"Ha! now I mind me of a word spoken in time," he said. "It has seemed to me that there was oath breaking; maybe I was wrong. I will take your words that you have not done so. Is that amends enough?"
"It is well said, lord king," Osmund answered gravely.
"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?"
"No more than we. A free Dane cannot be hound, unless he chooses, by another man's word."
Then Alfred said plainly: