Then I said: "What of yourself? Shall you go back to Guthrum when this is over?" "I cannot tell," he answered. "What my fate is I know not yet. What mean you to do if all goes well for Alfred? Shall you bide in England?" We had walked apart now, and were looking over all the fair Quantock vale beneath us. I think there is no fairer lookout in all England: land and river and hills and sea, and beyond the sea the blue mountains of the Welsh coast--ever changing and ever beautiful under sun and cloud and flying shadows. "I have found the fairest land under the northern sun," I said; "and I have found the best king, as I think. I shall bide here. One other thing I have found of which I hardly dare to think, so many are the chances of wartime. Yet, jarl, but for them I should not have met with Thora, though in my heart I believe that I should not have spoken to her yet." "I would not have had it otherwise," he said, kindly taking my arm. "I have seen what was coming long before Etheldreda spoke. It has been good for Thora that she did so, whatever befalls." Then we spoke of my promised place with the king, as if his victory were certain. Indeed, I believe that we both had no thought of its being otherwise. "I do not know, however," said Osmund, "if your taking a Danish wife will be well received. It may be likely that Alfred will wish you to be bound to him by some tie of that nearness which shall be of his making." I had not thought of that, but it was a thing that was common enough. Harald Fairhair was wont to give a rich wife to some chief whom he would keep at his side. "If that is so, I shall go hence," I said. "There are things that come before friendship." "Well," he answered, "we shall see. There is always a place for us both at Rolf's side in his new-won land." "Yet I should be loth to leave Alfred," I said most truly. "I think that this is the only thing that would make me 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. I went back to Alfred somewhat sad, and yet with many thoughts that were good and full of hope; and soon I had little time to do aught but look on at the way in which the king's plans worked out most wonderfully. On the eve of the great Whitsunday festival we set out through the fen paths southward to the hills and the first woodlands of Selwood Forest, and when the morning came we were far in its depths, passing eastward towards the place where we were to meet the levy.