“You shouldn’t jest about such things,” Queen Wealthow says, frowning now. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Afraid? And where’s the reason in that? The three Norns sit at the foot of Yggdrasil, spinning all our lives. I am but another string in their loom, as are you, my Lady Wealthow. Our fates were already woven into that tapestry when the world was young. There’s nothing to be gained in worrying over that which we cannot change.”
“You are so sure this is the way of things?” she asks him, still frowning and glancing down at the dais steps.
“I’ve heard no better story,” he replies. “Have you?”
She looks back up at him but doesn’t answer.
“Ah, Beowulf…there you are!” And Wealthow and Beowulf turn to see four thanes bearing King Hrothgar toward the dais. Straining, they carefully set his litter onto the floor of the hall. “I was thinking about your father,” says the king, as one of the thanes helps him from his seat upon the litter.
“My father?” asks Beowulf.
“Yes. Your father. Good Ecgtheow. There was a feud, I believe. He came here fleeing the Wylfings. As I recall, he’d killed one of them with his bare hands.”
“Heatholaf,” Beowulf says. “That was the name of the Wylfing my father slew.”
“Yes! That was him!” exclaims Hrothgar, starting up the steps toward Beowulf and Wealthow. The thanes have already carried the litter away, and the king’s court is assembling behind him. “I paid the blood debt for your father, and so he swore an oath to me. Long ago, that was. My kingship was still in its youth. Heorogar—my elder brother and the better man, I’d wager—had died. And here comes Ecgtheow, on the run, and so I sent wergeld to the Wylfings and ended the feud then and there. Ah…but no good deed goes unrewarded. I saved his skin, and now you’re here to save ours, eh?” He slaps Beowulf on the back, and Wealthow flinches.
“I am thankful for the kindness you showed my father,” Beowulf replies. “And thankful too for this opportunity to repay his debt to my lord.”
“Well,” says Hrothgar, “truth be told, it weighs heavy on my old heart, having to burden another with the grief this beast Grendel has visited upon my house. But the guards of Heorot—the demon has carried the best of them away. My following, those loyal to me, has dwindled, Beowulf. But you are here now. You will kill this monster. I have no doubt of it.”
And now there is the sound of laughter, low and bitter, from the shadows behind the king’s throne. Unferth emerges from the gloom, slowly clapping his hands.
“All hail the great Beowulf!” he sneers. “Here to save our pathetic Danish skins, yes? And we are so damned…ah, now what is the word?…grateful? Yes. We are so damned grateful, mighty Beowulf. But might I now ask a question, speaking as a great admirer of yours.”
Beowulf does not reply but only stares, unblinking, back at Unferth’s green eyes.
“Yes, then? Very good. For you see, there was another Beowulf I heard tell of, who challenged Brecca the Mighty to a swimming race, out on the open sea. Is it possible, was that man the same as you?”
Beowulf nods. “Aye, I swam against Brecca,” he says.
Unferth scowls and scratches at his black beard a moment. “I thought surely it must have been a different Beowulf,” he says, furrowing his brow. “For, you see,” and now Unferth raises his voice so it will be heard beyond the dais, “the Beowulf I heard of swam against Brecca and lost. He risked his life and Brecca’s on the whale’s-road, to serve his own vanity and pride. A boastful fool. And he lost. So, you see the source of my confusion. I thought it had to be someone else, surely.”
Beowulf climbs the last few steps, approaching Unferth, and now the mead hall falls silent.
“I swam against Brecca,” he tells Unferth again.
“Yes, so you’ve said. But the victory was his, not yours. You swam for seven nights, but in the end he outswam you. He reached the shore early one morning, cast up among the Heathoreams. He returned to the country of the Bronding clan, and boasted of his victory—as was his right. But you, Beowulf…a mighty warrior who cannot even win a swimming match?” Unferth pauses long enough to accept a cup of mead from his slave boy, Cain. He takes a long drink, wipes his mouth, then continues.
“Speaking only for myself, of course, I not only doubt that you will be able to stand for one moment against Grendel—I doubt that you’ll even have the nerve to stay in the hall the full night. No one has yet lasted a night against Grendel.” Unferth grins and takes another drink from his cup.
“I find it difficult to argue with a drunk,” Beowulf tells him.
“My lord,” says Queen Wealthow, glaring at Unferth. “You do not have to bandy words with the son of Ecglaf—”
“And it is true,” Beowulf continues, “that I did not win the race with Brecca,” and he closes his eyes, so vivid are the memories of the contest, carrying him at once back to that day—he against Brecca, both of them pitted against the sea…
…the freezing swells of Gandvik, the Bay of Serpents, rise and fall, bearing the two swimmers aloft so that they might, from time to time, glimpse the rugged, distant coastline of the land of the Finns. But then the water falls suddenly away beneath them, and the men can hardly even see the sky for the towering walls of the sea. The currents here are deadly, feared by fishermen and sailors alike, but Beowulf and Brecca are strong, stronger even than the cold fingers of the Urdines that would drag them under, stronger than the will of Ægir Wavefather. They are making slow but steady progress toward the eastern shore, swimming neck and neck, seeming an even match. And so it has been for the last five days, neither man holding a lead over the other for very long. Brecca carries a dagger gripped between his teeth, while Beowulf swims with a sword held tight in his right hand. One does not venture unarmed out upon the Gandvik. To the north, there are purple-black clouds tinged with gray, and lightning has begun to lick at the waves.
“You look tired!” Brecca calls out to Beowulf, then gets a mouthful of salt water.
“Funny…I was only just now…thinking the same of you!” Beowulf shouts back. Then a wave pushes them farther apart, raising Beowulf up even as Brecca slips into its yawning trough. And finally the Geat presses his advantage, for he is the stronger man, truly, and the better swimmer, and he has waited these five long days, conserving his strength for this last stretch before land. With only a little effort, he pulls ahead of Brecca.
But it may yet be that the sea giant and his daughters will have the final say, proving neither man a fit match for their domain. For the approaching storm brings more than wind and rain and lightning. It stirs the very depths, reaching down into the abyss where fearful creatures dwell, great snakes and unnameable brutes that crawl the slimy bottom and may live out their entire lives without once breaching or coming near to the surface. But angered by these gales and by the cracking hammer falls of Thor Giantkiller, they are distracted and drawn upward from their burrows in the mud of secret trenches and grottoes, moving swiftly through forests of kelp and midnight, and soon enough they find the swimmers. These are serpents beside which even mighty whales would seem as mackerel, the ravenous children of great Jörmungand, who holds all Midgard in his coils. The spawn of matings between Loki’s dragon child and all manner of eels and sharks and hideous sea worms, these monsters, and no man gazes upon their faces and lives to tell another.
From his vantage point high atop the wave, Beowulf looks back down toward Brecca, spotting him there amid the chop and spray in the same instant that one of the monstrous serpents bursts forth from the sea. At first, Brecca does not seem to see it, looming there above him, its vast jaws dripping with brine and ooze and weeds, its single red eye peering down at the swimmer. Beowulf glances longingly toward the shore, and he knows it is within his grasp, surely, both dry land and victory. A lesser man might have looked upon the arrival of this beast as a blessing from the gods, but Brecca has been Beowulf’s friend since their childhood, and so he sets his back to the shore. He shouts a warning, but already there are dark tentacles winding themselves about Brecca’s body, driving the breath from his lungs and threatening to crush his ribs. He gasps, and the dagger slips from his teeth and vanishes in the sea.