Chapter 11

Now when Kenric, following sadly behind the body of his brother, came within sight of the castle of Rothesay his heart sank heavy with the woe that was upon him. He thought of how his mother had pressed upon Alpin the charge of vengeance, and of how that charge had ended. He would far rather have given up his own life than face his mother and tell her the terrible tale of how the man whom Alpin had sworn to slay had himself slain Alpin. And he was sorrowful beyond measure.

They bore the body of their dead young king into the great hall, and laid him on a bier beside the body of his father, the good Earl Hamish, and the curtains were drawn and many candles and torches were lighted and set round the two biers, while two of the friars of St. Blane's knelt there in solemn prayer.

Then Kenric went to the door of his mother's chamber and knocked, and old Janet, a retainer of many years, came out to him.

"Alas!" said she, "my lady your mother is passing ill, and she hath spoken never a word these many hours. We have sent forth a messenger to Elspeth Blackfell, who is skilled beyond all in Bute for her craft in simples. But Elspeth was abroad, and the messenger returned without her."

"Then will I go myself and find her," said Kenric.

So he went down into the courtyard and called his favourite hound Fingall, that he might have companionship in his quest. But the dog gave no answer to his call, and searching for it he found the animal lying moaning in a corner of the yard and writhing as in pain.

"The dog well knows that our master, Earl Hamish, is dead," said one of the servitors. "Grief is killing him."

"Not so," said Kenric. "The dog is ill. What manner of food has he eaten?"

"Naught save the few scraps of venison that my lady left upon her plate after the feast," said the servitor.

"Methinks, then," said Kenric, "that I must even go alone. But see you that my poor friend is well tended, for even though he be but a dumb hound, he is a true and a faithful one, and I would not that he should die."

Now, as he walked over the hill of Barone, Kenric thought upon this strange illness that had befallen his dog; and suddenly, as though a light had flashed into his mind, he remembered how Alpin had told him of the feast, and of how Earl Roderic, sitting at my lady's side, had cut up her venison for her; and also of how my lady, ere she had eaten but a few pieces of the venison, had left the board. It was the same plateful of venison that the dog had eaten, and now both the Lady Adela and the dog were ill.

Then Kenric saw clearly that this was but another of the base schemes of his treacherous uncle, who, not yet certain by what means he should compass the death of Earl Hamish, had taken this poisonous course to assure himself that the Lady Adela should be ill on that night, and powerless to interfere in the crime that was in his mind.

"Oh, devil's messenger, or devil himself that thou art!" he cried. "Cursed be the hour that brought you in our midst, Roderic MacAlpin. You have slain my father, you have slain my brother; my dear mother is now by your cruel hand laid helpless on her couch. But by my father's soul and by my mother's blessing, I swear that you shall die. By my hand and none other you shall perish! Oh, God in mercy give me strength -- give me power to kill this man of blood!"

Then at high speed he ran down the hillside, and the grouse birds lying low in the heather rose with startled cries and flew off to the further heights, uttering sounds as of mocking laughter.

Between Loch Dhu and Kilmory, as he crossed towards the marshes, a flock of lapwings rose in alarm, and Kenric knew by their cries that some other than himself was near. He turned his course, thinking that old Elspeth might be there, passing homeward from the peat casting.

Beside the rock where, three hours before, Earl Roderic had stood, he found Lulach the herd boy, and on the height of the rock sat Aasta twining a wreath of daisies in her blood-red hair. When they saw Kenric they both stepped forward, and together they threw themselves upon the ground before him, pressing his coarse garments to their lips.

"Give you good day, my lord the king," they both said.

Thus did it chance that these two humble thralls, Lulach and Aasta, were the first of all the dwellers in Bute to hail Lord Kenric as their king, and not till then did Kenric remember that by the death of Alpin he was now indeed the rightful lord of Bute, and he thought of the prophecy of Elspeth Blackfell. Disturbed in mind at the so early homage of Aasta and Lulach, he bade them rise.

"For your courtesy I thank you," he said. "But tell me, I pray you, where is Dame Elspeth gone, and where may I find her? For my mother, the Lady Adela, is passing ill."

"The Lady Adela ill!" echoed Aasta. "Alas! alas!"

"Elspeth has gone these two hours past towards Dunagoil," said Lulach. "So please you, my lord, I will run after her and bid her hasten to my lady's aid."

"Yes, Lulach, run, run like the wind!" cried Aasta, and the lad ran off.

Kenric was about to follow him, when Aasta drew him back.

"One will serve as well as two, my lord," said she, "and methinks it were better that you sped back to Rothesay. Lulach will not fail."

