Hild, niece to the king, intelligent, well-informed and observant has a knack for seeing how things will work out. To fully capitalise on her talents she is obliged to play the role of mystical royal seer, fudging the lines between signs sent by the gods and logical conclusions derived from observable phenomena. It's a fine line and a grueling, dangerous life, walking the tightrope of keeping the king happy and keeping her growing household safe and protected without over-reaching or over-playing her hand.

The world is richly and immersively evoked, the daily life and activities of men and women, natural landscape and homely settlements and royal halls, the commerce and the politics, and in particular the epochal arrival and spread of Christianity. I was very favorably reminded of Dorothy Dunnett.