“Think not that I blame you, my lord,” said Allan cheerily.  “I am not the steward’s son without knowing somewhat of a judge’s difficulties in punishing his own friends.  But, alas!  I had set my heart upon being your attendant on this journey of homage.”

“As to that,” said Kenric, “you need not concern yourself.  I will not break my promise to take you.  As to Blair’s flocks and his good wife’s chickens, we can send the lad Lulach to watch them, and I warrant me they will be safe.  So come you over to Rothesay at the time of the flood tide two days hence, and we will then set sail for Dumbarton.”

CHAPTER XV.  THE DOMINION OF THE WESTERN ISLES.

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.