"But I have yet another purpose, Aasta," said Kenric. "I would find the base villain, Roderic of Gigha."

"'Twas he whom Dame Elspeth followed," said the girl, "and he has gone to the abbey of St. Blane's, there to confess his sins."

"Alas!" said Kenric; "then if he has taken sanctuary I am powerless to molest him, for even though I would willingly lay him dead at my feet, yet it were sacrilege to spill blood in the precincts of the abbey."

"But you are weaponless, my lord."

"I have my dirk," said he, showing the weapon in his belt.

"As well take a hazel wand as that poor thing," said she. "This man in his late contest with your noble brother has slain a sprightlier swordsman than yourself, Earl Kenric. Ah, had I but known of his coming, this traitor had not served our island as he has done! 'Tis true, I might not have done aught to save the life of Earl Hamish your father, but had not yon churl Duncan Graham failed me yesternight Earl Alpin at least might have been spared."

"Now, with what grim sorcery has Dame Elspeth been bewitching you?" he exclaimed, drawing back a pace.

Aasta's fair cheeks and towering white neck blushed crimson, and she looked down at the grass about her feet.

"Yesternight," continued Kenric, "in passing through the shadows of the forest I suddenly encountered a wolf, and as I was about to draw my bow, lo! the wolf disappeared, and in its place it was you, Aasta, that I beheld."

"Ah, it was you, then, that appeared?" said Aasta. "Alas, my lord, I mistook you for one of the Norsemen of Earl Roderic's following, and I fled."

"Methinks it was a strange fancy that led a maid into the dark forest at such an hour," said Kenric sternly. "What manner of witchery led you there? But you spoke of Duncan Graham, and now I mind me that he too would have gone forth to the Rock of Solitude had I not warned him against so bold an adventure."

"My lord," said Aasta, growing very red, "there is no man in all your castle more faithful than Duncan, and I trust that you will deem him no less true when you know that twice ere yesternight he has held tryst with me. It was his purpose, had not these misfortunes befallen your house, to have sued with my lord your father that I might be freed from the bondage of my thralldom, and if that boon had been denied him, he would even have purchased my liberty, that I might thus have been more worthy to become his wedded wife."

"Aasta," said Kenric, "I sought not to draw these secrets from your heart. And if it be that Duncan loves you and would have you to wife, then, believe me, it is not long that you shall remain in thralldom."

"God give you thanks, my lord the king," said Aasta softly.

And as the morning dewdrop shines upon the harebell, so shone the tears of gratitude that filled her deep blue eyes.

At that moment as she turned away the cry of the cuckoo was heard from the woods, and the girl kissed her hand and said in the Danish, "Cuckoo, cuckoo, when shall I be married?"

But the bird answered not at all, and Aasta grew very sad.

Kenric, leaving her behind, then wended his way back towards Rothesay. But not far had he gone into the wood when he found that the girl was following him.

"My lord," said she, coming to his side and walking near him, "when yesterday I heard that these three strange men had come to Bute, and Elspeth told me what manner of wicked men they were, now is the time, I thought, when the mighty sword of king Somerled must be unearthed, for most surely will that sword be needed. And methought I would send that sword by the hands of Duncan Graham. But Duncan came not to the tryst. And now that Earl Alpin is slain -- now that, as it seems, my lord, you have resolved to bring this false traitor of Gigha to his merited death, methinks it is you who should bear that sword, that by its aid you may fulfil your vengeance."

Kenric looked at the maiden in blank surprise, and he thought that either there was something strange and mysterious in her nature or that her mind was wandering.

"The name of my great ancestor, king Somerled, God rest him! is indeed as well known to me as my own," said he; "but of this sword of which you speak I have heard nothing. Truly, I know not what you mean, Aasta."

They were now passing through the pine forest, where athwart the tall trunks of the trees slanted the rays of the evening sun, and there was no sound but the cooing of the wood pigeons and the crackling of the dry twigs and cones as Kenric and Aasta stepped upon the velvet turf.

"Long, long ago," said Aasta, "as Elspeth has ofttimes told me, there lived in Norway a great and ambitious king named Harald Fair Hair, who, for the love of a proud maiden, put the whole of Norway under his feet; and being lord over that great country by right of conquest he laid claim to every man's odal, or lands, in such wise that his realm was no longer a place in which a freeborn man could live. So many men of that land took ship and went forth upon the seas to seek other homes, and they came to the land of the Scots. They were adventurous and valiant men, who took to conquest and sea roving as a cygnet takes to the water. Now these vikings were soon such a thorn in the side of King Harald, that he resolved to quell the evil by following his old enemies to their new abodes and hunting them across the western main, and he passed down among the Western Isles, and harried and wasted those lands farther than any Norwegian monarch before him or after him. So it befell that the Western Isles, that had belonged to the Scots, were peopled and ruled over by the Norsemen."

