“It is strange to me, my king,” I said, “that Guthrum, who has been in England for ten years, is not Christian by this time.”

“Ay, but his hosts are heathen,” the king answered.  “Now I think I can speak to you as if no longer a heathen at least?”

“As a Christian, my king,” I answered.

“Well, then,” he said, smiling on me, “go and speak to Guthrum and tell him what I have said.  I think that he will listen to you better than if I sent a priest or even Bishop Sigehelm.  Warrior may speak to warrior plainly.”

Now this was a hard thing for me to do, as it seemed.  Maybe it was the hardest thing he could have asked me.  But it was in my mind that I could not but go to Guthrum and give the message, else would I seem to deny the faith that I loved.  Alfred saw at once that I was troubled in some way, and I believe that he knew well what the seeming doubt was.

“Once you brought a token of good to me,” he said.  “Now that was all unknowing.  Go now and take a message of good to Guthrum openly, and have no fear.”

“What shall I say?”

“Mind not that at all,” he answered; “what is needed will come to you.”

So I said that I would go if Harek might come with me, for his words were ever ready.  But Alfred would not suffer that.  I must go without help from a scald, taking only my own words; and at last I consented, though indeed my only fear was that I might not succeed by reason of my slowness of speech.

Then I went to Osmund, and told him that I was to go into the town with him next day, for that is how Alfred planned for me; and I told him also what my part in the business was to be.  Whereon he surprised me.

“I do not know that your errand is so hopeless as you seem to think,” he said.  “Guthrum has harmed no Christians in East Anglia since he was king there.”

“Well,” I answered, “I hope it may be easy, though I doubt it.”

I would not say more then, but, being anxious, went and spoke long with Harek.  The brave scald’s wounds were deep, though he had said little of them.  Some say that he saved the life of Ethelnoth at the time when that ealdorman was struck down, and that also is Ethelnoth’s story; though the scald says that if so it was by accident, and less worth speaking of than many braver deeds that were wrought and went untold that day.

“Here have I been in England but six months or so, and I have more to sing of than ever I learned with Harald Fairhair,” he said one day, as he made songs on his bed while his wounds were healing.

And he spoke the truth.  Never was a winter so full of deeds wrought by a king and a valiant people that were worth a scald’s remembrance.

Now Osmund had a last message from Alfred that day, and in the morning we went together to the bridge.  There Guthrum’s own courtmen met us, and they took us into the fortress, beyond which lies the town, so that we saw little of what straits the host might be in by this time.  In the fortress itself all seemed in order at least; and there was a guard set at the door of the well-built hut where the Danish king was, as if some state were yet kept up.