Marauders of Gor (22 page)

           
"We have here," said I, "a scent that might be worthy of a Ubara of Ar."

           
I uncorked it and she held it, delicately, to her nostrils.

           
"Barely adequate," she said.

           
I restrained my fury. That scent, I knew, a distillation of a hundred flowers, nurtured like a priceless wine, was a secret guarded by the perfumers of Ar. It contained as well the separated oil of the Thentis needle tree; an extract from the glands of the Cartius river urt; and a preparation formed from a disease calculus scraped from the intestines of the rare Hunjer Long Whale, the result of the inadequate digestion of cuttlefish. Fortunately, too, this calculus is sometimes found free in the sea, expelled with feces. It took more than a year to distill, age, blend and bond the ingredients.

           
"Barely ade~uate," she said. But I could tell she was pleased.

           
"It is only eight stone of gold," said I, obsequiously, "for the vial."

           
"I shall accept it," said she, coldly, "as a gift."

           
"A gift !" I cried.

           
"Yes," said she. "You have annoyed me. I have been patient with you. I am now no ~onger patient!"

           
"Have pity, great lady!" I wept.

           
"Leave me now," said she. "Go below. Ask there to be stripped and beaten. Then swiftly take your leave of the house of Thorgard o~ Scagnar. Be grateful that I perrnit you your lives."

           
I hastily, as though frightened, made as though to close the flat, leather case of vials.

           
"~eave that," she said. She laughed. "I shall give it to my bond-maids."

           
I smiled, though secretly. The haughty wench would rob us of our entire stores! None of that richness, I knew, would grace the neck or breasts of a mere bond-maid. She~ Hilda ~he Haughty, daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar, would kee,~) it for hersel~;

           
I attempted to conceal one vial, which we had not permitted her to sample. But her eye was too qwck ~or me.

           
"What is that ?" she asked, sharply.

           
~'It is nothing," I said.

           
"Let me smell it," she said.

           
"Please, no, great ladyl" I begged.

           
"You thought to keep it from me, did you ?" she laughed

           
"Oh, no, great lady,"-I wept.

           
"Give it to me," she said.

           
"Must I, lady ?" asked I.

           
"I see," said she, "beating is not enough for you. It seems you must be boiled in the oiI of tharlarion as well !"

           
I lifted it to her, piteously.

           
She laughed.

           
My assistant and I knelt before her, at her feet. She wore, beneath her green velvet, golden shoes.

           
"Uncork it for me, you sleen," said she. I wondered if I had, in my life, seen ever so scornful, so proud, so cold a woman.

           
I uncorked the vial.

           
"Hold it beneath my nostrils," she said. She bent forward. I held the vial beneath her delicate nostrils.

           
She closed her eyes, and breathed in, deeply, expectant

           
Y-

           
She opened her eyes, and shook her head. "What is this ?" she said

           
"Capture scent," I said.

           
I held her forearms. Ivar Forkbeard quickly pulled the bracelets and rings from her wrists and fingers. He then threw from her neck the golden chains. I pulled her to her feet, holding her wrists. Ivar tore the golden string from her hair, loosening it. It fell behind her, blond, below the small of her back. He tore the collar of her gown back from her throat, opening it at her neck.

           
"Who are you ?" she whispered.

           
He snapped fetters of black iron on her wrists. They, by the fetters and their single link, were held about three mches apart.

           
"Who are you ?" she whispered.

           
"A friend of your father," said he. He tore away from his

           
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body, swiftly, the gown of the perfumers, that of white and yellow silk. I, too, cast aside the perfumer's gown.

           
She saw that we wore the leather and fur of Torvaldsland.

           
"No!" she cried.

           
My hand was over her mouth. Ivar's dagger was at her throat.

           
"While Thorgard roves at sea," said the Forkbeard, ~'we rove in Scagnar."

           
"Shall I hold again the via] beneath her nose?" I asked. Soaked in a rag and scarf and hel-l over the nose and mouth of a female it can render her unconscious in five Ihn. She squirrned wildly for an Ihn or two, and then sluggishly, and then fell limp. It is sometimes used by tarnsmen; it is often used by slavers. Anaesthetic darts, too, are sometimes used in the taking of females; these may be flungj or entered into her body by hand; they take effect in about forty Ihn; she awakens often, stripped, in a slave kennel.

           
"No," said lvar. "It is important for my plan that she be conscious.

           
I ~elt the mouth of the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar move beneath my hand.

           
The Forkbeard's dagger's point thrust slightly into her throat

           
She winced.

           
"If you speak now above a whisper," said he, "you die. Is that understood ?"

           
- She nodded her head~ miserably. At a gesture from the Forkbeard, I released her mouth. I con~inued to hold her arm.

           
"You will never get me past the guards," she hissed.

           
The Forkbeard was looking about the room. From a sm~ll chest, he took a thick, covering cloth, orange. From ~he chest he took a scarf.

