Beowulf

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  Wiglaf wants to ask Beowulf if he’s finally lost his mind, a question he’s almost asked a hundred times before. But he knows that the answer hardly matters. He will follow wherever Beowulf leads, even through this storm, and whether he is mad or not. He shrugs free of his captain and kinsman and turns to face his nervous, exhausted companions, still seated wrestling with the oars.

  “Who wants to live?” he shouts, and not one among them replies that he does not. “A good thing, then! For we do not die this day!”

  And then he glances back at Beowulf, who is still grinning defiantly up at the storm.

  “Pull your oars!” Wiglaf commands. “Pull for Beowulf! Pull for gold! Pull for glory! Heave!”

  From his post along the sheer granite sea cliffs, the Scylding king’s watch sits alone, save for the company of his horse, tending to his guttering campfire. He has speared a field mouse on a stick and is now busy trying to keep the rain away until dinner’s cooked to his liking.

  “What I want to know,” he says, frowning up at the dripping, unhappy-looking horse, “is just who or what old Hrothgar has got himself thinking is going to be about in this foul weather? Have you even stopped to think on that, horse?”

  The fire hisses and spits, and the watch goes back to fanning it. But there’s much more smoke than flame, and the mouse is almost as pink as when he skinned it. He’s just about to give up and eat the thing cold and bloody when the gloom is parted by a particularly bright flash of lightning and, glancing down at the beach, he catches signs of movement and the unexpected glint of metal along the shore.

  “Did you see that?” he asks the horse, which snorts, but otherwise doesn’t bother to reply. Another flash of lightning follows almost immediately on the heels of the first, and this time there can be no mistake about what he sees on the shore. A tiny ship with bright shields hung along its sides, its carved prow like a sinuous golden serpent rising gracefully from the crashing surf.

  The watch curses and reaches for his spear, and a few moments later—the fire and his empty belly forgotten—the horse is carrying him along the steep path leading down to the beach.

  When Beowulf and his thanes have finally hauled their ship out of the sea and onto the sand, when the whale’s-road is safe behind them, Wiglaf sighs a relieved sigh and spits into the water lapping at his ankles.

  “I’ll wager old Ægir’s gnashing his teeth over that one,” he laughs, and then to Beowulf, “You are sure this is Denmark?”

  “Denmark or Hel,” Beowulf replies. “I expect we’ll know which soon enough.”

  The rain is still falling hard, and lightning still crackles and jabs at the world, but the worst of the storm seems to have passed them by.

  “What’s that then?” Wiglaf asks Beowulf and points down the length of the rocky beach. A man on horseback is galloping swiftly toward them, his mount throwing up a spray of sand and small pebbles as they come. The man holds a long spear gripped at the ready, as though he means to impale them one and all.

  “Well, I’m guessing it’s Hel, then,” Wiglaf sighs, and Beowulf nods his head and steps away from Wiglaf and his men, moving out to meet the rider.

  “If you get yourself skewered,” Wiglaf shouts after him, “can I have your boots?”

  “Aye,” Beowulf calls back. “Take the boat, as well.”

  “You know, I think he means it,” Wiglaf says, pointing once more at the approaching rider, but Beowulf only nods and stands his ground. Wiglaf reaches for his sword, but at the last possible moment, the horseman pulls back on the reins. When he stops, the point of his spear is mere inches from Beowulf’s face.

  “Who are you?” the rider demands. “By your dress, you are warriors.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Wiglaf replies. “We—”

  “Speak!” the rider growls at Beowulf. “Tell me why I should not run you through right now. Who are you? Where do come from?”

  “We are Geats,” Beowulf replies calmly, ignoring the spearpoint aimed at the space between his eyes. “I am Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow. We have come seeking your prince, Hrothgar, in friendship. They say you have a monster here. They say your land is cursed.”

  The man on the horse narrows his eyes and glances at Wiglaf and the others, but doesn’t lower his spear.

  “Is that what they say?” he asks.

  “That and worse,” Wiglaf answers. “Bards sing of Hrothgar’s shame from the frozen north to the shores of Vinland.”

  The watch sits up a little straighter on his horse and glares defiantly back at Wiglaf. “It is no shame to be accursed by demons,” he says.

