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.
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