Who's Afraid of Beowulf

by Tom Holt

  ‘Not so good, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Everyone safely rescued, but there were complications.’ He told the King what had happened.

  ‘And,’ he continued, ‘there’s more.You remember those sorcerers in the vans that Hildy told us we should stop?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘One of them, the chief sorcerer, has turned up again. Apparently, the lads captured him wandering about in the hills. Angantyr thinks he’s on our side now.’ He paused to allow the King to draw his own conclusions.

  ‘And is he?’

  ‘Who can tell? After the scuffle, he went off to use one of those telephone things. Could be he really is on our side, but I wouldn’t bet on it.’

  ‘We’ll soon know,’ Hildy said, and looked at her watch. ‘We must find somewhere with a TV set.’

  There was a set in the third pub they tried, but it was showing ‘Dynasty’. There were several protests when Hildy switched the channels, including one from Brynjolf, but when the King stood up and looked around the bar nobody seemed inclined to make too much of it. The nine o’clock news came on. Hildy gripped the stem of her glass and waited.

  First there was a Middle East story, then something about the Health Service and an interview with the minister (‘I know him from somewhere,’ Arvarodd said, leaning forward. ‘Didn’t he use to farm outside Brattahlid?’), followed by a long piece on rate-capping and a minor spy scandal. Then there was a beached whale near Plymouth - the Vikings licked their lips instinctively - and the sports news. Hildy started to relax.

  ‘And reports are just coming in,’ said the presenter, marble-faced, ‘of a major manhunt in the north of Scotland, which is somehow connected with the recent discovery of a Viking ship-burial and the disappearance of an American archaeologist, Hildegard Frederiksen.’

  Panoramic shot of an unidentifiable mountain.

  ‘Ten men, believed to be violent, escaped from police custody today at Bettyhill. They have with them a BBC producer, who they are believed to be holding hostage. Police with tracker dogs are searching for the men, who are thought to be armed with swords, axes and spears. Reports that the men are members of an extremist anti-nuclear group opposed to the Caithness fast-breeder reactor project are as yet unconfirmed. The connection with the burial-mound containing a rich hoard of Viking treasure discovered at nearby Rolfsness is also uncertain. A spokesman for the War Graves Commission refused to comment. The man held hostage, Danny Bennett, is best known for his evocative depictions of Cotswold life, including “The Countryside on Thursday” and “One Man and His Tractor”, which was nominated for the Golden Iris award for best documentary. ’

  ‘I didn’t know you could disappear, Hildy,’ said Brynjolf admiringly. ‘Do you use a talisman, or just runes?’

  Back at the van, the King and his company debated what to do for the best.

  ‘I still say we should make an attack and get it over with,’ said Arvarodd. ‘Stick to what we know, and don’t go getting involved with all these strange people. If we stick around now, and the enemy does come looking for us, we’re done for.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’ The King’s eyes were shining, as they had not done since they left the Castle of Borve. ‘I think our enemy may have got quite the wrong idea from that little exhibition.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Think,’ said the King, smiling. ‘Doesn’t it give the impression that we’re all still up there, being chased across the hills by those soldiers, or whatever they are? He won’t be able to resist the temptation to go up there and see if he can’t find us and finish us off. After all, he has nothing to fear from us, so long as he has the spirits safe here.’

  ‘He might take them with him,’ Hildy suggested.

  ‘He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t risk them falling into our hands. But if he thinks we’re on the run up there - more important, if he thinks we’re so weak that we can be chased around by those idiots Brynjolf was telling us about’ - the King grinned disconcertingly - ‘then he’s not going to be too worried about what we can do to him. He’ll be concentrating more on what he can do to us. And that’ll give us a chance, especially at this end.’

  If that was the King’s definition of a chance, Hildy said to herself, she didn’t like the sound of it. ‘But what about the others?’ she said. ‘What if he catches them?’

  ‘They’ll have to look after themselves,’ said the King shortly, and Hildy could see he was worried. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, Valhalla. That doesn’t really matter at this stage.’

  ‘But surely,’ Hildy started to say; but Arvarodd trod on her toe meaningfully. The pain, even through her moon-boot, was agonising. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she mumbled.

