At Genoa Edmund procured garments for his men similar to those worn by the Italian soldiers and sailors, and here he sold to the gold and silversmiths a large number of articles of value which they had captured from the Danes, or with which the Count Eudes and the people of Paris had presented them.
The Dragon differed but little in appearance from the galleys of the Genoese, and Edmund determined when he approached the shores where the Northmen were plundering to pass as a Genoese ship, for should the news come to Sweyn's ears that a Saxon galley was in the Mediterranean it might put him on his guard, as he would believe that she was specially in pursuit of his own vessel.
On arriving at the mouth of the Tiber the Dragon ascended the river and anchored under the walls of the imperial city.

The Genoese nobles had many friends and relations there, and Edmund, Egbert, and Siegbert were at once installed as guests in a stately palace.
The pope, upon hearing that the strange galley which had anchored in the river was a Saxon, sent an invitation to its commander to visit him, and Edmund and his kinsman were taken by their Italian friends to his presence.

The pope received them most graciously, and after inquiring after King Alfred and the state of things in England, asked how it was that a Saxon ship had made so long a voyage.
Edmund explained that he was in search of a Danish damsel who had once shown him great kindness, and who had been carried off from her father by one of the vikings of Hasting's fleet.

When he said that they had taken part in the defence of Paris the holy father told him that he now recognized his name, for that a full account of the siege had been sent to him by one of the monks there, and that he had spoken much of the valour of a Saxon captain and the crew of his galley, to whom indeed their successful resistance to the Northmen was in no slight degree due.
"Would I could aid you, my son, in your enterprise against these northern pirates.

The depredations which they are committing on the shores of Italy are terrible indeed, and we are powerless to resist them; they have even threatened to ascend the Tiber and attack Rome, and though I trust that we might resist their attacks, yet rather than such misfortune as a siege should fall upon my people I have paid a large sum of money to the leader of the Northmen to abstain from coming hither; but I know that the greed of these pirates does but increase with their gains, and that ere long we may see their pagan banner floated before our walls.