Sigyn was brisk and motherly, her tone like that of a nursery nurse with a fractious infant. She adopted exactly the same tone with me as she did with the snake, chiding us both for ‘not getting on’, and delivering stern little lectures. At other times she would sigh piteously over my sufferings, of course without ever accepting to free me of my shackles. I got the distinct impression that, despite all her complaints, she was happy. She had me to herself at last, and she wasn’t about to let me go.

Time passed. I don’t know how long. I learned to sleep a little between those intervals of torture. No one else came, and I gave up hope that Odin might one day relent and free me. He was, however, to some extent responsible for my partial relief; Sigyn had said how Odin had told her how to find me, and had given her permission to help me in whatever way she chose. But if anything, that made it worse; the knowledge that Odin, having put me here in the first place, should feel concern for my welfare now – or was it guilt?

Too little, too late. Did he expect me to thank him? No, I felt nothing but hatred now, for him and all his people. When I got free – and I swore that I would – I’d make them pay for what they’d done. And after that, I’d find Mimir’s Head and kick it from here to World’s End, and then bury it as deep underground as the Aesir had buried me.

Well, a man can always dream. Dreams were what sustained me then, between those terrible slices of pain. And Dream was so close; almost close enough to touch. I could hear it through the rock on which I lay; rushing through the Underside, bearing its load of ephemera off into the outside world . . .

Skadi’s parting gift to me had a twofold purpose. One was, of course, the sheer pleasure of making me suffer. The other, I suspected, was to keep my mind from thoughts of escape. There’s not really much you can think when your eyes are burning and blind, except for wanting the pain to stop. But during those long intervals when Sigyn held the snake at bay, I managed to regain some clarity, and my mind began to work again.

One thing I did was go over and over the prophecy of the Oracle. Especially the part relating to myself, and the precise wording thereof.

I see one bound beneath the court,
Under the Cauldron of Rivers.
The wretch looks like Loki. His wife
Alone stands by him as he suffers.