She stayed there such a long time that it unnerved me. What did she want? The others had gone. Was she planning to make good her threat, and kill me while I was helpless?

She must have sensed my unease. She smiled.

‘We’re one step away from perfection,’ she said.

I didn’t like the sound of that. Nor did I like the look of the thing she had in her hand. She’d been keeping it out of my field of vision, but now she raised it to the level of my eyes with a terrible deliberation.

‘I brought you a little something,’ she said.

‘A snake? I asked for a snack,’ I said. ‘Still, I guess it’s the thought that counts.’

Skadi gave that smile again. A little shiver went down, first my spine, then every hair on my body.

‘Not just any snake,’ she said. ‘This one’s a spitting cobra. It likes to spit venom at its enemies. The venom doesn’t damage unbroken skin, but if it gets in the victim’s eyes – you can bet that’s going to hurt.’

I didn’t much like where this was going. I said: ‘What are you going to do?’

She smiled again. ‘You’ll like this. I’m going to put her right here.’ She indicated an outcrop of rock just at the level of my face. ‘You might want to try and keep still while I do. She can be a little jumpy.’

‘Listen, Skadi . . .’ I began, then realized that hearing me beg would only enhance her enjoyment. It wouldn’t make any difference to whatever she did to me but I could at least spoil the moment.

And so I clamped my lips shut and said nothing, trying not to look at the snake. Snakes come in two general types; loathsomely sluggish and scarily speedy. This was one of the speedy ones. It thrashed and hissed in Skadi’s hand as she pinned it to the rock. I hoped it would bite her, but it didn’t. I guess it must have known instinctively that if it tried, it was bound to come off worse.

I looked at the snake on the rock ledge. It was right at the level of my eyes. I could see it watching me, its length full of tics and twitches. Its jaws flexed with rubbery hatred. It looked both mean and just stupid enough to assume that I was the one to blame for its current predicament.

I lay on the rock as still as I could and tried not to breathe. I knew that a sound – a gesture – could unleash an attack.

Skadi picked up a handful of stones.

Pinged one right off the rockface, just above the seething snake.

Said: ‘You’re going to have so much fun getting to know one another.’