  ‘And meanwhile,’ said the King suddenly, ‘we have work to do.’

  Half-past three in the morning. There were still lights in the windows of Gerrards Garth House; like a crocodile, it slept with its eyes open. Two of the lights, having failed to draw the telex machine into conversation, were playing Goblin’s Teeth.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ said Prexz.

  Zxerp smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Checkmate.’

  ‘But what if . . . ?’ Prexz lifted the piece warily, then put it back. He was worried.

  ‘Ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine sets and nine games to you,’ said Zxerp, ‘and five games to me.’ Could it be that his luck was about to change?

  Prexz knocked over his goblin petulantly. ‘All right, then,’ he said, as casually as he could, ‘I’ll accept your resignation.’

  ‘Who’s resigning?’ Zxerp was setting out the pieces.

  ‘You offered to resign after the last game. I’m accepting. ’

  ‘I’ve withdrawn,’ said Zxerp, shuffling the Spell cards.

  ‘Can’t do that,’ replied Prexz. ‘Rule fifty-seven.’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ said Zxerp. ‘Rule seventy-two. Mugs away.’

  Sullenly, Prexz threw the dice and made his opening gambit. ChuChullainn’s Leap; defensive, but absolutely safe. There was no known way to break service on ChuChullainn’s Leap.

  ‘Checkmate,’ said Zxerp.

  In the street below, a van had drawn up outside the heavy steel doors. The King loosened his short sword in its scabbard and pulled his jacket on over it.

  ‘Remember,’ he said. ‘You two wait down here, keep quiet, and do nothing. Just be ready for us when we come out.’

  Hildy nodded, but Arvarodd made one last effort. ‘Remember Thruthvangir,’ he said.

  The King stiffened. ‘That was different,’ he said. ‘The lifts weren’t working.’

  ‘They might not be working now,’ Arvarodd wheedled, ‘and then where would you be?’

  ‘For the last time,’ said the King, ‘you stay in the van and keep quiet. If we need help, we’ll signal.’

  He opened the back doors and jumped lightly out, followed by the wizard and the shape-changer. They ran silently across to the doors - Hildy was amazed to see how nimbly the wizard moved - and crouched down beside them. The wizard had taken something out of his pocket and was inserting it into the lock.

  ‘Is that an opening spell?’ Hildy whispered.

  ‘No,’ replied Arvarodd, ‘it’s a hairpin.’

  The great door suddenly opened, and Hildy braced herself for the shrill noise of the alarm. But there was silence, and the door closed behind them.

  ‘Well,’ said Arvarodd, ‘they’re on their own now.’ He shrugged his shoulders and ate the last digestive.

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ Hildy said. ‘Why tonight?’

  ‘Obvious,’ said Arvarodd with his mouth full. ‘The Enemy, we hope, has gone off to Scotland. Tomorrow he’ll probably be back, having guessed that we aren’t there. So now’s our only chance.’

  ‘But that’s not what the King said earlier.’

  ‘Him,’ Arvarodd grunted. ‘Changes his mind every five minutes, he does.’

  ‘The King said,’ Hildy insisted, ‘that it w
as too dangerous to try it now. That’s why he was so glad that the others had won us some time.’

  Arvarodd sighed. ‘If you must know,’ he said, ‘he’s worried about the others. He doesn’t think they’ll be able to cope on their own. Probably right. He knows he ought to leave them to it but, then, he’s the King. His first duty is to them. It’s going to be Thruthvangir all over again.’

  ‘What happened at Thruthvangir?’

  ‘The lifts didn’t work.’ Arvarodd scowled at the steel doors. ‘That’s why he left me out. My orders are, if he doesn’t make it, to go back to Scotland and try to save the others. I should be flattered, really.’

  So that was what they had all been whispering about while she was getting petrol. ‘Arvarodd,’ she said quietly, ‘just how dangerous do you think it is?’

  ‘Very,’ said Arvarodd, grimly. ‘Like my mother used to say:“Fear a bear’s paw, a prince’s children,

  A grassy heath, embers still glowing,

  A man’s sword, the smile of a maiden.”

  There’s a lot more of that,’ he continued. ‘Scared me half to death when I was a kid.’

