When peace comes altogether and certainly, then will Ailwin bring back Hertha, and there will be trouble enough then, maybe.

As it is, my house must be rebuilt, and the land has to settle down after war." With that I set to work to gather the timber together from my own woods, that we might begin to build in the coming springtime, and I grew happy enough at that work, though I would that I worked for Uldra.
Then came the news that Eadmund our king was dead, slain by Streone's men--some say by the Earl's son, others by the king's own men, whom he bribed.

One will, I suppose, never know what hands did the deed, but Streone's doing it was when all is told.
There is more in my mind about this than I will say.

But Thrand, who had been with me, begged that he might go to Colchester for a while; and I let him go, for he waxed restless, though I knew not what he would leave me for.
Then the kingdom was Cnut's, and he spoke to the Wessex nobles at a great council in London in such wise that they hailed him for king.
There was naught else for them to do.

And he promised to keep the laws of Eadgar {15}, and to defend Holy Church, and to make no difference between Dane and Saxon, and by that time men knew that what Cnut the king promised that he would perform.
So came the strong hand that Ethelred our dying king had foretold, and sure and lasting peace lay fair before England.