Originally Posted by
Barry Goldwater
"So I have," Edmund replied, smiling as he usually did. "I've been familiarizing myself with my subjects, and have recently married the daughter of one of my thegns. Happy people are loyal and productive people, in my experience. I have also initiated construction of a proper burh near Lena and Snettisham, in case certain somebodies from across the sea cross here with the intent of breaking the tranquility of the kingdom and ending the happiness of its people." By now Edmund knew, as anyone who wasn't living under a rock did, that a rival King had been crowned across the Channel. One of the Bastard's brood, with his uncle as regent. Well, he had no intention of going out like Uncle Gyrth had, should the Normans be mad enough to attack England once again.
"My king, I've also come here to make a request for the body of my and Godwin's father, that we might give him a proper Christian burial." Edmund had little idea what had happened to Father's corpse after Hastings, or even if there was enough left to bury, only that Mother had been made to identify it but neither she nor their recently departed Grandmother had been allowed to claim it. Assuming the Bastard hadn't just left it to rot in a mass grave with the other casualties of Hastings, he probably handed it off to one of his underlings for burial someplace far away from home, where he belonged. His mouth turned a little dry as he pondered how best to justify this request for the body of a man who'd snatched Edgar's throne. "I completely understand you may not hold him in the highest regard, to say the least. But he was a fellow Christian, my liege. And he did defend this fair isle against the fury of Norway's Hard-Ruler, who fancied himself a reborn Son of Ragnar Lothbrok." He'd quickly decided it was probably best to leave out any mention of William, who (unlike the 'last of the Vikings') was still held in some regard by the Anglo-Norman court and whose followers.