  Wiglaf takes a step nearer to Beowulf. “And neither is it a shame to accept aid that is freely given.”

  Beowulf glances quickly at Wiglaf, then back to the watch and his horse. “I am Beowulf,” he says again. “I have come here to kill your monster.”

  “Unless you’d rather we not,” adds Wiglaf, earning a scowl from Beowulf.

  “You should ignore him,” Beowulf says. “He was very seasick this morning, and I fear he might have puked his wits overboard.”

  The watch lowers his spear, staring past Beowulf and Wiglaf to the other men standing beside the beached ship.

  “You’ll need horses,” he says.

  The storm has gone, and the terrible, driving wind has died away—the wrath of Hræsvelg Corpse-swallower, the giant eagle whose wings send all winds blowing across the world, choosing some other target for a time. But the sky is hardly any lighter than before, still crowded with portentous clouds that hide the sun and hold the land in perpetual twilight. Beowulf and his men follow close behind the Scylding watch, riding the sturdy, shaggy ponies that have been provided for them. They have left the sea cliffs and the shore and move now along a narrow road paved with dark shale cobbles. The road is lined on either side by tall, craggy standing stones, menhirs engraved with runes and erected to mark the ashes of the dead. Whenever the fog shifts, the thanes catch fleeting glimpses of King Hrothgar’s tower in the distance. When they reach a wooden bridge spanning a deep ravine, the watch reins his horse and turns to Beowulf.

  “This is as far as I go,” he says. “I must return to the cliffs. The sea cannot be left unguarded. This stone path is the king’s road.” He smiles then, and adds, “It was built in better times. Follow it to Heorot, where my lord awaits.”

  Beowulf nods. “I thank you for your aid,” he says.

  “Geat, you should know that our monster is fast and strong.”

  “I, too, am fast and strong,” Beowulf tells him.

  “Yes, well, so were the others who came to fight it. And they’re all dead. All of them. I thought no more heroes remained who were foolhardy enough to come here and die for our gold.”

  Beowulf looks over his shoulder at Wiglaf, then back to the watch. “If we die, then it shall be for glory, not for gold.”

  With that, the watch gives his horse a kick and gallops quickly past the Geats, heading back the way they’ve just come, toward his dreary camp above the sea. But then he stops, and calls out to Beowulf, “The creature took my brother. Kill the bastard for me.”

  “Your brother will be avenged,” Beowulf calls back. “I swear it.”

  And then the Scylding watch turns and rides away, his horse’s iron-shod hooves clopping loudly against the cobblestones, and Beowulf leads his men across the bridge.

  This day is the color of the grave, King Hrothgar thinks, gazing miserably out at the angry sea and imagining Hel’s gray robes, the flat gray gleam of her eyes that awaits every man who does not die in battle or by some other brave deed, every man who allows himself to grow weak and waste away in stone towers. For even brave men who slay dragons in their youth may yet die old men and so find themselves guests in Éljudnir, Hel’s rain-damp hall. Behind him, Unferth sits at a table, absorbed in the task of counting gold coins and other pieces of treasure. And Hrothgar wonders which shadowy corner of Niflheim has been prepared for both of them. He has begun to see Hel’s gates
in his dreams, nightmares in which he hunts down and faces the monster Grendel time again and time again, but always the fiend refuses to fight him, refusing him even the kindness of a hero’s death.

  These cheerless thoughts are interrupted by footsteps and the sound of Wulfgar’s voice, and the king turns away from the window.

  “My lord,” Wulfgar says. “There are warriors outside. Geats. For certain, they are no beggars—and their leader, Beowulf, is a—”

  “Beowulf?” Hrothgar asks, interrupting his herald. “Ecgtheow’s little boy?”

  At the sound of Beowulf’s name, Unferth stops counting the gold coins and glances up at Wulfgar.

  “Well, surely not a boy any longer,” Hrothgar continues, hardly believing what he’s heard. “But I knew him when he was a boy. Already strong as a grown man he was, back then. Yes! Beowulf is here! Send him to me! Bring him in, Wulfgar!”

