Chapter 15

When Kenric met Sir Piers de Currie in the wilds of the Arran mountains, and spoke with that doughty knight of his need of seeing the King of Scots, he learned to his satisfaction that his expedition would not carry him farther into the mainland than the castle of Dumbarton.

"It chances well that you are to make this journey so soon," said Sir Piers, "for, having failed to see his Majesty on my late visit to the palace of Scone, I heard that he was to come westward to the Clyde in a few days' time, and if it so please you, we will go to Dumbarton together."

"I will make ready my best galley, then," said Kenric, "and await you in Rothesay."

"Agreed," said the knight, "and it may be also that his Majesty will wish you to go upon the mission that your father was soon to have undertaken to Islay and Mull. 'Tis passing unfortunate that you are so young, Earl Kenric, and so little experienced in the arts of diplomacy that so marked your good father. But methinks his Majesty will be well pleased to see you, and to know what manner of man he has now to depend upon in his future dealings with the Norsemen. Your youth will assuredly be no disadvantage in the eyes of one who was monarch over all Scotland at eight years old."

"Think you, Sir Piers, that we shall at last come to a war with these Norsemen?" asked Allan Redmain.

"Of that I have little doubt, Allan," said Sir Piers. "Methinks the time is not far distant when the possession of the Western Isles must be determined at the point of the sword."

This promise of coming strife was by no means unwelcome to Allan Redmain, for those peaceful and prosperous times gave but few occasions for the earnest exercise of the sword, though, indeed, the weapons of the chase were in constant use, and Allan felt the young blood course through his veins with quickened excitement at the prospect of engaging in a pitched battle against the valiant vikings of the North.

As to Kenric, the one thing which made him somewhat less eager than Allan was his knowledge that there was now no immediate hope of meeting the slayer of his father in a hand-to-hand encounter. The outlawed Roderic was now far away on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and the vengeance might never be fulfilled. If war should come, and Kenric himself be slain, then Roderic was the next heir to the lordship of Bute, and whether King Alexander or King Hakon became the overlord and monarch, it mattered little, for Roderic would still make claim to his father's dominions.

Earl Hamish of Bute had but a few days before his tragic death been into Scotland to render account to Alexander the Third concerning his mission to the King of Norway. That mission had failed in its object. The letters of Henry of England and His Majesty of Scots had not succeeded in persuading the Norse monarch to resign his claims to the dominion of the Western Isles. King Hakon claimed that those lands, from the Lewis in the north even to the Isle of Man in the south, were his by right of both conquest and possession, and that each and all of the island kings, or jarls, were bound in fealty and vassalage to Norway. On the other hand, King Alexander claimed that he held yet stronger rights of sovereignty, and that the islands were even by nature intended to be part of Scotland.

The Western Isles, and more especially that group lying south of the holy island of Iona, were at this time in a most prosperous condition. Together with a large tract of country on the northeast of Ireland, they formed a sort of naval empire, with the open sea as its centre. They were densely populated. The useful arts were carried to a degree of perfection unsurpassed in other European countries. The learned Irish clergy had established their well-built monasteries over all the islands even before the arrival of the Norse colonists, and great numbers of Britons, flying hither as an asylum when their own country was ravaged by the Saxons, had carried with them the remains of science, manufactures, and wealth introduced by their Roman masters.

The habits of the islanders were piratical -- the natural result of the possession of ships -- and their conquests extended along the east of Ireland, the coast of Cumberland, and a large part of the mainland of Scotland, including the whole county of Caithness.

The Norwegian king, an ambitious and despotic monarch, who had risen to power from the position of a poor comb maker's son, hoped by the help of these dependants to invade and conquer the whole of Scotland, and he was encouraged to the attempt by such self-seeking men as Roderic of Gigha and Erland of Jura, who made no scruple to enlist themselves in any cause that gave promise of increased power.

It was natural that the Scots kings, as they increased their strength, should wish to annex these districts. But the efforts of Somerled of Argyll in the twelfth century, and of King Alexander the Second in 1249, had done no more than secure the few islands lying within the shelter of the Firth of Clyde. Earl John of Islay and many of his neighbours were now paying homage to both Norway and Scotland. The isle of Gigha, which had been a possession of Alpin of Bute, had been bestowed at that chief's death upon his younger son Roderic. But Roderic, as has been told, had gone over entirely to King Hakon, and had refused to acknowledge his vassalage to his rightful sovereign of Scotland.

Thus, at the time when young Kenric became the lord of Bate, the whole of the isles west of the peninsula of Kintyre were in the hands of petty kings, who, holding lands of both crowns, were still uncertain to whom they should pay their paramount allegiance.

During the minority of Alexander the Third all efforts to reduce the isles were abandoned. But now that the king was no longer a boy, he was resolved to compel all these vassals of Norway to renounce their allegiance and acknowledge their adherence to the Scottish crown.

On the appointed day Sir Piers de Currie crossed over to Bute. He was a man of middle age, tall and strong. His gigantic limbs were hard and stout as the trunk of an oak sapling. He wielded the longest sword and the heaviest battle-axe in Bute and Arran, and he was the best bowman in all the lands of the Clyde. His life among the mountains of Arran had given him a mighty power of endurance, for it was his habit to rove for many days over the craggy heights of Goatfell, climbing where none else could climb, slaying deer, spearing salmon, following the wild wolf to his lair, sleeping on the bare heather, drinking naught save the crystal water of the mountain burns, and eating the simplest food. His band of retainers, though scarcely less strong of limb than their master, were wont to say that their labours were even as those of the mythical Sigmund, who was condemned to make a new island in the ocean of the rocks that he clove from the topmost peaks of the Mountain of the Winds.

