Who's Afraid of Beowulf

by Tom Holt

  ‘If I tell you,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘you won’t turn into a bird or something and fly away? Give me your word of honour.’

  ‘On my word of honour,’ said Danny. Obviously, he reflected, the man really didn’t know what a television producer was, or he would have demanded a different oath.

  ‘We’re King Hrolf’s men,’ whispered Angantyr. ‘We went to sleep in the ship, and now we’ve been woken up for the final battle.’

  ‘You mean the ship at Rolfsness?’ Danny asked. Something at the back of his mind was making sense of this, although he wished it wouldn’t. By and large, he preferred it when he thought he was going mad.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Angantyr patiently. ‘We were asleep in the ship for twelve hundred years, and now we’ve woken up.’

  Danny closed his eyes. ‘Then, what about the grey suits?’

  ‘You mean the clothes? That Hildy got them for us. She said we’d be less conspicuous dressed like this.’

  ‘Hildy Frederiksen?’

  ‘Hildy Frederik’s-daughter. Can’t be Frederiksen, she’s a woman. Stands to reason.’ Angantyr shook his head. ‘Funny creature. But bright, I’ll say that for her. It was lucky we met her, really, what with her knowing the sagas and all. Between you and me,’ he whispered into Danny’s ear, ‘I think old Arvarodd’s gone a bit soft on her. No accounting for taste, I suppose, and there was that time at Hlidarend—’

  ‘Could we go through this one more time?’ Danny said. ‘You were actually in the ship when Frederiksen went into the mound?’

  ‘Course we were.’ It suddenly occurred to Angantyr that the prisoner might find this hard to believe, if he didn’t know the story. So he told him the story. Even when he had done this, the prisoner seemed unconvinced.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Danny said, when Angantyr put this to him. ‘I’m not calling you a liar, really. But it’s all the magic stuff. You see . . .’

  Angantyr remembered something he had overheard the King saying to Hildy, or it might have been the other way around. ‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘You call it something else now, don’t you? Technology or something.’

  ‘No, that’s quite different,’ Danny interrupted. He had a terrible feeling that there was something wrong with his line of argument. ‘Technology is healing the sick, and doing things automatically. Magic is—’

  ‘Watch this,’ Angantyr said, and from his pocket he pulled a small doe-skin pouch. ‘Here’s a bit of technology I picked up in Lapland when I went raiding there.’ He emptied the contents of the pouch on to the ground, and picked up two small bones and a pebble. Then he drew his knife, and with a single blow cut off his left hand just above the wrist. Danny tried to scream, but before the muscles of his larynx had relaxed from the first shock of what he had seen Angantyr picked up his severed left hand with his right hand and put it on Danny’s knee.

  ‘Hold that for me, will you?’ he said cheerfully. Then he popped the pebble into his mouth, took back the severed hand and drew it back on to his wrist like a glove. Then, with his left hand, he took the pebble out of his mouth, wiped it on his trouser-leg and put it back in the pouch. ‘How’s that for technology?’ he said. ‘Or do you want to try it for yourself?’

  Danny assured him that he did not.

  ‘It’s a bit like grafting apples,’ said Angantyr, ‘only quicker. What was the other thing you said? Doing things automatically. Right.’

  He threw the two small bones up in the air and blew on them as they fell. One started to glow with a bright orange light, and the other burst into a tall roaring flame. Angantyr blew on it again, and it grew smaller, like a gas jet being turned down. Then he whistled, and the flame stopped.

  ‘That’s just a portable one,’ he said, putting the bones and the pouch away. ‘You can get them bigger for lighting a house and cooking large meals. And they’re more controllable than an open fire for gentle simmering and light frying. Cookability, you might say.’

  Just then, Ohtar came back, throwing down a large sack. Angantyr turned and looked at him cautiously.

  ‘Couldn’t find any rabbits,’ said Ohtar, sitting down beside them and opening the sack. ‘Will seagull be all right?’

  According to the road signs at Melvich, they had finished digging up the A9 at Berriedale, and the main road along the coast was fully open again. Hildy was relieved; she had not been looking forward to going back down the Lairg road, for she felt sure that if their enemy had heard about them he would be watching it, and probably the Helmsdale road as well. The main road would be much safer, as well as quicker.

