Not Quite Beowulf

by Will Shand

  ‘I think the King has drunk too much!’

  The soldiers laughed.

  ‘I will go and see that he is all right!’

  They cheered and Beowulf set off, smiling and waving, to follow the King.

  Klug shouted down the ladder that led to the beer cellar.

  ‘Hi! It’s me. I’m coming down.’

  He was met by a snatch of drunken song about a very, very, very, big pig.

  He went down the ladder. King Lars’ servants were making the most of the victory over the vicious troll. There were three of them sitting around a table doing what one should do in a beer hall. Two others had obviously done rather better and were lying passed out on the floor.

  ‘Evening,’ greeted Klug.

  The servants laughed heartily at this and Klug decided that in a few more minutes they would also be unconscious.

  ‘Do you know the drinking game “I says, says I; that you must drink?”’

  They didn’t, but they were very willing to learn.

  Lars had staggered along the corridor as quickly as he could, while throwing backward glances at the doorway to the beer hall. He hammered on the Royal Chamber door.

  ‘Let me in! Quickly!’

  There was a pause and then the Queen replied,

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, Lars. Quickly open the door.’

  ‘I’m coming, what’s all the rush? I thought you were going to be at the banquet for a long time yet.’

  Lars could hear the Queen moving, but the door was still firmly shut. He remembered that it was a very secure door. He hammered upon it.

  ‘Quickly, let me in. Beowulf is going to kill me.’

  He looked back up the corridor; there was a brief flash of light. Someone had opened the door. Someone was coming up the corridor. It was Beowulf.

  ‘I don’t think he’d do that,’ shouted the Queen, sleepily, through the door, ‘didn’t he just kill your troll for you.’

  ‘Please, please open the door,’ shouted Lars.

  The Queen was almost moved, ‘please’ was not a regular part of Lars’ vocabulary.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she shouted.

  Lars looked back up the corridor. Beowulf seemed to be in no hurry. He was walking very calmly down the corridor with the knife clearly visible in his right hand. Lars heard the lock click and he pushed hard into the room, knocking the Queen back.

  ‘Careful,’ she shouted. He slammed the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked the Queen.

  ‘I’m keeping him out,’ Lars replied and he turned to bolt the door.

  ‘Ha!’ he shouted through the door, ‘you thought you had me but you were wrong! In the morning my guards will get you. You had best run away in the night, you traitor, you murderer, you assassin!’

  At that moment, Bjorn stepped out from behind the curtain and stabbed him in the back. Bjorn was inexperienced in the art of stabbing and so the blade had not gone in cleanly. It had scraped off the lower part of the King’s shoulder blade and then it had gone in further between the shoulder blade and the top rib. Lars fell over with the dagger stuck in his back.

  ‘Bjorn?’ he asked, stupefied. Bjorn was so shocked by his own violence that he was unable to reply. The King looked at him.

  ‘Bjorn?’ he asked again. He pulled himself up onto his knees, which caused Bjorn to back away. He looked in horror at the King, who still seemed incapable of understanding what had happened. At this point the Queen began to scream.

  ‘Help! Help! Murder!’ she shouted and then much to Bjorn’s surprise she opened the door. Lars and Bjorn both half turned to see that Beowulf, Roscow and a surprisingly healthy looking Steelstrom accompanied by a number of guards were standing in the doorway.

  ‘What are you doing?’ shouted Bjorn at the Queen, but before he could say more the Queen had pulled the dagger from her husband’s back, stepped across the room and stuck the dagger in Bjorn’s throat.

  Blood flowed from the King’s back and from Bjorn’s throat. Bjorn collapsed, bleeding and choking on the floor, while the Queen pointed at him and shouted,

  ‘This man murdered my husband! He must have lain in wait in the corridor and followed him in here when I let him in. He stabbed him in the back! Arrest him!’

  ‘Too late for that,’ said Beowulf cheerfully. ‘It looks as if you avenged him well.’

