t the young earl had promised
Eadmund to send me the letter which the messenger brought, and that
that was the most important business. I took the letter ashore and
went to Ashingdon hill and sat there among the graves of the slain
and read it, while the summer sun and wind and sky were over me,
while the land and sea seemed at rest, and all was in a great peace
after the strife that I had seen in that place.

To my Thane, greeting.--What has befallen us, and how we have
divided the kingdom with our brother Cnut in the old way of the
days of Alfred the greatest of our line, you will have heard. We
have fought, and all men say that we have fought well; but this is
how things have been ordered by the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, my
thane, for your sake, and seeing specially that already our brother
Cnut is well disposed toward you, as Godwine son of Wulfnoth tells
us, by reason of your service to Emma the queen--I would bid you
accept him as ruler of East Anglia, where your place is. And you
shall hold this letter in proof that thus our word to you is, if in
days to come the line of Wessex kings shell hold the kingdom once
more. Few have been those who have been faithful to us as have you.

Now, I will set down no more, for Eadmund my king wrote to me as he
was wont to speak in the days that were gone, and I wept as I read
his words--wept bitterly there on Ashingdon hill, and I am not
ashamed thereof.

And when I had spelt out to the end of his letter there were words
also that were pleasant to me. For they were written by Elfric the
abbot, my friend, thus:

Written by the hand of Elfric, Abbot of St. Peter's Minster at
Medehamstede.

I, Elfric, bid you, my son Redwald, be of cheer, for in the end all
shall be for the best. Bide in your home of Bures if Cnut wills, as
I think shall be, and see to the good of your own people as would
your father who has gone. There is an end of war for England. It
remains for us to make for the things of peace.

Then I sat and thought for long, and at last it seemed to me that I
could do nought but as both king and friend would bid me, and the
words that Elfric had written weighed more with me than those of
the king. Now that I could fight no more I began to long to get
back to that home life in the old place that had seemed so near to
me and had been taken away.

And then came the thought of Uldra, and of what she would say of
this. But as things were, and with this letter before m