Who's Afraid of Beowulf

by Tom Holt

  ‘Or take Beowulf,’ said Brynjolf. ‘Weedy little bloke, got sand kicked in his face on the beach as often as not. But he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It’s not who you are that matters, it’s what you do.’

  ‘No,’ said Arvarodd, ‘you’re wrong there. It’s not what you do, it’s who you are.’

  ‘Whichever.’ Brynjolf frowned. ‘Or both. Anyway, Vel-Hilda, what I’m trying to say is that we couldn’t have managed without you. Well, that’s not strictly true,’ he added. ‘But you helped.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Arvarodd nodded vigorously. ‘You helped a lot.’

  ‘Any time,’ said Hildy. ‘I’ll miss you. It won’t be the same, somehow.’

  ‘Sorry, Vel-Hilda,’ said Starkad Storvirksson, returning with an empty plate, ‘but Bothvar Bjarki had the last of the seagull. There are still a few baked mice, if you’d like some.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Hildy, ‘really. I couldn’t eat another thing.’

  Starkad breathed a sigh of relief and went off to eat them himself.

  ‘I’m quite partial to a bit of baked mouse,’ said Arvarodd, leaning back in his seat and pouring himself a hornful of beer. ‘I remember when I was in Permia . . .’

  ‘Checkmate.’

  Zxerp glared at King Hrolf with deep hatred. ‘You two,’ he said at last, ‘deserve each other.’

  King Hrolf rose to his feet and banged on the table for silence. He poured a horn of beer from the decanter and drank it, then cleared his throat. Even Angantyr woke up. The company turned their heads and listened.

  ‘Friends,’ said the King, ‘our work is done. Despite the perils that threatened us, we have overthrown the power of darkness and saved the world from evil.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said the sorcerer-king.

  ‘Now our time in this world, which has been unnaturally long, is over, and it is time for us to go to feast for ever in Odin’s golden hall. Roast pork,’ he added before Angantyr could interrupt, ‘and all the mead you can drink. At the head of the table sits Odin himself; at his right hand Thor, at his left Frey. With her own hands Freyja pours the mead, and the greatest of heroes are the company. There we will meet many we have known, many of whom we have sent there, in the old wars which are forgotten. They say that in Valhalla the men go out to fight in the morning, and at night all those who have fallen rise up again to go to the feast, and fight again the next day. There is also, I am assured, a swimming-pool and a sauna. Personally, I think it all sounds very boring being cooped up with a lot of dead warriors all day, but don’t let me put you off. I intend to take a good book with me. Anyway, tomorrow we sail across the great sea. Long will be our journey, past Iceland and Greenland and into the region of everlasting cold, until we pass over the edge of the world and see before us Bifrost, the rainbow bridge.’

  Hildy scratched her head. If they followed the route the King had described, it sounded to her as if they would end up at Baffin Island. But she had stopped doing geography in fourth grade, and only recently found out where Hungary is.

  ‘Sorcerer-Eric and I have settled our differences,’ continued the King, ‘and he will be coming with us to Valhalla.’ A murmur ran round the table, but the King held up his hand. ‘That is settled,’ he said firmly. ‘He has been an evil man and our and the world’s enemy, but in Valhalla all earthly enmities are put aside, for all who go there, so it is said, are soon united in common hatred of the catering staff. Besides, there is always a place at Odin’s table for men who are brave and have fought well, however misguided their cause, and who can play a good game of Goblin’s Teeth.’

  The murmur subsided. That, after all, was fair enough.

  ‘Behind us,’ went on the King, ‘we leave one who has deserved a place in the company of heroes, our sister Vel-Hilda Frederik’s-daughter. But for her . . . Well, she helped, and it is not by blows or good policies alone that battles are won.’

  That didn’t leave much, Hildy reflected, but presumably he meant it kindly. She blushed.

