“That may well be so,” replies Beowulf. “Am I not called the Wolf of the Bees, the bear who slays giant-kin and sea hags.”
“Take a sword and fight me like a man!”
“I don’t need a sword. I don’t need an ax. I need no weapon to lay you in your grave.”
“Someone give him a fucking sword,” Finn says to the Danish thanes. He’s sweating now, and his hands have begun to shake. “Give him a blade, or I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” growls Beowulf. “Kill me? Then do it! Stop talking and cowering and fucking kill me!”
Finn looks down and is surprised to find the ocean lapping at his ankles; Beowulf has driven him all the way back to the sea. The Frisian grits his teeth, raises the ax above his left shoulder, and tries to raise it higher still. But he’s shaking so badly now that the weapon slips from his fingers and lands with a dull splash at his feet.
“Do you know why you can’t kill me, friend?” asks Beowulf. “Because I died years ago…when I was still a young man.” And Beowulf pulls the edges of his torn tunic closed, hiding his scarred chest from view, and when he looks once again at Finn there is pity in Beowulf’s gaze.
“It is as simple as that,” he says. “You cannot kill a ghost.” Then to his war captain, Beowulf says, “Give the prince a piece of gold and send him home to his kin. He has a story to tell.” And Beowulf, King of the Danes, climbs onto his horse and follows Wiglaf back up the slope, leaving the battlefield behind. Overhead, the winter sky is filled with black and gray wings, a riotous host of crows and gulls, vultures and ravens, already gathering to take their fill of the dead and dying.
And as time changes men and whittles away at the mountains themselves, so must men, trapped within time, change themselves and the world around them. So, too, have the fortifications begun in the distant days when the great-grandfather of Hrothgar ruled the Danes been changed by the will of King Beowulf. Using stone quarried from open pits along the high sea cliffs, fine new towers and stronger walls have been erected, a bulwark against foreign armies and the elements and anything else that might wish to do the people of this kingdom harm. Where once stood little more than a shabby cluster of thatched huts and muddy footpaths, there now rises a castle keep that might be the envy of any Roman or Byzantine general, that Persian or Arab rulers might look upon and know that the Northmen have also learned something of the arts of warfare and defense, of architecture and the mathematics needed to raise a stronghold to impress even the gods in Ásgard. And on this day, after the battle on the shore and the routing of the Frisians, Beowulf stands alone on the great stone causeway connecting the two turrets of Heorot. A hundred feet below him, in a snow-covered courtyard paved with granite and slate flagstones, Wiglaf is preparing to address the villagers who have begun to gather there.
Beowulf turns away, pulling his furs tighter and turning instead to face the sea, that vast gray-green expanse reaching away to the horizon. The frigid wind bites at any bit of exposed skin, but the bite is clean. After the beach and the things he saw there, the things he said and did and those things that were said and done in his name, he greatly desires to feel clean.
Perhaps, he thinks, this is why so many men are turning from Odin and his brethren to the murdered Roman Christ and the nameless god who is held to be his father. That promise, that they will be made somehow pure and clean again and freed from the weight and consequences of the choices they have made.
Beowulf sighs and leans forward on the roughhewn merion, watching as countless snowflakes swirl lazily down to the waves, where they melt and lose themselves in the heaving sea. He tries hard to recall how it was in the days before he left Geatland and the service of Hygelac and came to Hrothgar’s aid, when he welcomed rather than dreaded the sight of the sea and the thought of all the hidden terrors of that deep.
He hears someone behind him and turns to find Ursula, a young girl he has taken for his mistress, or who has perhaps taken him as her lover. She is exquisite, even to eyes wearied by so much bloodshed and destruction, her fair skin and freckles and her hair like wheat spun into some fine silken thread. She stands, wrapped in the pelt of foxes and bears and silhouetted by the winter sky, and her expression is part concern and part relief.
“My lord?” she asks. “Are you hurt?”
