Who's Afraid of Beowulf

by Tom Holt

‘Remember,’ said the superintendent, ‘the last thing we want is a bloodbath.’

  The man in the black pullover grinned at him, his white teeth flashing out from the black greasepaint that covered his face. ‘Sure,’ he said, and stuck another grenade in his belt for luck. He hadn’t been jolted about in a helicopter all the way from Hereford just to ask a lot of terrorists if they fancied coming quietly. ‘How many of them are there?’

  ‘Ten, according to our intelligence,’ said the superintendent.

  ‘One each,’ said the man in the black pullover. He sounded disappointed.

  Just then, there was a rattling of rifle-bolts. A solitary figure with a white flag had appeared on the side of the cliff. ‘Hell,’ said the man in the black pullover.

  ‘Put your hands on your head,’ boomed the megaphone, ‘and walk slowly over here.’ The man dropped the white flag and did as he was told.

  ‘Be careful,’ said the man in the black pullover, ‘it could be a trap.’ But his heart wasn’t in it. He started to take the grenades out of his belt.

  ‘It’s that perishing sorcerer of yours,’ muttered Hjort, staring out over the parapet. ‘He’s gone over to the enemy.’

  ‘Has he indeed?’ said Angantyr grimly. ‘We’ll soon see about that.’ He bent his great ibex-horn bow and sighted along the arrow.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Hjort. ‘You’ll frighten them away. And there’s some more just arrived. In black,’ he added, with approval.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Bothvar, dropping down beside them. He had been searching everywhere for the magic halberd of Gunnar, which he’d put away safely before going into the mound at Rolfsness. Eventually he’d found it down behind the back of the treasure-chests. ‘I do wish people wouldn’t move my things.’

  ‘We’ve just been betrayed by a traitor,’ said Angantyr.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Bothvar.

  ‘And we’re now going over live to the armed siege in Scotland,’ said the newsreader. ‘Our reporter there is Moira Urquhart.’

  The sorcerer-king leant forward and turned up the volume. ‘Are you taping this?’ he asked.

  Thorgeir nodded. ‘I’m having to use the “Yes, Minister” tape, but it’s worth it.’

  ‘They’ll repeat it again soon, I expect,’ said the sorcerer-king. ‘Look, isn’t that Bothvar Bjarki?’ The camera had zoomed in on a helmeted head poking out above the parapet. ‘I’d know that helmet anywhere.’

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ said Thorgeir. ‘That armour of theirs . . .’

  ‘One of the terrorists seems to be shouting something,’ said the reporter’s voice over the close-up of the helmeted head. ‘We’re trying to catch what he’s saying . . . Something about a seagull . . . It could be that they’re demanding that food is sent in.’

  ‘I never could be doing with seagull,’ said the sorcerer-king, spearing an olive. ‘Except maybe in a casserole with plenty of coriander.’

  ‘Fried in breadcrumbs, it’s not too bad,’ said Thorgeir. ‘Isn’t that Angantyr Asmundarson beside him?’

  ‘It seems that the terrorists are in fact assuring us that they have plenty of food,’ said the reporter. ‘In fact they’re telling us that they’re capable of withstanding a long siege and inviting us to storm the castle. In fact,’ said the reporter, ‘they’ve started slow hand-clapping.’

  ‘Childish,’ said the sorcerer-king.

  ‘And since not much seems to be happening at the moment,’ said the reporter, ‘I’m now going to have a few words with the BBC producer, Danny Bennett, who was held hostage by the terrorists and managed to escape a few minutes ago. Tell me, Danny . . .’

  ‘Who’s he?’ asked Thorgeir.

  ‘Search me,’ said the sorcerer-king.

  ‘They aren’t terrorists at all,’ Danny Bennett was saying. ‘More like . . . well, it’s a long story. Big, but long.’ He mopped his brow with the corner of the blanket they had insisted on putting round his shoulders. ‘And they didn’t kidnap me.’

  ‘You mean you went with them voluntarily?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Danny said. ‘That is, they rescued me when I was wandering about lost in the mountains. I’d got separated from the rest of the crew, you see. And then they told me all about it, and it was such a big story that I decided I’d stay with them. Until the shooting started, of course.’

