Alf stands on the other side of the cobra pit. He is handsome. I haven’t really allowed myself to think about him that way till now. But I am on the verge of tragedy—there’s no point holding back. Tragedy cannot be cheated; it calls for complete surrender, it calls for extravagance. The man is beautiful.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I call.
“Good advice,” he calls back.
“Three men have died,” I call. “Their bodies stank so bad soldiers finally fished them out with hooks.”
“I know this.”
“Go home. Please.”
“Will you come home with me?” He squints against the sun. “Will you be my wife?”
A dream existence. “Perhaps in some life. Not in this one.”
“Can you explain that to me?”
“I doubt it.”
“Try, Alfhild.”
Alfhild. It isn’t even my real name. “You know nothing about me.”
“That’s what marriage is for. To learn each other.”
It’s a good answer. But an easy answer in the abstract. Alas. “I cannot explain myself to you. Not yet, at least.”
“Do you love another?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?”
“How can I know? I am inexperienced at this.”
“As am I. I may love you already. And in any case, I believe I can grow to love you. Do you believe you can grow to love me?”
“My answer is irrelevant.”
“Humor me, please. Answer.”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.” He opens the satchel on the ground beside him.
I think of the third solo man, who opened his satchel and put on a helmet and a mail shirt and jumped to his death. “Please,” I cry out. “Please, please do not do this. I will not marry you. Believe me.”
“This is what you think now. Perhaps you’ll change your mind by the time I stand beside you in that room. In any case, I must take my chance. No other option makes sense to me.”
Sense? There is no sense in a world in which one man can completely unhinge the life of a girl simply because lust overcame him. A world in which that girl’s father then makes decisions about her whole life based on money. A world in which people steal people and bring them to other lands. I could scream and scream. But no one would listen.
“Would you rather die or have a broken heart?” I call.
“They are the same to me.” Alf takes a smaller satchel out of the big one. He carries it to one end of the pit and shakes it upside down. The carcasses of rats tumble down into the pit. They are each so bloated, the tight skin shines. I see wide stitches of string holding together their bellies. How very odd. I’m fascinated against my will. Alf goes to the big satchel and takes out an enormous jug. Then he pours a glistening red stream over the rat carcasses.
The cobras wind with determined speed—after all, they haven’t eaten anything all week; cobras don’t eat people, as we all know now. Their tongues flicker, tasting the scent. It’s so strong, I can imagine swooning. They open their hoods and mouths gigantically wide and strike. Slowly, ever so slowly, rats disappear down cobra throats. Each snake gorges on multiple rats.
Alf pulls two axes out of the satchel. He throws them into the other end of the pit. And he jumps in, hits the ground, and rolls. I scream. He doesn’t look up at me. He collects the axes and stares at the snakes. None of them gives evidence of knowing he’s there.
He chops at the side of the pit that is in front of the ground before the door. He chops an indentation here, another above it and to the side, another above that and to the other side. He chops now high over his head.
“A snake,” I shout.
He turns. A cobra moves toward him, but awkwardly; it is a lumpy rope of rat. Alf aims the ax and throws hard. It cuts the snake in two. I stare to see if, against all reason, the rumor might possibly be true. The two halves of the snake twitch, but they don’t move forward. And what’s that? A huge shard of glass sticks out from one half of the snake.
Alf takes a step and halts, then another, his eyes on the two remaining snakes. He makes his way like that to the thrown ax and fetches it. Then he races back to the place where he’s been chopping.
He looks at the two snakes one more time. Then he tosses an ax up onto the ground in front of the door. The crowd gasps. He tosses the second ax up. The crowd gasps. I am swallowing and swallowing. My eyes go to those snakes.
Alf puts his hands into the holds he has chopped and begins to climb the wall.
A cobra moves away from the remains of the heap of rats. It winds toward Alf.
Alf climbs the wall. The holds crumble under his feet and hands.
The snake stops and flinches. Then it winds closer.
