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Updated: June 14, 2025
If what I hear of your increased prowess with your weapon be true, assuredly you are now a match even for Roderic MacAlpin." "What takes him to Garroch at that dread hour?" "It is that he expects to meet Aasta." "Aasta?" "Even so, my lord." "And wherefore should Roderic have aught to do with the maid?" "You well may ask," said Elspeth, "and it is not willingly that I would have them meet.
Aasta would be happy too; he would love her always as his very dear cousin, and who could tell but that some day, when all her past troubles were forgotten, she might marry some great and good nobleman of Scotland, who would restore her to such dignity as she deserved? There was another of whom, deep in his heart, Kenric thought very tenderly, and that other was Ailsa Redmain.
The journey must now be taken alone, for she meant that the vengeful work she contemplated should be secret, and that Earl Kenric should be rid of his dangerous enemy without knowing by whom or by what means Roderic had been slain. Scarcely had Aasta emerged from among the trees and crossed towards the lake when she heard the beating of footsteps upon the hard ground. She stood still and listened.
But Aasta was nowhere to be found, and Kenric well understood what ills might follow if he missed this chance that Elspeth Blackfell had afforded him of encountering his dread foe. He was presently upon the shore of Ascog Mere, whose surface was now frozen over with thick clear ice.
"That would I," said Allan, now bending down and taking hold of the lad in his strong arms and carrying him to the boat. "'Tis a long pull round to Rothesay Bay," said Aasta, "and it may be that you will yet have trouble with your charge. Let me go with you." Allan, standing knee deep in the water, held out his hand and helped her into the boat.
"Seek not to learn, then," returned Aasta, leading him forth upon the open land; "but come ere it be too late to arrest this fugitive." With no further words the fair maiden led him southward towards the sea cliffs, skipping over the streamlets that crossed their path, and passing over wide stretches of barren moorland. And down into every creek and bay she turned her searching eyes.
Kenric and Aasta, the one armed with his great sword, the other with her dirk, crept from their place of hiding and stole across the heath towards the campfire, round which a score of island kings were already gathered, awaiting the coming of King Hakon of Norway. Within a hundred yards of the fire Kenric stopped and beckoned Aasta to go round the northern side, while he went the opposite way.
"Methinks, my lord," said old Dovenald, as he stood with Kenric and Aasta, "that this outlaw will not now be satisfied until he bath compassed your death. Forget not, I implore you, that you alone stand between him and his ambitions. It would go ill with us all if he should succeed, and methinks 'twere well that you took timely refuge where he could not find you."
Roderic saw her eyes flash like two fierce fires. He saw her weapon gleaming in the moon's pale light. With a wild cry of rage he caught her uplifted arm and arrested it. "Deceitful witch," he cried, "is it thus that you would help me?" "Even so," said Aasta the Fair. "For now your last hour has come. No mercy will I show you, base villain that you are!"
But Roderic MacAlpin was as much at home in the water as upon the dry land, and though Kenric believed that he had but preferred a watery grave to being hacked to death by sword or axe, yet Roderic reached his ship in safety and lived to fight another day. Kenric, returning with Aasta from the beach, found Allan Redmain, surrounded by many men of Bute, fighting still.
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