  ‘I see.’ The reporter was trying to get a good look at the back of Danny’s head, to see if there were any signs of a recent sharp blow. Still, she reflected, it was good television.

  ‘I can’t say much about the story just now,’ Danny went on, ‘because it’s all pretty incredible stuff and, anyway, I told Derek all about it over the phone from the police station at Bettyhill . . .’

  ‘You mean you were in contact with the BBC at the time of the breakout?’ The reporter was clearly interested. ‘Are you trying to say there’s been a cover-up?’

  ‘How the hell do I know?’ Danny said. ‘There isn’t a telly in that bloody cave.’

  ‘What were you saying about their armour?’ said the sorcerer-king.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Thorgeir Storm-Shepherd. ‘It’ll be enchanted, won’t it?’

  ‘Sod it,’ said the sorcerer-king. ‘Hang on, something’s happening.’

  ‘The hell with this,’ said Bothvar. He was hoarse from shouting. ‘If they’re just going to sit there, when they know about the secret passage and everything . . .’

  ‘Maybe they don’t,’ said Angantyr. ‘Maybe he hasn’t told them.’

  Bothvar laughed, but Angantyr wasn’t so sure. Danny hadn’t seemed the treacherous type to him. ‘Maybe he went to negotiate,’ he suggested.

  ‘Without telling us?’

  ‘We wouldn’t have let him go if he’d told us,’ said Angantyr. Bothvar considered this.

  ‘True,’ said Ohtar, testing the edge of his sword with his thumb. ‘And he did say he liked my cooking. Can’t be all bad.’

  ‘And what does that prove?’ said Bothvar. ‘The man’s either a liar or an idiot. How are we for javelins, by the way?’

  ‘Running a bit low,’ said the hero Hring, who was quartermaster. ‘They don’t throw them back, you see.’

  ‘That’s cheating,’ said Bothvar. ‘If they go on like that, we’ll have to stop throwing them. Still, there’s rocks.’

  ‘I think he went out there to try to negotiate,’ repeated Angantyr Asmundarson. ‘Otherwise they’d have made an assault on the hidden passage by now.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Hjort. He could see no other possible explanation for the enemy’s lack of activity. ‘After all, they outnumber us at least eight to one.’ He said this very loudly, in the hope that the enemy might overhear him. They obviously needed to be encouraged.

  ‘And he did try to warn us about the big metal seagulls they used to find us. And about the Special Effects,’ Angantyr continued. ‘I think he got frightened and went out to try to negotiate.’

  ‘Frightened?’ said Bothvar incredulously. ‘What by?’ He picked a spent bullet out of his beard and threw it away.

  ‘In which case,’ said Hring, ‘they’ve detained a herald.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Bothvar. ‘We must do something about that.’

  ‘The King did say we were only to defend ourselves,’ said the hero Egil Kjartansson, called the Dancer, or more usually the Wet Blanket. ‘No attacking, those were his orders.’

  ‘But this is different,’ said Angantyr. ‘Detaining a herald is just like attacking, really. You’ve got to rescue your heralds, or where would you be?’

  There was, of course, no answer to that. ‘All right then,’ said Egil Kjartansson, ‘but don’t blame me if we get into trouble.’

  ‘Hoo-bloody-ray, we’re going to do something at last.’ Hjort rubbed his hands together and put his left arm through the straps of his shield. ‘Starkad! Hroar! Come over here, we’re going to attack.’

  The remaining heroes rushed to the parapet, while Hring distri
buted the javelins. Starkad Storvirksson, who was the King’s berserk, lifted his great double-handed sword and began the chant to Odin.

  ‘Can it,’ Bothvar interrupted him. ‘We’ve wasted enough time as it is.’

  With one movement, like a wolf leaping, Starkad Storvirksson sprang up on to the parapet and brandished his sword. Then he hopped down again.

  ‘Bothvar,’ he said plaintively, ‘I’ve forgotten my battle-cry. ’

  ‘It’s “Starkad!”, Starkad,’ said Bothvar. ‘Can we get on, please?’

