“Nay, but try them, King Alfred,” I said; “there is no ill magic in them.”

Now he saw that I was in earnest, and put me by very kindly.

“I must ask Sigehelm, our bishop here, who is my best leech next to Neot.

“What say you, father?”

“Even as you have said, my king.”

“Maybe, bishop,” said I, “you have never tried the might of runes?”

Whereat the good man held up his hands in horror, making no answer, and I laughed a little at him.

“Well, then,” said the king, “we will ask Neot, for mostly he seems to say exactly what I do not.”

“Neot has gone to Cornwall, and I had forgotten to give you that message from him.  He says he will be there for a time,” I said, rather ashamed at having let slip the message from my mind.

“So you saw him?” said Alfred.

“I knew he went to the ships yesterday after Godred came back,” he added, laughing.

“He read my letter for me, and after that I had a good deal of talk with him,” I said.

“Then,” said Sigehelm, “you have spoken with the best man in all our land.”

Now the king said that he would let the question of the runes, for which he thanked me, stand over thus; and then he asked me to sit down and hear what he would ask me to do for him, if I bad no plans already made for myself.

I said that I had nothing so certainly planned but that I and my men would gladly serve him.

“Then,” he said, “I would ask you to winter with me, and set my ships in order.  There will be work for you and all your men, for you shall give them such command in any ship of mine as you know they are best fitted for.  I would ask you to help me carry out that plan of which you spoke to me when I was Godred.”

When Odda heard that, he rubbed his hands together, saying: 

“Ay, lord king, you have found the right man at last.”

“Then in the spring you shall take full command of the fleet we will build and the men we shall raise; and you shall keep the seas for me, if by that time we know that we can work well together.”

He looked hard at me, waiting my answer.

“Lord king,” I said at last, “this is a great charge, and they say that I am always thought older than I am, being given at least five winters beyond the two-and-twenty that I have seen;” for I thought it likely that the king held that I had seen more than I had.

“I was but twenty when I came to the throne,” he answered.  “I have no fear for you.  More than his best I do not look for from any man; nor do I wonder if a man makes mistakes, having done so many times myself.”

Here Sigehelm made some sign to the king, to which he paid no heed at the time, but went on: 

“As for your men, I will give them the same pay that Harald of Norway gives to his seamen, each as you may choose to rank them for me.  You may know what that is.”