Hakon, the Norwegian king, was roused to anger.  He determined to revenge the injuries offered to his vassals, and at once issued orders for the assembling of a vast fleet and army, whilst he repaired in person to his great seaport of Bergen to make ready for an expedition which should not only restore his vassals to their lands and rights, but which should also sweep away every kilted Scot from the isles, and convert the great kingdom of Scotland itself into a dependency of Norway.

These great preparations for war commenced in the autumn of 1262.  It was not until eight months afterwards that they were completed.

When Allan Redmain, with Earl Kenric and Duncan Graham lying ill in his cabin, rejoined the combined forces of Sir Piers de Currie and the Earl of Ross, he found these two chiefs on the point of separating.  The Earl of Ross left the sound of Iona and sailed northward again, while Sir Piers, with the eight galleys of Bute and Arran, bent his course south to Colonsay, there to pick up the vessel that Kenric had left in guard over that island.  These nine vessels thereupon returned to the Clyde, and Sir Piers made a journey into Scotland to make his report to the King.

For many weary weeks Kenric remained a helpless invalid in his castle, tended by his gentle mother and by old Janet the nurse.  His wounds were of small account; but the six days spent in the noisome dungeon of Breacacha had weakened him and given him a fever, which was slow to leave him.  His mind was strangely disturbed, and he talked wildly, and at random, fancying he was fighting against countless hosts of pirate Norsemen, and declaring deliriously that his Thirsty Sword would give him no rest, so great was its lust for blood.  And once when Ailsa Redmain had come over with Allan from Kilmory, the young king began to laugh wildly, and to say how he had just been over to Colonsay to massacre many hundreds of children, and how the good men of Galloway had tried to stop him, and that for their interference he had thrown them all into dark dungeons, giving each of them a skeleton for a plaything.

But later, when his reason had returned, Ailsa came more often, and the two would sit for hours together, talking of the boats that could be seen from the window sailing on the blue waters of Rothesay Bay, of the dark hills of Loch Striven beyond, and of the trees across in the forest of Toward that were brown and gold in the autumn sunlight.  Of all his nurses, Kenric loved best that Ailsa should thus come to him, for she was as a very gentle and sweet sister, and never did the Gaelic words sound so musical as when spoken by her rosy lips; never did sunlight shine more brightly than the light that shone in her beautiful eyes.

So the weeks went on; the autumn passed into winter, and soon all the land was white with deep snow.

On a cold wintry day Allan Redmain rode over to Rothesay on his shaggy mountain pony.