The important negociations with the dukes appeared for the first few days, entirely to occupy the king and his council. Through the mediation of Count Gerhard, a peace was soon concluded, and on the most honourable terms for the king. A herald then summoned the knights and guests together in the great knights' hall of the castle. Here the king was seated on a raised throne, between his brother the junker and Count Gerhard, surrounded by the dukes and all his vassals, as well as the state council, and the prelates present at the castle. The Drost read aloud the ratified treaty of peace, in which Duke Valdemar pledged himself that no injustice should be done to the king's peasants in the dukedom, and also scrupulously to perform his duties of vassalage to the Danish crown. On these terms the king consented to pardon him and his brother as well as every one who had sided with the duke in this feud, with the stern exception, however, that henceforth every knight and squire who had been proved to have taken part in his father's murder should be doomed to death wherever they should be found. While this article of the treaty was read, the king looked around the assemblage with a severe and what seemed to many, a threatening glance. There were not a few present of the acknowledged friends and kinsmen of the outlaws, and in the train of the Duke of Slesvig were several persons unknown both to the Marsk and the Drost, who had excited suspicion by their mysterious and unruly deportment. This strict clause in the treaty appeared greatly to disappoint the expectations of the Duke's friends, and their confidence in this politic prince. He himself sat with downcast eyes, and vainly strove to assume an air of calm indifference. The Drost finished the reading of the treaty, which excited great attention, and awakened interest of very different kinds, without a single sound being heard in the numerous and anxious assembly. The concluding article however seemed in some degree to soften the stern victor-like tone, which characterised the treaty. By a just recognition of the rights of his brave opponent, the king had invested Duke Eric of Langeland with the fiefs of Oe and of Alt, which he was entitled to demand in right of his consort Sophia's inheritance. This article terminated the essential part of the treaty, and the assemblage broke up.