“Not a scratch,” Beowulf replies, and kisses her. “You know, Ursula, when I was young, I thought being king would be about battling every morning, counting the golden loot in the afternoon, and bedding beautiful women every night. And now…well, nothing’s as good as it should have been.”
Ursula gives him half a frown. “Not even the ‘bedding a beautiful woman’ part, my lord?”
Beowulf laughs, trying to summon up an honest laugh for her. “Well, some nights, Ursula. Some nights.”
“Perhaps this night?” she asks hopefully, and tugs at the collar of his robes.
“No,” Beowulf tells her, and he laughs again, but this time it’s a rueful sort of laugh. “Tonight I feel my age upon me. But tomorrow, after the celebration. We can’t forget what tomorrow is, can we now?”
And now Ursula grows very serious. “Your day, my lord,” she says. “When the Saga of Beowulf is told, the tale of how you lifted the darkness from the land. And the day after, we celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus.”
Beowulf smiles for her and wipes hair from her face.
“Christmond,” he says, making no attempt to hide his feelings about this new religion, embraced now by fully half his kingdom, even by his own Queen Wealthow. “Is Yule no longer good enough?”
“Yule is the old way,” Ursula replies. “Christmond is the new way.”
“There is much yet to be said for the old ways, my dear,” Beowulf tells her. And now he hears footsteps, and when he looks up, the king finds Wealthow and a priest coming across the causeway toward them. The priest wears long robes of wool dyed red as blood and a large cross of gilded wood dangles from about his neck. When Wealthow speaks, her voice is as icy as her violet eyes.
“I see that you’ve survived, husband,” she says.
“Alas, my queen,” replies Beowulf, the sarcasm thick in his voice. “The Frisian invaders have been pushed back into the sea from whence they came. And you, my good lady, are not a widow…yet.”
Wealthow smiles, a smile that only looks sweet, and exchanges glances with the priest.
“How comforting, my husband.”
And then, feeling confrontational but having no desire to argue with Wealthow, Beowulf shifts his gaze to the priest. He is a gaunt man beneath his robes, a thin man from some Irish longphort or another, his face the color of goat’s cheese except for the broken veins on his hooked nose and the angry boil nestled in the wrinkles of his protruding chin. Beowulf grins at the priest, and the priest acknowledges him with a curt nod.
“You,” says Beowulf. “Father. I have a question that vexes me terribly. Perhaps you can answer it for me.”
“I can try,” the priest replies nervously, and Wealthow glares at her king.
“Good. Fine. Then tell me this, Father, if your god is now the only god, then what has he done with all the rest, the Æsir and the Vanir? Is he so mighty a warrior that he has bested them one and all, even Odin?”
The priest blinks and bows his head, gazing down at the stones at his feet. “There is but one God,” he says patiently, “and there has never been any other.”
Beowulf moves to stand nearer the priest, who is at least a full head shorter than he. “Then he must be an awfully busy fellow, your god, doing the work of so many. How, for example, does he contend with the giants, keep Loki’s children in check, prepare his troops at Ásgard, and yet still find time each day to dispense so much love and grace and forgiveness upon his people?”
“I will not be mocked, my lord,” the priest says very softly.
“Mocked?” chuckles Beowulf, looking first to Ursula, then to Wealthow and feigning innocence. “I am not trying to mock you, good priest. These questi
ons vex me, truly, and I believed that you must surely know the answers, as you say this unnamed god speaks to you.”
“When you mock Him,” the priest says, “you do so at the risk of your own immortal soul.”
“Well, then, I suppose I must strive to be more careful.”
“Beowulf,” says Wealthow, stepping between the priest and her husband. “Stop it this minute.”
“But I haven’t yet asked him about Ragnarök,” Beowulf protests.
At last, the priest lifts his head and dares to meet Beowulf’s gaze from behind the protective barrier of the queen. “It is a heathen faerie story, this Ragnarök,” and then to Wealthow he adds, “Your husband is an infidel, and I will not be ridiculed—”
“I only asked—” begins Beowulf, but the cold fire in Wealthow’s eyes silences him.
“Forgive him, Father,” she says. “He is a difficult old man and too set in his ways.”
