There was nowhere left to run. I shifted Aspect to that of a fish and slipped into the river. The water was deep; maybe I could hide among the stones of the river bed. But rivers were Njörd’s territory; he must have seen my colours, somehow. He reached for the fishing net at his belt and cast it into the water. The weighted mesh fell around me like Fate.

I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that I put up a fight, but that it wasn’t nearly enough. The net was woven through with binding-runes, much like the ones that made up Hel’s rope. I later learnt that Hel herself had aided in its construction, presumably as a means of getting back in with the popular crowd. Or maybe her resentment of me was enough to eclipse her dislike of them. In any case, the net was proof against even my Wildfire Aspect, and after several unsuccessful attempts to free myself of its choking mesh, I was hauled onto the bank, naked, freezing and dripping wet.

‘Gotcha,’ said Heimdall, unpleasantly.

I looked away and said nothing. I wasn’t going to plead for my life; it wouldn’t have worked anyway, and I wasn’t about to give Goldie the satisfaction of seeing me beg. Instead I sat up as best I could and affected an air of unconcern.

‘I say kill him now,’ said Thor. ‘Before he gets away again.’

‘He isn’t going to get away.’ Skadi gave her chilly smile. ‘We can take our time with him. Make it an occasion.’

‘I agree,’ said Heimdall. ‘He deserves something special. Besides, Frigg will want to be there to witness his execution.’

The others seemed inclined to agree. Bragi wanted time to compose a ballad for the big day; Freyja had a special outfit she wanted to wear and all of them wanted time to discuss the precise method of my dispatching.

Only Idun and the Old Man said nothing. Odin was standing apart from the rest of them, a hand on Sleipnir’s bridle. But Idun had come to sit by my side; I caught the scent of flowers and saw that in the time she’d been sitting there, a number of nearby bushes had been coaxed into early blossom. It was a little warmer, too.

She looked at Odin and said: ‘You can’t.’

Heimdall gave a sneer. ‘Why not?

‘Because he was one of us,’ she said.

Well, that was wrong for a start, I thought. I was never one of you.

I said: ‘Go ahead and kill me. Just don’t let Bragi play his lute.’

Idun looked at Odin. ‘You gave your word. You know what that means.’

‘I didn’t swear,’ Skadi said. ‘Nor did the others.’