“Faster,” I call. “Climb faster!”
Alf’s hands are over the edge of the pit now, but his feet search for the holds.
The snake is directly under Alf.
“Faster!”
He kicks a hold with the tip of his boot. Then another.
The snake opens its hood and jaws. It strikes and falls sickly to the side with a series of spasms.
Alf stands on the earth in front of the door. He wipes sweat from his brow and leans, hands on his knees, looking back into the pit. Now he looks up at me. “Thank you for cheering me on.”
“Take your axes and go back.”
“And have my head impaled on a stake?” Alf smiles. “I seek a better end to this tale.”
“Don’t talk crazy. Go back, Alf. Live. Please. I want you to live.”
“That’s all the encouragement I need.” Alf throws an ax at the bridge-door. It wedges in firmly, a half-arm’s length above his head.
“Are you daft? It would take you days to chop down that bridge-door.”
“I have no intention of chopping it down, for then how could we walk together across it over the pit once I win you?” He grabs the other ax in his left hand. With his right, he reaches up to the ax that’s embedded in the door and pulls himself up with that one arm. He swings the other ax into the door higher up and then hangs by only the left hand. He works the first ax free, then swings it hard. It embeds even higher. He climbs the door like that, hanging from the axes by his arms. At any point, an ax head could give way. He would fall backward onto the ground, perhaps into the pit. At best he would be badly broken. And who dares think of the best?
But the ax heads bite firm.
In the pit, the two snakes move as though in death throes. I imagine their insides sliced with every muscle twitch. Glass-filled rats. The man is brilliant. Insane, but brilliant.
Alf is at the top of the door now. It astonishes me that he’s made it this far. How can his arms be that strong? But axes can’t bite into stone. What now? Oh, good Lord, what now? He cannot descend by the same method he used in climbing. He is lost!
He hangs from an ax by his left hand and reaches into the pouch that dangles around his neck. He pulls out a dirk. A broken dirk, short and stubby, but the jagged edge glints sharp. He closes a fist around the handle and jams it between two stones. Then he hangs by the right hand from that dirk and pulls a second dirk out of his pouch. Equally broken. He climbs the wall like that. It’s slower going than with the axes, because the dirk handles are so short. But at least the stones offer him footholds, so he’s not swinging free.
When he is just below the window, he stops. The window ledge is one continuous slab of stone. No dirk could penetrate it.
He clings there, a hand on each dirk. His feet in narrow holds. “Help me.”
Without thought, I reach both hands out.
“No! Get away from the window. Move to the side.” He talks in bursts between breaths. Blood vessels stand out on his forehead. I back off. “I’m throwing in a dirk. Use it to pin one end of your cloak to the wood floor of your room and toss the other end of the cloak over the window.”
A dirk comes flying through the window. It lands with a clunk on the stone floor. Everything in this room is stone! What can I do? The only wood surface is the door. And it’s farther from the window than my cloak is long.
He’s hanging there. Exhausted. Heart and bones.
I pin one end of my cloak to the door at the height equal to the bottom of the window. I take off my outer shift and use a strap brooch to fasten one end of it to the other end of the cloak. It is still not long enough. I take off my under shift and use the other strap brooch to fasten one end of it to the other end of the outer shift. The remaining end of the under shift now just barely reaches to the center of the window ledge.
I lean my head out the window. “Reach your hand to the center of the window ledge. You’ll feel the cloth.”
His hand fumbles. I place the cloth in it. He pulls. Then his other hand is reaching up and pulling. His head appears over the window ledge.
The under shift rips. No! I lunge for his arm.
But he has already clasped a hand over the inside lip of the window ledge. He pulls himself over and slides in onto the floor. The skin of his chest has been scraped away.
I turn my back and cry. He’s safe. He will live.
I hear his footsteps cross the room. Then my cloak descends around my nakedness.
“Thank you,” he says. I listen to the drag and sough of his rough breathing. “Will you marry me?”
I sob into my cloak.