Following the rast of the girls, carrying the last of my gear, came Leah, who stood, small, beside me. Ottar then, and Gorm, and the other men of the Forkbeard boarded the craft. Thyri, who had boarded earlier, stood near the bench of Wulfstan, where, already, he gripped an oar. Near the mast, chained to it by the neck, eyes down, knelt Telima.
Moorings were cast off. Poles thrust the Hilda from the wharf. Gorm held the tiller, mounted at the stern on the starboard side. The seamen brought their shields inboard, stowed their gear beneath their benches, grasped their oars. Slowly the tarnhead prow of the Forkbeard’s sleek craft turned toward the sweep of Thassa. Then oars dipped slowly. The great red and white striped sail fell, opening, snapping, from the spar of needlewood. I turned back to the wharf.
The Forkbeard and I raised our hands, in salute, to the men there. We saw Svein Blue Tooth, the tooth of the Hunjer whale, stained blue, on its chain about his neck. He lifted his hand. Near him, kneeling beside her master, behindthe line of his heels, was Bera, one of his girls. I saw, toc BJarni, of Thorstein Camp, who lifted his spear to me, an beside him, too, the young man, his friend, he, too, lifting his hand, whom I had, it now seemed long ago, champione at the dueling field. There were many men there, armed, and wenches, too.
One of the seamen lifted the “golden girl,” her crossed ankles in the fetter, that she might see. Then he threw her back to the deck, where, on her stomach, and elbows, head down, hair falling to the deck, she lay.
I saw Telima, standing by the mast, to which she wa chained by the neck. I looked at her, harshly. Immediately she knelt, eyes down.
In my pouch there was a sapphire from distant Schendi There, too, heavy and spiraled, was a ring of gold, which I had taken from the arm of the Kur I had slain. In the dis tance, as the ship moved to sea, the wind in its sail, oar dipping, l saw the bleak, white heights of the Torvaldsberg.
Hrolf, from the East, had agreed to return the war arrow to the Torvaldsberg.
We had given it to him. When he had left the ruins of the hall of Svein Blue Tooth I had run after him, and, a pasang from the camp, had stopped him. “What is your true name?” I had inquired.
He had looked at me, and smiled. It was strange what he said. “My name,” he said, “is Torvald.” Then he had turned away, I watched him return to the mountain. I thought of the stabilization serums, “My name is Torvald,” he had said. Then he had turned away.
“Ho!” cried Ivar Forkbeard, striking me on the back, clasping me about the shoulders. “It is a good wind!” Then he turned away, to his duties on the ship.
I walked between the benches, to the prow, and, standing on the high decking, at the stem, put one arm about the prow and looked out to sea. Leah heeled me there. I turned to face her. I could see the lovely curves of the interior cleavage of her breasts, revealed in the parting of the rough slave tunic. I looked at the collar, her eyes. I pulled the tunic down from her shoulders, to her waist. “It is your girl’s hope that she pleases you,” she said. “Slip from the tunic,” I told her. She untied the binding fiber, belting the tunic, and thrust it over her hips, to her ankles, and then stepped from it. “To my feet,” I told her. “Yes, Master,” she whispered. She lay on her side, her head on her arm. She did not look up at me.
I turned again to look out to sea.
I thought of many things, of Ar, of Marlenus, of Talena, with whom I was not pleased. When I had been crippled she had derided me; she had expressed contempt, pride; she had then held herself too good for me. I had had her returned to Ar. I wondered if, somehow, somewhere, we might once again encounter one another. Did we do so I thought now she might find me different.
I pondered trying chain luck in Ar. I wondered how she might feel, the gag hood drawn over her head from behind, locked shut behind her neck, stripped, thrown on her back over the saddle of a tarn, bound, swept away, with a beating of wings, into total bondage. Publius, my kitchen master, I speculated, might find use for such a wench in his kitchens; after she had much pleased me, I would see that she was assigned to Publius. I had little doubt that the daughter, or she who had once been the daughter, of Marlenus of Ar, properly instructed by the switch, would make an excellent addition to the slaves of the kitchen. Perhaps, before I chose my wench for the night, one of her duties might be to scrub the tiles of my chamber. I recalled how, in the forests, long ago, I had sought her. It had been my intention to repledge the companionship, and to become great on Gor, to raise high the chair of Bosk, climbing in riches and power to the heights of the planet, to become even, perhaps, in time, aworld’s Ubar.
Incredibly, perhaps, the values, wealth and power, which had driven me in the forest, when I had sought Talena, no longer seemed of much interest to me. The sky now seemed more important to me, and the sea, and the ship beneath my feet. No longer did I dream of becoming a Ubar. In the north I found I had changed. What had driven me in the forests seemed now paltry, irrelevant to the true needs, the concerns, of man. I had been blinded by the values of civili zation. Everything that I had been taught had been false. I had suspected this when I had stood on the heights of the Torvaldsberg, on a windswept rock, looking upon the land beneath, white and bleak, and beautiful. Even Kurii, on it height, stunned, had stopped to gaze. I had learned much in the north.
I looked again to sea, and to the sky. There were now white clouds in it. Somewhere, beyond the fourth ring, mixed in the belt of asteroids, intruding within the perimeters refused to them by Priest-Kings, were the patient, orbiting steel worlds. This I had from Samos. They were nearer now. Somewhere, above that placid sky with its swift, white clouds, doser now, were Kurii. I remembered the huge head, mounted upon the stake.
When I returned to Port Kar, I must speak to Samos.
I stood long at the prow. Then, after some hours, itgrew dark. With my foot I nudged Leah, at my feet. She awoke She knelt, and kissed my feet. “Take your garment,” I told her, “but do not don it. Go to the waterproof, sleenskin sleeping bag bymy bench. Spread it on the deck, between the benches. Then get within it and await me.” “Yes, Master,” she whispered.
I turned, in time to see her creep feet first, with a turn of her hips, into the bag. I passed Telima, chained at the mast. The chain was attached to the large, sturdy, circular ring sewn in the locked Kur collar. She did not meet my eyes. She knelt, turning her head and putting its right side to the deck. I heard the chain touch the deck. I saw her hair on the sanded boards, in the light of the three moons. I passed her.
I removed my tunic. I thrust it beneath the bench. Then, wrapping my sword belt about my scabbard, the blade within, placed the weapon, belt and scabbard within the bag, that they be protected from moisture. I then slipped into the bag. “May your slave, Leah,” whispered Leah, “attempt to please her master?”
“Yes,” I told her. She fell to kissing me, with the lascivious, wanton joy of the slave girl, given no choice but to reveal and liberate, and act upon, completely and with perfection, her deepest, most hidden desires, even though she might, in misery, scorn herself for possessing them.
Toward morning Leah slept, and I held her to me. I looked up at the sail, the stars over the mast.
I left the sleeping bag and drew my clothes about me, belting, too, to my side, the steel sword of Gor.
The Forkbeard was at the tiller. I went for a time to stand near him. Neither of us spoke.
I observed the sea. I looked up at the stars.
When I reached Port Kar, I would, I decided, speak to Samos.
Then, in silence, listening to the water against the hull, I considered again the stars, and the sea.