  ‘In our day, the skalds would have sung of her deeds; but now, it seems, the skalds sing no more at the feasts of kings. In our day, her story would have been told by the fireside, when the shadows are long and children hear ghosts when the sheep climb on to the roof to eat the house-leeks. But of our last fight no songs will be made; no one will ever know that we have been here or done what we have done. So it will be for all of us at the world’s end, we who thought to cheat death by living for ever in the words of men. Nevertheless.’ The King smiled and made a sign with his hand. Arvarodd rose to his feet, and drew a harp out from under the table. ‘I wrote it in the car coming up,’ he whispered, as Hildy’s eyes started to fill with tears. ‘Hope you like it.’

  ‘Vel-Hilda,’ said the King, ‘you have deserved a song, and one song you shall have. Arvarodd of Permia,’ he commanded, ‘sing us your song.’

  ‘The name of this song is Hildarkvitha,’ proclaimed Arvarodd. ‘Any unauthorised use of this material may render the user liable to civil and criminal prosecution.’ He drew his fingers across the strings, took a deep breath and sang:‘Attend! We have heard the glories Of god-like kings, Heard the praise And the passion of princes . . .’

  Hildy stifled a sob and reached for her notebook.

  The young lieutenant was excited. He had never been in this sort of situation before.

  ‘We’ve found them,’ he said. ‘They’re back in that fortified position on the cliffs above Farr. God knows why we didn’t leave a unit there; they were bound to come back. Anyway, that’s where they are. Do we go in, or what?’

  The man in the black pullover scowled at him.

  ‘Oh, go away,’ he said.

  Young Mr Fortescue stared in disbelief at the While-You-Were-Out message on his desk.

  Message from Eric Swenson, Chairman and Managing Director, Gerrards Garth group of companies.

  Expansion programme scratched owing to unforeseen difficulties, so no China for you. Consolation prize chair, managing directorship of entire shooting match, try not to cock it up too much, why am I saying this, that’s why we’ve chosen you. Written confirmation follows, good luck, you’ll need it, suggest you get out of electronics entirely.

  Message at 10.34.

  It would, of course, be a challenge, and it was nice to think that the boss had such confidence in him (‘that’s why we’ve chosen you’). Nevertheless, it would have been better if he had known he was being groomed for greatness rather earlier. He could have taken notes.

  ‘All aboard,’ said Danny Bennett cheerfully. ‘Move right down inside please.’

  The entire company was embarking. They were going on a long tour of the kingdom of Caithness and Sutherland, just for old times’ sake and to fill in the hours before it was time to set sail; down Strathnaver to Kinbrace and Helmsdale, then up the coast to Wick and across to Thurso, and on to Rolfsness. The tank was full of petrol, magically produced by the wizard from peat.

  ‘Danny’s in no fit state to drive, you know,’ Hildy whispered. The King smiled.

  ‘For some reason he wanted to,’ he said. ‘Insisted that it was his bus, he’d captured it single-handed, so he was going to drive. The wizard’s put a spell on him, so we should be all right.’

  Hildy shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘if you’re sure. I’ve done enough driving these last few weeks to last me, anyway.’

  These last few weeks . . . How long had it been since her adventure started? She could not remember. It had been the same with holidays when she was a girl; week merged seamlessly with week, and soon she had not known which day of the week it was, or what month, or what season of the year, except that the sun always seemed to shine. It was, of course, shining now; strong orange evening light that made even the scraggy brown sheep look somehow enchanted.

  ‘Hrolf,’ she asked, ‘what am I going to do once you’ve all gone?’

  ‘As little as possible for at least a month,’ replied the King. ‘First, you’re g
oing to have to help Danny Bennett explain all this to the rest of the world - only for God’s sake don’t let him tell them the whole truth. Have you still got that bit of jawbone Arvarodd gave you? That ought to do the trick.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I give it back?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said the King. ‘It makes him insufferable. We’ll see just how long his reputation as a wise counsellor lasts without it. Anyway, after you’ve done that, I advise you to go away for a while and persuade yourself that none of this ever happened. It’ll be for the best, in the long run.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Hildy said, ‘I couldn’t do that. Even if I wanted to.’

  ‘And you don’t.’

  ‘No. I’ve had’ - Hildy searched for the right words - ‘the time of my life,’ she said.

