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Updated: June 14, 2025
The gentle rippling of the water against the boat alone disturbed the stillness. In that stillness Kenric looked fixedly at Aasta through the dim light. Aasta sank upon her knees, and obeying an impulse that was upon her she took his hands in her own and touched them with her warm lips.
It was the face of Aasta the Fair. Kenric tried to touch her, to take her in his arms. But the intervening ice inclosed her as in a crystal casket. He saw that the stray locks of her long hair, floating in the clear water, had been caught by the quick frost, and that they were now held within the firm thick ice. Upon her fair white throat there were marks as of a man's rough fingers.
As she sighed and dropped the curtain she turned to leave the cave, and there crept towards her the gaunt form of a great dog wolf, upon whose breast there was a patch of pure white hair. The animal lazily stretched himself and yawned, showing his long red tongue and his white fangs. Aasta bent down and patted his shaggy coat. "No, Lufa, it is alone I go.
Thereupon Aasta gave forth a loud and piercing cry that sounded far away in the keen winter air. That cry was heard at the farther side of Loch Ascog, where, in the dingle of Lochly, Allan Redmain was walking northward towards Rothesay.
On the beach a vigorous engagement took place. The Norsemen scrambled on board from one vessel to its companions alongside. Kenric, followed by Aasta and a crowd of their Scots, waded deep into the water, still pressing behind the men of Jura and Islay. They even climbed upon the first galleys' decks, and there stood fighting for many minutes.
Her long red hair streamed in the breeze, and her rosy cheeks glowed with the healthy blood that coursed under her smooth clear skin. Her eyes were limpid as the summer sky. "What news may that be, Aasta?" asked the young king.
Tarry not here; for if it be that the youth had no right to leave the castle, then he must even be forcibly taken back." "Even so, Aasta," said Allan, "and much do I commend you for your timely warning of the lad's escape. Though how by your witchery you brought me hither I cannot well understand."
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."
Duncan Graham had already been sent south to the abbey. "How happens it, Aasta, that you went not to St. Blane's as you were advised?" Kenric asked, when he met her in one of the lower corridors. "My lord," said she, "I went but to the hill of Kilbride to watch the ships in their passage through the Kyles, and I judge that they will be here in the space of another hour.
He was singing a plaintive Gaelic song, and a fair maid, whose deep red hair was covered by a coarse blue cloak, joined in the wild strain with notes that were as the sweet song of the night bird of the far south. The youth was Earl Kenric of Bute; the maiden was Aasta the Fair.
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