Octavia Randolph · 2025 · sea

Treasure sought, treasure surrendered, treasure passionately guarded. Hrald, Jarl of Four Stones, has forfeited the golden treasure of his wife Pega, the richest heiress in Mercia; the Lady Aethelflaed, Aelfred's daughter, knows exactly what to do with that gold and with the young woman it belongs to, and moves with swift decision. Hrald must undertake a startling penance, and the reward at the end is his right to wed Dagmar again - if he survives. And far from their Gotland base, the traders Runulv and Eskil, carrying goods and silver from Sidroc the Dane, go the length of the east way to Miklagardr after silk and spice, and must then strive to hold on to what they have paid so dearly to win. This is the saga's furthest reach: Gotland to Constantinople and home again, the return that Randolph marks on her expedition sheet in a dashed line of its own.

1. 1
   Tyrsborg, Gotland

   Runulv and Eskil set out from the island with Sidroc's goods and silver aboard. Silk and spice are the goal - the two commodities worth carrying two thousand miles of river and sea for.

2. 2
   Staraya Ladoga

   The Gulf of the Finns, the Neva, Lake Ladoga and the first Norse town of the Rus. From here it is river craft and muscle all the way to the Black Sea.

3. 3
   Novgorod

   Up the Volkhov. The route Randolph draws for this book is the same one her traders took three years earlier in To the Sun, and she draws it with a confidence the earlier sheet lacked - the Black Sea crossing is solid line here, not dots.

4. 4
   Gnezdovo

   Lake Ilmen, the Lovat, and the portage over the watershed onto the Dnieper - boats hauled overland between one river system and the next, the hardest days of the whole road.

5. 5
   The Princes' Fortress

   A stop Randolph marks on this sheet alone, and does not tie to any place we can name. Her latitudes are trustworthy to about a fifth of a degree, which puts it here on the middle Dnieper; the nearest real princely seats, Lyubech and Chernigov, lie a full degree further south, too far to be what she meant. It appears to be hers.

6. 6
   Kyiv

   The city of the Rus, and the last friendly walls before the cataracts and the steppe.

7. 7
   Miklagardr / Constantinople

   The Great City. Silk and spice were the goal; having won them, Runulv and Eskil must now strive to hold on to the treasure they have paid so dearly for.