           
"There are guari~s," she hissed. "You are fools ! You ~vill never get me pa~t the guards!"

           
"I have no intention of getting you past the guards~" said Ivar Forkbeard.

           
1 4()

           
She looked at him, puzzled. He went to the high window of her room, high in the wooden fortress, on its cliff, overlooking the dark bay below. We could hear waves crashing on rocks.
     
   
-
   
 

           
Ivar went to the window. He looked down. Then he cameback into the room and took a clay lamp, lit, and went agam to the window. He moved the lamp up and down once. I went to the window, holding the girl. Together we looked down into the wave-crashing blackness. Then we saw, brlefly, uncovered and then covered again, a ship's lantern. Below, at the nineteenth hour, in the longboat of Ivar's ship, was Gorm, with four oarsmen.

           
"You have no ropes to lower me to your b~at," she said. She lifted her wrists. "Remove, and swiftly," said she, "these dlsgusting fetters!"

           
Ivar ~orkbeard went to the door of her room and, silently slipped the two beams into place, in their iron brackets.

           
She looked to the floor; on it, scattered, lay her bracelets, her rings, the golden chains she had worn about her neck Her throat, where Ivar had torn away the coliar o~ the green gown, was now bared.

           
"Do you not want my rings, " she asked, "my golden chains my bracelets ?"

           
"It is only for you that I have come to this place," he said. He grinned.

           
I, too, grinned. It was mighty insult to Thorgard of Scagnar. The golden chains, the rings, the bracelets, stripped from her, would be left behind. How could it be made more clear that her captor scorned these as baubles, that he had no need of them, and that it had been the girl herself, and only she, her body and her person, that had been sought and boldly taken.

           
Ivar Forkbeard then bent to the girl's feet and pulled away her golden shoes, and, his hands at her legs, she, her eyes closed, ren oved from her, too, her scarlet, silken hose, She stood, her arm held by my hand, in the fetters, in the dress of green velvet, it torn open at the collar to reveal

           
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her throat; she had been stripped of her rings, the bracelets, the chains; her hair was loose; her hose and shoes had been removed.

           
"Are you going to tie my ankles ?" she asked.

           
"No," he said.

           
"You have no rope to lower me," she said.

           
"No," he said.

           
She looked at him, puzzled.

           
"I will bring high ransom," she said. She looked down at her jewelry on the floor. "I will bring higher ransom," she said, "if I am adorned."

           
"Your adornments," said he, "will be simple, a kirtle of white wool, a brand, a collar of iron."

           
"You are insane!" she hissed. "I am the daughter of Thorgard of Scagnar!"

           
"Wench," said he, "I did not take you for ransom."

           
"For what reason then," begged she, "have I been taken ?"

           
"Are you so cold, Hilda the Haughty," asked he, "that you cannot guess ?"

           
"Oh, no!" she hissed. "No! No!"

           
"You will be well taught to heel and obey," said he.

           
"No!" she hissed.

           
He lifted the orange coverlet, to throw it over her head.

           
"I ask only one thing," she begged, "should you be successful in this mad scheme."

           
"What is that ?" asked Ivar Forkbeard.

           
"Never, never," she said, "let me fall into the hands of Ivar Forkbeard!"

           
"I am Ivar Forkbeard," said Forkbeard.

           
Her eyes widened with horror.

           
He threw the mantle over her head and, with the scarf, turned twice about her neck, and knotted tightly, tied it under her chin

           
He had not rendered her unconscious, or gagged her, or tied her ankles. He wanted her to be able to cry out; her cries, of course, would be muffled; they would not be discernible on the height of the fortress; they rnight, however, be heard by Gorm and those in the boat; too, he wanted

           
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her to be able to thrash about; this, too, would help Gorm to locate her in the darkness.

           
The Forkbeard then lifted her from her feet, lightly. He] dress slid back, over her knees. We heard her muffled voice 'No!" she wept. "I cannot swim!"

           
~ The Forkbeard then hurled her from the window and sh~ fell, twisting and crying out, some hundred feet to the black waters below. With the waves, striking on rocks about, we did not hear the splash.

           
We gave Gorm time to find her and fish her out, throwing her in the boat and bind;ng her ankles. Then the Forkbeard stood on the sill of the tall window, poised, and then he dived into the darkness; after about an Ehn, giving hirn time to surface and swim to the boat, I followed him.

           
In less than another Ehn, soaked and cold, teeth chattering, I had crawled over the bulwark of the longboat and Joined the Forkbeard. He had already stripped and was rubbing himself with a fur cloak. I followed his example, and soon both of us were warmed and in dry clothes. The Forkbeard then bent to the soaked, shuddering captive. He removed one of the fetters and jerked the girl's hands behind her back. He then fettered her hands behind her. Her ankles had already been crossed and bound by Gorm. The Forkbeard then threw Hilda the Haughty face down in the longboat, and, fiom Gorm, took the tiller. She lay lengthwise, head toward the stem, between his booted feet