"The king will speak with you now, King Ranald, if you will come," he said. So I went with him, and Odda came also. The king was lying on a couch without his heavy state robes, and when we entered the small tent the attendants left him. He was very pale, but the pain seemed to have gone, and he looked up pleasantly at me. "My people are used to this, cousin," he said, "but I fear I put you out sorely." "I thought you poisoned," I said; "but Odda told me not to fear." "Ay, that has been the thought of others before this," he said. "Have you ever seen the like in any man? I ask every stranger, in hopes that I may hear of relief." "No, I have not, lord king," I answered; "but I can grave runes that will, as I think, keep away such pain if you bear them on you. Thord, whom you know, taught me them. Maybe it would be better for him to grave them, for runes wrongly written are worse than none, and these are very powerful." "That is a kindly thought, cousin," Alfred answered; "but I am sure that no runes will avail when the prayers of my people, from holy Neot to the little village children, do not. And I fear that even would they heal me, I must sooner bear the pain than seek to magic spells." "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 had 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."