  She still had her doubts about leaving the rest of the heroes to their own devices, even in the wilds of Strathnaver; but she consoled herself with the thought that it would have been even more dangerous to take them to London, not to mention the expense of food, accommodation and Tube tickets for them all. As she turned these questions over in her mind, she realised, with no little pride, that she had become the effective leader of the company, and as she drove she found herself composing the first lines of her own saga. ‘There was a woman called Hildy Frederiksen . . .’

  ‘Mind out,’ said the King suddenly, ‘you’re going out into the middle of the road.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Hildy mumbled. It was like having driving lessons with her father. Even now, seven years after she had passed her test, he still tended to give her helpful advice, such as ‘Why aren’t you in third?’ and ‘For Christ’s sake, slow down,’ when she was doing about thirty-five along the freeway. She hurriedly put Hildar Saga Frederiksdottur back on the bookshelf of her mind, and concentrated on keeping closer in to the side of the road.

  The King, she felt, was adapting remarkably quickly to the twentieth century, asking perceptive questions and making highly intelligent guesses about the various things he saw as they drove along. Even when they had passed through Inverness, the King’s first sight of a major town had not seemed to throw him in any way. When she asked him about this, he simply said that he had seen many stranger things than that in his life, especially in Finnmark, and he expected to see many things stranger still. That, Hildy reckoned, she could personally guarantee. Large container-lorries seemed to intrigue him, but aircraft he regarded as inefficient and somehow rather old-fashioned. The one thing he did find fault with was what he called the ‘decline of civilisation’. Coming from a Viking, Hildy thought, that was a bit much, but the King refused to be drawn on the subject, and Hildy guessed that he meant all that noble-savage stuff that you got in Victorian academic writing.

  Rather than risk staying the night in a hotel, they left the motorway at Penrith and found a deserted corner of Martindale Common, near where, disconcertingly enough, the King had fought a battle with the Saxons.

  ‘A race of men I never did take to,’ the King added, as they roasted the inevitable rabbit. ‘What became of them, by the way?’

  Hildy told him, and he said that he wasn’t in the least surprised. ‘A nation of shopkeepers,’ he muttered, ‘bound to do well in the end.’

  Hildy had written a paper on early Saxon trade, and would have discussed the matter further, but the King seemed not to be in the right mood. In fact, she thought to herself, he’s been strange all day. Preoccupied.

  The next day, after filling up with petrol at a service station (enough tokens now for a cut-glass decanter, only she didn’t want one), they pressed on towards London. In the back, Arvarodd and the wizard were playing the same complicated game of chess that had kept them occupied all the way from Caithness, and the journey seemed not to trouble them at all. It was only when they stopped outside Birmingham for more petrol and a sandwich that Hildy noticed that the shape-changer was nowhere to be seen. ‘Not again,’ she muttered to herself, and asked where he’d got to.

  ‘Down here,’ said one of the chess-pieces.

  ‘We left the black rook behind,’ Arvarodd explained.

  ‘But don’t you mind?’ Hildy asked the black rook. The rook shrugged its rigid shoulders. />
  ‘It passes the time,’ he said. ‘And chess-pieces don’t get travel-sick.’

  ‘It’s just that black always seems to win,’ Arvarodd said. They had drawn for colours before setting off, and he was playing white. ‘Not that I mind that much, of course. I generally lose to Kotkel anyway.’

  ‘Do chess-pieces get hungry?’ Hildy asked. She had only bought enough sandwiches for four.

  ‘This one does,’ said the rook firmly. Then the wizard grabbed him by the head and used him to take Arvarodd’s queen.

  They arrived in London late in the evening, and Hildy realised that she had made no plans for their stay there.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said the King absently. ‘We can sleep in this thing.’

  Hildy started to explain about yellow lines, traffic wardens and loitering with intent, but the King wasn’t listening. He was looking about him and frowning deeply.

  ‘Of course,’ Hildy said, ‘this must be all totally strange to you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the King. ‘It’s most depressingly familiar. ’

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Hildy.