And yet they loved their master by reason of his strength and power, for he was the king's nephew in Arran, and would some day be the lord of that isle and of the great castle of Brodick.

Landing on the shores of St. Ninian's Bay, he strode with great strides towards Rothesay, and Lulach the herd boy, seeing him, thought him the most gallant warrior in all the world, and wondered what his business might be in Bute, and why he should have come over without a train of attendants.

It took the knight but a little time to cover the four miles between St. Ninian's and Rothesay, and on the sloping strand of the bay he found Earl Kenric busy with his retainers carrying stores down to a great galley that was moored against a stone pier in the little creek near to the castle gates.

This ship, which was built in the shipyard of Rothesay, was entirely of oak and of great dimensions, ornamented with richly-carved dragons overlaid with beaten gold. It had ten banks of oars, each of the twenty long oars being rowed by two sturdy islanders. There was also a stout mast, upon which, when the wind served, a wide-spreading square sail might be hoisted.

"A gallant bark, by my faith! a gallant bark, Kenric!" said Sir Piers as he stepped on board and walked towards the high poop. "Would that we had a dozen such vessels, and manned by as brave a set of islanders as you have here. Then might we hope to make a bold stand against any sea rover out of Norway."

"Five other galleys the like of this are now lying at safe anchor in the bay of Kames," said Kenric; "and had we yet another half dozen, there are men-at-arms in plenty to man them -- all trained in the use of sword and longbow, and eager enough, I warrant, to have a fling at Hakon's valiant vikings."

"Right glad am I to hear it," said the knight, "for he who is prepared has half his battle fought.

"Ah, Allan," he added, seeing young Redmain already on board, "I was but now about to ask if you had not yet come across from Kilmory. Where is Sir Oscar this morning?"

"Hard at work in the fields," answered Allan. "And he bade me tell you that should King Alexander commission you on any dangerous enterprise, there are threescore of fishermen at your service over at Kilmory."

"'Tis well. And now I see you have not forgotten the king's tribute," said Sir Piers, as he observed the pair of gerfalcons that Allan was tending. "Could his Majesty receive a like tribute from other vassals, methinks there would be need to supply him also with a few score of herons to fly them against. But the tribute customs are well ordered. One sends a hart, another a hound, one a heron, and another a hawk. My lord of Arran's offering is but two dead golden eagles -- and for the matter of that his Majesty might have all the eagles in Arran, and welcome, for we have over many of them."

"Stand by your oars, my lads!" cried Kenric, balancing himself upon the gunwale and stepping aft. "Now, Duncan, heave off the ropes, you laggard. So. Ready all!"

Then the boatswain, standing by the mast upon the centre gangway running fore and aft between the two sets of rowers, blew his horn, and the rowers pushed up their oars at arms' length that the blades might catch the water, then springing upon the thwarts which they gripped with their bare feet they threw themselves back with all their weight and strength, and the ship began to glide through the clear water. And so, springing up again as before for another pull, the men went to their hard work with a will, singing a wild Gaelic boat song in measured time with the strains of Dovenald's harp, and the galley, with ever-increasing speed, sailed out into the mid-bay. When there was a good way on her the work at the oars became easier and the song sank down into a subdued crooning sound that was soothing to hear.

The shipmaster steered them out into the broader sea past Toward Point, and two hours' good rowing up the firth brought them abreast of the fortress of Dunoon. When the course was turned eastward the oars were shipped and the great sail was set to catch the light western breeze, and then they went speeding up the Clyde to Dumbarton, whose strong-built castle stood upon a high steep rock on the northern bank of the river.

"Alas!" said Sir Piers de Currie, as he turned his clear gray eyes towards the battlements, "much do I fear that we are doomed to disappointment. The King has not arrived! Had it been so we should have seen the brave flag of the Scottish lion flying upon those towers."

"That were indeed a disappointment," said Allan Redmain regretfully.

"Nevertheless," said Kenric, "we can at least leave the tribute at the castle, and it may be that the warden can tell us when his Majesty is expected."

In a little time they had landed and mounted to the castle gates, where the lord warden met them and bade them enter. They gave up their weapons, and Kenric delivered his two hawks to the falconer. So when the warden had offered them all drink and food, he asked Sir Piers de Currie how it was that Earl Hamish of Bute had not accompanied him.

"Alas! he is dead," said the knight, telling of the treachery of Roderic.

"Woe, woe!" cried the old warden with tears in his eyes. "But this is surely the saddest thing that could have befallen, and a sorry blow for our country. And this is his son, eh? By the rood, a well-favoured youth, and a strong. Heaven grant that he prove as good and leal a man as his father before him!" and he rested his hand on Kenric's shoulder.

"And now, what of his Majesty the King?" asked Sir Piers.

"He comes from Stirling even now," said the warden, "and will be here at sunset. But 'tis a wearing ride from Stirling to Dumbarton, Sir Piers, and it may be you will not have audience with his Majesty ere morning. So bring in your shipmen, my lord of Bute, for methinks there will be rain tonight, and a cosy chamber in the castle were better lodging than an open boat. Doubtless, too, our own men-at-arms will welcome your retainers for the story they have to tell of this sad happening in Bute."

Accordingly the crew of Kenric's ship were brought within the castle, and with the men of Dumbarton and the bodyguard of the king they formed a merry company in the guardroom, while Kenric and his two companions remained as guests of the lord warden.

At the moment when the sun was sinking in the golden west, the King of Scotland arrived, accompanied by Queen Margaret and their attendants; but, as the warden had said, there could be no audience that night.