Beowulf

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  “I will never let him find you,” his mother whispers from her pool.

  And Grendel stops playing and stares for a moment into the cold water, the uneasy, swirling place where she lies just beneath the surface.

  “Who?” he asks. “Who will you not let find me?”

  She answers him with a loud splash from the pool, and Grendel looks back down at the shells cupped in his right hand. A mussel shell, four sea snails, two cockles, and he tries hard to remember what that means by the rules of his secret game. He knew only a moment before.

  “Is that a question I should not have asked, Modor?”

  “I cannot always keep you safe,” she tells him, and there’s regret and a sort of sadness in her voice, and it doesn’t suit her. “They are weak, yes, these men. But still they slay dragons, and they kill trolls, and they make wars and hold the fate of all the world in their small, soft hands, even as you hold those stray bits of shell in yours.”

  “Then I will stay away from them,” he assures her. “I will hide here…with you. I won’t let them see me. I won’t ever let them see me.”

  “That is not the truth,” she tells him. “Even in dreams, we should not lie to ourselves. You are a curious boy, and you will go to see them, and they will see you.”

  Grendel lays the shells down on the dirt and travertine floor of the cave next to the seal vertebra. He’s forgotten the game now, because it’s something he never invented.

  “Why do they kill dragons?” he asks his mother, and she sighs and slithers about at the edge of her pool.

  “Because they are not dragons themselves,” she replies.

  “And is this why they kill trolls, as well?”

  “They are not trolls,” she answers. “They have neither the fiery breath nor the wings of dragons, nor have they the strength of trolls. And they are ever jealous of those things, and fearful. They destroy, Grendel. They despoil. They destroy for glory, and from jealousy and fear, to make the world safe for themselves. And I cannot hide you always, child. Your father—”

  “Mé fædyr?” Grendel asks her, surprised, having never much dwelled upon the subject of his absent father and, perhaps, thinking himself somehow genuinely fæderleás—born somehow only of woman.

  “He has slain a dragon,” she hisses from the pool.

  “That weorm, Modor, maybe it did not know to hide,” Grendel insists, and he crushes the seal bone to white-gray dust between his fingers. “I will stay always here with you. They will not find me,” he says again. “Not ever.”

  “That is a promise,” she says, and the words float up from the icy water like a threat. “But we break our promises all too soon.”

  Grendel opens his eyes, tumbling back up and up from the cave and that lost, imagined day that never was, tumbling back to the place where his dream began—sitting outside his cave, watching the vanishing, wolf-harrowed sun, his ears aching with the song of King Hrothgar’s keening, yellow-haired bitch.

  “Why can I not bear these sounds, Modor?” Grendel moans and stares up at the burning sky. “They are only songs, yes? Only frivolities and merrymaking, not swords and axes and spears. They are only the thin voices of weak creatures crying out in the dark to hear themselves. How is it that such things do me harm?”

  From the entrance of the cave, his mother grinds bones in her teeth, sucking out the marrow, and does not reply.

  And the harp of Heorot Hall has become a cacophony, the tumult as the very walls of Midgard collapse on that last day of all. Sól has gone from the sky now, leaving it to night and the pursuing wolf, and Grendel digs his claws deep into the rocky soil. Blood drips from his nostrils and stains the ground at his feet.

  “Árvak,” he mutters, recalling finally the names of the horses leashed to the sun’s chariot, the answer to a riddle no one has asked. “Árvak and Alsvin are their names.” He grates his jaws against the song. But he is only Grendel, and he has never slain a dragon, and the song fells great trees and causes the earth beneath him to shudder. The song has frightened away even his mother, the merewife, giant-daughter and pool-haunter. In only another moment, his teeth will shatter and fall like dust from his mouth.