“That’s right,” mumbles Beowulf. “I’m hopeless. Please, do not mind me.” And Beowulf puts an arm tight about Ursula and holds her close to him, but she tries to pull away.
“We will speak later, husband,” Wealthow says.
“Of that I am certain,” Beowulf replies, and Queen Wealthow and the priest turn away and head back across the causeway toward the east tower. The snow is falling harder now, becoming a storm, and soon Beowulf loses sight of them in the mist and swirling snowfall.
“She frightens me,” says Ursula. “One day, she will kill me, I think.”
Beowulf laughs and hugs her again. “Nay, my pretty little thing. She will not touch a hair upon your head. Wealthow, she has her new Roman god now, so what need has she of an old warhorse like me? Do not fear her. She is all thunder and no lightning, if you catch my meaning.”
“We should get inside, my lord,” Ursula says, sounding no less worried for Beowulf’s reassurances. “I do not like this wind.” Beowulf does not argue, because the wind is cold and his need to wrangle words has been spent on the priest. He kisses Ursula atop her head.
“Indeed. It shall blow us all away,” he laughs. “It shall grab us up and blow us to the ends of the earth.”
“Yes, my lord,” she says, and then she takes Beowulf’s hand and leads her king along the causeway high above Heorot and into the sanctuary and comparative warmth of the western tower.
16
The Golden Horn
The storm ended sometime before dawn, and morning finds a glittering mantle of fresh snow laid thick over the rooftops and streets and courtyards of the keep. The giant eagle Hræsvelg, squatting high atop his perch in the uppermost limbs of Yggdrasil, beats mighty wings, and a vicious north wind howls across the world, whistling between the towers and moaning beneath the eaves. And Wiglaf, remembering the days when winter did not make his bones ache and his muscles stiffen, trudges through the deep snow to the granite platform where he delivers the king’s decrees and news of battle and other such important proclamations. He stands there in the shadow of the two great turrets, and his breath comes out like mouthfuls of smoke. Already, a large number of people have gathered about the plinth, awaiting his announcement. He acknowledges them with a nod, their pink cheeks and red noses, then slowly climbs the four steps leading up onto the platform. They are slick with ice and snow, and Wiglaf does not wish to spend the rest of his days crippled by broken bones his body has grown too old to heal properly or completely. He stands with his back to the towers and clears his throat, spits, then clears his throat again, wishing he were back inside, sitting comfortably before a roaring fire and awaiting his breakfast.
“On this day,” says Wiglaf, speaking loudly enough that all may hear him, “in honor of our glorious Lord of Heorot, let us tell the saga of King Beowulf.” He pauses to get his breath and spit again, then continues. “How he so fearlessly slew the murderous demon Grendel and the demon’s hag mother.”
And the wind from under Hræsvelg’s wings lifts Wiglaf’s words and carries them out beyond the inner fortifications and the confines of the keep, to echo through the village and off the walls of the horned hall. Those who hear stop to listen—men busy with ponies, women busy with their stewpots and baking, children making a game of the snow.
“Let his deeds of valor inspire us all. On this day, let fires be lit and the sagas told, tales of the gods and of giants, of warriors who have fallen in battle and who now ride the fields of Idavoll.”
And near the outermost wall of Beowulf’s stronghold, at the edges of the village, stands the house of Unferth, son of Ecglaf, who once served Hrothgar, son of Healfdene, in the days when the horned hall was new and monsters stalked the land. The house a sturdy and imposing manor, fashioned of stone and from timber hauled here from the forest beyond the moors. The steeple at the front of its pitched roof has lately been decorated with an enormous cross, the symbol of Christ Jesus, for lately has Lord Unferth forsaken the old ways for the new religion. And even this far out, Wiglaf’s words are still audible.
“I declare this day to be Beowulf’s Day!” he shouts, delivering the last two words with all the force and enthusiasm he can muster, before a coughing fit takes him.
