I was never much fond of such meetings, the services and the rituals of initiates, but I had some special interest in the service which was being helf today.

Ivar Forkbeard was dead.

I knew this man of Torvaldsland only by reputation. He was a rover, a great captain, a pirate, a trader, a warrior. It had been he, and his men, who had freed Chenbar of Tyros, the Sea Sleen, from a dungeon in Port Kar, breaking through to him, shattering his chains with the blunt hammerlike backs of their great, curved, single-bladed axes. He was said to be fearless, and mighty, swift with sword and axe, fond of jokes, a deep drinker, a master of pretty wenches, and a madman. But he had taken in fee from Chenbar Chenbar’s weight in the sapphires of Shendi. I did not think him too mad.

But now the Forkbeard was dead.

It was said that he wished, in regret for the wickedness of his life, to be carried in death to the temple of Priest-Kings in Kassau, that the High Initiate there might, if it be his mercy, draw on his bones in the sacred grease the sign of the Priest-Kings.

It would thus indicate that he, Forkbeard, if not in life, had in death acknowledged the error of his way, and embraced the will and wisdom of the faith of the Priest-Kings.

Such a conversion, even though it be in death, would be a great coup for the initiates.

I could sense the triumph of the High Initiate on his throne, though his cold face betrayed little sign of his victory.

Now initiates to one side of the sanctuary, opposite the throne of the High Initiate, began to chant the litanies of the Priest-Kings. Responses, in archaic Gorean, repetitive, simple were uttered by the crowd.

Kassau is a town of wood, and the temple is the greatest building in the town, It towers far above the squalid huts, and stabler homes of merchants, which crowd about it.