“Do not drink it,” said the Forkbeard to me.
But I had felt, after the battle, again in my body the effects of the poison, though briefly. I had ~ittie doubt but that it still linger~d in my body. I had little doubt but that, in time, it would again force me to the blankets and chair of a recluse in a hall in Port Kar. If not countered, it would, eventually, doubtless, have its way.
“I shall drink it,” I told Ivar Forkbeard.
The Forkbeard looked upon Sarus of Tyros. “If he dies,” he said, “your death will be neither swift nor pleasant.”
“I am your hostage,” said Sarus.
“You, you called Sarus of Tyros,” said Ivar, “you drink first.”
“There is not enough,” said Sarus of Tyros.
“Chain him,” said the Forkbeard. Chains were brought.
“Sarus of Tyros,” I said to Ivar, “is a guest in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth.’
The chains were not placed on Sarus.
I lifted the vial to Sarus of Tyros. “I drink,” I said, “I drink to the honor of Tyros.”
Then I downed the contents of the vial.
Chapter 22 I take ship from the north
Slave girls, naked, carrying burdens, loaded the ship of Ivar Forkbeard, the Hilda, moored at the wharf of the Thing Fields. We stood on the wooden boards of the wharf.
“Will you not return to Port Kar with Sarus and myself?” asked Samos.
“I think,” said I, smiling, “I will take ship south with Ivar Forkbeard, for I have yet to learn to break the Jarl’s Ax’s gambit. ‘
“Perhaps,” said Samos, “when you reach Port Kar, we may talk of weighty matters.”
I smiled. “Perhaps,” I said.
“I think,” said Samos, “that I detect a difference in you. I think that here, somehow, in the north, you have found yourself.
I shrugged.
A seaman dragged Telima, by the arm, before us. She was stripped. Her hair was before her face. Her wrists were fastened behind her by the rude bracelets of the north. The Kur collar, leather, some three inches in height, ho]ding her chin up, with its ring, was still on her throat. She had spent the last five days chained in a small, log slave kennel. She looked at Samos, and then, swiftly, lowered her eyes.
He looked upon the vulnerable, stripped girl with fury. He knew well, now, what had been her role, her willing role, in the plan of the Kurii.
“I will see that she is well punished,” he said.
“You are speaking of one of my slave girls,” I said.
“Ah!” he said.
“I will see that she is punished,” I said. She looked at me. There was fear in her eyes. “Put her on the ship,” I said to the seaman. He thrust her, ahead of him, stumbling, up the narrow gangplank, and put her on the ship.
In Port Kar I would remove the Kur collar and put her in one of my own. I would, too, have her beaten. Afterwards she would serve in my house, as one of my slave girls.
About my forehead I wore a Jarl’s talmit. This morning Svein Blue Tooth, before cheering men, had tied it about my head. “Tarl Red Hair,” had said he, “with this talmit accede to Jarlship in Torvaldsland!” I had been lifted on the shields of shouting men. In the distance I had seen the Torvaldsberg, and, to the west, gleaming Thassa. “Never before,” had said Svein Blue Tooth, “has one not of the north been named Jarl amongst us.” There had been much shouting, much clashing of weapons. Conscious I was indeed of the signal honor seen fit to be bestowed upon me. I had lifted my hands to them, standing on the shields, a Jarl of Torvaldsland, one who might now, in his own name if need be, send forth the arrow of war, sumrnoning adherents; one who might, as it pleased him, comrnand ships and men; one who might now say to the rough, bold seamen of the north, as it pleased him, “Follow me, there is work to be done,” and whom they would then follow, gathering weapons, opening the sheds, sliding their ships on rollers to the sea, raising the masts, spreading the striped sails to the wind, saying, “Our Jarl has summoned us. Let us aid him. There is work to be done.”
“I am grateful,” said I to Svein Blue Tooth.
“I wish you well, Bosk of Port Kar,” said Samos.
“Tarl Cabot,” said I to him.
He smiled. “I wish you well, Tarl Cabot,” he said.
“I wish you well, Samos,” said I.
“I wish you well, Warrior,” said Sarus.
