There's a great tradition in children's historical fiction of writers being inspired by something specific, an object or an inscription. It was the discovery in Silchester of a battered Roman eagle that gave Rosemary Sutcliff the idea for The Eagle of the Ninth, and in an "Author's Note" at the end of his superb new novel Kevin Crossley-Holland describes a similar epiphany. On a visit to Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, he found carved into a balustrade some runes that read "Halfdan", probably the name of an 11th-century Viking mercenary.

That name gave him a character, a Viking who sets off to serve the Greek emperor in Constantinople, a place the Vikings called Miklagard, "the great city", and which later became the Turkish Istanbul. Halfdan has sworn to follow his hero Harald Sigurdsson  better known to history as Harald Hardrada, the greatest Viking of all  but breaks a promise to his 14-year-old daughter to take her along. Solveig refuses to be left behind, and leaves Norway to go after him on an epic journey across Sweden, Russia and the Black Sea.

Of course there's another great tradition in children's historical fiction of journeys through the "wild east", of Viking adventurers sailing to Byzantium down the rivers of Russia. Both Rosemary Sutcliff and Henry Treece wrote novels of quests to Miklagard, books I read avidly as a boy, and Bracelet of Bones has the same feel. Crossley-Holland knows the period  and the Vikings  so well I'm sure that were Dr Who to whisk him back to 11th-century Scandinavia in the Tardis, he would be perfectly at home.

A girl central character does make a difference, though. Solveig is brave and quick-witted, but she's pretty too, and that brings its own dangers. So although there is very little of the violence and swordplay you find in many Viking stories, there's still a huge amount of tension. Can Solveig persuade Red Ottar the grumpy merchant to give her passage on his ship? Will she manage to fend off the unwelcome attention of the handsome but slimy Vigot? Ultimately, will she make it to Miklagard and find her beloved father once more?

Most of the action takes place on Red Ottar's ship, with its crew of well-drawn characters. Solveig becomes a friend of Red Ottar's concubine Edith, an Englishwoman kidnapped by raiders and sold. There are simmering tensions between a couple of the men, and threats to Solveig from one of the wives, a devotee of the old Gods and a fan of human sacrifice. Questions are raised about honour and betrayal, the relative merits of Christianity and paganism, and that central issue of Viking philosophy, the right way to live your life.

And then there is the language. Crossley-Holland writes prose with a poet's eye and love of words, painting a vivid picture of the world his characters move through, whether it's the morning mist on the river or the smoke from a funeral pyre. "The acrid smoke dwindled. At last it thinned to no more than a silver stream. Heaven swallowed it. The air began to clear." It almost sounds like a line from an Icelandic saga or a retelling of a Norse myth, which is no surprise from a writer so deeply imbued with the spirit of the north.

I was disappointed by one thing, though. The story does have a resolution, but it turns out there's to be a sequel, so it will be a while before we find out what finally happens to Solveig. Still, I think it will be worth the wait.

Tony Bradman's Tom and the Siege is published by Usborne.