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Confident in his now vastly superior numbers, and in the enthusiasm which reigned in his army, Alfred was unwilling to waste a single life in an attack upon the entrenchments, which must ere long surrender from famine. There was no risk of reinforcements arriving to relieve the Danes. Guthorn had led to the battle the whole fighting force of the Danes in Wessex and East Anglia.
Few as were the words which had been spoken, he knew that when she said, "I will wait for you even till I die," she had meant it, and that she was not one to change. He had even been purposing, on his return to England, to ask King Alfred to arrange through Guthorn for a safe pass for him to go to Norway.
The kings Guthorn, Bergsecg, Oskytal, Halfdene, and Amund, and the Jarls Frene, Hingwar, Hubba, and the two Sidrocs, with all their followers, had marched down from Yorkshire to join the invaders who had just landed. The news of this immense reinforcement spread consternation among the Angles.
The conversion of Guthorn and the Danes would be a pledge far more binding than any oaths of alliance between the two kingdoms. Guthorn and his followers would be viewed with hostility by their countrymen, whose hatred of Christianity was intense, and East Anglia would, therefore, naturally seek the close alliance and assistance of its Christian neighbour.
Seven weeks afterwards Guthorn, accompanied by thirty of his noblest warriors, entered Alfred's camp, which was pitched at Aller, a place not far from Athelney. An altar was erected and a solemn service performed, and Guthorn and his companions were all baptized, Alfred himself becoming sponsor for Guthorn, whose name was changed to Athelstan. The Danes remained for twelve days in the Saxon camp.
It was true she was a Dane and a pagan; but her father was his friend, and would, he felt sure, offer no objections on the ground of the enmity of the races. Since Guthorn and his people had embraced Christianity, the enmity between the races, in England at least, was rapidly declining.
As the time for Alfred's reappearance approached the agitation and movement on the part of the people had attracted the attention of the Danes, and the news of his summons to the Saxons to meet him at Egbertesstan having come to their ears, they gathered hastily from all parts under Guthorn their king, who was by far the most powerful viking who had yet appeared in England, and who ruled East Anglia as well as Wessex.
Moved, then, by motives of policy as well as by compassion, he granted the terms they asked, and hostages having been sent in from the camp he ordered provisions to be supplied to the Danes. The same night a messenger of rank came in from Guthorn saying that he intended to embrace Christianity. The news filled Alfred and the Saxons with joy.
Guthorn and the Danes had effected a firm settlement in East Anglia, and lived at amity with the Saxons there. They had, it is true, wrested from them the greatest portion of their lands. Still peace and order were now established. The Saxons were allowed liberty and equal rights. Intermarriages were taking place, and the two peoples were becoming welded into one.
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