  With a deafening roar of ‘Starkad!’ the berserk vaulted over the parapet and led the charge. After him came Bothvar, wielding the halberd of Gunnar, with Angantyr Asmundarson close behind and Hroar almost treading on his heels. Then came Egil Kjartansson, his shield crashing against his mail shirt as he ran; Hring and Hjort, running like hounds on a tantalising scent, and finally Ohtar, who had finished up the seagull flan because nobody else wanted any more, and had raging indigestion as a result. In their hands their swords flashed, like the foam on the crests of the great waves that pounded the rocks below them, and as they ran the earth shook. A man with a megaphone stood up as they charged, thought better of it, and ducked down; a moment later, Bothvar’s javelin transfixed the spot where he had been standing, its blade driven down almost to the shaft in the dense springy peat.

  ‘That’ll do me,’ said the man in the black pullover, as the spear-shaft quivered beside him. ‘Let ’em have it.’ His men shouldered their automatic rifles and started to fire.

  ‘Don’t bother with shooting over their heads,’ said the man in the black pullover.

  ‘We’re not,’ said one of his men. He looked worried.

  ‘Told you,’ said Thorgeir, pointing at the screen. The picture was wobbling fearfully, as if the cameraman was running: a close-up of one of the heroes, dribbling an unexploded grenade in front of him as he charged.

  ‘Can’t think of everything, can I?’ grumbled the sorcerer-king. ‘Anyway, we can fix that later.’

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ panted the reporter. ‘All the bullets and bombs and things seem to be having no effect on them at all. They’re just charging . . . And the police are running away . . . For Christ’s sake, will you get me out of here? This is Moira Urquhart, BBC News, Borve Castle.’

  The picture shook violently and the screen went blank. Someone had dropped the camera.

  ‘Pity,’ said the sorcerer-king. ‘I was enjoying that.’

  Bothvar Bjarki leant on his halberd and tried to get his breath back. ‘Swizzle,’ he gasped.

  ‘You’re out of condition, you are,’ said Hjort, mopping his forehead with the hem of his cloak.

  Overhead, the helicopters were receding into the distance, their fuselages riddled with javelins and arrows, flying as fast as they could in the general direction of Hereford. ‘Chicken!’ Hjort roared after them. He tied a knot in the barrel of an abandoned rifle and sat down in disgust.

  ‘I nearly got the leader of those men in black,’ said Starkad Storvirksson. ‘I thought for a moment he was going to stand, but in the end he jumped on to the metal seagull along with all the others.’ He dropped the piece of helicopter undercarriage he had been carrying and went off to help Hring pick up the arrows.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Angantyr. ‘It was a victory, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Bothvar yawned. ‘Anyway, they might come back.’ He chopped up a television camera to relieve his feelings. ‘Oh, look,’ he said, ‘there’s glass in these things.’

  Angantyr sheathed his sword. ‘You know what we haven’t done?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We haven’t rescued the herald,’ Angantyr said. ‘That’s no good, is it?’

  ‘Maybe he wasn’t a herald after all, only a traitor,’ said Ohtar. He had found a lunch-box dropped in the rout and was investigating the contents. ‘Anyway, we did our best.’ But Angantyr jumped up and started to search. He did not have to look far. Danny, with a disappointing lack of imagination, had climbed a tree, only discovering when he reached the top that it was a thorn-tree and uninhabitable.

  ‘Hello,’ Angantyr said, ‘what are you doing up there?’

  ‘Help!’ Danny explained. ‘I’m stuck.’

  With a few blows of his sword, Angantyr chopped through the tree and pushed it over. Danny crawled out and collapsed on the ground. ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘We came to rescue you,’ said Angantyr. ‘You did go to try to negotiate, didn’t you?’ he asked as an afterthought. Danny assured him that he had. ‘And you didn’t tell them about the secret passage?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Danny replied. He had tried to, but no one would listen.

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ Angantyr said cheerfully. ‘You’ve got thorns sticking in you.’ Danny followed Angantyr back to where the other heroes were sitting and thanked them for rescuing him. He didn’t feel in the least grateful, but having seen the heroes in action he reckoned that tact was probably called for.

  ‘No trouble,’ said Ohtar. He bit into a chocolate roll he’d found in the lunch-box and spat it out again. ‘Don’t like that,’ he said.

  ‘You’re supposed to take the foil off first,’ Danny said.

  ‘Gold-plated food,’ said Ohtar admiringly. ‘Stylish.’

  The spokesman from Highlands and Islands Development Board was refusing to comment, and Thorgeir switched the set off. The sorcerer-king was counting on his fingers.

