Then his grave voice changed, and he laughed.

“Heavy things are these to speak in the ears of a bridegroom, but you know all I mean.  Now go your ways, and seek Odda, who will rejoice to see you; for word comes from him that his master, Thord the viking, is saying hard things to him because the men do not come in readily to man the ships.  At the summer’s end I shall be in Winchester, and thence I will come to Wareham to see the fleet, and your wedding also.  Go now, and all good go with you.”

So Alfred the king set me forth in brotherly wise, speaking on the morrow to my men to bid them serve him and England well under me.  And after that all came to pass as the king had planned, and at the summer’s end there was a bright wedding for us in Wareham town, while in the wide haven rode at anchor the best fleet that England had ever seen.

So that is how I came to be called “King Alfred’s Viking,” and made this land my home.  What this Wessex fleet of mine has done since those days has been written by others in better words than I can compass; and Harek, whom they call “King Alfred’s Scald” nowadays, has made song of what he has seen at my side in English waters; and more he may have to make yet, for the North has not yet sent forth all her hosts.  Only I will say this, that if we have not been altogether able to stay the coming of new Danish fleets to the long seaboard that must needs lie open to them here and there till our own fleets are greater, at least they know that the host may no longer come and go as they will, for Alfred’s ships have to be reckoned with.

Now of ourselves I will add that Thora and I have many friends, but the best and closest are those whom we made in the days when Hubba came and fell under the shadow of the Quantock Hills, and they do not forget us.

Into our house sometimes come Heregar and Ethered, Denewulf the wise and humble, Odda, and many more, sure of welcome.  Only the loved presence of Neot the holy is wanting, for he died in Cornwall in that year of the end of the troubles, and I think that in him I lost more than any save Alfred himself.

Osmund went back to East Anglia for a time, but there he grew wearied with the wrangling of the Danish chiefs as they shared out the new land between them; so he bides with us, finding all his pleasure in the life of farm and field, which is ever near to the heart of a Dane.  With him goes old Thord, grumbling at the thralls in strange sea language, and yet well loved.  Not until he was wounded sorely in a sea fight we had and won under the Isle of Wight would he leave the war deck; but even now he is the first on board when the ships come home, and he is the one who orders all for winter quarters or for sailing.