Kenric listened to the girl's soft voice as it rippled in sweet music, but he heeded little this oft-told tale.

"Now there arose a great man in Argyll, who was mightier than any of the Scots that had so lightly allowed their lands to be torn away from them, and this was king Somerled. He waged war against the Norsemen of the Western Isles, and he made conquest of Bute, Arran, and Gigha, with the Cumbraes and other smaller isles that still remain in the hands of the Scots, for he was a most powerful warrior, and it was said that no man ever crossed swords with him but to be slain. His enemies fell before him like ripe grain in the swath of the mower's sickle. And his sword --"

"Yes, his sword?" said Kenric, growing interested now.

"His sword had drunk so often and so fully of men's blood, that it seemed to take new life into itself out of the hearts of all who fell before its sway, and men named it the Thirsty Sword, for it is never satisfied. It was said beforetime that if a sword be the death of five score of men, it comes to be possessed of a lust for slaying. But the sword of Somerled had drunk the life's blood of twice five score of men, and none might take it in his grasp and lay it down again ere it had killed a man."

"Such a weapon were surely a great danger in the land, Aasta," said Kenric. "I would not willingly touch it if any but my enemies were near. But by reason of the desire for vengeance that is now upon me, gladly would I know where that sword is to be found, that it may be ready when the time comes to drink the blood of the falsest heart that ever beat, and that is the heart of Earl Roderic of Gigha."

"Then, methinks it will not be long ere you have that weapon in your hand, my lord," said Aasta, quickening her steps. "For it befell that I had a dream vision, and I saw where long ago the men of Bute had buried the sword, swathed in sheepskins that the blade might not be eaten by rust. So I unearthed it, and hid it under the Rock of Solitude, where we shall now find it."

Kenric and Aasta went onward through the forest glades, and when they came to the rock Aasta put her white arm into a deep cavity, and drew forth a bundle of sheepskins. Unwrapping them she revealed the glittering weapon. With her two hands she clasped its hilt, and raised the Thirsty Sword above the crown of daisies that was upon her hair.

Kenric drew back, for he was yet afraid of this strange witch maiden, whose fairness and beauty were regarded by the men of Flute as betokening the spell of her subtle sorcery. But seeing him recoil, Aasta lowered the weapon and smiled, showing her pearl-white teeth.

"He who would wield this weapon, my lord," said she, "must strip his heart of all fear and trembling. Take you the sword in hand, and I will stand before you while you try your power with it. Not hard will it be to wield it, for it was forged by the hand of Munifican, and so well balanced is it, and so easy to grip, that a youth of half your strength, my lord, might swing it for many hours and not be weary."

Then Kenric took the sword in his hard grip, and holding it out at arm's length he saw that its point was but a span's distance from Aasta's breast.

He bade the girl stand still. Aasta stood like a pillar of stone before him, with the sunlight upon her red-gold hair; nor did she stir a finger or blink an eyelash as young Kenric, firm on his feet, flung back his arms and swung the terrible weapon once, twice, thrice, to right and left in front of her.

Seeing the maiden's fearless courage, "Now do I in sooth believe," said he, "that you are in very deed a witch, Aasta. But what you have said of this sword is, methinks, nothing less than true; and, if you will it so, then will I take it, so that I may now confront this villain Earl Roderic, and slay him for my revenge."

"God be your guard! my lord the king," said Aasta, "and may you never use that sword without just cause."

And so saying she went her ways.

Now, when Kenric, armed with the Thirsty Sword, and with his heart full of bitter vengeance, came upon the rocky heights of Dunagoil, and held discourse with one of his friends, a friar of St. Blane's, he learned that his enemy had already quitted the island, and was now aboard the English ship on the first stage of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Not till then did Kenric remember his sick mother, or think of how he had set out to summon Elspeth Blackfell to the castle. He blamed himself beyond measure in that he had allowed his vengeful thoughts to so lead him away from his higher duty.

But as it happened, Lulach had served him well. When Kenric got back to Rothesay he found Elspeth already busy in her work of nursing his mother hack to health. So skilful was the old woman in this, that in the space of two days the Lady Adela was fully restored, and able to hear the sad news of how her favourite son had fallen under Roderic's sword.

Of the burial of Hamish and Alpin, and of the solemn rites attending that ceremony, there is no need to tell. Noble and true were they both, and well-beloved for their worthiness. But they are dead, and so, as the old scalds would say, have passed out of the story.