It was but a few days after the peace had been made when Alfred went to a great house he had at Aller, which lies right amidst the marshes south of Athelney.  We had saved that house and the church by our constant annoyance of the Danes, with many another house and village along the fen to which they dared not come for fear of us at last.  Guthrum was to come to him there, and I think that he chose the place because there at least was nought to bring thoughts of defeat to the Danes, and there they could be treated as guests, apart from the great camp and fortress.  Great were the preparations there for the high festival that should be when Alfred himself should take Guthrum to the font.

Then came Neot on foot, with Guerir his fellow hermit, from Cornwall, to be present; and Harek and I rejoiced as much as the king that he had come.

“I think I must answer for you two at the font,” he said.

“For Kolgrim also, I pray you, Father Neot,” said I; “for he will be baptized with us.”

“Ay, for honest Kolgrim also,” he answered; “but what of old Thord, my reprover?”

“He will have nought to do with the new faith,” I said.  “But at least he does not blame us for leaving the old gods.  He says he is too old to learn what we younger men think good.”

“I will seek him and speak with him again,” Neot said.  “I think I owe him somewhat.”

Then we thanked the holy man for the honour that he was showing us; but he put thanks aside, saying that we were his sons in the truth, and that the honour was his rather.

Now in the seven weeks that we waited for Guthrum at Aller, while the priests whom Alfred sent taught him and his chiefs what they should know rightly before baptism, Osmund and I were wont to go to Taunton, across the well-known fens, and bide for days at a time in Odda’s house there, and we told Thora for what we waited.

She had come to England, when she was quite a child, with the first women who came into East Anglia, and already she knew much of Christianity from the Anglian thralls who had tended her.  And when she had heard more of late from Etheldreda and Alswythe, she had longed to be of the same faith as these friends of hers, and now rejoiced openly.

“Ranald,” she said, “I had not dared to speak of this to my father, but I was wont to fear the old gods terribly.  They have no place for a maiden in their wild heaven.  There are many more Danish ladies who long for this change, even as I have longed.  Yet I still fear the wrath of Odin for you and my father.”

“The old gods are nought—­they have no power at all,” I said, bravely enough; though even yet I had a little fear in thus defying them, as it seemed.

“Then I will dread them no more,” she answered.  “Nor do I think that you need fear them.”

So I comforted her, and bade her ask more of Etheldreda, who would gladly teach her; and the matter passed by in gladness, as a trouble put away, for she and I were at one in this.  I will say that I had half feared that she whom I loved would have been angry with me.