  ‘I assure you it is. Isn’t it, lads?’

  Arvarodd looked up from the chessboard. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘I’ve been here before. It’s just like—’

  ‘It’s just like Geirrodsgarth,’ explained the King, ‘where the sorcerer-king had his first stronghold, and which we erased from the face of the earth, so that not even its foundations remained.’

  Hildy shook her head. ‘Surely not,’ she said.

  ‘I started to worry when we went to Wick, but it might just have been coincidence. At Inverness I felt sure. All the other cities we have passed confirmed my suspicions. The enemy has built his new city as a replica of the old one, except that it’s much bigger and rather more primitive. ’

  ‘Primitive?’

  ‘Oh, decidedly so. For a start, the whole of Geirrodsgarth was covered over with a transparent roof. But I suppose it’s because he could only influence its design, not order it entirely according to his wishes. All the buildings in Geirrodsgarth were square towers like those over there.’ He waved his hands at a grove of tower-blocks in the distance. ‘I suppose he found the Saxons rather more stubborn than the Finns. That’s shopkeepers for you.’

  In the end, Hildy parked in a side-street in Hoxton, beside the Regent’s Canal; it would somehow not be safe to go any further. She was aware of some vague but localised menace, and something of the sort was clearly affecting the King and the wizard, who huddled together in the back of the van and talked in low voices. Hildy realised that the wizard had put aside the language-spell, so that she could not understand what was being said. She felt betrayed and rejected. In a strained voice she said something about going and getting some food, and opened the door. The King looked up and said something, but of course she could not understand it. Arvarodd, however, translated for her.

  ‘He says you shouldn’t go,’ he said.

  ‘But I’m hungry,’ Hildy replied. ‘And I’m sure it’ll be all right.’

  The King said something else. ‘He says go if you must, but take the shape-changer with you.’

  ‘Don’t I get any say in the matter?’ asked the black rook. ‘Two more moves and it’ll be check.’

  Arvarodd picked up the rook and offered it to Hildy. ‘Just slip him in your pocket,’ he said.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Hildy stiffly. ‘I don’t want to spoil your game.’

  ‘Just to please me,’ said Arvarodd. Startled, Hildy took it and put it in her pocket. Then she opened the door and slipped out.

  It took a long time for her to find a chip-shop, and she had a good mind not to buy anything for the King or the wizard. In the end, however, she bought five cod and chips, five chicken and ham pies, and a saveloy for herself, as a treat. She failed to notice that the two youths in leather jackets who had been playing the fruit machine had followed her out.

  Halfway back to the van they made their move. One stepped out in front of her, waving a short knife, while the other made a grab for her bag. Hildy froze, clutching the parcels of food to her breast, and made a squeaking noise.

  ‘Come on, lady, give us the bag,’ said the youth with the knife, ‘’cos if you don’t you’ll get cut, right?’

  He took a step forward. At that moment, something fell from Hildy’s pocket and rolled into the gutter. The knifeman looked round, and suddenly dropped his knife. Apparently from nowhere, a terrifying figure had appeared. At first it looked like a gigantic bear; then it was a wolf, with red eyes and a lolling tongue. Finally, it was a huge grim man brandishing a broad-bladed axe. The two youths stared for a moment, then started to run. For a few moments, they thought that they were being pursued by a vast black eagle. They quickened their pace and disappeared round the corner.

  ‘I knew that stuff you sold me was no good,’ said one to the other.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Brynjolf, returning and perching on a wing-mirror. He ruffled his feathers with his beak, and then turned back into a chess-piece. ‘Sorry to be so long,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t make up my mind what to be. The bear usually does the trick, but the wolf is more comfy.’

  ‘That was fine,’ Hildy mumbled. She was breathing heavily, and there was vinegar all over her new anorak. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said a voice from her pocket. ‘Who were they, by the way?’

  ‘Just muggers, I think,’ Hildy replied. ‘That’s sort of thieves.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said her pocket. ‘Young people nowadays. ’

  ‘Don’t say anything to the King,’ said Hildy. ‘He’d only worry.’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  Hildy didn’t tell the King when she got back, but she gave Brynjolf the saveloy. It was, she felt, the least she could do.