  It was also looking to be too late for King Lars. The removal of the dagger had opened his wound and his blood was flowing quickly away. No one moved to help him.

  ‘Traitor! Murderer!’ he gasped, but all present could only assume that he meant Bjorn. In a few moments more he lay still on the floor.

  ‘The King is dead,’ said Steelstrom.

  ‘Long live the Queen!’ said Beowulf.

  ‘Long live the Queen!’ chorused the guards.

  The Queen was suddenly overcome, with either exhaustion or relief. She turned to Steelstrom,

  ‘Please see that things are ready for an immediate coronation. It is very dangerous if there is a lapse in the leadership of the country. Although I am overcome by grief, I know my duty and both the nation and my dead husband’s spirit would want the throne properly occupied as soon as can be arranged.’

  She addressed the guards,

  ‘You must remove my husband’s body and that of the traitor. Then you may leave us.’

  Beowulf smiled at the Queen. She smiled back,

  ‘Beowulf may remain.’

  Steelstrom left to oversee the preparations for a coronation, although he had made most of the arrangements in the afternoon. The guards removed the bodies. When they shut the door Beowulf and the Queen were left alone.

  Chapter Twenty One

  In which plans are delayed or carried out, Moonshine and Steelstrom discuss affairs of state and Beowulf and Rosamunde reveal their true feelings.

  ‘I says, says I that you must drink, that you must drink, that you must drink,

  I says, says I that you must drink so drinking you must do!’

  Klug poured his companions another drink each, and they all tried to down them in one, but they were so far on in their drunkenness that they mostly only managed a brief swallow before spilling or spitting out the rest. Nevertheless, Klug observed, it was getting the job done. He poured again,

  ‘Next round!’

  In a brief gap in the game he had climbed the ladder and told Grendel’s mother to wait. They were so drunk that Klug thought he could have almost walked her through, but he wanted to take no chances. They had the whole night.

  ‘Let me get you a drink.’

  Steelstrom did not actually get up and get a drink for a rather shaken Moonshine, who found himself sat opposite the elderly arms dealer, but he pointed out the bottle and a glass. Moonshine wondered why he was there when he would have much rather been asleep. Minutes earlier, two of Beowulf’s heavily armoured guards had turned up at his quarters and told him to get dressed. He had asked them why he was needed and what was so important that it could not wait until the morning, but they had been very far from talkative while being persuasive in the way that large, heavily armed men are persuasive. They had briskly escorted him to Steelstrom’s room. He assumed that they were still outside. He poured a drink and nervously waited for Steelstrom to explain.

  Steelstrom, in turn, eyed Moonshine with curiosity, while he professed himself to be extraordinarily devout Steelstrom was entirely devoid of any religious, moral or spiritual feeling. He was not troubled by conscience. Whatever he imagined would be best for himself seemed to have an unshakeable moral definition that he was always able to find and justify. It occurred to him that Moonshine might be a creature of different beliefs and behaviour; possibly a less venal creature altogether. If that proved to be the case then Steelstrom realised that he would need to be either cunning or very firm. He was happy with either position. He decided to be blunt.

  ‘The King is dead.’

  Moonstone was startled and disbelieving.<
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  ‘What? How?’

  ‘He was murdered. He as stabbed by that ingrate, Bjorn the Banker. Tonight, after the banquet.’

  Moonshine appeared to still be failing to assimilate the information.

  ‘Bjorn the Banker lay in wait for our noble King Lars the First, and, as our great late King returned to his Royal chambers, after the feast in honour of the hero Beowulf, who slew the troll Grendel, the cowardly banker jumped out and stabbed him in the back. Fortunately, the good Queen was on hand and killed him with his own dagger.’

  Steelstrom paused, Moonstone vacillated.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why did the Queen kill Bjorn? Well, obviously he had killed the King. It was the right thing to do. What do you mean “why?”

  ‘No. Why did Bjorn the banker kill the King?’