  Beowulf and his men wait together, only a little distance inside the gates of Hrothgar’s stockade. None of them have yet dismounted, as Beowulf has not yet bidden them to do so, and their ponies restlessly stamp their hooves in a gummy mire of mud and hay, manure and human filth. The thanes are at least as restless as their mounts, and they watch uneasily as villagers begin to gather around and whisper to one another and gawk at these strange men from the east, these warriors come among them from Geatland far across the sea.

  “It may be, Beowulf,” says Wiglaf, “that they really don’t want us to kill their monster.”

  The thane to Wiglaf’s left is named Hondshew, an ugly brute of a man almost as imposing as Beowulf himself. Hondshew wears an enormous broadsword sheathed and slung across his wide back—a weapon he’s claimed, in less sober moments, to have stolen from a giant whom he found sleeping in the Tivenden woods. Only, sometimes he says it was a giant, and other times it was merely a troll, and still other times, it was only a drunken Swede.

  “Or,” says Hondshew, “perhaps this is what serves as hospitality among these Danes.” Then he notices a beautiful young woman standing close by, eating a piece of ripe red fruit. She’s watching him, too, and when next she bites through the skin of the fruit, purplish nectar runs down her chin and disappears between her ample breasts. The woman, whose name is Yrsa, smiles up at Hondshew.

  “Then again,” he says, returning Yrsa’s smile and showing off his wide, uneven teeth, “possibly we should find our own hospitality among these poor, beleaguered people.” Hondshew licks his lips, and Yrsa takes another bite of the fruit, spilling still more juice.

  And then the king’s herald arrives, riding up on a large gray mare, accompanied by two of Hrothgar’s guard who have followed behind on foot. The herald silently eyes Beowulf and the thanes for a moment, then clears his throat, and says “Hrothgar, Master of Battles, Lord of the North Danes, bids me say that he knows you, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow. He knows your ancestry and bids you welcome. You, and your men, will follow me. You may keep your helmets and your armor, but your shields and weapons will remain here until further notice.”

  Wiglaf glances apprehensively at Beowulf.

  “I assure you, they won’t be disturbed,” says Wulfgar.

  Beowulf turns and surveys his fourteen men, catching the wariness in their tired faces, their many hands hovering uncertainly above the hilts of their swords. Then he tosses his own spear to one of the guards standing alongside Wulfgar’s gray mare.

  “We are here as guests of King Hrothgar,” he says, staring now directly into the herald’s eyes. “He is our host, even as we seek to serve him, and we will not be disagreeable guests.” And then Beowulf pulls a dagger from his belt and hands it over to Wulfgar, and then his sword, as well. “Let it not be said by the Danes that there is no trust to be found among the warriors of Lord Hygelac.”

  Reluctantly, Beowulf’s thanes follow suit, turning their many weapons over to the two royal guards who have accompanied Wulfgar to the gate. Last of all, Hondshew draws his enormous broadsword and drops it to the ground, where the blade buries itself deeply in the muck.

  “My, that’s a big one you’ve got there, outlander,” Yrsa smiles and takes another bite of fruit.

  “That little thing?” replies Hondshew. “That’s only my spare. Maybe later, when we’ve sorted out our business with this fiend of yours—”

  “Hondshew,” Beowulf says firmly, still watching Wulfgar. “Have you already forgotten why we’re here?”

  “Didn’t I say after the fiend is slain?”

  Yrsa watches and says not another word to Beowulf’s thane. But with a pinkie finger, she wipes a smear of nectar from her left breast and slowly licks it from her finger.

  “Woman!” Wiglaf snaps at Yrsa. “Have you naught else to be doing this day but teasing men who’ve not seen womanflesh for many trying days and nights?”

  “Come, Wiglaf,” says Beowulf, and together they follow Wulfgar through the narrow, smoky streets and up to Hrothgar’s mead hall.

  By the time they reach the steps of Heorot Hall, most of King Hrothgar’s court has gathered there. Overhead, there are a few ragged gaps in the clouds and cold sunlight leaks down and falls upon the queen and her maids, on the assembly of guards and courtiers. The stone steps are dark and damp from the rain, and there are small puddles here and there, twinkling weakly in the day. Beowulf and his thanes have left their ponies behind and stand at the foot of the steps, staring up at the barred and shuttered mead hall that has brought them here.