  “I will wake up now,” he growls through blood and crumbling fangs. I am only dreaming this pain. I am only dreaming the noise…

  And when next Grendel opens his eyes, he is awake, awake and alone in his cave at sunset, curled into a corner beneath the hides of deer and bears. His mother is not with him, but the pain is, and the flood of those voices rushing over the land, crashing upon his ears like breakers at the edge of a stormy sea. And the flood will drown him. Grendel opens his jaws wide and howls, vomiting rage and torment and confusion into that hollow space beneath the hills. But his voice, even in this wild frenzy, seems hardly a whimper raised against the flood. He turns toward the pool, wishing she were there, wishing he could find his way down through the depths to her, where she would hold him to her bosom and calm him and soothe away the hurt and fear swallowing him alive.

  Standing, shaking off the sleeping pelts, he howls again, and if his mother were there, she would hear the words lost and tangled within that animal scream. She would hear the grief and the despair at a promise soon to be broken. But she would also hear relief in equal measure, that shortly he will crush and squeeze and pound the life from these clamorous fools, and they will taste sweet on his tongue. And then, when he is done, the night will be silent again, save those comforting sounds which come from the old forest and the marshlands and the beach. Save the soft dripping of his cave, and the splash of white eels in his mother’s pool.

  8

  Nightfall

  “So, would that be your demon?” Beowulf asks the king, as the ghastly shriek from the moorlands quickly fades away and a sudden hush falls over Heorot Hall. The musicians have all stopped playing, and the Danes and their ladies sit or stand, frozen by the voice of Grendel, each one among them waiting to see if there will be another cry to split the twilight. Hrothgar rubs at his forehead, draws a deep breath and frowns. Glancing toward the sundial carved into the wall, he finds it gone completely dark. The day has ended.

  “Indeed,” the king sighs. “I see that the dreaded hour is come upon us once again.” And he motions toward the sundial.

  “We should clear the hall,” Beowulf says, but already Heorot has begun to empty on its own, the evening’s revelry cut short by those two cries from the direction of the approaching night, and the king rises weary and drunken from his throne.

  “Well, it’s just as well. This old man needs his rest,” he says, and looks about until he sets eyes upon his queen standing not far away, watching Beowulf. “My beauty,” he says to her. “Will you be so kind as to help me find my way down to sleep? Sometimes, I think I have almost forgotten the path.” And he holds out a withered, trembling hand to his young wife. She hesitates a moment, still looking at Beowulf.

  “My dear?” the king asks her, thinking that perhaps she has not heard him. “Come along. I do not believe I am yet either so drunk or infirm that we might not take some small scrap of pleasure beneath the sheets.”

  “A moment more, please,” she says. “You go along without me. I promise, I shall not be very far behind.”

  “She promises…” Hrothgar mutters, only half to himself. Then, speaking to the Geat, he says, “I hope to see you in the morning, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow…Odin willing. It is a great service you do me and my household this night. Be sure your men secure the door.”

  “It will be done, my lord,” Beowulf assures him. “We will take all possible precautions.”

  Four of the Danish thanes come bearing Hrothgar’s litter, having threaded their way through the thinning, nervous crowd. When they’ve lowered it to the floor, the old king steps down from the throne dais—aided by Unferth—and he climbs into the seat mounted there upon the sturdy platform. The thanes groan and heave and lift him into the air, supporting his weight and the weight of the litter upon their strong shoulders, and B
eowulf bows respectfully to the Lord of Heorot Hall.

  “Good night, brave warrior, Hygelac’s heir,” the king says to Beowulf. “Show the fiend no mercy. Give no quarter. Remember all those he has so callously murdered.”

  “No mercy,” answers Beowulf, and the king smiles and orders the thanes to bear him away to his bedchamber.

  “Yes. Good night, brave Beowulf.” Unferth sneers. “And I trust you’ll keep a weather eye peeled for sea monsters. I’m sure that imagination of yours is fair teeming with them.”

  “I am disappointed, Unferth, that you will not be joining us tonight in our vigil,” Beowulf replies, looking the Dane straight in his green eyes. “Surely Odin Allfather has prepared a place in his great hall for you, as well.”

  “I already have my duties,” Unferth replies curtly. “You see to yours,” and then he turns and follows the thanes as they ferry King Hrothgar from the hall.