Unferth stands shivering in the shade cast by the cross on his roof, and a little farther along, his son, Guthric and his son’s wife and Unferth’s six grandchildren wait impatiently in the sleigh, which has not yet been hitched to the ponies that will pull it through the village to the keep. The long years have not been even half so kind to Unferth as to Wiglaf and Beowulf, and he is stoop-shouldered and crooked, bracing himself on a staff of carved oak. He glares toward the towers and the sound of Wiglaf’s voice, then back at the sleigh and his family.
“Where the hell is that fool with the horses?” he calls out to Guthric. Then he turns and shouts in the direction of his stables, “Cain? Hurry it up!”
It has begun to snow again.
In the sleigh, Guthric—who might easily pass in both appearance and demeanor for his father in Unferth’s younger days—fiddles restlessly with the large cross hung about his neck. He looks at his wife and frowns.
“Beowulf Day,” he mutters. “Bloody, stupid old fool’s day, more like. He’s as senile as Father.”
Lady Guthric hugs herself and glances at the ominous sky. “He is the king,” she reminds her husband.
“Then he is the senile king.”
“The snow’s starting again,” frets Lady Guthric, wishing her husband would not speak so about Lord Beowulf, whether or not she might agree. She fears what might happen if the king were to learn of Guthric’s opinions of him, and she also fears that the storm is not yet over.
“Wife,” says Guthric, “do you know how bloody sick I am of hearing about bloody Grendel and bloody Grendel’s bloody mother?”
“I should,” she says, “for you have told me now a thousand times, at least.”
“What the hell was Grendel, anyway? Some kind of giant dog or something?”
“I’m sure I could not tell you, dear,” she replies, then tells the oldest of the children to settle down and stop picking on the others.
“And what the bloody hell was Grendel’s mother supposed to be? She doesn’t even have a bloody name!”
“I believe she was a demon of some sort,” his wife says, and looks worriedly at the sky again.
“A demon? You’d have me believe that broken-down old Geat bastard slew a goddamned bloody demon?”
“Guthric, you must learn not to blaspheme…at least not in front of the children.”
“A demon, my ass,” grumbles Guthric, watching his father now. “A toothless old bear, maybe. Or—”
“Can we just go?” his wife asks wearily, and dusts snow from her furs.
And now Unferth approaches the sleigh, shouting as loudly as he still may. “Cain! Cain, where are you!”
Guthric stands up, and, cupping his hands about his mouth, takes up his father’s cry. “Cain!” he yells, with much more vigor than the old man. “Where the bloody Christ are you?”
“Don’t you dare blaspheme in my presence!” growls Unferth, brandishing the stick as if he means to land a second blow, this time across his son’s skull. “I will not have you speak of the One True God, father of Our Lord Jesus, in such a manner!”
Guthric flinches and looks to his wife for support or defense against the old man’s wrath, but she ignores him, an expression of self-righteous vindication on her round pink face.
“You will learn,” Unferth tells the cowering Guthric, and his six grandchildren watch wide-eyed and eager, wondering just how bad a thrashing their father’s going to get this time.
There’s a sudden commotion, then, from the direction of the village gates, and Unferth turns away from the sleigh and his insolent, impious son to find two of his house guards approaching, dragging Cain roughly through the snow and frozen mud. One of the guards raises his free hand and jabs a finger at the slave—filthy and bedraggled, clothed only in a tattered hemp tunic and a wool blanket, rags wrapped tightly about his hands and feet to stave off frostbite.
“He ran off again, my lord,” says the guard. “We found him hiding in a hollow log at the edge of the moors. A wonder the fool didn’t freeze to death.”
The guards shove Cain roughly forward, and he stumbles and lands in a sprawling heap at Unferth’s feet. His woolen blanket has slipped off his skinny shoulders, revealing the glint of gold among the slave’s castoff garments.
“What have you got there?” Unferth asks, and bends down for a closer look, but Cain clutches something to his chest and curls up like a frightened hedgehog. Unferth raises his stick again. “Show it to me, damn you!” he snarls. “You know well enough I do not waste my breath on idle threats.”
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