  Steelstrom thought; the truth would do the surviving monarch and her new associate no good at all. He lied,

  ‘Because he thought that the King owed him money.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘I don’t know. What difference would that make?’

  Steelstrom glared at Moonstone, Moonstone wilted.

  ‘None at all, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Having triumphed in the argument and cowed his interlocutor, Steelstrom pursued his purpose.

  ‘There will need to be a coronation immediately. You will officiate.’

  Moonstone considered this. It was his job to officiate at coronations; however he was sure there should be a suitable delay for planning. He attempted to diplomatically explain this to Steelstrom, but he was cut short immediately.

  ‘Security of the realm!’ explained Steelstrom, ‘a vacant throne is a vacuum and we all know what nature feels about a vacuum, don’t we?’

  was not sure what a vacuum was or what nature felt about it, but being unwilling to demonstrate his ignorance he quickly concurred.

  ‘So in a few days?’ he asked hopefully. He was aware he would need some good robes to appear to best effect.

  ‘Tonight, before dawn,’ retorted Steelstrom, ‘Before anyone knows what has happened and can take advantage.’

  ‘Oh,’ agreed Moonstone, ‘then I’d better get on hadn’t I?’

  ‘At last!’ thought Steelstrom, but he said,

  ‘Yes, you’d better get on.’

  Moonstone drank up, feeling that he had earned it for surviving the conversation. Then, as he was almost out of the door, a thought struck him.

  ‘Who am I crowning?’ he asked, politely.

  Thwurp was very tired. His head was very sore, but he was alive. He was tied up in the armoury and Roscow was explaining things to him. He had already been drunk before he was hit, very forcibly, on the head and so he was finding it difficult to understand Roscow’s explanation, although Roscow’s speech had considerably improved. That was the first thing that Thwurp took in. Roscow didn’t really have an accent.

  ‘I put it on to make people think that I’m stupid,’ he had explained, ‘it gives them confidence.’

  The next bit he found quite hard. It seemed that the noble Beowulf had learned that there was a plot against the life of King Lars, which was being hatched by someone close to him and so he had come ready to protect the King; however, he had been mislead and he had been given poor information that had led him to suspect that Thwurp, the Captain of the Guards, was the likely traitor. As a result of this Beowulf had cunningly got Roscow to knock Thwurp out and take control of the Beer Hall. This Thwurp had to admit had been very effectively done; however, it turned out that the threat had not been from the loyal Thwurp, but from Bjorn the scheming banker. Sadly, this information had come too late and the evil banker had already struck the deadly blow.

  The upshot of this, Roscow explained, was that Thwurp was free to go, unless he was also working for the evil banker, in which case he was not free to go and would soon be on trial.

  Bewildered as he was, Thwurp was happy to confirm that he was not in the pay of Bjorn the banker assassin and that it would be quite safe to let him go. Roscow released him.

  ‘You’ll be going to the coronation.’

  ‘What coronation?’

  Rather tiredly, Roscow explained that when the King died, there was a thing called ‘succession.’ This involved the new monarch being crowned.

  Thwurp was aware of this, but not very happy to be patronised by this new Roscow, who could speak and argue.

  ‘I understand that,’ he said. Then he noticed that Roscow still had his key.

  ‘My key, please,’ he stretched out his hand.

  ‘My key now,’ replied Roscow, ‘call it a changing of the guard. You are going to the coronation, because I’m keeping you on. Try not to let any more assassins succeed or you will be out of a job.’

  The beer cellar workers were snoring cheerfully. Klug again climbed the ladder and called Grendel’s mother in. They crept through the cellar looking for the ladder to go up and into the Beer Hall kitchens.

  Grendel’s mother noticed that there were a large number of barrels of oil also stored in the cellar.

  ‘Is this area directly below the main hall?’ she asked.

  Klug thought that it might be. Then he realised what she was thinking.