“I, too, wish you well, Warrior,” said I, “Sarus of Tyros.” Samos and Sarus turned about and left the wharf. They were going to the ship of Samos, on which they had come north.
Coast gulls screamed overhead. The air was sharp and clear. The sky was very blue.
I watched the girls loading the ship. Aelgifu, or Pudding, passed me, and then Gunnhild and Olga, bent under boxes carried on their backs. Pouting Lips and Pretty Ankles returned from the ship, down the gangplank, barefoot, to fetch more burdens. Hilda, bent over, a heavy sack of salt over her shoulders, staggered up the gangplank. Thyri returned down the gangplank, a yoke on her shoulders, from which dangled two empty baskets, on ropes. She had been carrying tospits and vegetables to the deck locker, to fill it. Wulfstan, once of Kassau, now of Torvaldsland, in charge of supplying the ship, leaned over the rail. “Fetch more tospits, Slave Girl,” he called. “Yes, Master,” said Thyri.
I saw Rollo board the ship. He carried a great ax, weapons, a sleenskin bag filled with gear. He was the first of the oarsmen to board.
Now came slave girls bearing skins of water. They walked slowly, bent over, placing each step carefully, that they not lose thelr balance, heavy skins, bulging and damp, across their shoulders. I saw Honey Cake among them, and the Forkbeard’s golden girl, the southern silk girl, too, she labormg as any other bond-maid. I do not think that in the south she had been forced so to work. She staggered. “Hurry,” said the girl behind her, “or we will be beaten!” The girl moaned, and staggered to the gangplank, and, slowly, foot by foot, her bare feet pressed by the weight deeply into the rough boards, climbed, carrying her burden, to the deck of the shlp. Among the girls, too, I saw Bera, she one of the Blue Tooth’s girls, one of several, who had been placed under the orders of Wulfstan to assist in the loading. She was naked. The other girls, resenting the tunic she had been given, had stripped her. Svein Blue Tooth had laughed Masters do not interfere in the squabbles of slaves.
I looked up at the sky. It was very blue. For more than a day I had lain in fever, in delirium, while in my body had been fought the battle of poison and antidote. I had sweated, and cried out, and raged, but, in the end, I had thrown the furs from me. “I want meat,” I had said, “and a woman.” The Forkbeard, who had sat near me through the hours of the lonely contest, clasped me about the shoulders. He had ordered roast bosk and hot milk, and then yellow bread and paga. Then, when I had finished, Leah had been thrown to my feet.
I walked up the gangplank and stood on the decking, looking out to sea. There was a sweet wind on Thassa.
My delirium this time, interestingly to me, had been much different than it had when, long ago, the poison had first raged in my body. At that time I had been miserable, and weak, even calling out to a woman, who was only a slave, to love me. But, somehow, in the north, in Torvaldsland, I had changed. This I knew. There was a different Tarl Cabot than ever there had been. Once there had been a boy by this name, one with simple dreams, naive, vain, one shattered by a betrayal of his codes, the discovery of a weakness where he had thought there was only strength. That boy had died in the delta of the Vosk; in his place had come Bosk ofPort Kar, ruthless and torn, but grown into his manhood; and now there was another, one whom I might, ifI wished, choose to call again Tarl Cabot. I had changed. Here, with the Forkbeard, with the sea, the wind, in his hall and in battle, I had become, somehow, much different. In the north my blood had found itself, learning itself, in the north I had learned strength, and how to stand alone. I thought of the Kurii. They were terrible foes. Suddenly, incredibly, I felt love for them. I recollected the head of the giant Kur. mounted on its stake, in the ruins of the hall of Svein Blue Tooth. One cannot be weak who meets such beasts. I laughed at the weaknesses instilled into the men of Earth. Only men who are strong, without weakness, can meet such beasts. One must match them in strength, in intellect, in terribleness, in ferocity. In the north I had grown strong. I suddenly realized the supreme power of the united Gorean will, not divided against itself, not weak, not crippled like the wills of Earth. I telt a surge of power, of unprecedented, unexpected joy. I had discovered what it was to be Gorean. I had discovered what it was, truly, to be male, to be a man. I was Gorean.