  Hildy, who had, from force of habit, taken out her notebook, put it away again. The verses suggested several fascinating insights into various textual problems in the Elder Edda, but this was neither the time nor the place. ‘If it’s that dangerous,’ she said firmly, ‘we must go and help him.’

  ‘But . . .’ Arvarodd waved his hand impatiently.

  ‘He is the King,’ said Hildy cleverly. ‘Our duty is to protect him.’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Arvarodd grumbled. He rolled the biscuit-wrapper up into a ball and threw it at the windscreen.

  Hildy sat still for a moment, then took the seer-stone from her bag and put it in her eye. She saw the King and his companions crossing a carpeted office. They had not seen the door open behind them, and two men in blue boiler-suits with rifles. Hildy wanted to shout and warn them. The door at the other end of the office opened, and the King shouted and drew his sword. There was a shot and Hildy cried out, but the King was still standing; the man had shot the sword out of his hand. The wizard was shrieking something, some spell or other, but it wasn’t working; and Brynjolf was staring in horror at his feet, which hadn’t turned into a bear’s paws or the wings of an eagle. The guards were laughing. Slowly, the King and his companions raised their hands and put them on their heads.

  ‘Can you see them?’ Arvarodd was muttering. There was sweat pouring down his face.

  ‘Yes,’ Hildy said. ‘It’s no good; they’ve been captured. Their magic isn’t working.’ She looked round, but Arvarodd wasn’t there. He had snatched up his bow and quiver, and was running towards the steel doors. Wailing, ‘Wait for me,’ Hildy ran after him.

  The door was still open. Hildy tried to keep pace with Arvarodd as he bounded up the stairs but she could not. She stopped, panting, at the first landing, and then looked across and saw the lift. Against all her hopes, it was working. She pressed 4 - how she knew it would be the fourth floor she had no idea - and leant back to catch her breath. The doors slid open, and she hopped out.

  What on earth did she think she was doing?

  She turned back, but the lift doors had shut. Down the corridor she could hear the sound of running feet. She opened the door of the nearest office and slipped inside.

  It was a small room, and the walls were covered with steel boxes, like gas-meters or fuseboxes. She had a sudden idea. If she could switch off the lights, perhaps the King could escape in the darkness. She pulled out her flashlight and started to read the labels. Down in a corner she saw a little glass box.

  ‘MAGIC SUPPLY’, read the label. ‘DO NOT TOUCH’. And underneath, in smaller letters: ‘In the event of power supply failure, break glass and press button. This will deactivate the mains-fed spell. The emergency spell will automatically take effect within seven minutes.’

  With the butt of her torch Hildy smashed the glass and leant hard on the button. A moment later, the guards’ rifles inexplicably turned into bunches of daffodils.

  ‘Daffodils?’ asked the King, as he banged two heads together. The wizard shrugged and made a noise like hotel plumbing.

  ‘Fair enough,’ said the King. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  They sprinted back the way they had come, nearly colliding with Arvarodd, who was coming up the stairs towards them.

  ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘Our magic failed,’ replied the King. ‘Then theirs did. No idea why.’

  ‘Have you seen Hildy?’ At that moment, Hildy appeared, running towards them. ‘Quick,’ she gasped, ‘we’ve only got three minutes.’

  A shot from an ex-daffodil bounced off the tarmac as they drove off.

  ‘Far be it from me to criticise,’ said Thorgeir, gripping his seat-belt with both hands, ‘but aren’t you driving rather fast?’

  The sorcerer-king grinned. ‘Yes,’ he said. He drove even faster. Childish, Thorgeir said to himself, but, then, he’s like that. Mental age of seventeen. Only a permanent adolescent would devote hours of his valuable time to laying a spell on a Morris Minor so as to enable it to burn off Porsches at traffic lights. ‘I want to get back to London as quickly as possible,’ he explained.

  ‘Then, why didn’t we fly?’ asked Thorgeir.

  ‘We can do that if you like,’ said the sorcerer-king mischievously. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Stop showing off,’ Thorgeir said. A land-locked Morris Minor was bad enough. ‘You don’t seem to appreciate the situation we’re in.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said the sorcerer-king, putting his foot down hard. ‘That’s why I’m in such a good mood.’