  “It’s a grievous responsibility,” says Wealthow, when Unferth has gone. She’s still standing there beside Beowulf at the edge of the dais. “Cowering in the shadows and cleaning up after a sick old man. But at least it’s a duty to which he’s well suited.”

  “Your song was beautiful,” Beowulf tells her, changing the subject, not wishing to speak any more of Unferth. “But you need to go now.”

  “Of course. Grendel. That demon is my husband’s shame.”

  “Not a shame,” Beowulf tells her, and he begins loosening the leather straps and buckles on his breastplate. “A curse.”

  “No, my lord, a shame,” Wealthow says, and she furrows her brow and looks down at her feet “My husband has no…” but then she pauses, glancing back up at Beowulf. “He has no sons to fight this evil, no Danish son to restore honor to our house. And he will have none, for all his talk of bedding me.”

  Beowulf removes his heavy iron breastplate and lets it fall, clanging to the floor between them, and then he begins unfastening his belt. Behind him, Hondshew enters the hall, though Beowulf had not noticed his absence. Olaf and another of the Geats begin to laugh, making some joke at Hondshew’s expense, and soon the hall rings with their shouts and profanity. Hondshew hurls himself at Olaf, and the two tumble over a table and onto the floor, where they roll about, wrestling and trading blows and curses and insults.

  “Why don’t you stop them?” Wealthow asks, and Beowulf looks over his shoulder at the commotion. The other thanes are cheering them on, some rooting for Hondshew, others for Olaf. Beowulf sees that all the Danes have gone, and only his men remain in the mead hall.

  “They’re only letting off steam,” he tells the queen. “They’ve a long night ahead of them. It is good to laugh before a battle.”

  “But if they knock themselves senseless—”

  “You really do need to go now, Your Majesty,” and at that he tugs his tunic off over his head and drops it on the floor atop his breastplate.

  “What exactly are you doing?” the queen asks, staring perplexed at the pile of clothing and armor. Beowulf has already begun shrugging off his chain mail.

  “When Grendel comes, we will fight as equals,” he tells her, and continues to undress. “As I understand it, the creature has no sword, no shield, no helmet. He does not know strategy nor the art of war. And I have been assured that I have no weapon capable of slaying this monster. But I have my teeth, and sinews of my own.”

  “But…my Lord Beowulf,” Wealthow protests, and she stoops to retrieve his discarded breastplate. “Your armor.”

  “Armor forged of man will only slow me. No. We will fight tonight as equals, this Grendel and I. The Fates will decide. The Norns have already woven their skein, and I cannot undo it, not with leather or cold iron. Let the demon face me unarmed, if he so dares.”

  “Do not be foolish. Do not throw your life away, Beowulf. You may be our last hope in all the world.”

  “Go now, good queen,” he tells her. “Go to your husband’s bed, before I have my men remove you. Or before I am forced to do it myself.” And now the Geat’s long mail shirt falls nosily to the floor, and he stands before Wealthow, naked save the modesty of a loincloth.

  “You would not!” she gasps.

  “Aye, it would be my pleasure, though I doubt the king would much approve.”

  “Are all the men of your country so brazen?” she asks, and takes a step backward, putting more distance between herself and Beowulf.

  “They do their best, though I am generally held to be the worst of the lot.” And now Beowulf can see that Wealthow is blushing, though whether it is at the sight of him unclothed or at his words, he cannot say. “This is my final warning,” he says, and takes a step toward her.

  “Very well then, son of Ecgtheow. Do as you will, as I’m quite sure you ever have,” and she hurries away, disappearing through the anteroom door, which she slams shut behind her. He listens while she bolts it from the other side.

  And finally Beowulf stands alone, gazing down at the dull glint of his broadsword and mail lying discarded upon the floor of Heorot, thinking more on the queen’s violet eyes than on the beast Grendel or his weapons or the trials awaiting him and his thanes. It is good, he thinks, to face the coming fray with such a beauty yet so fresh in one’s mind. All good men fight for honor and to prove themselves worthy of a seat in Valhalla, but they might also justly fight to keep safe those too few beautiful sights that lie here beneath the wall of Midgard, below the path of sun and moon. And then there’s a loud crash somewhere in the hall behind him, the sound of shattering wood, and Beowulf turns to see Hondshew helping a stunned Olaf to his feet, hauling him from the ruins of one of Hrothgar’s banquet tables.

