Skadi nodded, her iceberg gaze starting to melt as the screen was removed. And then she found herself face to face . . . not with Balder, as she’d assumed, but with Njörd, the Fisherman – whose feet, like those of all fishermen, were clean and white and shapely.

‘But I thought . . .’

I began to laugh. Beside me, Golden Boy’s relief was almost as great as my own.

‘But I thought . . .’ she said again.

The gods saw her dismay, and smiled.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Odin. ‘But that was the deal. You chose Njörd. Be good to him.’

Skadi’s face darkened. ‘Is this a joke? Do you see me laughing?’ she said. She lifted the runewhip again, its serpent coils seething angrily. ‘I said I wanted to laugh again,’ she said. ‘You promised me laughter. Now, either someone makes me laugh, or I’ll take the next best thing. Hand to hand combat, here and now. All together or one at a time. I don’t care. Who wants a fight?’

Odin looked at me. ‘Loki.’

‘What, me? You want me to fight her?’

‘Of course not, idiot. Make her laugh.’

It was a Hel of a challenge. A sense of humour’s one of those things that you either have or you haven’t, and nothing I’d seen of Skadi thus far suggested any sign of one. But laughter disarms the fiercest of men, and besides, there was no way I was going to take on that runewhip. And so I marshalled all my wits and prepared for some stand-up comedy.

There was a little white goat nearby, tethered to a wooden beam. I guessed that Idun had brought it in – she was partial to goat’s milk, and rarely dined on anything more substantial. I untied the leash and stepped forward, bringing the little goat with me.

‘Got milk?’

That earned me a snigger from Thor, but Skadi was unaffected. I could see this was going to be a somewhat difficult audience.

I put on an air of innocence. ‘Lady, I can explain,’ I said. ‘I was taking this goat to market . . .’

I yanked at the leash. The goat yanked back.

‘See what she’s like?’ I said. ‘Typical goat. Never does what she’s told to do. Plus I had this basket of fruit . . .’ I took one from the table and demonstrated the problem. Every time I brought the basket into the goat’s range, the goat would try to go for the fruit. It was a lively young goat, and I was hard put to control it.

I looked at Skadi. She still wasn’t smiling. I said:

‘I need to tether the goat – but to what?’ I pretended to look around. ‘What I could use is some kind of, um – appendage – um, about this long . . .’ I held out my finger and thumb about six inches apart.

Thor, never subtle, sniggered again.