I think the Dane managed to bate somewhat of the price, but very little, for it was a matter of taking or leaving with the owner.
After that I bought a horse for Erling, or rather he chose one and I paid for it; but that was a small matter, for the last day of the fair brought prices down.
Then I had to put up with the jests of my friend Werbode concerning my new horse, and the older Franks thought his colour was a bit of vanity on my part.

Werbode said that he was an unsafe beast to go chicken stealing on, for he would be too well known on a dark night; and the others said that they supposed that men would know that I had come home now.

But that sort of jest one gets used to in camp life, and I cared not.

I had a better steed than any one of them, whether here or across the sea, and presently, as we travelled toward Thetford, they knew it, and forgot to laugh at his skin.
So we left Norwich, and rode across the moorlands to find the king; and the gladness of homecoming grew on me every day, so that I longed for the state affair to be over, that I might turn my horse's head south and west for my own home.

And thus, in all gladness, and joying in every mile of the way, we came to Thetford, strong with its earthen ramparts above its still river, and were made most welcome at the hall of Ethelbert the king.