Very quietly passed the voyage, though the light wind was against us, and we were long on the way, for we were too short handed to row, and must beat to windward over every mile of our course.  Yet I think of the long days and moonlit evenings on the deck of Halfden’s ship with naught but keenest pleasure, for there I watched the life and colour come back into Osritha’s face, and strove to make the voyage light to her in every way.  And I had found my heart’s desire, and was happy.

Then at last one night we crossed the bar of our own haven, and the boats came out to meet us, boarding us with rough voices of hearty welcome; and from her awning crept Osritha, standing beside me as I took the ship in, and seeing the black outline of hill and church and hall across the quiet moonlit water.  And when the red light from wharf and open house doors danced in long lines on the ripples towards us, and voices hailed our ship from shore, and our men answered back in cheery wise, she drew nearer me, saying: 

“Is this home, Wulfric?”

“Aye,” I answered.  “Your home and mine, Osritha—­and peace.”

Now have I little more to say, for I have told what I set out to tell—­how Lodbrok the Dane came from over seas, and what befell thereafter.  For now came to us at Reedham long years of peace that nothing troubled.  And those years, since Osritha and I were wedded at Reedham very soon after we came home, have flown very quickly.

Yet there came to us echoes of war from far-off Wessex, as man after man crept back to Anglia from the great host where Guthrum and Hubba warred with Alfred the king.  And tired and worn out with countless battles, these men settled down with us in peace to till the land they had helped to lay waste and win.  Hard it was to see the farms pass to alien owners at first, but I will not say that England has altogether lost, for these Danes are surely becoming English in all love of our land; and they have brought us new strength, with the old freedom of our forefathers, which some of us had nigh forgotten.

Now today I know that all the land is at peace, for Alfred is victor, and Guthrum is Athelstan the Christian king of Eastern England; and I for one will own him unasked, for he has governed well, and English is our overlord.

But Hubba is dead in far-off Devon, slain as he landed as Halfden had landed, to hem Wessex in between Guthrum and himself, and his dream of taking the Wessex kingdom is over.  And the Raven banner that my Osritha made flaps its magic wings no more, for it hangs in Alfred’s peaceful hall, a trophy of Saxon valour.

Thormod, my comrade, lies in his mound in wild Strathclyde, slain fighting beside Halfden my brother, the king of Northumbria.  Him I have seen once or twice, and ever does he look for peace that he may sail to Reedham and bide with us for a while.  Well loved is Halfden, and he is English in every thought.

Many of our old viking crew are here with me, for they would fain find land in our country, and I gave them the deserted coast lands that lie to our northward, round the great broads.  Good lands they are, and in giving them I harmed none.  Filby and Ormesby and Rollesby they have called their new homesteads, giving them Danish names.