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toot of the Kur Then, with the knife, I knelt at the Kur's throat.
"Tarl! Tarl Red Hair!" I heard call. It was Ivar Forkbeard. I could see the
longboat, four torches uplifted in it, men at the oars, putting in to the
skerry.
I stood on the surface of the skerry.
Then I went down to meet the boat, finding my way among the rocks.
On the tiny rock promontory, footing the skerry, some eight or nine feet in
width, I met Ivar
Forkbeard, and his men With him were Gorm, Ottar and Wulfstan of Torvaldsland
The torches were lifted.
The men lifted. I lifted the head of the Kur in my right hand over my head. In
my belt was thrust the spiral ring of gold, taken from its arm. To my belt,
too, looped twice about it, was the length of binding fiber which went to the
ring on Telima's collar. She knelt to my left, a bit behind rne, on the stone.
"I have here three objects," I said, "acquired on the skerry, the head of a
Kur, he who was commander of the Kur army, a spiral ring of gold, taken as
loot from his carcass, and a slave girl." I threw the head into the longboat.
I then threw the ring after it.
Then, unlooping the bindmg fiber from my belt, but leaving it looped, double,
in her collar ring, with its loose ends, I crossed Telima's ankles and tied
them together. Her wrists were still confined behmd her back in the rude,
black bracelets of the north, with their one heavy link. I
carried her, wading on the stones, to the side of the longboat. She looked at
me. Then I threw her into the boat, between the feet of the oarsmen.
Chapter 21 1 drink to the honor of Tyros
"Permit me to kiss you, Master," begged Leah. She snuggled against me. She was
naked on the rough bench of the north. My right arm was about her, holding her
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to me, in my right hand, held in its grip of golden wire, was a great horn of
steaming mead. The girl, in her need, pressed herself against the coarse
woolen tunic of Torvaldsland. I looked down into her uplifted eyes, pleading.
It was the need of a slave girl. I turned from her and drank. She sobbed. I
laughed, and turned toward her. I looked into the large dark eyes, moist.
About her throat she wore the north s collar of black iron, riveted. Then our
lips met.
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Mead was replenished in the drinking horn by a darkhaired bond-maid, who
filled it, head down, shyly, not looking at me. She was the only one in the
hall who was not stripped, though, to be sure, her kirtle, by order of her
master, was high on her hips, and, over the shoulders, was split to the belly.
Like any other wench, on her neck, riveted, was a simple collar of black iron.
She had worn a Kur collar before, and, with hundreds of others, had been
rescued from the pens. The fixing of the Kur collar, it had been decided by
Svein Blue Tooth, was equivalent to the fixing of the metal collar and, in
itself, was sufficient to reduce the subject to slavery, which condition
deprives the subject of legal status, and rights attached thereto, such as the
right to stand in companionship. Accordingly, to her astonishment, Bera, who
had been the companion of Svein Blue
Tooth, discovered suddenly that she was only one wench among others. From a
line, as part of his spoils, the Blue Tooth picked her out. She had displeased
him mightily in recent years. Yet was the Blue Tooth fond of the arrogant
wench. It was not until he had switched her, like any other girl, that she
understood that their relationship had undergone a transformation, and that
she was, truly, precisely what she seemed to be, now his bond-maid. No longer
would her dour presence deprive his feasts of joy. No longer would she, in her
free woman's scorn, shower contempt on bondmaids, trying to make them ashamed
of their beauty. She, too, now, was no more than they. She now had new tasks
to which to address herself, cooking, and churning and carrying water; the
improvement of her own carriage, and beauty and attractiveness; and the giving
of inordinate pleasure in the furs to her master, Svein Blue Tooth, Jarl of
Torvaldsland; if she did not do so, well she knew, as an imbonded wench, that
others would; it was not, indeed, until her reduction to slavery that she
realized, for the first time, how fine a male, how attractive and how
powerful, was Svein Blue Tooth, whom she had for years taken for granted;
seeing him objectively for the first time, from the perspective of a slave
girl, who is nothing herself, and comparing him with other free men, she
realized suddenly how mighty how splendid and magnificent he truly was. She
set herself diligently to please him, in service and in pleasure, and, if he
would permit it, in love. Bera went to the next man, to fill his cup with
mead, from the heavy, hot tankard, gripped with cloth, which she carried. She
was sweating. She was barefoot. The bond-maid was happy.
I drank.
The wench Leah again pressed herself against me. I looked down upon her. "You
are a wanton slave,"
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