  The next morning, they left the van and set off on foot. They went by Tube from Old Street to Bank, and changed on to the Central Line for St Paul’s. The concept of the Underground seemed not to worry the King or the wizard, but Brynjolf and Arvarodd didn’t like the look of it at all.

  ‘You know what I reckon this is?’ Arvarodd whispered to the shape-changer.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Burial-chambers,’ replied the hero of Permia, ‘like those shaft-graves on Orkney only bigger. They must go on for miles.’

  ‘And what are we in, then - a coffin?’ Brynjolf looked around the compartment. ‘Can’t see any bodies.’

  ‘Must be the tombs of kings,’ replied Arvarodd. ‘Look, there’s a diagram or something up on the side.’

  Brynjolf leant forward and studied the plan.

  ‘I reckon you may be right,’ he said, returning to his seat. ‘I think there are several dynasties down here. Those coloured lines joining up the names must be the family-trees. Funny names they’ve got, though. Look, there’s the House of Kensington all buried together: South Kensington, West Kensington, High Street Kensington—’

  ‘Kensington Olympia,’ interrupted Arvarodd. ‘They must have been a powerful dynasty.’

  ‘Them and the Parks,’ agreed Brynjolf. ‘And the Actons away in the west. Hopelessly interbred, of course,’ he added, looking at the numerous intersections of the coloured lines at Euston. ‘No wonder they got delusions of grandeur.’

  Hildy overheard the end of this conversation but decided not to interrupt. It would be too complicated to explain; and, besides, as a trained archaeologist she felt that their explanation was rather better than the conventional one.

  They got off at St Paul’s and were faced by the escalator. This Hildy felt she would have to explain, but the heroes seemed to recognise it at once - they must have had them in Geirrodsgarth. At the foot of it, Arvarodd stopped and studied the notice.

  ‘Dogs must be carried on the escalator,’ he read aloud. ‘I knew we should have brought a dog. I suppose we’ll have to flog up all those stairs now.’

  ‘All right,’ said Brynjolf wearily, ‘leave it to me.’ He sighed h
eavily and turned himself into a small terrier, which Arvarodd picked up and tucked under his arm. ‘Only, if you’ve lost your ticket,’ said the dog, ‘you’re on your own.’

  Once they reached street-level, the object of their quest was obvious. Before Hildy could point to it and identify it as the building she had seen through the stone, her companions were staring at the soaring black tower that dominated the rest of Cheapside.

  ‘That’s him all over,’ said the King. ‘No originality.’

  ‘Well,’ said Arvarodd, ‘do we go in, or what?’ His hand was tightening around the grip of the sports-bag in which he was carrying his mail shirt and short sword.

  ‘No,’ said the King.

  ‘Why not, for crying out loud?’ Hildy could see that Arvarodd was sweating heavily; but he was not afraid. There was something uncanny about him, and Hildy edged away.

  ‘Because we wouldn’t get past the front gate,’ replied the King quietly. For his part, he was as cold as ice. He stood motionless, but his eyes were flicking backwards and forwards as he considered every scrap of evidence that the view of the building had to offer. ‘Or, rather, we would, which would be all the worse for us. I don’t think physical force is the answer.’

  ‘I don’t see that we have that many options,’ muttered Brynjolf. ‘Unless you’d like me—’

  ‘Certainly not,’ snapped the King. ‘Your magic wouldn’t work in there.’ He turned sharply on his heel and walked away.

  ‘Now what?’ Hildy whispered to Arvarodd. ‘He’s not going to give up now, is he?’ Arvarodd shook his head.

  ‘He is the King,’ was all he would say.

  The King was talking with the wizard, and they seemed to have agreed on something, for the King turned back and approached Hildy.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how would the power to work all the machines get into that building?’

  Hildy told him about the mains and the underground cables. He nodded, and suddenly smiled.

  ‘And all the houses and buildings in the city are connected to the same source of power?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Hildy said. ‘I can’t be certain, of course.’