  ‘So that leaves four unaccounted for,’ he said. ‘The King, the wizard, Arvarodd of Permia and Brynjolf the Shape-Shifter.’

  ‘Plus that lady archaeologist makes five,’ said Thorgeir. ‘Trouble is we haven’t the faintest idea where they are.’

  ‘You’re worrying again,’ said the sorcerer-king. He turned to his desk and tapped a code into his desktop terminal.

  ‘Trying the Hendon computer again?’ Thorgeir asked. The sorcerer-king shook his head, and pointed to the screen. On a green background, little Viking figures were rushing backwards and forwards, vainly trying to avoid the two ravening wolves that were chasing them through a stylised maze.

  ‘I had young Fortescue run it up for me this morning, ’ said the sorcerer-king. ‘He’s good with computers, that boy.’

  Thorgeir shook his head sadly, but said nothing. There had been a word in one of the Old Norse dialects that exactly described the sorcerer-king. ‘Yuppje,’ he murmured under his breath, and went away to get on with some work.

  The new car, despite being a useless old wreck, had a radio in it, and the King’s company were listening to the news.

  ‘The search is continuing,’ said the newsreader, ‘for the ten men who routed police and SAS units in a pitched battle in the north of Scotland yesterday.They are believed still to be in the Strathnaver district. Two companies of Royal Marines have reinforced the police, and Harriers from RAF Lossiemouth are on standby. In the House of Commons, the Defence Minister has refused to reply to Opposition questions until the conclusion of the operation. ’

  The King shrugged his shoulders. ‘Might as well leave them to it,’ he said. ‘They seem to be coping.’

  ‘You should have told me about the armour,’ Hildy said.

  ‘You should have told me about the Special Effects,’ replied the King. ‘Now you see what I mean about the decline of civilisation. But we can’t leave things too long. It depends on what he’s doing. If he’s gone up there or sent someone to put a counter-spell on the lads, it’ll all be over in a matter of minutes. Of course, he’ll have to find them first. But with luck . . .’

  Hildy parked the car, praying that it wouldn’t be clamped while they were inside the Museum, for that would interfere quite horribly with their well-planned escape. Still, she reflected, so many things could go wrong with this lunatic enterprise that it was pointless to worry about any one of them.

  The King, the wizard, Arvarodd and Brynjolf had put their mail shirts on under large raincoats bought that afternoon with par
t of the proceeds of the King’s ring and hung short swords by their sides. For her part, Hildy had been given a small flat pebble with a rune scratched on it which was supposed to have roughly the same effect as an enchanted mail shirt, and she had put it in her pocket wrapped up in two handkerchieves and a scarf, to protect her against the side-effect (incessant sneezing). She had also found the magic charms that Arvarodd had lent her on her first trip to London; she offered to return them, but Arvarodd had smiled and told her to hang on to them for the time being.

  Past the guards at the big revolving door without any trouble. Up the main staircase and through the Egyptian galleries, then out along a room full of Greek vases and they were there.

  The lecturer was giving the afternoon lecture. This time his audience consisted of five Germans, three schoolboys, a middle-aged woman and her small and disruptive nephew. No point in even considering the Beowulf quotation.

  ‘Well,’ said Brynjolf, as they stood in front of the big glass case that contained the shield, harp and helmet, ‘what’s the plan?’

  ‘Who needs a plan?’ replied the King. ‘But we’ll just wait till these people go away again.’

  ‘That’s all wrong, of course,’ said Arvarodd, contemplating the helmet, which teams of scholars had pieced together from a handful of twisted and rusty fragments. ‘You imagine wearing that.’

  Unfortunately the lecturer, who was just approaching the Sutton Hoo exhibit, took that as a question. After all, it was a comment he had often been faced with, and by now he had worked out a short and well-phrased answer. He gave it. Arvarodd listened impatiently.

  ‘Here,’ he said when the lecturer had finished, ‘give me a pencil and a bit of paper.’ Resting the paper on the side of the glass case, he drew a quick sketch of what the helmet should have looked like. ‘Try that,’ he said.

  ‘But that . . . that’s brilliant,’ said the lecturer, his audience quite forgotten. ‘So that’s what that little bobble thing was for.’

  ‘Stands to reason,’ said Arvarodd.