  ‘Funny,’ said the King. ‘Oh, well, it takes all sorts. I’m not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of going to Valhalla myself, but I haven’t got much of a choice.’

  ‘Shall I see you there?’ Hildy asked suddenly. ‘Eventually, I mean?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said the King. ‘But don’t be in any hurry to find out.’

  ‘I won’t, don’t you worry,’ said Hildy, grinning. ‘I guess I’ve had my adventure. And I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to publish the saga that Arvarodd gave me, and become the world’s leading authority on the heroic age of Scandinavia.They’ll make me a full professor before I’m thirty.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘Probably. Anyway, it’s what I want to do, and I reckon I’ll do it rather better now that I know what it was really like.’

  ‘What was it really like, Vel-Hilda?’

  ‘Just like everything else,’ said Hildy, ‘only there were less people, so what they did mattered more at the time.’

  ‘You could put it like that.’

  ‘I will,’ Hildy assured him, ‘only with plenty of footnotes. Of course, I won’t be able to tell them about the magic, so most of what I say will be totally untrue. You won’t mind that, will you?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ said King Hrolf.

  ‘It’ll be strange, of course. When I’m giving a lecture on Bothvar Bjarki and speculating on whether he was really just a sun-god motif imported from early Indo-European myth.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Hildy said. ‘The parallels are conclusive. ’

  ‘I’ll tell him that,’ said the King. ‘He’ll be livid.’

  ‘So are you,’ she said, ‘probably. Or you’re an amalgamation of several pseudo-historical early dynasties, conflated by oral tradition and rationalised by the chroniclers. Your deeds are a fictionalised account of tribal disturbances during the Age of Migrations, and you have no real basis in historical fact.’

  ‘Thank you, Vel-Hilda,’ said the King. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.’

  ‘What about me, then?’ said the sorcerer-king, leaning over from the row in front.

  ‘Oh, you’re just a personification of bad harvests and various diseases of livestock,’ said Hildy. ‘No one’s ever going to believe in you.’

  ‘I believe in me,’ said the sorcerer-king.

  ‘And look where it’s got you,’ said King Hrolf.

  ‘True,’ said the sorcerer-king. ‘But aren’t I in Arvarodd’s saga?’

  ‘Like he said himself, it’s heavily influenced by the fornaldarsögur tradition. You’re symbolic.’

  ‘Allegorical?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Oh. Fancy a quick game, then?’

  ‘Later,’ said the King. The sorcerer-king leant forward again and scratched the wolf behind the ear. It growled resignedly.

  ‘That’s sad, in a way,’ said King Hrolf. ‘I wouldn’t have minded being forgotten, but I’m not so keen on being debunked.’

  ‘Men die,’ Hildy quoted, ‘cattle die, but the glory of heroes lives for ever. It’s just that these days people hate leaving well alone. They can’t bear anything to be noble and splendid any more. But who knows? In a couple of hundred years or so, they may start believing in the old stories again. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Like I said,’ replied the King, ‘nothing to do with me. There was a man at my father’s court who had been a very great hero in his youth. He’d been with King Athils, and he’d killed frost-giants, and he’d wrestled with Thor himself. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of surviving all his adventures and becoming old. Nobody believed he was still alive any more, and when he used to tell stories of his youthful feats, people used to think he was wandering in his wits and either pretending or believing that he was one of the heroes out of the fairy-tales he’d heard as a boy. So he stopped telling his own stories, and had to sit still in the evenings when the poet sang songs about him, which were always inaccurate and sometimes downright slander. In the end he did go mad and started telling everyone that he’d created the world. Nobody took any notice, of course. It’s a terrible thing to be a legend in your own lifetime.’

  ‘What was his name?’ Hildy asked. ‘Maybe . . .’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ said the King. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  Suddenly the King and the entire bus disappeared, and Hildy could see the ground moving below her at about forty miles an hour. She started to shriek, then realised that the wizard had made the bus invisible to get them past the soldiers. She started to laugh; she would never get used to magic, but she would miss it when it wasn’t there any more. She said as much to where the King had been. He agreed.

