The great ones fell back when they came to the edge of the pit, and let the prisoner see what he faced. He grinned through broken teeth, his hands tied behind him, a powerful guard holding each arm. He still wore the strange shaggy clothes of tarred goatskin which had brought him his name. Erkenbert the archdeacon pushed forward to face him.
“That is the worm-yard,” he said.
“Orm-garth,” corrected Ragnar.
The priest spoke again, in simple English, the trade-talk of the merchants. “Know this. You have a choice. If you become Christian, you live. As a slave. No orm-garth then for you. But you must become Christian.”
The Viking’s mouth twisted in contempt. He spoke in reply, still in the trade-tongue. “You priests. I know your talk. You say I live. How? As a slave, you say. What you not say, but I know, is how. No eyes, no tongue. Cut legs, cut hough-sinews, no walk.”
His voice rose to a chant. “I fought in the front for thirty winters, always I struck with the sword. Four hundred men I killed, a thousand women I ravished, many minsters I burned, many men’s bairns I sold. Many have wept for me, I never wept for them. Now I come to the orm-garth, like Gunnar the god-born. Do your worst, let the shining worm sting me to the heart. I shall not ask for mercy. Always I struck with the sword!”
“Get on with it,” snarled Ella from behind the Viking. The guards began to hustle him forward.
“Stop!” Erkenbert called. “First bind his legs.”
They tied the unresisting man roughly, pulled him to the edge, balanced him on the wall, then—he looking round at the pushing but silent crowd—shoved him over. He fell a few feet, landing with a thump on top of a pile of crawling snakes. Instantly they hissed, instantly they struck.
The man in the shaggy tunic and breeches laughed once from the ground.
“They cannot bite through,” called a voice in disappointment. “His clothes are too thick.”
“They may strike at his hands or face,” called the serpent-keeper, jealous for the honor of his pets.
One of the largest adders indeed lay a few inches from Ragnar’s face, the two staring almost eye-to-eye, the forked tongue of the one almost touching the chin of the other. A long moment of pause.
Then, suddenly, the man’s head moved, shooting sideways, teeth agape. A threshing of coils, a mouth spitting blood, the snake lay headless. Again the Viking laughed. Slowly he began to roll, humping his body despite the bound arms and legs, trying to fall on the snakes with the full weight of hip or shoulder.
“He’s killing them,” cried the custos in mortal pain.
Ella moved forward in sudden disgust, clicking his fingers. “You and you. You’ve stout boots on. Go in and lift him out.
“I’ll not forget this,” he added in an undertone to the disconcerted Erkenbert. “You’ve made a damned fool of all of us.
“Now, you men, free his arms, free his legs, cut his clothes off, bind him again. You and you, go fetch hot water. Serpents desire heat. If we warm his skin they will be drawn to it.
“One more thing. He will lie still this time, to thwart us. Bind one arm to his body and tie the left wrist to a rope. Then we can make him move.”
They lowered the prisoner again, still grinning, still un-speaking. This time the king himself steered the lowering to the spot where the snakes lay thickest. In a few moments they began to crawl to the warm body steaming in the chill air, writhing over it. Cries of disgust came from the women and servants in the crowd as they imagined the scales of the fat adders brushing over bare skin.
Then the king jerked his rope, again and again. The arm moved, the adders hissed, the disturbed ones struck, felt flesh, struck again and again, filling the man’s body with their poison. Slowly, slowly, the awed watchers saw his face begin to change, to puff, to turn blue. As his eyes and tongue began to bulge, finally he called out once more.