XVIIUther Pendragon lay, troubled, in his bed. A few days after the death of Ambrosius, the Guletic had been riding through a wood to the north of Lis Pengwern when a little green snake had fallen from the bough of a tree and had bitten him in the thigh before he could brush it off. He had laughed at the wound then and had ridden on to a house where a young widow awaited him.
Now his thigh was so swollen that he could not walk. The throbbing from the infected place was so fierce, it seemed as though his stomach was on fire. He had tried many remedies, including the sacrifice of three young slave-girls. Now he lay rolling about in his agony, his belly and upper legs encased with the mashed remains of a score of little green snakes, that had already caused the death of one warrior in their