  “Beowulf!” bellows King Hrothgar, as he staggers and weaves his way down the steps to embrace the Geat. “How is your father? How is Ecgtheow?”

  “He died in battle with sea-raiders,” Beowulf replies. “Two winters back.”

  “Ahhhh, but he was a brave man. He sits now at Odin’s table. Need I ask why you’ve come to us?”

  Beowulf nods toward the shuttered hall above them. “I’ve come to kill your monster,” he replies.

  A murmur passes through the crowd on the steps, equal parts surprise and incredulity, and even Hrothgar seems uncomfortable at hearing Beowulf’s boast.

  “They all think you’re daft,” whispers Wiglaf, and, indeed, Beowulf sees the many shades of chagrin and doubt clouding the faces of the king’s court. He takes a deep breath and smiles, flashing the warmest smile he can muster standing so near the scene of such bloody horrors as he’s heard told of Heorot Hall.

  “And, of course,” he says to Hrothgar, “to taste that famous mead of yours, my lord.”

  Hrothgar grins, visibly relieved, then laughs a laugh that is almost a roar, laughing the way a bear might laugh. “And indeed you shall taste it, my boy, and soon!” And the crowd on the steps stops murmuring amongst themselves, reassured now by the hearty thunder of Hrothgar’s laughter, and already Beowulf can feel their tension draining away.

  But then Queen Wealthow steps forward, descending the stairs, the weak sunlight catching in her honey hair.

  “There have been many brave men who have come here,” she says, “and they have all drunk deeply of my lord’s mead, and sworn to rid his hall of our nightmare.”

  Hrothgar frowns and glances from his wife to Beowulf, but doesn’t speak.

  “And the next morning,” Queen Wealthow continues, “there was nothing left of any of them but blood and gore to be mopped from the floor…and from the benches…and walls.”

  For a long, lingering moment, Beowulf and Wealthow gaze into one another’s eyes. He sees a storm there in her, a storm no less dangerous, perhaps, than the one he has so recently navigated. And he sees fear and grief, as well, and bitterness.

  “My lady, I have drunk nothing,” Beowulf tells her, at last. “Not yet. But I will kill your monster.”

  And again Hrothgar laughs, but this time it seems hollow, forced, somehow insincere. “Hear that? He will kill the monster!” Hrothgar roars. “The demon Grendel will die and at this brave young man’s hands!”

  “Grendel?” Beowulf asks, still watching the queen.

  “What? Did you not know our
monster has a name?” asks Wealthow. “The scops who sing of our shame and defeat, have they left that part out?”

  “Yes, the monster is called Grendel,” Hrothgar says, speaking much more quietly now, and he begins wringing his hands together. “Yes, yes. It is called Grendel.”

  “Then I shall kill your Grendel,” says Beowulf, speaking directly to Wealthow. “It does not seem so very daunting a task. I slew a tribe of giants in the Orkneys. I have crushed the skulls of mighty sea serpents. So what’s one troll? Soon, my lady, he shall trouble you no longer.”

  The queen starts to reply, opens her mouth, and Beowulf can feel the awful weight of the words lying there on her tongue. But Hrothgar is already speaking again, addressing his court, filled once more with false bravado.

  “A hero!” shouts the king. “I knew that the sea would bring to us a hero! Unferth, have I not said to look ever to the sea for our salvation?”

  There’s a halfhearted cheer from the people on the steps, then, but Wealthow does not join in, and Unferth glares suspiciously at Beowulf and does not answer his king.

  Then Hrothgar leans near to Beowulf and cocks an eyebrow. “Will you go up to the moors, then, and through the forest to the cave by the dark mere?” he asks Beowulf. “Will you fight the monster there in its den?”

  Beowulf nods toward Wiglaf and Hondshew and his other thanes. “I have fourteen brave men with me,” he says. “But we have been long at sea. I think, my lord, that it is high time to break open your golden mead—famed across the world—and to feast together in your legendary hall”

  At this, Unferth steps forward, past Lady Wealthow, to stand before Beowulf.

  “Do you not know, great Beowulf, Geat lord and son of Ecgtheow? The hall has been sealed…by order of the king. Merrymaking in the hall always brings the devil Grendel down upon us.”