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. But 'twas the only plan I could devise for getting him
from my presence and bringing him to a place where you, my lord, may
encounter him. As to Aasta, of her and of Roderic I have something
strange to tell."

Kenric looked up at Elspeth in surprise.

"You are young, my lord," she continued, and you know not the things
that have been. But I am old. Not always has it been with me as you see
me now. Time was, my lord, when I, who am now a poor infirm woman,
decried as a witch, despised of men, was a fair and joyous young maid.
My father was a king --"

"A king?" echoed Kenric.

"Even so. And he had his castle under the Black Fell that is in far-off
Iceland. Men named me Elspeth White Arm, and my lord and husband was
also a king. He was the noblest and truest of all the monarchs of the
North, and he was the lord over the Westermann Islands. We had one
child, and we named her Sigrid the Fair."

"Elspeth, Elspeth, What is this that you are saying?" cried Kenric,
partly guessing what was to come.

"Sigrid was a wild and self-willed child," the old woman continued,
fixing her blue eyes on Kenric, "but I loved her well. And on a time --
'tis a full score and four years ago -- she disappeared, and we could
find her nowhere, until my lord went out upon his ship and boarded the
galley of a bold viking of the south whose name was Rudri Alpinson, or,
as the Scots called him, Roderic MacAlpin. On Roderic's galley was
Sigrid found; but she would not return, for she loved this man Roderic
passing well, knowing little of his evil heart. My lord, in trying to
win her back, was slain by Roderic's hand, and thereupon Roderic carried
away my child as his willing captive to his island home in Gigha. There
he made her his wedded wife. But not long had my lord been dead, not
long had his younger brother taken his place as ruler in our land, when
my heart so yearned for my fair Sigrid that I took ship and came south
in search of her. By chance I landed upon your father's isle of Bute,
for it was of Bute that Roderic had spoken as the home