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Updated: June 10, 2025
So I bade farewell to Osmund and to Thora, who said nought, but looked very wistfully, as if she would say words of thanks but could not; and at that I went quickly, for it seemed hard to leave her, in some way that was not clear to me, amid all the turmoil of the place. But when we were on the road, Heregar said to me: "It is in my mind that Osmund, your friend, will fare ill among these Danes.
Now I warn you to get away from Chippenham, for it is unsafe, and there will be no king to pay you tomorrow. I think that you will say with me that it were better for Osmund to come with me to meet the host than to go back to Alfred and be hung before he flies if he gets news of us in time to do so."
"Thora would not stand in your way to honour with him, nor would I," said Osmund. "Honour with Alfred shall not stand in my way, rather," I answered. "But we speak of chances, as I think." We said no more, and he bade me farewell.
Then Osmund must needs tell him of what Kolgrim and I had done; and the ealdorman laughed at me, though one might see that the affair pleased him. "This king," he said, "having no kingdom of his own, as he says, goes about helping seasick ealdormen and lonely damsels, whereby he will end with more trouble on his hands than any kingdom would give him."
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.
You are much changed, but the features are the same. And you have Osmund Maiden's eyes!" "Are you satisfied?" said the captain, with a short laugh. "But, wait; I will open the trunk. Do you admit my right to it, Mr. Macdonald?" "I do, sir. It is certainly your property." Captain Rudstone took a small key from his pocket, and knelt beside the trunk.
But with Odda had come his daughter, the Lady Etheldreda, who would not leave him; and she and the Lady Alswythe and Thora were yet in the house, and Osmund the jarl sat in the hall, listless and anxious of face. It was an ill time for him; but there were none of us who did not like him well, and feel for him in his helplessness. "What news?" he said, when he saw me come into the hall.
"He would speak with King Ranald," the man said. Then said I: "If it is Osmund the jarl, I think I know why he comes. Let him come in here and speak before you, ealdorman." "Why, do you know him?" "I cannot rightly say that I do, but I nearly came to do so." Then Odda wondered, and answered: "Forgive me; one grows suspicious about these Danes. I will go hence, and you shall speak with him alone.
"But," Alfred went on, "I must have the word of every chief who is in Exeter, and they must speak for every man. Tell me in all truth if there are those who would not make peace with me?" Then said Osmund: "Some will not, but they are few." "What if you make peace and they do not? what shall you do with them?" "They must go their own way; we have no power over them." "Has not Guthrum?"
"Then you will fight, little Estein? Remember that we are called the bairn-slayers." Instantly Thorkel took up the challenge. Three beakers of ale had made him in his happiest and most warlike mood, and his eyes gleamed almost merrily as he answered, "I know you, Osmund the ugly, by that nose whereon men say you hang the bairns you catch. Little need have you to do aught save look at them.
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