against the wall.She was large breasted. The men of Torvaldsland are fond of such women. The jewellery and coins which he took he hurled into a golden sacrificial bowl, which one of his men carried at his side. As he went down the line, he freed certain women of the wall, telling them to swiftly returnto their place, and lie beneath the ax. Gratefully, they fled to their former places.
This left nineteen girls at the wall. I admired the taste of Forkbeard. They were beauties. My choices would have been the same.
Among them, of course, were the slender blond girl in the red vest and skirt, and the larger one, now in black velvet, torn, stripped of its silver straps, its brooches, the purse.
He ripped the snood of scarlet yarn from the slender blond girls hair. Her hair, now loose, fell behind her to the small of her back. He then tore away the ribbons and comb of bone and leather that had so intricately held the hair of the larger blond girl, she in black velvet. Her hair was even longer than that of the more slender girl.
The nineteen girls regarded him, terrified, eyes wide, their faces lit in the left side by the flames of the burning wall.
“Go to the bond-maid circle,” said Ivar Forkbeard, indicating the circle he had drawn in the dirt.
The women cried out in misery. To enterthe circle, if one is a female, is, by the laws of Torvaldsland, to declare oneself a bond-maid.A woman, of course, neednot to enter the circle of her own free will.She may, for example, be thrown within it, naked and bound.Howsoever she enters the circle, voluntarily, or by force, free or secured, she emerges from it, by the laws of Torvaldsland, as a bond-maid.
Seventeen of the girls, weeping, fled to the circle, and huddled within it.
Two did not, the slender blond girl and the larger one, in black velvet.
“I am Aelgifu,” said the large girl.“I am the daughter of Gurt of Kassau.He is administrator.There will be ransom money for me.”
“It is true!” cried a man, the burgher in black satin, whose chain of office Forkbeard had torn from his neck.
“One hundred pieces of gold,” said Forkbeard to him observing the girl.
She stiffened.
“Yes,” cried the man.“Yes!”
“Five nights from this night,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “on the skerry of Einar by the rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark.”
I had heard of this stone.It is taken by many to mark the border between Torvaldsland and the south.Many of those of Torvaldsland, however, take its borders to be much farther extended than the Torvalds regard Torvaldsmark. Indeed, some of their ships beach, as the took their country, and their steel, with them.
“Yes!” said the man. “I will bring the money to that place.”
“Go to the bond-maid circle,” said Ivar Forkbeard to the large girl, “but do not enter it.”
“Yes,” she said, hurrying to its edge.
“The wall of the temple will not last much longer, “ said one of the men of the Forkbeard.
Forkbeard looked then at the younger, blond, more slender girl, she with her hair now loose, the snood of scarlet.She looked up at him, boldly.“My father ispoorer than Aelgifu’s,” she said, “but forme, too, there will be a ransom.”
She looked at him with horror.In the crowd I heard a man and a woman cry out with misery.
“Go to the circle and enter it,” said Ivar Forkbeard to the girl.
She held up her head.“No,” she said.“I am free.Never will I consent to be a bond-maid.I shall first choose death!”
“Very well,” laughed the Forkbeard.“Kneel.”
Startled, she did so, uncertainly.
“Put your head down,” he said, “throw your hair forward, exposing your neck.”
She did so.
He lifted the great ax.
Suddenly she cried out and thrust her head to his boot.
She held his ankl.e.
Have mery on a bond-maid!” she wept.
Ivar Forkbeard laughed and reached down and pulled her up by the arm, his great fist closed about her arm within the white woolen blouse, and thrust her stumbling well within the circle.
“The wall will soon fall,” said one of the me.
I could see the fire creeping now, too, to the roof.
“Bond-maids,” ordered Ivar Forkbeard harshly, strip”!
Crying out the girls removed their garments.I saw that theweeping, slender blond-hair girl was incredibly beautiful.