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He was twenty-five years old, as I thought; but therein I was wrong, for he was just my own age, though looking so much older. "I am Olaf Haraldsson Olaf Digri, the Thick, as men call me," he said. "Some call me king, though I rule but over a few ships, as a sea king. Which of you thanes is Eadmund the Atheling?" Then Eadmund rose up from his place, and went towards the king.
Yet Eadmund our king, and even Ulfkytel, deemed that we were safe as ever behind our fenland barrier, fearing naught so long as no landing was made from across the Wash. "No matter," said men to one another. "It will be a hard thing for Danes to cross the great fens to come hither. They will turn aside into Mercia's very heart, and then the Wessex folk will rise."
Then he turned to Eadmund, who was, as it seemed, well pleased that I had found so good a friend. And he said: "Forgive me if I have forgotten greater matters for a moment. But I cannot greet a kinsman coldly, and it is in my mind that Redwald is a cousin worth finding, if I may judge by the way in which he hailed my news."
"Fain would I try to please my host," he said, looking a little wistfully at my father; "but a man swept far from home against his will is no singer." Then Eadmund pitied him, as did we all, and rose up. "Feasting is over, thanes," he said. "Let us sit awhile in the other chamber and hear Lodbrok's story."
For of the Danish nobles, Utred of Northumbria and the two earls of the old seven boroughs, Sigeferth and Morcar, were at one with our earl and Eadmund for gathering a great levy, and keeping it together by marching through the Danelagh, and calling on the Danish thingmen, in the towns they yet held, to surrender.
I thought that was ill for Streone, but I could not help it now we were but a hundred yards from the foe. The first arrow flight crossed as I saw them, and then Eadmund cried: "Forward remember Sherston!"
Then when he heard that, Eadmund looked at Raud, smiling on him with a wondrous smile and saying: "Thanks, good friend." So Raud slew him in pity, and that was now the best deed that might be done. Thereat I cried out once, and my senses left me, and I knew no more. When I began to come to myself it was late afternoon.
"When it comes I will help you," said Eadmund, "if it may be that I can do so." "I know it, and I thank you; but it is my thought that I shall need no help," said the king, while the look on his face was very wondrous, so that I had never seen the like. It minded me of the pictures of St. Stephen that I saw in a great church here with Abbot Elfric and Eadward.
For above all things Eadmund loved the craft of the warrior, and Eadward all that belonged to peace. My mother lived but a few months after that flight of ours; but at least she knew before she died that Bertha was safe. What the old nurse had foreseen had come to pass.
"Truly," said Eadmund, "I am minded to do as he did, now that I have taken all the wonder of it in. But it seems over good to be true Swein dead and your offered help!" Then they both laughed, well content, and so Eadmund called the steward, and wine and meat were set for the king, and they sat down and talked, as he ate with a sailor's hunger.
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