“Make no vows, my son, save this one,” he said.  “What will befall you we know not, and therefore there is but one vow which we know certainly that you may be able to keep.  I will have you put the penny where you may see it often, and so you shall remember, and vow if you will, that when your eyes fall on it you shall say a prayer to Him who gave power to Eadmund to conquer in dying, for this home of yours and this church, that out of ruin may come beauty, and after war, peace.”

“I will make that vow, father,” I said gladly.

“Forget not me at times in the prayer,” he said very humbly; and I promised that I would not, taking the penny back.

Then he went and began to work on the church, being plainly skilful in the matter, and I went up to our hall’s ruins and looked out over the land, and planned again what I would do in the days to come.

It was long dark when Olaf rode back, and he had learnt but little.  But he had sent messengers to Ulfkytel at Thetford to warn him to watch his coasts, for he must go back to London with the ships to guard the Thames.

“And you, Redwald, my cousin, must go to Ethelred or Eadmund and warn them, and make them rouse, and raise and have ready the mightiest levy that they have ever led, for I think that all Denmark and Norway have sent their best to follow Cnut.  We will ride together to Maldon, for the men shall follow me and find the ships with their cables up-and-down waiting for them, and you must hasten, for no time must be lost.”

So it came to pass that my dream of finding Hertha passed from me, and the thought of war filled my mind again, for next morning we rode away southward along the Roman road, and the cheers of the villagers died away behind me and were forgotten.

Then I left Olaf where the road turns off to Maldon, to meet him again in London before many days, and I and my fifty men rode on.  For Olaf would have me go as befitted his kinsman, and a word to the Colchester elders had found me the well-armed and mounted Anglian warriors who joined us after we reached the great road.

But when I came to London my journey was not at an end.  Ethelred the king was at Corsham, in Wiltshire, and sorely sick as was said, and Eadmund was at Stamford.  Now when I heard that I wondered, and asked the Sheriff, at whose house I was made most welcome, how this was.

Eadmund had been with his father, and had gone to Malmsbury, and there had seen the Lady Algitha, the widow of Earl Sigeferth whom Edric Streone slew, and had married her, and now had gone to take over the Five Boroughs for himself.  That was good hearing, maybe, for Olaf had feared that Streone would have taken them.

But next I found that this marriage was sorely against the king’s will, and that he and Eadmund had parted in anger therefore.  I seemed then to see the hand of Streone in this quarrel, for all men knew that he slew the earls to gain the Five Boroughs for his own.