  ‘I’ve never given it much thought,’ he said. ‘It’s like winter, or all these new machines of yours. You don’t know how they work, but you accept them as part of life. We used to enjoy our magic rather more than you do. In fact, we enjoyed everything rather more than you do, probably because the conditions of life were rather more horrible then than now. I’m starting to sound my age, aren’t I?’

  ‘You don’t look it,’ said Hildy.

  ‘That,’ said the King, ‘is because I’m invisible.’

  The surveyer opened the door of his car.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, ‘I’m just going to take a leak.’

  A still night on the Ord of Caithness, with only the pounding of the sea on the rocks below to disturb the silence. God, how he hated this place!

  Suddenly, round the bend of the road came a number 87 bus. That was strange enough at half-past one in the morning, but what was stranger still was the fact that it appeared to be full of Viking warriors, plainly visible in the pale ghostly glow of two points of light that shone from inside. The warriors were singing, although he could not hear them, and passing a drinking-horn from hand to hand; and there, sitting on the back seat, was that female archaeologist he had taken up to Rolfsness just before she disappeared so mysteriously. The surveyor stared. The archaeologist - or her spectre - was waving to him. He shuddered, and remembered the old tales of the phantom coach taking the souls of the dead to Hell that he had always been so scornful of as a boy. The bus moved silently, eerily on, and suddenly vanished from sight.

  Trembling, the surveyor returned to the car.

  ‘I’ve just seen a phantom bus,’ he said. ‘An eighty-seven, with Rolfsness on the front.’

  ‘Time you got a new joke, Donald,’ said his companions, who hadn’t been watching. ‘That one wasn’t even funny the first time.’

  Past the new wind-generator high above the road (‘Look, Prexz, electricity on draught!’). Past the turf-roofed houses of Ulbster and Thrumster, looking exactly as their predecessors had done when Hrolf ’s subjects had built them as Ideal Homes twelve hundred years ago. Past Gills Bay and Scarfskerry, where Bothvar Bjarki had watched the circling cormorants and given the place its name. Past Dunnet Head and Castletown, the slate fences with broom twigs tucked into them to frighten away the deer. Past Scrabster (‘I could tell you a thing or two about Scrabster,’ muttered Hring Herjolfsson), and the strange complex of buildings that Hildy said was a power stati
on and which made Zxerp and Prexz suddenly feel thirsty. The flat coastal strip dwindled away into moorland and rock, and Ben Ratha was visible against the night sky. Across the little burn called Achadh na Greighe (‘I never could cope with those damnfool Gaelic names,’ said Angantyr. ‘Why not call it something straightforward, like Sauthajarmrsfjall?’). Ben Ruadh. Rolfsness.

  ‘It was nice to see it all again,’ said King Hrolf. ‘Godforsaken place, Caithness, but what the hell, it was my kingdom.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Hildy faintly. ‘It’s sort of—’

  ‘You would,’ said the King. ‘Come to Caithness, they said to my grandfather, the Soft South. Agreed, it’s a bit less bleak than Norway or Iceland, and there are bits of Sweden I wouldn’t give you a dead vole for. It’s all right, I suppose. In its way.’

  The moon mirrored in the waters of Loch Hollistan. A rabbit scurrying for cover as the company approached. The sea.

  ‘Well,’ said Angantyr, ‘here we all are again.’ He slapped Danny Bennett violently on the back. ‘It’s been fun. Thanks for your help, and remember - you don’t add the fennel until the meat is almost brown.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ said Danny. He suspected a bone was broken. ‘Remember, if in doubt, stop down. Better to be a stop over than a stop under.’

  The great mound, covered over and wired off, a slice cut out of it by the archaeologists. The King shook his head. ‘I don’t know what they’re all so excited about,’ he said, as he saw the signs of their scrupulous and scientific work. ‘It’s just a mound of earth, that’s all.’

  The ship. The moon flashed on the gilded prow, the gilded shields along its sides. As they stood and gazed at it, the west wind started to blow.

  ‘I hate to mention this,’ said the King, ‘but how the hell are we going to get it down to the beach?’

  ‘Same way we got it up, I suppose,’ said Hjort cheerfully. ‘Starkad, get the ropes.’