Adventure Magazine Cover — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

e, he knew Fflur! Caswallon’s wife loyal to Caswallon, but no subtlety ould undermine her judgment; she could see through men and their intrigues; she ruled her husband and his corner of Britain without his knowing it; and she was ‘Tros’ friend. “In the meanwhile?’ Tros asked. | “I do not forget you were my friend,” © Caswallon answered, ‘and though you have ' lost me sixty men on your adventure, you | have saved me it may be a hundred in their place by sinking that Northman down-river. 1 am king here and the river rights are mine, but you may have that longship and your prisoners. ‘That chest of Cesar’s gold you left with Fflur is yours, too. You may bury your father’s corpse in British earth. Thereafter we will hear what Fflur says.” CASWALLON strode out on the “ag deck and went to where the druids were tending wounds. Because he _ esse was the chief, a druid tried to in- - sist on bandaging the spear-wound over his - tibs, but Caswallon took the druid by the - shoulders and shoved him back to the task he had left, standing then to watch the mar- vels of swift surgery the druids wrought. They had a drug that caused unconscious- ness; they opened one man’s skull and inset bone from the skull of another who had been dead an hour or two;* one druid opened his - Own vein and surrendered a quart of blood for the veins of a man who had nearly bled to death. But they amputated no limbs; if a leg or an arm was beyond their skill to repair, they let the man die whole, as he had come into the world, easing his death with an anodyne. Tros returned to the poop, where Sigurd- sen sat glowering at the Britons, his wife wailing on the deck beside him, and the blue-eyed Helma standing, her back to the tears, too hopeless to speak even to her own kin. She looked away over Tros’ shoulder at the skyline, and Tros, who had seen well- bred women sold at auction in many a foreign port, turned over in his mind what he might say that should console her— possibly a little, if not much. “Can your people ransom you?” he asked. She met his eyes and answered with *Many of the skulls discovered in ancient British bury- . oe and on battle fields bear marks of having been - trephined. rail and her chin high, too proud to shed. Adventure surprizing calm, her voice not trembling: “No. These are all my people. There was war and the men of Helsing burned our villages. ‘There was neither corn nor dried meat left, and the fishing is hard in winter, so we came to seize a holding here, my brother and Volstrum of Fiborg-by-Mal- moe, with their two ships and all the men that remained. Most of the women and children had been carried off by the men of Helsing. None can ransom us unless Vol- strum comes up-river, and if he comes——” “He will not come,’ Tros assured her. “T have sunk his ship. If he is not drowned he will fall into the Britons’ hands.” She betrayed no emotion at that news, but repeated it in Norse to her brother, who laid his head between his hands and groaned aloud. ‘“Will you sell her to me?”’ asked a Briton, one of the men who had been in the thick of the fighting across the river and had boarded the bireme with Caswallon. “I bid you two man-slaves and two horses for her.” “No,” Tros answered, and the other Britons sneered at the man who made the bid. They all had slaves. Buying and selling was lawful; they now and then sold criminals and captives to foreign ship-owners to re- place sailors who had died of scurvy; but they did not approve of barter in human beings. However, there was an atmosphere of enmity to Tros; some one had been spread- ing rumors. They held aloof from him, giving him two-thirds of the bireme’s poop instead of crowding to ask questions or to boast of their own prowess against the northmen in the woods. “What shall I do with you?” Tros asked, meeting the girl’s sky-blue eyes. He knew what he would do with Sigurd- sen unless destiny should imterfere; so Sigurdsen’s wife was no problem, and the widow-woman, who was wailing in a corner below the poop, would dry her eyes before long and be chosen as some man’s mate. But this fair-haired girl puzzled him. “T said what I would do if Sigurdsen had beaten you!” she answered. “TI would have put iron on your neck and you should have fetched and carried for me!” “But I beat Sigurdsen,” said Tros. “I am obliged to make provision for you. Shall I marry you to one of his men?” She bared her teeth. GEomichbooks.com