Valrik, on the other hand, had proved a gift from the gods. A sea-skipper, he had two things she needed: experience and a willing crew. Their service cost her half the gold in Einar’s sea-chest, but if it delivered what she hoped, it was worth every ounce. In a few days they were ready and set a course upstream in defiance of the spring meltwaters rushing out of the Dagava valley.

Defiance was a fuel that burned hot and burned long. But after four weeks even Lilla had to admit she’d had no notion of the scale of their undertaking. On and on they had rowed into a vastness of strange landscapes and stranger people. Valrik told her that to reach the Dnipar, they must cross the uplands not of the Dagava, but of a tributary river named the Kaspja that turned south. Beyond lay a portage of several days over which they would have to haul not only Valrik’s ship but also the cargo which he had insisted on assembling before their departure. But once they made the Dnipar, he assured her, their voyage would become easier.

When they had taken the fork up the Kaspja river, the weather had improved. The wet, gloomy end of winter had warmed into a mellow spring. The air filled with willow blossom and dandelion seeds. The floodplain meadows spilled like green ale-froth over the pale muddy banks, wafting the scent of blooming flowers across the water. Those were good days, breaking with golden dawns and burning away under blazing sunsets.

Valrik had named his ship Fasolt after one of the jötnar twins said to have built Valhalla, the great Hall of the Slain. It was long and sleek and shallow-bottomed – his own design, he said, made for just such a river voyage. And as they had pushed upstream, many times the keel scraped the river bed and Lilla thought they could go no further. But somehow Valrik had coaxed Fasolt onward for a few more leagues.

To Einar’s disgruntlement, he found himself pressed into service at the row-bench. After many days of hard toil, his fat belly was melting away, revealing the first traces of hard muscle beneath.

‘I’ll have to change my name if this damn river goes on much longer,’ he complained one day.

‘No river is that long, my friend,’ Gerutha had laughed in reply.

And she was right. Because at last, after four weeks, Fasolt could go no further.