  ‘If we fail to get in,’ she said, ‘it is a possibility.’

  Klug nodded.

  Moonshine was inspecting the Hall to see that it was ready for a coronation. The King’s guards, almost oblivious to their failure to protect the King, were still celebrating the death of the troll and were all in place for the coronation.

  Moonshine thought that they were rather to drunk to behave in a seemly way at a state occasion, but he could see no way that they could be evicted; so they would have to remain as the audience. He thought that they might be improved by eating some more. As this thought occurred he spotted Thwurp re-entering the hall with Roscow. He explained his idea and Roscow, flushed with his new responsibility delegated the services of Thwurp to go and stir the cooks to life.

  Thwurp resentfully agreed to go and set off for the kitchen.

  ‘At last!’ cried Queen Rosamunde, skipping across the bloodstained floor to take Beowulf in her arms, ‘you know how I have waited for this.’

  Beowulf returned her embrace, but still seemed slightly aloof.

  ‘Ever since I was forced to marry Lars I have dreamed that you would come and that we could take over his kingdom. We have managed it so beautifully! That fool Bjorn killed him, so no one can doubt my right to take the throne and then we can marry and it will all be ours.’

  ‘Let us sit down,’ said Beowulf kindly. He took her hand and led her to the bed. They sat side by side.

  ‘You were so right,’ continued Rosamunde, ‘all that we needed was the will to power and to wait for the opportunity. Now we can always be together.’

  Beowulf was silent.

  ‘What is the matter, my love?’ asked Rosamunde, ‘All has gone exactly as you planned it.’

  ‘That is so,’ he replied, smiling slightly, ‘all has gone well. We were able to take advantage of the troll threat to get me invited here and I was able to defeat the troll. You were very creative. I greatly admire the way in which you entrapped the banker. It showed a degree of skill and refinement that I was not sure you possessed. I am impressed by that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Rosamunde, glad to be complimented, but she was concerned; something was clearly on Beowulf’s mind.

  ‘However, it also saddens me.’

  ‘Why is that? I thought that you believed that there was no morality and that the ability to achieve one’s own desires was the only good that could be sought. What is there to be sad about?’

  ‘There is nothing I should feel sad about. I do believe that which I have told you. It is true. There is no good or evil, there is just desire. And desire breeds success or failure. The other beliefs are spurious, foolish lies and whims that are spread by those who want the people to live in chains.’

&
nbsp; ‘Then you must be pleased,’ she argued, ‘you have achieved all that you set out to do.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Not all, not yet.’

  He stood up and took a pace or two away.

  ‘Do you mean our father?’ she asked. He appeared to consider this, but then replied,

  ‘In part, but there is still work here for me to do.’

  ‘I do not understand. I have the throne I will share it.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, turning to face her.

  For a moment the Queen did not understand. Then she did.

  ‘You do not wish to share?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘But I thought you loved me.’

  ‘No,’ he replied. Then he appeared to relent.

  ‘I suppose I owe you something of an explanation. Surely you understand? What is this love? I recognise that it is an emotion of some significance and in many ways it is a source of power and control. Look what love did for Bjorn!’

  He laughed, mirthlessly.

  ‘I acknowledge a degree of attraction to you that amounts almost to affection, which I rarely feel; and it is obvious that you have a reciprocal attraction. I think that there is a bond between co-conspirators, which we have always been, since we were children. I think that we both admire one another for our honesty, our ruthlessness and commitment; however this love you mention is one of the chief illusions of those who do not achieve as we do. It is one of the things they have to compensate for not being us. I think that you acknowledge where the balance of power lies in our relationship and therefore must endorse my decision.’

  Very calmly, Rosamunde took time to think this through.

  ‘I appreciate your rationality and frankness. In mathematical terms it is clear that a whole kingdom is greater than a half; that power shared is power divided and that as one who seeks power I should reach the same conclusion as you; but I don’t.’

  She paused and looked up at him with an air of defiance.