She looked down.
“There is no escape,” he tole her.
She sobbed.
The men of Torvaldsland began to sing at the oars.
Ivar Forkbeard reached down to the planking on the deck and picked up Aelgifu’s shoes and hose, where they had been discarded when they had been removed and her ankle bound.He threw them over the side.
Then he joined me at the stern. We could see ment at the docks.Some were even attempting to rig a coasting vessel to purseu the serpent.But they would not rig it.
It was pointless.
The men of Torvaldsland sang with great voices.The oars, two men to an oars lifted and dipped.The helmsman leaned on the tiller of the great steering oar.
Behind us we could see the smoke of the burning temple.Too, it seemed, the fires had spread elsewhere in Kassau, doubtless carried by the wind.
We could now see those at the dock, and even those who had been bestirring themselves with the coasting vessel, returning to the town.We heard the ringing of the great bar which hung on its timber frame outside the temple. The town was afire.The men of Kassau left the docks, hurrying up the dirt streets, to take up their new labors.
Behind us, amidhsips, we heard the weeping of women fettered bon-maids being carried north to serve harsh massters.
The smoke billowed high in the sky above Kassau.We could hear, clearly, carrying over the water, the ringing of the great bar outside the temple.
The men of Torvaldsland singing, the oars lifting and dipping, the serpent of Ivar Forkbeard took its way from the harbor of Kassau.
Chapter 4 THE FORKBEARD AND I RETURN TO OUR GAME
Ivar Forkbeard, leaning over the side of his serpent, studied the coloring of the water.Then he reached down and scooped up some in the palm of his hand, testing its temperature.
“We are one day’s rowing,” said he, “from the skerry of Einar and th rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark.”
“How do you know this?”I asked.
We had been out of sight of land for two days, and, the night preceding, had been, with shortened sail, swept eastward by high winds.
“There is plankton here,” said Ivar, “that of the banks south of the skerry of Einar, and the temperarutre of the water tells me that we are now in the stream of Torvald, which moves eastward to the coast and then north.”
The stream of Torvald is a current, as a broad river in the sea, pasangs wide, whose temperature is greater than that of the surrounding water.Without it, much of Torvaldsland, bleak as it is, would be only a forzen waste.Torvcliffs, inlets and mountasin. Its arable soilis thin and found in patches.The size of the average farm is very small.Good farms is often by sea, in small boats.Without the stream of Tovald it would probably be I possible to raise cereal crops in sufficient quantity to fee even its relatively sparse population.There is often not enough food under any conditions, particularly I n northern Torvaldsland, and famine is not known.In such cases men feed on bark, and lichens and seaweed.It is not strange that the young men of torvaldsland often look to the sea, and beyond it, for their fortunes.The streamof Torvald is regarded by the men of Torvaldsland as a gift of Thor, bestowed upon Torvald, legendary founder and hero of the land, in exchange of a ring of gold.
Ivar Forkgeard went to the mast.Before it sat Aelgifu.She was chained to it by the neck.Her wrist, in the black, iron fetters of the north, were now fastened before her body that she could feed herself.There was salt in her hair.She still wore her black velvet but now it was stained with sea water, and slat, and was discolored, and stiff, and creased.She was barefoot.
“Tomorrow night,” said Ivar Forkbeard to her, “ I shall have your ransom money.”
She did not deign to speak to him, but looked away.Like the bond-maids, she had been fed only on cold Sa-Tarna poridge and scraps of dried parist fish.
The men of Toravldsland sometimes guide their vessels by noting the direction of the waves, breaking against the prow, these correlated with prevailing winds.Sometimes they use the shadows of the gunwales, failing across the ghwarts, judging their angles.The sun, too, of couse, is used, and, at night, the stars give them suitable compass, even in the open sea.
It is a matter of their tradition not to rely on the needle compass, as is done in the south. The Gorean compass points always to the Sardar, the home of Priest-Kings.The men of Torvaldsland do not use it. They do not need it. The sextant, however, correlated with sun and stars is not unknown to them.It is commonly relied on, however, only in unfamiliar waters. Even fog banks, and the feeding grounds of whales, and ice floes, in given season, in their own waters, give the men of Torvaldsland information as to their whereabouts, they utilizing such things as easily, as unconsciously, as a peasant might a mountain, or a hunter a river.
The ships of the men of Torvaldsland are swift. In a day, a full Gorean day of twenty Ahn, with a fair wind they can cover from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pasangs.
I studied the board before me.
It was set on a square chest. It was a board made for play at sea, and such boards are common with the men of Torvaldsland. In the center of each square was a tiny peg. The pieces, correspondingly, are drilled to match the pegs, and fit over them. This keeps them steady in the movements at sea. The board was of red and yellow squares. The Kaissa of the men of Torvaldsland is quite similar to that of the south, though certain of the pieces differ. There is, for example, not a Ubar but a Jarl, as the most powerful piece. Moreover, there is no Ubara. Instead, there is a piece called the Jarl’s Woman, which is quite powerful, more so than the southern Ubara. Instead of Tarnsmen, there are two pieces called the Axes. The board has no Initiates, but there are corresponding pieces called Rune-Priests. Similarly there are no Scribes, but a piece, which moves identically, called the Singer. I thought that Andreas of Tor, a friend, of the caste of Singers, might have been pleased to learn that his caste was represented, and honored, on the boards of the north. The Spearmen moved identically with the southern Spearmen. It did not take me much time to adapt to the Kaissa of Torvaldsland, for it is quite similar to the Kaissa of the south. On the other hand, feeling my way on the board, I had lost the first two games to the Forkbeard. Interestingly, he had been eager to familiarize me with the game, and was abundant in his explanations and advice. Clearly, he wished me to play him at my full efficiency, without handicap, as soon as possible. I had beaten him the third game, and he had then, delighted, ceased in his explanations and advice and, together, the board between us, each in our way a war rior, we had played Kaissa.
The Forkbeard’s game was much more varied, and tactical, than was that of, say, Marlenus of Ar, much more devious, and it was far removed from the careful, conservative, positional play of a man such as Mintar, of the caste of Merchants. The Forkbeard made great use of diversions and feints, and double strategies, in which an attack is double edged, being in effect two attacks, an open one and a concealed one, either of which, depending on a misplay by the opponent, may be forced through, the concealed attack requiring usually only an extra move to make it effective, a move which, ideally, threatened or pinned an opponent’s piece, giving him the option of surrendering it or facing a devastating attack, he then a move behind. In the beginning I had played Forkbeard positionally, learning his game. When I felt I knew him better, I played him more openly. His wiliest tricks, of coursej I knew, he would seldom use saving them for games of greater import, or perhaps for players of Torvaldsland. Among them, even more than in the south, Kaissa is a passion. In the long winters of Torvaldsland, when the snow, the darkness, the ice and wintry winds are upon the land, when the frost breaks open the rocks, groaning, at night, when the serpents hide in their roofed sheds, many hours, under swinging soapstone lamps, burning the oil of sea sleen, are given to Kaissa. At such times, even the bond-maids, rolling and restless, naked, in the furs of their masters, their ankles chained to a nearby ring, must wait.