  “Here now. Take care you do not break him entirely,” Beowulf shouts at Hondshew. “It would be a shame to rob the poor beast of that simple pleasure.”

  “It’s not going to hold,” Wiglaf says, watching and shaking his head as the other thanes labor to secure the great main door of Heorot. “Right off, I can tell you that for nothing.” He turns and finds Beowulf standing directly behind him, naked save his breechclout.

  “You’re mad, you know that?”

  “Yes, Wiglaf,” Beowulf replies. “You’ve brought it to my attention on more than one occasion.”

  “And this door here, then you know I’m right about that as well?”

  Beowulf bites thoughtfully at his lower lip and watches as four of his men set the immense crossbar into its black iron brackets, barricading the door. Then he nods and spares a smile for Wiglaf.

  “Of course you’re right about the door,” he says. “If this door, or any other, would keep our fiend at bay, do you think the Danes would have any need of us?”

  “Then why bother with the blasted thing at all,” Wiglaf sighs, squinting up into the gloom near the ceiling at the clumsy system of pulleys and chains that has been rigged to raise and lower the heavy crossbar. “Why not just leave it standing wide open as an invitation to the bastard and get this over with?”

  “If we’re lucky, it’ll buy us a little time,” Beowulf replies. “Think of it as an alarm.”

  “An alarm.”

  “Sure. Hrothgar’s door here might not keep this Grendel beast out, Wiglaf, but it’s bound to make an awful racket coming through, don’t you think?”

  “An alarm,” Wiglaf says again and scratches at his beard, the worried expression not leaving his face.

  “Something vexes you, Wiglaf.”

  “Aye, it does. I don’t like the smell of this one, my lord. Look at them,” and Wiglaf motions toward the thanes, Hondshew and Olaf and the rest.

  “I admit,” Beowulf says, “they’ve smelled better. Then again, on occasion they’ve smelled worse.”

  “Fine. Jest if it pleases you,” Wiglaf frowns, and he kicks halfheartedly at the door with the toe of his right boot. “But the men are not prepared. They’re still tired from the sea. They’re distracted. Too many untended women about this place, and I do not have to tell you that abstinence prior to battle is essential. A warrior�
�s mind must be unblurred…focused.”

  “Olaf!” Beowulf shouts, startling Wiglaf. “Tell me, Olaf, are you ready for this battle?”

  The fat thane stops tugging at a thick length of rope reinforcing the mead-hall door and turns toward Beowulf. Olaf’s left eye is already swelling shut from his brawl with Hondshew. He blinks and looks confused.

  “Good choice,” Wiglaf mutters.

  Beowulf ignores him and points at Olaf. “I asked you a question, man. Are you ready, right now, to face the murderous demon that haunts this hall?”

  Olaf tugs at an earlobe and glances toward Hondshew. “Huh-huh-huh,” he starts, then stops and starts over again. “Hondshew, huh-huh-he started it.”

  Hondshew stops what he’s doing and points a grubby finger at Olaf. “Wot? You implied that I have intimate relations with sheep and other livestock, so how do you figure I started it? Maybe you need another poke in the—”

  “I’m not asking about the fight,” Beowulf interrupts. “I’m asking Olaf here if he’s ready for the night’s battle. Wiglaf here, he’s worried you’re not focused, Olaf.”

  Olaf continues to tug at his earlobe, but looks considerably more confused than he did a moment earlier. He blinks both his eyes, one right after the other.

  “I can see juh-juh-just fuh-fuh-fine, if that’s what you muh-muh-mean,” he tells Beowulf. “It’s just a shuh-shuh-shiner, that’s all. I can see just fuh-fuh-fine.”