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.

Leah boarded the ship. She was barefoot. I had given her a briei, woolen slave tunic, which came high aboul her hips; it was sleeveless; it was split to the belly, belted with binding 6ber. She carried, in a sleenskin bag, over her shoulders, much ot my gear. I indicated to her the bench beneath which she mlght put it. She wore the black collar of the north She turned and lelt the ship, going down the gangplank, to fetch more of my things. She walked well. She knew my eyes were on her, the sleek she-sleen. I enjoyed owning her.

I looked again out to sea. Last summer, in journeying to the forests, to attempt to rescue Talena; I had, in a tavern in Lydius, encountered a wench once known, Vella, Elizabeth Cardwell. She had made a delicious paga slave. I recalled her, licking my lips. Intent on the rescue of Talena, not wishing to be burdened by another wench, I had not yielded to the entreaties of the girl to buy her and free her. What a stupid request, I thought, to make of a Gorean male. It would have occurred only to an Earth girL But if Elizabeth was stupid, or, more likely, naive, she was at least pretty. I thought then, too, of Talena. She had been disowned by Marlenus of Ar. But she lived now in Ar, sequestered. She had insulted me in Port Kar. I smiled. I had left Vella, Elizabeth Cardwell, slave in Lydius. She had once, against my wishesj fled the Saridar, when I had wished, as a foolish Earthling, to return her to her home planet, for safety. Such a courageous act on her part had not been without its risks. She had fallen slave. I had met her in a tavern in Lydius. Gor is a perilous world, and particularly so, perhaps, for beautiful women. It is seldom that they, if not protected by a city and a Home Stone, escape the slave collar, the brand, the chains of a master. Elizabeth’s act had been courageous. But she had lost her wager. I left her slave in Lydius, to the mercies of Sarpedon, the tavernkeeper, and his customers.

It had been, as I now thought, a mistake. It had been a mistake because Elizabeth had been quite pretty. I would have been a fool to return so pretty a wench to Earth. When I returned to Port Kar I would arrange for an agent to buy her, if she had not already been sold to one who lusted for her and could pay her price. I would have been a fool to return so pretty a wench to Earth, I mused. Yes, I would, if it were commercially feasible, buy her, and keep her on Gor as my own slave. I recalled that inmy first delirium, fighting the poison, long ago, I had wept, and, in my fevered ragings, had begged for her comfort, that she love me. That seemed to me now incredible, but I recalled it, clearly. But I had changed in the north. This time, in my delirium, the wench, I recalled, had figured quite differently. No longer, this time, did I call out to her, or beg for her comfort, or love. This time it had seemed I had seen her on a slave block, naked, under torchlight, guided by the whip, turning for buyers. I dreamed in the delirium I had purchased her. “Do not return me to Earth,” she had begged. “I willnot,” I told her. Then she had looked at me with horror, and I had, upon my return to my house, thrown her among my other slaves.

Ivar Forkbeard, with great strides, climbed the gangplank. Then, laughing, giggling, thrilled to be soon underway, approach;ng between two lines of seamen, came his slave girls. With them, less pleased, was the “golden girl,” she with dark hair, and earrings. She dallied. One of the seamen took her by the back of the neck and thrust her, running, stumbling, half up the gangplank. She, too, then, weeping, boarded the Forkbeard’s ship. “On your back,” said a seaman to her, “and lift your legs, ankles crossed.” The girl did so. He put the two piece, hinged, double ankle ring on her. This is a simple fetter, without links, holding the ankles crossed. It does not permit the girl to rise to her feet. When she had learned to be more pleasing, more radiant, her movements would be less restricted; I had little doubt that, by the time we reached Port Kar, she would be precisely what the Forkbeard wanted her to be. I looked at her. Our eyes met.