  ‘You seem to have overlooked the fact that they got away,’ Thorgeir shouted above the scream of the tortured engine. He shut his eyes and muttered an ancient Finnish suspension-improving spell.

  ‘Only by a fluke,’ replied the King. ‘Next time they won’t be so lucky. Next time we’ll be there.’

  ‘You think there’ll be a next time?’

  ‘Has to be.’ The sorcerer-king removed the suspension-improving spell and deliberately drove over the cat’s eyes. ‘What else can he do?’

  Thorgeir, whose head had just made sharp contact with the roof, did not reply. The sorcerer-king chuckled and changed up into fourth.

  ‘The trouble with you,’ he said, ‘is that you can’t feel comfortable unless you’re worried about something.’ Thorgeir, who was both worried and profoundly uncomfortable, shook his head, but for once the sorcerer-king had his eyes on the road. ‘You don’t believe in happy endings. Look at it this way,’ he said, overtaking a blaspheming Ferrari. ‘If they had anything left in reserve, why did they try to pull that stunt last night? They’re finished and they know it. That was pure Gunnar-in-the-snake-pit stuff, a one-way ticket to Valhalla. Not that I begrudge them that, of course,’ said the sorcerer-king magnanimously. ‘If they want to go to Valhalla, let them. Nice enough place, I suppose, except that the food all comes out of a microwave these days and the wish-maidens are definitely past their prime. A bit like one of those run-down gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall, if you ask me.’

  Thorgeir gave up and diverted his energies to worrying about the traffic police. Last time, he remembered, the sorcerer-king had let them chase him all the way from Coalville to Watford Gap, and then turned them all into horseflies. Turning them back had not been easy, especially the one who’d been eaten by a swallow.

  ‘Now you’re sulking,’ said the sorcerer-king cheerfully.

  ‘I’m not sulking,’ said Thorgeir, ‘I’m taking it seriously. Who did you leave in charge, by the way?’

  ‘That young Fortescue,’ said the sorcerer-king. ‘Since he’s in on the whole thing, we might as well make him useful. Or a frog. Whichever.’

  Thorgeir shuddered. Much as he deplored unnecessary sorcery, he felt that the frog option would have been safer.

  In fact, the Governor of China elect was doing a perfectly ad
equate job back at Gerrards Garth House. He had seen to the removal and replacement of the anti-magic circuit, debriefed the guards and written a report, all in one morning. At this rate, he felt, he might soon count as indispensable.

  After putting his head round the door at Vouchers to make sure that the prisoners were still there, he sent for the chief clerk of the department and asked him about the arrangements for tracking the getaway van the burglars had used. All that was needed was a simple tap into the police computer at Hendon, he was told, to get the registered owner’s name and address. Then it would be perfectly simple to slip the registration number on to the computer’s list of stolen vehicles and monitor the police band until some eagle-eyed copper noticed it.

  ‘But what if they get arrested?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘Then we’ll know where they are,’ replied the Chief Clerk. ‘Easy.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Kevin objected. ‘They won’t get bail without having plausible identities or anything, and they’ll probably resist arrest and be kept in for that. And we can’t go bursting into a police station to get them; it’d be too risky.’

  The Chief Clerk’s smile was a horrible sight. ‘No sweat,’ he said. ‘Lots of things can happen to them. In the police cells, on remand, being transferred, on their way to the magistrates’ court, anywhere you like. Easiest thing would be to wait till they’re convicted and put away. We can get to them inside with no trouble at all. But I don’t suppose the Third Floor will want to wait that long. Best thing is if they do resist arrest. Dead meat,’ he said graphically. ‘I think our police are wonderful.’

  Kevin Fortescue was relieved to get back to his office, for the Chief Clerk gave him the creeps. Still, he reflected, you have to be hard to get on in Business. He dismissed the thought from his mind and took his well-thumbed Oxford School Atlas from his desk drawer.

  ‘Winter Palace in Chungking,’ he said to himself. ‘Not too cold and a good view of the mountains.’

  Danny Bennett was being shown round the Castle of Borve.